INTRODUCES A GREAT MAN IN ADVERSITY
Fifty-eight years before the date of this tale a child was born in the
school-house of the landward parish of Kilmaclavers in the Kingdom of
Fife. The schoolmaster was one Campbell Craw, who at the age of
forty-five had espoused the widow of the provost of the adjacent seaport
of Partankirk, a lady his junior by a single summer. Mr Craw was a Scots
dominie of the old style, capable of sending boys direct to the middle
class of Humanity at St Andrews, one who esteemed his profession, and
wore in the presence of his fellows an almost episcopal dignity. He was
recognised in the parish and far beyond it as a “deep student,” and,
when questions of debate were referred to his arbitrament, he would give
his verdict with a weight of polysyllables which at once awed and
convinced his hearers. The natural suspicion which might have attached
to such profundity was countered by the fact that Mr Craw was an elder
of the Free Kirk and in politics a sound Gladstonian. His wife was a
kindred spirit, but, in her, religion of a kind took the place of
philosophy. She was a noted connoisseur of sermons, who would travel
miles to hear some select preacher, and her voice had acquired something
of the pulpit monotone. Her world was the Church, in which she hoped
that her solitary child would some day be a polished pillar.
The infant was baptised by the name of Thomas Carlyle, after the sage
whom his father chiefly venerated; Mrs Craw had graciously resigned her
own preference, which was Robert Rainy, after the leader of her
communion. Never was a son the object of higher expectations or more
deeply pondered plans. He had come to them unexpectedly; the late
Provost of Partankirk had left no offspring; he was at once the child of
their old age, and the sole hope of their house. Both parents agreed
that he must be a minister, and he spent his early years in an
atmosphere of dedication. Some day he would be a great man, and the
episodes of his youth must be such as would impress the readers of his
ultimate biography. Every letter he wrote was treasured by a fond
mother. Each New Year’s Day his father presented him with a lengthy
epistle, in the style of an evangelical Lord Chesterfield, which put on
record the schoolmaster’s more recent reflections on life: a copy was
carefully filed for the future biographer. His studies were minutely
regulated. At five, though he was still shaky in English grammar, he had
mastered the Greek alphabet. At eight he had begun Hebrew. At nine he
had read _Paradise Lost_, Young’s _Night Thoughts_, and most of Mr
Robert Pollok’s _Course of Time_. At eleven he had himself, to his
parents’ delight, begun the first canto of an epic on the subject of
Eternity.
It was the way to produce a complete prig, but somehow Thomas Carlyle
was not the ordinary prig. For one thing, he was clearly not born for
high scholastic attainments. There was a chronic inaccuracy in him which
vexed his father’s soul. He was made to dabble in many branches of
learning, but he seemed incapable of exact proficiency in any. When he
had finished with the school of Kilmaclavers, he attended for two years
the famous academy of Partankirk, which had many times won the first
place in the college bursaries. But he was never head boy, or near it,
and the bursary which he ultimately won (at Edinburgh) was only a small
one, fitted to his place of twenty-seventh in the list. But he was noted
for his mental activity. He read everything he could lay his hand on,
and remembered a good deal of it. He was highly susceptible to new
ideas, which he frequently misunderstood. At first he was unpopular
among his contemporaries, because of his incapacity for any game and
his disinclination to use his fists, but in each circle he entered he
won his way eventually to tolerance if not to popularity. For he was
fruitful of notions; he could tell his illiterate comrades wonderful
things which he had picked up from his voracious reading; he could
suggest magnificent schemes, though in carrying them out he was at the
best a camp-follower.
At the age of twenty we find Thomas Carlyle Craw in the last year of his
Edinburgh arts course, designing to migrate presently to a theological
college. His career has not been distinguished, though he has won a
fifth prize in the English Literature class and a medal for an essay on
his namesake. But he has been active in undergraduate journalism, and
has contributed many pieces to the evening papers. Also he has continued
his miscellaneous reading, and is widely if inaccurately informed on
every current topic. His chief regret is that he is a miserable public
speaker, his few efforts having been attended by instant failure, and
this is making him lukewarm about a ministerial career. His true weapon,
he feels, is the pen, not the tongue. Otherwise he is happy, for he is
never bored–and pleasantly discontented, for he is devouringly
ambitious. In two things his upbringing has left an abiding mark. The
aura of dedication hangs over him; he regards himself as predestined to
be a great man, though he is still doubtful about the kind of greatness
to be attained. Also father and mother have combined to give him a
serious view of life. He does not belie his name, for the sage of
Ecclefechan has bequeathed him some rags of his mantle. He must always
be generalising, seeking for principles, philosophising; he loves a
formula rather than a fact: he is heavily weighted with unction;
rhetoric is in every fibre. He has a mission to teach the world, and,
as he walks the pavements, his head is full of profound aphorisms or
moving perorations–not the least being the obituary which some day men
will write of him. One phrase in it will be, “He was the Moses who led
the people across the desert to the Promised Land”; but what the
Promised Land was to be like he would have been puzzled to say.
That winter he suffered his first calamity. For Campbell Craw fell ill
of pneumonia and died, and a month later Euphemia, his wife, followed
him to Kilmaclavers churchyard. Thomas Carlyle was left alone in the
world, for his nearest relative was a cousin in Manitoba whom he had
never seen. He was an affectionate soul and mourned his parents
sincerely; when his grief dulled a little he wrote a short biography of
them, “A Father and a Mother in Israel,” which appeared in the
_Partankirk Advertiser_ and was justly admired. He was left now to his
own resources, to shape his life without the tender admonitions of the
school-house. Long and solemnly he perpended the question of the
ministry. It had been his parents’ choice for him, he had been
“dedicated” to it, he could not lightly forsake it. But his manifest
lack of preaching endowments–he had a weak, high-pitched voice and an
extreme nervousness–convinced him that common sense must prevail over
filial piety. He discussed the matter with the Minister of Kilmaclavers,
who approved. “There’s more ways of preaching than in a pulpit,” was
that sage’s verdict.
So Thomas decided upon letters. His parents had bequeathed him nearly
three thousand pounds, he had no debts, he was accustomed to live
sparingly; on such a foundation it seemed to him that he could safely
build the first storey of what should one day be a towering edifice.
After taking an undistinguished degree, he migrated to London, according
to the secular fashion of ambitious Scottish youth.
His first enterprises were failures. The serious monthlies would have
none of his portentous treatises on the conduct of life, and _The Times_
brusquely refused a set of articles on current politics, in the writing
of which he had almost wept at his own eloquence. But he found a niche
in a popular religious weekly, where, under the signature of “Simon the
Tanner,” he commented upon books and movements and personalities.
Soon that niche became a roomy pulpit, from which every week he
fulminated, argued, and sentimentalised with immense acceptation. His
columns became the most popular feature of that popular journal. He knew
nothing accurately about any subject in the world, but he could clothe
his ignorance in pontifical vestments and give his confusion the accents
of authority. He had a remarkable flair for discerning and elaborating
the tiny quantum of popular knowledge on any matter. Above all, he was
interesting and aggressively practical. He took the hand of the
half-educated and made them believe that he was leading them to the
inner courts of wisdom. Every flicker of public emotion was fanned by
him into a respectable little flame. He could be fiercely sarcastic in
the manner of his namesake, he could wallow in the last banalities of
sentiment, he could even be jocose and kittenish, but he knew his
audience and never for a moment lost touch with it. “Helpful” was the
epithet most commonly applied to him. He was there to encourage and
assist, and his answers to correspondents began to fill a large space in
his chosen journal.
So at the age of twenty-four Thomas was making a good income, and was
beginning to be much in request by uplift societies. He resolutely
refused to appear in public: he was too wise to let his halting
utterance weaken the impression of his facile pen. But a noble
discontent was his, and he marshalled his forces for another advance.
Generations on his mother’s side of small traders in Partankirk had
given him considerable business acumen, and he realised that the way to
fortune did not lie in writing for other men. He must own the paper
which had its vogue from his talents, and draw to himself the whole
profits of exploiting the public taste. Looking about him, he decided
that there was room for a weekly journal at a popular price, which would
make its appeal to the huge class of the aspiring half-baked, then being
turned out by free education. They were not ardent politicians; they
were not scholars; they were homely, simple folk, who wanted a little
politics, a little science, a little religion, set to a domestic tune.
So he broke with his employers, and, greatly daring, started his own
penny weekly. He had considerably added to his little fortune, for he
had no extravagant tastes, and he had made many friends in the circles
of prosperous nonconformity. There was a spice of the gambler in Thomas,
for every penny he possessed or could borrow he put into the new
venture.
The _Centre-Forward_ was a success from the first. The name was a stroke
of genius; being drawn from the popular sport of football, it was
intelligible to everyone, and it sounded a new slogan. The paper would
be in the van of progressive thought, but also in the centre of the
road, contemptuous alike of right-hand reaction and left-hand
revolution. It appeared at that happy time in the ‘nineties, when the
world was comfortable, mildly progressive, and very willing to be amused
by toys. And Thomas was an adroit editor. He invented ingenious
competitions, and offered prizes of a magnitude hitherto unknown in
British journalism. He discovered three new poets–poetry was for the
moment in fashion–and two new and now completely forgotten humorists,
and he made each reader share in the discovery and feel that he too was
playing the part of a modest Mæcenas. He exposed abuses with a trenchant
pen, when his lawyers had convinced him that he was on safe legal
ground. Weekly he addressed the world, under his own signature, on every
conceivable topic and with an air of lofty brotherhood, so that the
humblest subscriber felt that the editor was his friend. The name of
Thomas Carlyle Craw might be lightly regarded by superfine critics, but
by some hundreds of thousands of plain Britons it was extolled and
venerated.
Thomas proved an acute man of business. The _Centre-Forward_ was never
allowed to languish for lack of novelties; it grew in size, improved in
paper and type, carried a great weight of advertisements, and presently
became a pioneer in cheap pictures. Every detail of its manufacture and
distribution, in which it struck out many new lines, he personally
supervised. Also it became the parent of several offspring. It was the
time when the gardening craze was beginning in England, and _The
Country-Dweller_ was founded, a sumptuously produced monthly which made
a feature of its illustrations. This did no more than pay its way, but a
children’s halfpenny made a big hit, and an unctuous and snobbish penny
weekly for the home made a bigger. He acquired also several trade
journals, and put them on a paying basis.
When the South African War broke out Thomas was a wealthy man, piling up
revenue yearly, for he still lived in two rooms in Marylebone and spent
nothing on himself. The war more than doubled his profits. In the
_Centre-Forward_ he had long been a moderate exponent of the new
imperialism, and his own series of articles “The Romance of Empire” had
had a large sale when issued as a book. Now he became a fervent patriot.
He exposed abuses in the conduct of the campaign–always on the best
legal advice, he had much to say about inefficient generals, he appeared
before the world as the soldiers’ friend. The result was a new paper,
_Mother England_ price one penny, which was the _Centre-Forward_ adapted
to lower strata of democracy–a little slangy and vulgar, deliberately
sensational, but eminently sound at heart. Once a month Thomas Carlyle
Craw compelled the motley array of its subscribers to view the world
from his own lofty watch-tower.
Fortune treated him kindly. After the war came the Liberal revival, and
he saw his chance. His politics now acquired a party character, and he
became the chief Free Trade trumpet in the generally Protectionist
orchestra of the Press. Once again he took a bold step, for he started a
new halfpenny daily. For the better part of a year it hovered on the
brink of failure, and the profits on Thomas’s other publications went
into its devouring maw. Then, suddenly, it turned the corner, and raced
up the slope to the pinnacle of public favour. The _View_ fed an
appetite the existence of which Thomas alone had divined. It was bright
and fresh and admirably put together; large sums were spent on special
correspondence; its picture pages were the best of their kind; every
brand of notable, at high fees, enlivened its pages. But above all it
was a paper for the home and the home-maker, and the female sex became
its faithful votaries. Much of this success was due to Thomas himself.
He made himself the centre of the paper and the exponent of its policy.
Once a week, in the _View_, as in the _Centre-Forward_, he summarised
the problems of immediate interest and delivered his weighty judgments.
He was compelled to change his simple habits of life. He was compelled,
indeed, elaborately to seek seclusion. There was no other alternative
for one who had no gift of utterance and had hitherto gone little into
society. With hundreds daily clamouring for interviews, demanding his
help in cash or influence, urging policies and persons upon his notice,
he must needs flee to sanctuary. In the palatial offices which he built
in the neighbourhood of Fleet Street he had a modest flat, where he
occasionally passed a night behind a barbed-wire entanglement of
secretaries. But for the rest he had no known abode, though here I am
privileged to say that he kept suites at several hotels, English and
foreign, in the name of his principal aide-de-camp.
He escaped the publicity given to most press magnates by the Great War,
for he used the staffs of his many papers as a bodyguard for his
anonymity. The Prime Minister might summon him to urgent conferences,
but Thomas did not attend–he sent an editor. New Year and Birthday
honours were offered and curtly declined. Yet Thomas was only physically
in retreat; spiritually he held the forefront of the stage. His signed
articles had a prodigious vogue. Again, as fifteen years before, he was
the friend of the men in the trenches; his criticisms of generals and
politicians were taken seriously, for they were in accord with the
suspicions and fears of the ordinary man. On the whole the Craw Press
played a useful part in the great struggle. Its ultimatums were at any
rate free from the charge of having any personal motive, and it
preserved a reasonable standard of decency and good sense. Above all it
was sturdily optimistic even in the darkest days.
The end of the War found Thomas with fifteen successful papers under his
control, including a somewhat highbrow Sunday publication, an immense
fortune rapidly increasing by judicious investment, and a commanding if
ill-defined position in the public eye. He permitted himself one
concession to his admirers. His portrait now appeared regularly in his
own prints. It showed a middle-aged, baldish man, with a round head and
a countenance of bland benevolence. His eyes were obscured by large
tortoise-shell spectacles, but they had a kindly gleam, and redeemed for
suavity the high cheek-bones and the firmly compressed lips. A suspicion
of a retreating chin helped to produce the effect of friendliness, while
the high forehead augured wisdom. It was the face which the public had
somehow always imagined, and it did much to define Thomas’s personality
in his readers’ eyes.
The step had its importance, for he had now become a figure of almost
international note. Weekly he emerged from the shadows where he lived to
give counsel and encouragement to humanity. He was Optimism incarnate,
Hope embodied not in a slim nymph but in a purposeful and masculine
Colossus. His articles were printed in all his papers and syndicated in
the American and Continental press. _Sursum Corda_ was his motto. A
Browning in journalese, his aim was to see the bright side of
everything, to expound partial evil as universal good. Was there a slump
in the basic industries? It was only the prelude to an industrial
revival, in which Britain would lead the world in new expert trades. Was
there unrest among the workers? It was a proof of life, that “loyal
unrest” inseparable from Freedom. High-speed motoring, jazz music, and
the odd habits of the young were signs of a new Elizabethan uplift of
spirit. Were the churches sparsely attended? It only meant that mankind
was reaching after a wider revelation. For every difficulty Thomas
Carlyle Craw had his happy solution. The Veiled Prophet was also the
Smiling Philosopher. Cheerfulness in his hands was not a penny whistle
but a trumpet.
He had of course his critics. Rude persons declared that his optimism
was a blend of Martin Tupper and the worst kind of transatlantic
uplift-merchant. Superfine people commented upon the meagreness of his
thought and the turgidity of his style. Reformers in a hurry considered
his soothing syrup a deadly opiate. The caustic asked who had made this
tripe-merchant a judge in Israel. Experts complained that whenever he
condescended to details he talked nonsense. But these were the captious
few; the many had only admiration and gratitude. In innumerable simple
homes, in schoolrooms, in village clubs, in ministers’ studies, the face
of Thomas Carlyle Craw beamed benevolently from the walls. He had
fulfilled the old ambition both of his parents and himself; he spoke
from his pulpit _urbi et orbi_; he was a Moses to guide his people to
the Promised Land.
The politics of the Craw Press were now generally Conservative, but
Thomas kept himself aloof from party warfare. He supported, and mildly
criticised, whatever Government was in power. In foreign affairs alone
he allowed himself a certain latitude. His personal knowledge of other
lands was confined to visits to familiar Riviera resorts, when he felt
that he needed a little rest and sunshine. But he developed an acute
interest in Continental politics, and was in the habit of sending out
bright young men to act as private intelligence-officers. While mildly
supporting the League of Nations, he was highly critical of the
settlement made at Versailles, and took under his wing various countries
which he considered to have a grievance. On such matters he permitted
himself to write with assurance, almost with truculence. He was
furiously against any recognition of Russia, but he demanded that
judgment on the Fascist régime in Italy should be held in abeyance, and
that the world should wait respectfully on the results of that bold
experiment.
But it was in the hard case of Evallonia that he specially interested
himself. It will be remembered that a republic had been established
there in 1919, apparently with the consent of its people. But rifts had
since appeared within the lute. There was a strong monarchist party
among the Evallonians, who wished to reinstate their former dynasty, at
present represented by an attractive young Prince, and at the same time
insisted on the revision of Evallonian boundaries. To this party Thomas
gave eloquent support. He believed in democracy, he told his millions of
readers, and a kingdom (_teste_ Britain) was as democratic a thing as a
republic: if the Evallonians wanted a monarch they should be allowed to
have one: certain lost territories, too, must be restored, unless they
wished to see Evallonia Irredenta a permanent plague-spot. His advocacy
made a profound impression in the south and east of Europe, and to
Evallonian monarchists the name of Craw became what that of Palmerston
was once to Italy and Gladstone to Bulgaria. The mildness of his
published portraits did not damp them; they remembered that the great
Cavour had looked like Mr Pickwick. A cigar, a begonia, a new scent,
and a fashionable hotel in the Evallonian capital were named in his
honour.
Such at the date of this tale was the position of Thomas Carlyle Craw in
the world of affairs. He was an illustrious figure, and a
self-satisfied, though scarcely a happy, man. For he suffered from a
curious dread which the scientific call _agoraphobia_. A master of
publicity, he shrank from it in person. This was partly policy. He had
the acumen to see that retirement was his chief asset; he was the
prophet, speaking from within the shrine, a voice which would lose its
awfulness if it were associated too closely with human lineaments. But
there was also timidity, a shrinking of the flesh. He had accustomed
himself for thirty years to live in a shell, and he had a molluscan
dread of venturing outside it. A lion on paper, he suspected that he
would be a rabbit in personal intercourse. He realised that his vanity
would receive cruel wounds, that rough hands would paw his prophetic
mantle. How could he meet a rampant socialist or a republican Evallonian
face to face? The thought sent a shiver down his spine….
So his sensitiveness became a disease, and he guarded his seclusion with
a vestal jealousy. He had accumulated a personal staff of highly paid
watch-dogs, whose business was not only the direction of the gigantic
Craw Press but the guardianship of the shrine consecrated to its master.
There was his principal secretary, Freddy Barbon, the son of a bankrupt
Irish peer, who combined the duties of grand vizier and major-domo.
There was his general manager, Archibald Bamff, who had been with him
since the early days of the _Centre-Forward_. There was Sigismund
Allins, an elegant young man who went much into society and acted,
unknown to the world, as his chief’s main intelligence-officer. There
was Bannister, half valet, half butler, and Miss Elena Cazenove, a
spinster of forty-five and the most efficient of stenographers. With the
exception of Bamff, this entourage attended his steps–but never
together, lest people should talk. Like the police in a Royal
procession, they preceded or followed his actual movements and made
straight the path for him. Among them he ruled as a mild tyrant,
arbitrary but not unkindly. If the world of men had to be kept at a
distance lest it should upset his poise and wound his vanity, he had
created a little world which could be, so to speak, his own personality
writ large.
It is the foible of a Scot that he can never cut the bonds which bind
him to his own country. Thomas had happy recollections of his childhood
on the bleak shores of Fife, and a large stock of national piety. He
knew in his inmost heart that he would rather win the approval of
Kilmaclavers and Partankirk than the plaudits of Europe. This affection
had taken practical form. He had decided that his principal hermitage
must be north of the Tweed. Fife and the East coast were too much of a
home country for his purpose, the Highlands were too remote from London,
so he settled upon the south-west corner, the district known as the
Canonry, as at once secluded and accessible. He had no wish to cumber
himself with land, for Thomas desired material possessions as little as
he desired titles; so he leased from Lord Rhynns (whose wife’s health
and declining fortune compelled him to spend most of the year abroad)
the ancient demesne of Castle Gay. The place, it will be remembered,
lies in the loveliest part of the glen of the Callowa, in the parish of
Knockraw, adjoining the village of Starr, and some five miles from the
town of Portaway, which is on the main line to London. A high wall
surrounds a wild park of a thousand acres, in the heart of which stands
a grey stone castle, for whose keep Bruces and Comyns and Macdowalls
contended seven centuries ago. In its cincture of blue mountains it has
the air of a place at once fortified and forgotten, and here Thomas
found that secure retirement so needful for one who had taken upon
himself the direction of the major problems of the globe. The road up
the glen led nowhere, the fishing was his own and no tourist disturbed
the shining reaches of the Callowa, the hamlet of Starr had less than
fifty inhabitants, and the folk of the Canonry are not the type to pry
into the affairs of eminence in retreat. To the countryside he was only
the Castle tenant–“yin Craw, a newspaper body frae England.” They did
not read his weekly pronouncements, preferring older and stronger fare.
* * * * *
But at the date of this tale a thorn had fixed itself in Thomas’s
pillow. Politics had broken in upon his moorland peace. There was a
by-election in the Canonry, an important by-election, for it was
regarded as a test of the popularity of the Government’s new
agricultural policy. The Canonry in its seaward fringe is highly farmed,
and its uplands are famous pasture; its people, traditionally Liberal,
have always been looked upon as possessing the toughest core of northern
common sense. How would such a region regard a scheme which was a
violent departure from the historic attitude of Britain towards the
British farmer? The matter was hotly canvassed, and, since a General
Election was not far distant, this contest became the cynosure of
political eyes. Every paper sent a special correspondent, and the
candidates found their halting utterances lavishly reported. The
Canonry woke up one morning to find itself “news.”
Thomas did not like it. He resented this publicity at his doorstep. His
own press was instructed to deal with the subject in obscure paragraphs,
but he could not control his rivals. He was in terror lest he should be
somehow brought into the limelight–a bogus interview, perhaps–such
things had happened–there were endless chances of impairing his
carefully constructed dignity. He decided that it would be wiser if he
left the place till after the declaration of the poll. The necessity
gave him acute annoyance, for he loved the soft bright October weather
at Castle Gay better than any other season of the year. The thought of
his suite at Aix–taken in the name of Mr Frederick Barbon–offered him
no consolation.
But first he must visit Glasgow to arrange with his builders for some
reforms in the water supply, which, with the assent of Lord Rhynns, he
proposed to have installed in his absence. Therefore, on the evening of
the Kangaroo match already described, his discreet and potent figure
might have been seen on the platform of Kirkmichael as he returned from
the western metropolis. It was his habit to be met there by a car, so as
to avoid the tedium of changing trains and the publicity of Portaway
station.
* * * * *
Now, as it chanced, there was another election in process. The students
of the western capital were engaged in choosing their Lord Rector. On
this occasion there was a straight contest; no freak candidates,
nationalist, sectarian, or intellectual, obscured the issue. The
Conservative nominee was a prominent member of the Cabinet, the Liberal
the leader of the Old Guard of that faith. Enthusiasm waxed high, and
violence was not absent–the violence without bitterness which is the
happy mark of Scottish rectorial contests. Already there had been many
fantastic doings. The Conservative headquarters were decorated by night
with Liberal red paint, prints which set the law of libel at nought were
sold in the streets, songs of a surprising ribaldry were composed to the
discredit of the opposing candidates. No undergraduate protagonist had a
single physical, mental, or moral oddity which went unadvertised. One
distinguished triumph the Liberals had won. A lanky Conservative leader
had been kidnapped, dressed in a child’s shorts, blouse, socks, and
beribboned sailor hat, and attached by padlocked chains to the college
railings, where, like a culprit in the stocks, for a solid hour he had
made sport for the populace. Such an indignity could not go unavenged,
and the Conservatives were out for blood.
The foremost of the Liberal leaders was a man, older than the majority
of students, who, having forsaken the law, was now pursuing a belated
medical course. It is sufficient to say that his name was Linklater, for
he does not come into this story. The important thing about him for us
is his appearance. He looked older than his thirty-two years, and was of
a comfortable figure, almost wholly bald, with a round face, tightly
compressed lips, high cheek-bones and large tortoise-shell spectacles.
It was his habit to wear a soft black hat of the kind which is
fashionable among statesmen, anarchists, and young careerists. In all
these respects he was the image of Thomas Carlyle Craw. His parental
abode was Kirkmichael, where his father was a Baptist minister.
On the evening in question Thomas strode to the door of the Kirkmichael
booking-office, and to his surprise found that his car was not there.
It was a drizzling evening, the same weather which that day had graced
the Kangaroo match. The weather had been fine when he left Castle Gay in
the morning, but he had brought a light raincoat with which he now
invested his comfortable person. There were no porters about, and in the
dingy station yard there was no vehicle except an antique Ford.
His eye was on the entrance to the yard, where he expected to see any
moment the headlights of his car in the wet dusk, when he suddenly found
his arms seized. At the same moment a scarf was thrown over his head
which stopped all utterance…. About what happened next he was never
quite clear, but he felt himself swung by strong arms into the ancient
Ford. Through the folds of the scarf he heard its protesting start. He
tried to scream, he tried to struggle, but voice and movement were
forbidden him….
He became a prey to the most devastating fear. Who were his assailants?
Bolshevists, anarchists, Evallonian Republicans, the minions of a rival
press? Or was it the American group which had offered him two days ago
by cable ten millions for his properties?… Whither was he bound? A
motor launch on the coast, some den in a city slum?…
After an hour’s self-torture he found the scarf switched from his head.
He was in a car with five large young men in waterproofs, each with a
muffler covering the lower part of his face. The rain had ceased, and
they seemed to be climbing high up on to the starlit moors. He had a
whiff of wet bracken and heather.
He found his voice, and with what resolution he could muster he demanded
to know the reason of the outrage and the goal of his journey.
“It’s all right, Linklater,” said one of them. “You’ll know soon
enough.”
They called him Linklater! The whole thing was a blunder. His incognito
was preserved. The habit of a lifetime held, and he protested no more.
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