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Title: The Land of Wherisit Author: H E Boote * A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook * eBook No.: 1900181h.html Language: English Date first posted: February 2019 Most recent update: February 2019 This eBook was produced by: Colin Choat Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular paper edition. Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this file. This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg Australia Licence which may be viewed online.GO TO Project Gutenberg Australia HOME PAGE
Signed photograph of Henry Boote, circa 1920
This book is one of the most Foolish examples of the art of
authorship that ever was perpetrated.
If you should read it, you'll find it crammed with the wildest
improbabilities and the topsy-turvyest notions. And to make matters
worse, the scene of the tales is laid in a Land that is not to be
found on any authentic map; while the nearest approach to a date I
can give for the queer happenings related is Once Upon a Time.
These preliminary observations may determine you to proceed no
further, in which case you are not the Fool I took you to be, and
the sooner you are gone the better I shall be pleased, for my Tales
would only be wasted upon you.
* * *
The Land of Wherisit, at the period I have mentioned, existed
under the providence of a God who was a Great Humorist. He dearly
loved a practical joke, and in that dubious line of humour was
probably without an equal in the whole wide universe.
All through eternity, before the creation of Wherisit, he had
occupied himself thinking out practical jokes and, as a matter of
fact, had brought Wherisit and its people into existence with no
other object than to put those jokes into execution.
For eons and eons he had been satisfied to enjoy them in
imagination; for millions and millions of years he had chuckled at
the thought of them, and desired no other pleasure.
Then suddenly the idea flashed into his mind: How much funnier
it would be to see the jokes performed—to actually watch them
in operation, instead of merely gloating over them in theory!
Wherisit was created straight away, and populated with a highly
civilised race of men; and God gave it a Social System that tickled
his fancy immensely, for everything in it was as it should not
be—Vice laughed aloud and had a glorious time, and Virtue
went about with a glum face, looking like a convicted criminal.
For a period that I can only describe as Ever So Long, God
revelled in this practical joke. To behold Truth standing on her
head, and all the people running after Falsehood to kiss the hem of
her robe, was a sight so comical that he roared with delight, and
the noise of his mirth was so great that the devils in the world's
stokehole left off shovelling to ask one another in surprise what
the row was all about.
Then this humorous deity sprang on Wherisit the primest joke of
the lot.
"Listen, my creatures!" he cried. "I have a grand conundrum to
put to you."
"Oh, let us hear it!" rose in chorus to his throne the voices of
the people.
"It is this," said God. "Who is the Most Powerful Person amongst
you?"
And he hid his face in the clouds, for it was not meet that his
creatures should observe their Maker grinning.
* * *
The King of Wherisit was mightily pleased when he heard the
conundrum propounded.
"Who is the Most Powerful Person?" he repeated. "Why, I AM, to
be sure!"
No sooner did he give this answer than he found himself in a
strange city, in the midst of a race of men who knew him not. He
felt very tired, as though he had walked a great distance, and was
so hungry that he knocked at the door of a house and begged for
food.
"In this city they only eat who earn," said the man who opened
the door. "What can you do?"
Now the King had been taught to regard it as beneath his dignity
to earn anything whatever, so he drew himself up proudly, and
declared that he could do nothing.
"Then there's no food here for you," said the man; and slammed
the door in his face.
Wherever the King went he had the same mortifying experience. No
one was the least impressed by the crown upon his head and the rich
clothes that he wore.
So desperately hungry did he become that he accosted a pieman
and offered his crown for a hot pie, the savoury smell of which
tormented him with a passionate desire.
"That thing's no good," said the pieman, glancing contemptuously
at the crown, and passed on, calling out his wares.
The King sat down in a quiet spot and burst into tears.
No sooner did he do so than he was back in his palace at
Wherisit, seated before the sweetest meal he had ever tasted.
"Who is the Most Powerful Person in the world?" said the voice
of God.
And the King did not answer. His mouth was full; but that was
not the only reason for his silence.
* * *
Then the Right Reverend Dr. Pomp, D.D., High Priest of Wherisit,
swelling with sacerdotal pride, stepped from the great altar,
saying:
"I, O God, am surely the Most Powerful Person under heaven!"
The words had hardly passed his lips before he, too, found
himself in that strange city where no one eats who has not earned,
as weary and as hungry as the King had been.
Humbly he begged at the door of a house. Asked what he did that
entitled him to food, he replied: "I speak God's truth."
"In this city," he was told, "God's truth speaks for itself."
And the door was slammed on HIM.
The famished and despairing prelate broke down completely, and
the Practical Joker in the sky, laughing to himself, brought him
back to the episcopal residence, where the cooks were soon running
round in the episcopal kitchen, preparing the sort of dinner that a
prelate loves.
"Who is the Most Powerful Person in the world?" said God.
The High Priest was dumb.
But the Moneylord spoke up and said, "Even I, O God!"
Immediately, like his predecessors in pride, he was in the
strange city, and in similar evil case—very, very hungry, and
every bone in body aching with weariness.
Like them, too, he knocked at a door and besought food.
"What can you do to earn it?" he was asked.
"Find capital to employ labour," he replied.
"In this city labour employs capital," said his interrogator.
And the slamming of the door was the sound of doom to the
unfortunate Moneylord.
But again the watching God above did not press the joke too far,
and the Moneylord, back in the Land of Wherisit, with obsequious
servants ministering to the cravings of his stomach, soon got over
his misadventure.
When, however, God once more said.﹃Who is the Most Powerful
Person in the world?﹄the man of capital discreetly held his
tongue.
Indeed, no one now put forward a claim, and this was not
attributable to modesty, but to the fear which the experiences of
the King, the High Priest and the Moneylord had produced.
"Well," said God, laughing to himself behind the clouds, "since
you are all so silent, I will tell who is the Most Powerful Person
in the world. It is that man, there, whom you have crucified!"
A ray of light came out of heaven and fell upon a figure nailed
to a cross.
"That Rebel!—that Law-breaker!" cried all the Rulers of
Wherisit, astounded and incredulous.
"Even so," said God.
And the sight of their consternation amused him greatly.
* * *
There was a Grand Council of the Rulers after that, and the King
presided, and the High Priest moved a resolution, and The Moneylord
seconded it, and The Lawyer and The Soldier supported it, and it
was put to the Council and carried without a single dissentient
voice.
And the resolution declared that if God persisted in making the
Rebel the Most Powerful Person in the world, the Grand Council of
Wherisit would be compelled to take prompt action to change the
official religion, and appoint a new God, one more in accord with
the established institutions and venerable traditions of the
country.
When the applause following on the vote had subsided, the King
rose and said:
"Let the Rebel now be taken down From the cross, and be buried
in unconsecrated ground, and let a heavy stone be rolled upon the
grave to keep him there. Thus will we prove to God the folly of his
choice."
And it was done as the King commanded. Very deep was the grave
dug, and the stone that was placed upon it was so heavy that seven
asses could not draw it.
"Now, God!" cried the Rulers of Wherisit, "admit that the Rebel
is impotent, and we will offer up sacrifice to thee, and thine ear
shall be filled with the praises of the Very Best People."
No answer came from the sky, to which all eyes were turned. But
there happened the Strangest Thing That Ever Was Known.
A vast commotion arose in the land. The common people poured in
tens of thousands into the streets, and their faces were angry, and
their manner was threatening, and the Rulers quailed at the sight
of them.
The King hastened to his palace, to awe them with his majesty;
but the sceptre turned to a rush in his hand, and when he placed
the crown upon his head it became a dunce's cap.
The High Priest hurriedly donned his vestments; but behold, they
were filthy rags, stained with the foulness of centuries and the
blood of many victims.
The Moneylord made for his gold, that never had failed him in a
crisis; but where it had been was a heap of dust and ashes.
Then the voice of God was heard:
"You have slain the Rebel, and buried him deep, but the truth he
uttered you could not slay, and no grave cold contain it. Who, now,
is the Most Powerful Person in the world?"
And North and South, and East and West, the heavens resounded
with his laughter.
I have just told you a very Foolish Tale. Here is another, and
one you should really have heard first, for it narrates events that
formed a prelude to those already made known to you.
It's about the people of Wherisit, and the perplexing situation
in which they found themselves.
They were the victims of the strangest paradox that ever was.
The land in which they lived was a fertile one; in fact, it
produced the most wonderful crops. When the seeds were cast into
the earth they sprang to life as though by magic. The orchards were
an ever-recurring miracle of fecundity, the trees, each in its
season, being weighted to the ground with fruit.
Moreover, the Land of Wherisit was famous all over the world for
the iron and copper and coal it yielded; while as for precious
stones, never was anything seen to equal the splendour of its
diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, opals and pearls.
Yet—this is where the paradox comes in—in spite of
the richness of their country the people of Wherisit were
Shockingly Poor.
And do what they would, they were unable to discover the reason
of this anomalous state of affairs.
The fact itself was so obvious that the most careless observer
could not fail to note it. It was the theme of constant discussion
amongst every section of the community, and some of the
explanations offered were as fantastic as they were futile.
The Drought was blamed, though it occurred but once in twenty
years, and during the other nineteen the rain was permitted to run
to waste. The Flood was blamed, though it came along rarely, and
left behind it in regenerated soils abundant compensation for the
temporary damage that it did.
Prayers were addressed to God to turn on the rain, and prayers
were addressed to him to turn it off; and God, who dearly loved a
joke, as you are aware, enjoyed these silly supplications very
much.
Neither Drought nor Flood was the cause of the people's poverty,
for the fat years were many times more numerous than the lean, and
in the Bureau of Statistics prosperity was chronicled in
ever-swelling figures.
But the higher the national wealth was piled, the deeper in
poverty the people sank. And nobody could understand why it was
so.
* * *
"It's Drink!" cried a Whiskered Wiseacre. "If you saved the
money you spend on Booze you could buy yourselves and families more
to eat and better clothes to wear."
But in a neighbouring country the people Did Not Drink, and they
were even poorer than the people of Wherisit; so the eloquence of
the Whiskered Wiseacre fell very flat.
"It's Improvidence!" a Professor of Political Economy declared.
"You squander your wages instead of practising Thrift and learning
the profitable art of Doing Without."
But this made no impression on the people, either, for already
they Did Without so much that life was one long struggle with
destitution.
"It's Irreligion!" stormed the Very Reverend Dr. Pomp, D.D.,
High Priest of Wherisit, shaking his fist from the great altar.
"You are wicked. You do not come to church. You put nothing on the
collection plate for the clergy; therefore the curse of God is upon
you."
The people read this in their evening papers, and it failed to
convince them, for if God cursed THEM for not supporting the
clergy, he would curse the clergy for not supporting them.
"It's Slowing Down!" shouted the Moneylord, orating at the
annual dinner of the Ancient Order of Unconvicted Swindlers. "The
workers don't produce enough. Let them increase their output fifty
per cent, and we'll get one of our Judges to raise the living wage
eighteenpence a week."
But the people knew that already their lives were shortened by
excessive toil, and that whenever the Judges raised the living wage
the bosses reduced it again by the simple expedient of Putting Up
Prices. So they read the speech in the press with a dull
unconcern.
Then WHY were they always poor? Why were the wolves of want
forever scratching at their doors? Why were they shabbily dressed,
and meanly housed, and sparsely fed, and not half educated?
They looked at the land. It was golden and green with plenty.
They looked at the stores. They were crammed with all that the
heart of man desired. They looked at the heavens. There were no
signs of a malevolent Fate. They looked at their hands. They were
thickened and calloused with labour. They looked at their faces.
They were seamed with anxiety and effort.
And yet their poverty was an incessant evil, afflicting them
relentlessly—darkening their childhood, oppressing their
youth, turning their mature years to an inexplicable mockery: and
their old age to a tragical anti-climax.
They couldn't understand it at all, and every explanation they
attempted was unsatisfactory.
"All I know," said the Oldest Inhabitant, "is this—it has
been so since the memory of man; an' in my opinion it will be so
until the end."
"It's in the nature of things, if you ask me," said the Boss's
Pet. "Someone must work, d' you see, an' if there wasn't no poverty
no one would work at all."
"It's good to be poor," said the Abject Crawler. "It makes yer
humble an' chastens yer pride. Bear it patiently an' you'll be
rewarded in the next world."
These were the prevalent views among the people of Wherisit.
They summed up the philosophy of the crowd, and ignorance and
hunger could reason no further.
But one day there rose from the ranks of the workers a young man
who spoke Strange Things.
"I can tell you why you are poor," said he.
"Tell us!" they cried.
"You are poor BECAUSE YOU ARE ROBBED!"
And the young man proceeded to point out that the Ruling Class
of Wherisit took so much of the products of their labour that there
was not enough left for them to live upon in decency and
comfort.
"They produce nothing themselves," he said, "and they take what
is justly yours. It is for them you glean in the fields. It is for
them you delve in the mines. It is for them you fell the forests
and drain the marshes and wrest from the wilderness a wonder of
wealth. For them you build palaces, and the hovels in which you and
your children dwell are death-traps for body and soul. You gather
for them the choicest fruits, and weave for them the costliest
raiment; and the food YOU eat is coarse, and the clothes YOU wear
are shoddy."
Then raising his voice to a pitch of vibrant intensity, he
said:
"Keep what is yours, and poverty you know no more. God is not to
blame for sufferings. Drought and Flood are not to blame. The soil
is not to blame. Drink is not to blame. Improvidence is not to
blame. Irreligion is not to blame. YOU only are to blame, for you
are plundered, and do honour to the thieves."
Now this speech caused a great sensation among the people. They
had never heard anything like it before, and the idea that they
were robbed by their Rulers was one that staggered and bewildered
them.
Every instinct of their being revolted from the thought, and yet
at the same time it stirred them like a revelation.
They hated to believe it; AND KNEW IT WAS TRUE.
"Who are you?" they demanded.
And the young man answered with proud confidence:
"I am the voice of your secret soul. I am the wisdom of the
ignorant. I am the courage of the cowardly. I am the pride of the
meek. I am the Rebel."
And the people brooded over what he had said. And wheresoever
the Rebel went in the land, uttering his astounding, disturbing
words, crowds followed him, and the excitement grew and deepened,
till the very air seemed tremulous with tempestuous
possibilities.
* * *
The Grand Council of the Rulers of Wherisit was summoned to
consider the situation.
The King presided on his golden throne, with the great mace on
the table before him, and the Very Reverend Dr. Pomp, D.D., High
Priest of Wherisit, opened the proceedings with the Most Terrible
Curse in the repertory of the Church, reserved for special
occasions and grave crises.
He cursed the Rebel to the end of the world and back again. He
cursed him to the bottomest bottom of Hell, and left him there. He
cursed him in every hair of his head and in every bone of his body
and in every drop of his blood. He cursed so loud and so long that
all the milk in Wherisit turned sour, and the grass was withered
for miles around.
"Order!" shouted the King at last, for the Curse was getting on
his nerves. "What is the pleasure of the Council with this
Rebel?"
"He must die," snarled the High Priest, "because he has uttered
truth."
"He must die," snapped The Moneylord, "because he has preached
justice."
"He must die," mumbled The Lawyer, "because he has violated
precedent."
"He must die," hissed The Soldier, "because he has praised
peace."
"He must die," spat The Politician, "because he has lost me
votes."
So armed men went forth and took the Rebel, and he was put to
death upon a Cross, in the sight of the multitude.
But the words he had spoken were like sprouting seeds in the
minds of the people, and they now knew why, in the midst of plenty,
they were poor, and why, with the sunlight all about them, they
were wretched.
In the royal palace the Ruling Class rejoiced greatly. The King,
the High Priest, The Moneylord, The Lawyer, The Soldier and The
Politician pledged one another in wine as red as the Rebel's
blood.
But God laughed softly behind the clouds, for he knew that the
Rebel in his defeat had conquered them, and that even whilst they
made merry their doom was sealed.
Here is another Tale, as Foolish as the two that have preceded
it. Indeed, the three are really chapters in one continuous story,
only somehow I have got them back to front.
Not that it matters much. A story that is worth telling is none
the worse told backward, and may even gain in force and interest by
being narrated in that unusual order.
Anyway, this Tale is all about the making of that Rebel whom we
have already seen crucified and buried.
A man who is destined for the Cross has got to be trained for
it. Few are able to qualify for such a distinction. It is easier to
take degrees in any of the learned professions than to fit one's
self for crucifixion, and the laurel of scholastic renown is more
readily won than the crown of thorns.
* * *
The Rebel was born of poor parents. His father toiled in the
fields of a great Landowner, and the wage he received was barely
sufficient to provide his family with the rudest means of life.
The Rebel's mother was a shrewd woman, and endowed with a temper
that ill-brooked oppression.
"John," she often said to her husband, "it is a shame you should
toil so hard and get so little. Let us try our fortune in another
land."
But his was the spirit of the slave. Or perhaps he was too weary
to shake off the chains of servitude, for seldom is a sturdy soul
found in a jaded body. He went on drudging in the Landowner's
service, and as children were born to him poverty deepened in the
home, and he laboured still harder, and grew ever more abject in
dependence on his job.
The Rebel was the eldest of a numerous brood, and early was sent
into the fields to work beside his father, and but for the mother's
intervention toil would soon have misshapen his tender limbs and
chilled the heat of his young blood. She however insisted that he
should work only half-time, and be free for several hours a day to
play in the meadows, and wander about the countryside whithersoever
his fancy led him.
Of this liberty he took the fullest advantage. He was a creature
of the open air. He loved the bright sunshine, but the rain was
equally dear to him, and all the seasons in their turn moved him to
delight.
He rambled in a wood at the back of his father's house with
eager curiosity. All he met there fascinated him. When he heard a
Bird sing he divined exactly what its music meant, and thus came to
know many wonders, and things that puzzled the Wiseacres of
Wherisit were quite clear to the strange child.
In the wood was a Pool, and it was deep; and when he bent over
the still water, and peered into it, it was a mirror in which he
saw the future.
The Frogs that dwelt by the margin of the Pool were very
friendly, and gave him the benefit of their uncommon experience and
their unique knowledge, so that he became almost uncannily
precocious, for the Frogs are an ancient and observant folk.
The Moon also displayed a great liking for the child, and
though, of course, he was not permitted to go out at midnight, at
which hour the Moon is in her most communicative mood, she thought
nothing of climbing in at his window, and relating to him, as he
sat up in bed, gazing with shining eyes at her, many marvellous
events of bygone days, which she had personally witnessed.
So that, with the Pool showing him the future, and the Moon
revealing the past, and the Birds solving problems for him with
their songs, and the Frogs imparting to him Facts Not Generally
Known, he grew up different from the people about him, who knew
little and sought to know nothing, accepting things as they found
them in their wretched world with a stolid unconcern.
* * *
But it was the Old Poet who acted as chief instructor to the
boy.
Nobody in the part of Wherisit in which he lived was aware he
WAS a Poet, and in the other parts his very existence was unknown.
Nor had he ever written a verse, nor composed one in his head; and
had he done so it is certain that the lines would have had the
wrong number of feet in them, and the rhymes would have sounded
like cracked cowbells, and the rhythms have staggered all over the
place.
God often perpetrates a joke of that sort. He gives a man a
singing soul wedded to a stumbling tongue, and the result is highly
diverting. He enjoys it vastly behind the curtain of the clouds,
and when the Spring comes, with all its urgent incitements to
expression, and the clumsy tongue make woeful attempts to repeat
the music it hears in the soul, God has great fun.
Our Old Poet was a joke of another description. He had wit
enough to keep his tongue under firm control, and when the soul
within him sang he sat quite still in a quiet spot, and stared at
something beautiful a long way off, that nobody else could see,
sometimes with a grave face, and sometimes with the tenderest smile
upon his lips.
People thought him touched with an amiable madness, and regarded
him with a pity that was half condescension and half contempt.
And it was at THEM that God laughed, for he knew they were
completely taken in.
Now the Old Poet was very fond of the Young Rebel. He frequently
met him in the wood, and soon discerned in him a receptive mind and
a responsive spirit. He taught him the wood-lore he had gathered in
a lifetime; instilled in him a sense of kinship with all the gentle
wild things, familiarised him with the language they speak, and
encouraged him to converse with them.
Then gradually he led him on to the knowledge of savage
civilised things, and told him how the workers suffered; how they
were plundered by the Rulers of Wherisit, and how this crime
brought discord into a world that otherwise would have been
exquisitely harmonious.
And the boy listened, the lessons thus imparted sinking deep
into his heart and brain.
When he attained to manhood there awoke within him a passionate
desire to set the workers free, and make of the world the beautiful
dwelling place it was so well fitted to be.
The Old Poet, now very old indeed, felt a thrill of pride in his
breast. He realised that he had not lived in vain. This Young Rebel
was the Poem of which he had dreamed in silence. The silence would
become song, ringing throughout the earth, and magical would be its
effects.
"Before you can save others you must save yourself," he said.
"You must know Pain, you must know Courage, you must know Love. Go
forth, and find them."
Forth the Rebel went.
"You're a Fool to chuck up your job," growled his father.
"Come home again some day," wailed his mother.
His heart was sore at leaving, yet he would not stay. And when
God saw him taking his departure he laughed at the back of the
clouds, for this was part of the Practical Joke he had long planned
to play on the Rulers of Wherisit.
They had built up a colossal barricade of custom, tradition and
privilege, and behind this barricade believed themselves secure in
their criminal splendour.
And lo! here was a Mere Youth who with a word would level the
mighty wall.
The Divine Humorist chuckled as he contemplated the climax of
the Joke, now rapidly approaching.
For what are human years to one whose measure is Eternity?
* * *
The Young Rebel was soon in the Big City that is the capital of
the Land of Wherisit; and then for many winters and summers he was
lost to those who had known him in his native village.
The Old Poet never heard of him, but he knew that the threefold
lesson of Pain, Courage and Love was being learnt, and that the
marching chant of the Revolution that was to liberate the people of
Wherisit would be the song he had longed to sing.
And when one dawn he was discovered dead, sitting by the side of
the Pool in the wood, his eyes appeared to be peering at something
a far way off, that nobody else could see, and on his lips was the
tenderest smile imaginable.
* * *
In the Big City the Young Rebel first found Pain; then he found
Courage; and last he found Love.
Later on I expect to tell you HOW he found them. But don't be
surprised if I forget.
The Very Reverend Dr. Pomp, High Priest of Wherisit, was a
person of vast erudition. The things that that man knew, if they
could have been realised in material form, would have filled the
largest lumber room that ever was built right up to the ceiling,
and bulged out the walls to bursting point.
He was learned in every description of futility, and so crammed
with the incomprehensible that there wasn't an inch of space left
in his head for the common truths of life.
He laid claim to a great familiarity with God, declaring himself
his minister, and professing to speak in his name, but as a matter
of fact God regarded him as one of his primest jokes, and was never
done laughing at him.
As for the temple in which the High Priest presided in gorgeous
vestments, and from the carven pulpit of which he was wont to
deliver ponderous discourses, God considered that a rather
wearisome form of humour, and gave it a wide berth.
It is possible to carry a joke TOO far, and when God saw his
facetiousness translated into long steeples and even longer sermons
it wasn't as funny as he expected, and sometimes in a hilarious
moment the thought of it would flash into his mind, and he would
suddenly become grave with a sense of failure.
Dr. Pomp, however, was always a droll circumstance, he was so
completely out of touch with the substantial world and so
thoroughly at home with fantastic shadows.
He could tell you in minute detail all about places that didn't
exist, and describe the clothes that impossible beings wore, and
the musical instruments they never played upon; and he could depict
with unctuous ferocity the fabulous fate in store for those who
dared to differ with him, and the tortures that awaited them on the
other side of Nowhere.
But of what was happening at the end of his very reverend nose,
and of the conditions under which real people lived, he knew so
little that he dwelt amongst strangers and moved in the midst of
phantom forms.
Not that he was utterly insensible to material things. Oh, no I
It was only outside the range of his own interests that they turned
to mists and spectral shapes. Let them fall within the orbit of his
selfish concern and no one in all Wherisit was more keenly
conscious of their presence and their nature.
Anything that contributed to his advantage appealed to him
powerfully, and his grip upon it was surprisingly tenacious. To the
pleasures of the table he was very sensitive, and rich foods and
rare wines had expanded his waist to a goodly girth, and imparted
to his countenance a complexion of ruby and purple.
You would never have thought, to look at his plump red flesh,
that gaunt want existed in the same land. Could the ordained
representative of Providence feast and swill, with hungry
multitudes around him? It would never have entered your head, as
you gazed in admiration at the palace in which he lived and the
temple in which he officiated, that the people's homes were mean
and squalid, and haunted by disease.
Yet such was the case.
Once on a time, when he was a young priest, and had not begun to
climb to greatness in the temple, these disparities worried him,
and his Soul often spoke to him about them.
"It isn't right," his Soul would say. "The people suffer because
they are plundered, and ministers of God should protest against the
crime."
And the young priest would answer: "What you say seems true, but
the elders of the temple tell me it is false. They say it is part
of the divine scheme that the many should toil for the few; and
that hunger keeps them meek, and ignorance renders them obedient to
the will of the Rulers, which also is the will of God."
Many a discussion he had with his Soul on the subject, and his
Soul would speak very boldly, and urge him to disregard the
teachings of the elders on these matters, and range himself on the
side of the people, and demand justice for them, that misery might
no longer defile the beauty of the land.
* * *
It was during this period of spiritual unrest that a great
adventure befell the young priest.
He was making his way through a meadow near the temple, as the
sun declined and the darkness began to rise from the ground, when
suddenly he became aware that Christ was walking by his side.
He was afraid at first, thinking it a sign that the end was
near. But Christ spoke to him, and the voice was so sweet and
gentle that fear left him and his veins tingled with a strange
delight.
"Good evening, brother," said Christ, just like you or I might
say it.
"Good evening, Christ," the young priest said in tremulous
tones.
They walked on a little while in silence, till the temple loomed
up hugely before them.
Then Christ spoke again: "There is something you are wanting to
ask me, brother."
"Yes," said the young priest. "What shall I do to save
myself?"
"Save others," said Christ.
"Whom shall I save?"
And Christ replied: "Save the people from those who oppress
them; and save the oppressors from themselves."
"The elders of the temple teach that the world is as God wills
it," said the young priest.
"They have made God's house a den of thieves," said Christ, "and
that which they teach is the thieves' gospel."
"Then where shall I find the truth, if not in the learning of
the elders?"
And Christ told him that truth was in his own Soul, and that all
would be well if he followed its guidance.
As the words were uttered the shadow of the temple fell upon the
young priest, and turning to speak again, he found he was
alone.
* * *
But the adventure was not ended yet.
Entering the temple door, he came face to face with Satan; only
he didn't know him, for Satan had assumed the form of a well-known
theologian.
"Oh, Father!" cried the young priest, "I have just been talking
with Christ!"
"Hush!" said Satan, "or men will think you mad."
"But it's true."
"Truth," said Satan, "is for the few. Put it into the hands of
the many and the order of the world would he upset, and the
commands of the Rulers unheeded."
"Why should there be Rulers? Why should the people not rule
themselves? Why should they not keep all that they earn? There
would be no poverty then, and no pain, and the people would turn to
God in their happiness, and praise him in the beauty of their
lives."
"A most pernicious doctrine," said Satan, speaking like the
well-known theologian delivering a lecture to his class of divinity
students. "Power is permitted by God, and where it is imposed upon
the people it is in accord with the providential plan. The King of
Wherisit is the Lord's anointed, and his ministers are the natural
leaders of the people in secular affairs, and his High Priest and
the Hierarchy of the temple their proper guides in all that
appertains to faith and morals."
"But—" said the young priest.
Satan laid a kindly hand upon his shoulder.
"Be advised by one who has studied deeply and had experience of
the world. Put this nonsense about Christ out of your head, and
read theology. Stick to the precepts of the doctors of divinity and
the ritual of the temple; and remember that there must be want and
suffering on earth in order that the depraved spirit of mankind may
be chastened, and the great virtue of charity have subjects to work
upon."
Satan said no more, for he knew that his words were seeds which
would germinate. But he put it into the minds of the temple
authorities to promote the young priest, and advance him rapidly to
important and lucrative positions.
For a long time the thought of his meeting with Christ remained
with him. A new note came into his discourses. He hinted at the
triumph of a universal Brotherhood, based upon industrial
co-operation and social justice, and whenever he preached the
people flocked to the temple to hear him.
As he rose in office, however, this democratic fervour subsided.
He grew cautious. He temporised; qualified all he said with "ifs"
and "buts," and surely though almost imperceptibly hardened into a
cold and implacable conservatism.
Throughout this process his Soul never ceased to reproach him
and exhort him to repent. On the very eve of his becoming High
Priest it troubled him greatly.
"Christ told you to take the side of the people," said his Soul.
"He told you to save them from those who oppress them, and impeach
the Rulers of Wherisit. He told you to—"
The High Priest elect turned savagely upon his Soul and
strangled it. And when it was dead he buried it in a secret
place.
Then, entering the sacristy of the temple, he was robed in
costly vestments for the ceremony of induction, and presently sat
enthroned on the great altar, with incense all about him, and the
jubilant music of the choir.
* * *
In the middle of the service a strange sound came from the
heavens. Everybody said it was an indication of divine favour.
I happen to know better.
It was God, laughing behind the clouds at a joke he had brought
off successfully.
When the Moneylord was born, Satan disguised himself as a
Right-Thinking Person, and attended the party that was given by the
proud parents in honour of the event.
All the guests brought presents for the child, and each laid his
gift at the foot of the cradle with a few remarks appropriate to
the occasion.
Satan came forward with a smiling face, and bowed to the father
and mother in an ingratiating manner that made them think: "What a
perfect gentleman this is! Who can he be?"
"I have here, for your darling child," said Satan, "a present of
the highest value; one which will win for him great honour, power
and dominion, and is therefore. I venture to say, worthy of his
distinguished parentage."
"Really a most charming person!" thought the delighted
mother.
"Must cultivate his acquaintance!" the equally flattered father
murmured to himself, returning Satan's bow.
All the other guests gathered round, wondering what on earth
this marvellous present could be.
Satan uttered a secret word, and at once one of his imps
appeared, dressed as a page, and bearing a salver on which was
something covered with rich brocade.
The supposed page laid the salver at the foot of the cradle, and
then, at a sign from his master, drew the covering away.
A cry of astonishment went round the room.
Lying on the salver was a heap of nuggets of the brightest metal
that had ever been seen. It shone in a way that fascinated
everybody, and its colour was a yellow so alluring that there was
not a man or woman present who did not covet it.
"This," said Satan, with an air of unctuous importance, "is
GOLD, a metal not yet known. It is endowed with magical properties.
He who possesses it commands the world. Whatever he desires he
shall have. Men will labour to provide him with the best that
nature and art can produce. The Great Ones of the kingdom will pay
homage to him. He shall rule the rulers!"
Everybody who heard this stared at one another in amazement.
Then they stared at the magic metal; and then at the Baby who had
received such a splendid gift; and then at the father and mother
who were blessed with such a lucky child.
And then they turned their eyes again to the Stranger who had
caused this sensation. Wonder on wonder—he was gone!
Yes, he and his page had both disappeared.
But there was the shining yellow metal, glittering in the most
astounding fashion; and the guests, crowding about it, and touching
it with exclamations of pleasure and surprise, in their admiration
of the gift soon forgot the giver and the mysterious manner of his
departure.
* * *
On his twenty-first birthday the Moneylord was handed the pieces
of gold by his father.
"The time has come," said he. "Go forth, my lad, and with this
wondrous talisman subdue the world to your will."
The young Moneylord doubted the virtue of the metal, though its
gleaming bewitched him, as it did everybody who beheld it. But he
was keen to try his fortune in the royal city, so putting the
pieces of gold into a bag with the rest of his belongings, and
bidding farewell to his parents, he set out cheerfully on his
adventure.
He was footsore and weary, and very, very hungry, when he
reached his destination. What to do he did not know. In the whole
city he had neither friend nor acquaintance, and the ways of
travellers were unfamiliar to him.
He resolved to test the efficacy of the magic metal without
delay. Approaching a well-dressed man in the street, he said,
"Excuse me, sir, but I am unknown in your city, and I desire food
and shelter."
The man glanced at him haughtily, and did not halt his steps,
passing on without a word. The young Moneylord hastened after him,
and taking a small lump of gold from his bag, held it out on his
open palm.
"Help me," said he, "and I will give you this."
The manner of the man changed instantly. Eagerly seizing the
glistening nugget, he broke into a gracious smile and said:
"I mistook you for another person. Pardon my seeming rudeness.
If my humble home will content you, the best that it contains is at
your service."
"I shall be well content," said the young Moneylord, secretly
rejoicing at the success of his talisman.
The man took him straight to his house, and introduced him to
his family, and gave him of the choicest to eat and drink; and that
night he slept in a soft bed, and dreamt of further triumphs on the
morrow.
* * *
After that, he had only to produce a piece of gold to win his
way and achieve his will. His fame spread far and wide. Multitudes
congregated about the house, clamouring to be shown the miraculous
metal. And from every part the Great Ones of Wherisit came, to of
fer their friendship and service to its happy owner.
The first to call upon him was the High Priest of the
temple.
"This wealth," he said, "is from God. He has entrusted it to
you, that you may become the benefactor of his children and the
pillar of his church."
The young Moneylord was right glad to hear this, so he gave the
High Priest a rather large lump of the shining stuff, and they
parted very pleased with each other.
Then the Soldier called.
"With this bright marvel," he said, "you can set up a vast army
and build a great navy, and the kingdom of Wherisit will then
subdue the world, and you will be the Chief Citizen of the greatest
Empire that ever was known."
This also was pleasant to hear, so the young Moneylord presented
the Soldier with a piece of gold, and he also went away
delighted.
The Lawyer was next shown in.
"This metal," said he, "is entirely without precedent. I have
searched the authorities through and through, and can find no
reference to it anywhere. I interpret this to mean that you are
bound by no law, restricted by no constitution, but can do just
what you wish, and so, by your usages, customs and desires, lay the
foundation of a new jurisprudence."
And he, too, was presented with a precious nugget and took his
departure in the best spirits imaginable.
Soon after the King himself commanded the young Moneylord to
attend at court, and bring him the glittering treasure.
He was received in state. The Ministers and courtiers and guards
stood at each side of the throne, and the King sat in his
ceremonial robes, looking very grand indeed.
At the sight of the gold, several pieces of which the young
Moneylord, on banded knee, presented to him, the monarch was
strangely moved.
"This," he said, "is the true symbol of power. Something tells
me that Gold will be greater even than I—that it will
exercise a wider sway, and win the allegiance of men in lands where
the splendour of my name is less than the shadows that pass."
It was then that the owner of the magic metal received his
title. I have called him the young Moneylord from the commencement
of this story, but up to this point in his fortunes he really bore
another name, which I have not mentioned because I forget whether
it was Smith, Jones, or Robinson. However, it doesn't matter, for
henceforth the world was to know him as The Moneylord, and his
humble origin was to be lost forever in the blaze of a later
glory.
The King took the pieces of gold into his hand, gazed long and
earnestly upon them, and in a voice of deep emotion said:
"Truly a royal gift. For this I name you The Moneylord; and of
all the Great Ones of Wherisit none shall take precedence over
you!"
* * *
Now The Moneylord was giving away his gold so freely that you
might conclude that he would soon have very little left. But there
is something that I have not yet told you. It is this, that
howsoever lavishly he scattered his gold about, the stock did not
diminish!
When he made this astonishing discovery he began to indulge in
the most ambitious enterprises, and presently had tens of thousands
of men employed in his service. They built beautiful palaces for
him, and surrounded them with the loveliest gardens in all
Wherisit. They made sumptuous carriages for him to ride in, and
wove for his apparel the richest fabrics' that ever came from the
loom.
Sculptors carved their finest statuary to earn his gold, and
painters depicted in exquisite colours and faultless forms the
glowing imaginations of their minds.
Workmen of every description toiled for his pleasure and profit,
so universal was the passion which his gold had aroused in the
hearts of men.
In this way nearly everybody came to possess the metal, though
in infinitely varying measures; and then they trafficked in it
among themselves; cheated one another for it; fought one another
for it; schemed and conspired to plunder their neighbours' stores
and augment their own.
The whole social system of the country was affected by the
obsession. Laws were made governing all kinds of transactions in
gold. A gold-owning class grew up, wielding great authority and
influence by virtue of their accumulations of the metal, and
holding in subjection those who had but little of it.
Tyranny became rampant; poverty made its appearance in the midst
of plenty; in the struggle for gold many crimes were committed, and
the seeds of hatred and avarice, sown wide through the land,
produced a ghastly harvest of dissension, disease, and
degradation.
* * *
One day The Moneylord was sitting in his favourite garden when
an elderly gentleman, attired in the very latest style, and
proclaiming self-satisfaction in the creases of his pants, and
prosperity in the glossiness of his tall hat, approached him and
said:
"Good day! I have called to thank you for your highly valued
assistance."
"Indeed," said The Moneylord. "And pray, who may you be?"
"Well," said the elderly gent, smoothing his hat with an expert
elbow, "to be perfectly candid, I'm the Devil, though
now—thanks to you—retired from active participation in
the business I once carried on under my personal supervision."
"This is disgraceful levity!" cried The Moneylord.
"Nothing of the sort is intended, I assure you," said the bland
visitor. "I am actuated by no other sentiment than gratitude when I
say what I do. In the old days my work was very heavy, the hours
long, and—strictly between ourselves—the results by no
means commensurate with the energy and intelligence expended.
To-day all that is changed. By the agency of the gift I gave you in
your cradle, you have corrupted the world and put enmity between
men. And Hell, which was in rather a bad way, is now a really
prosperous concern, a first-class investment—what you might
call a gilt-edged security. As a consequence I am able to take my
ease, and cultivate the graces of life, for which, I think I may
observe without undue vanity, I have always had a natural aptitude.
All this is attributable to my fortunate discovery of the power of
gold to dazzle the senses and deprave the soul of man; and
also—permit me to repeat—to your help in distributing
the sinister metal broadcast through Wherisit."
The Moneylord, choking with rage, shouted for his servants,
several of whom came hurrying on the scene.
"Throw him out!" he snarled, and pointed to the Devil; or
rather, to the spot where the Devil had been, for now, behold,
there was nobody there!...
"What an awful smell!" exclaimed one of the flunkeys, standing
exactly where the Devil had bowed and scraped and polished his hat
a moment before.
"I hear someone laughing in the sky!" said another.
They all heard it, and stood staring fearfully at the heavens. A
sound as of a person chuckling in enjoyment of a good joke issued
from behind a veil of cloud.
"You're a pack of fools!" snapped The Moneylord. "I did not want
you. I was dreaming. You can go."
* * *
When he was alone again, he took some pieces of gold from his
pocket, and holding them close to his eyes, looked for a long, long
time upon them, with a troubled countenance.
He loved war. Conflict, he held, was the thing most worthy of a
man. It brought out all the finer qualities of his nature. It
inspired him with courage, it imbued him with fortitude; it gave to
his thought and action an intrepid sweep, and to his imagination a
boundless range.
He regarded with a tolerant contempt those who were wedded to
the ways of peace. They were necessary, he supposed, if only to
support the warrior—to grow the food he ate, to weave the
clothes he wore, to forge the weapons with which he fought.
But certainly they belonged to an inferior order, and as against
the warrior caste had neither rights nor privileges deserving of
consideration.
Even as a child The Soldier had loved the insignia of strife. He
ran beside the marching regiments in the street, feasting his eyes
upon the splendid uniforms, the gleaming arms, the prancing steeds;
and enchanted by the blaring trumpets and the rolling drums.
He longed for the time when he, too, should carry a sword by his
side, and sally forth to slay men.
"Whom would you slay, dear?" his mother said one day, delighted
at the martial ardour of her son.
"The enemies of the King," the boy answered proudly.
"And who are the King's enemies?"
"All who will not obey the King's commands."
So pleased was the mother that she bought the boy a plumed hat
and a toy sword, and with these he swaggered around, fighting
imaginary foes and striking them to the earth relentlessly.
* * *
When he grew up, however, his mother did not want him to adopt a
military career. Killing the sons of other women was quite right,
but what if her own son should be killed?
The bare possibility was so terrible that she would not listen
to his entreaties. It was a proper thing to slay the King's
enemies, but those wretches were so wicked that they did not
quietly permit the King's men to destroy them, as in all decency
they ought, but actually strove to save themselves by destroying
the King's men!
Under such circumstances she could not dream of letting him be a
soldier. It was far too dangerous an occupation for her darling
boy.
He would have been apprenticed to a tradesman of some useful
sort had it not been for the Devil, who at this juncture waited
upon the mother in the guise of a fervent patriot, and urged her to
assent to the boy's wish.
"It's a duty you owe to your country," said the Devil. "It is
the glorious mission of Wherisit to carry the blessings of
civilisation to the other nations of the earth, and it cannot do
this without a strong army to force those nations to accept what is
good for them, and pay homage to its flag."
"If it's for their good, they will not need to be forced to
accept it," said the mother.
"My dear lady," said the Devil, "you don't realise the depravity
in which those nations are sunk. They actually prefer their own
institutions to ours, and have the audacity to resist when we send
troops to take possession of their lands and rearrange their
governments. We arc obliged to crush them for their own benefit,
and to this noble purpose it is the duty of every patriotic mother
to dedicate a son."
So persuasively did the Devil speak that the opposition of the
mother was completely broken down, and her son soon afterwards took
service under the King's colours. And when she saw him in his
regimentals, with a real sword, sharp and shining, by his side, her
heart was filled with pride, For now, she thought to herself, he
will kill the King's enemies wherever they are to be found; nor was
she any longer afraid, because, as she said, it was inconceivable
that even the King's enemies should be so horrid as to want to kill
her boy.
* * *
I am not going to tell you of the brilliant career that The
Soldier had. You will find it printed in large type in all the
authentic histories of Wherisit.
And if you study the poets of Wherisit you will come across
numerous poems extolling his prowess, while in the public art
galleries there are many pictures showing him in the act of
bestowing the blessings of civilisation upon other nations with
great slaughter.
My task is to relate an adventure of The Soldier's that did not
get into the official chronicles, and up to the present has not
been made known in any way whatever.
As a matter of fact, no living man is aware of this strange
episode but myself, so that what you are about to hear is something
which, save through me, could never come to your knowledge.
* * *
The Soldier was in a foreign country at the head of a vast army,
engaged in civilising the inhabitants, who, as usual, were
obstinately opposing his efforts to improve them.
He had accordingly been put to the necessity of convincing them
of his good intentions by devastating their lands, burning their
villages and cities, and wiping them off the face of the earth in
large numbers.
In this way he had brought a measure of tranquillity to the
country. The armies of the enemy had been reduced to scattered
remnants lurking in the mountains, not strong enough to take the
open field; and the civil population were cowed into sullenly
submitting to the benefits about to be conferred on them.
All was quiet one afternoon, as The Soldier walked forth alone.
The sky was so radiant, and the birds sang so sweetly, that he was
filled with a feeling of elation, and stepped out briskly, scarcely
noting where he went.
Very soon he had lost his way, and knew not in which direction
to turn to regain the camp.
Pushing through the fringe of a wood, he came upon a clearing in
the midst of which stood a farmhouse, and advancing to the door,
knocked loudly.
"Come in," said a quavering voice; and entering, The Soldier
found himself in a large, old-fashioned kitchen, in the presence of
an elderly couple sitting at a table.
The man rose as the door opened, and asked The Soldier his
business.
"I have lost my way, and am hungry," he said; and the woman
immediately went to a cupboard and commenced to set out food. They
did not recognise him as an enemy, for he wore civilian clothes,
and the sword by his side told them nothing, for every traveller
was armed in view of the possibility of being attacked by prowling
bands of robbers.
"Make yourself at home," said the man. "We live in sad times,
and the people of this unhappy land should be friendly with each
other, wheresoe'er they meet."
"Things are not the same here since we lost our son Paul." said
the woman. "He was a good lad, and when he went to fight the enemy
he looked so beautiful and strong."
"He must have been killed," said the man, "for the army he was
in was bloodily defeated, and naught has been heard of him since.
Many of his mates have called here, but none could tell us of our
Paul, except that he fought like a hero in the thickest of the
battle."
"He was a brave lad," said the woman, and sat down weeping.
"As fine a son as ever lived," said the man, and shed tears,
too.
All through the meal they talked to their guest of Paul,
dwelling lovingly upon his virtues and bemoaning his loss.
"I care not what happens now," said the man. "Life no longer
allures me, and if it pleased God to take my poor wife and me, most
gladly would we leave this ruined land of ours, from which all
happiness fled when the cruel enemy invaded it."
The Soldier had not heard talk like this before. He had listened
only to the voices of warriors, excited with battle or exultant
with victory; or to the acclamations of crowds rejoicing in his
triumphs.
There was something in the sorrow of this elderly couple,
mourning for a son whose death he had caused, that touched an
unsuspected chord in his nature, and when he thanked them for their
hospitality and bade them good-bye he was strangely moved.
All about him, now, he saw the signs of desolation, to which
before he had been blind. He saw that the crops were trampled into
the mire; that the once prosperous villages lay in ruins; that
rapine and murder had ravaged the quiet homes.
And in an uncontrollable emotion of grief he plucked his sword
from its sheath and dashed it to the ground, exclaiming:
"War is a curse, and never again will I wage it!"
* * *
Then a great wonder happened.
The scene was suddenly transformed. The villages that had been
silent and deserted were now the centres of peaceful activities.
The farmers' wagons rumbled along the roads; the cattle lowed in
the meadows; the fields were golden with corn; the reapers and
gleaners sang at their tasks; from the chimneys of the peasants'
cottages the blue smoke rose, to tell of cheerful hearths
within.
No sign of strife was anywhere visible. The army of the invader
had apparently melted away. And this circumstance caused no concern
to The Soldier who had so recently been its commander. He strode
along like one in an ecstasy, and to everybody he met he gave a
pleasant greeting.
* * *
Now the Devil was much disturbed by what had taken place.
Without hatred between men he could not thrive, and war was his
most profitable industry.
So he put himself in the way of The Soldier, first assuming his
favourite disguise as a patriot.
They travelled together, and as they walked the Devil breathed
poisonous words into his companion's ear.
"Yes," he said, "the land seems beautiful enough, as you say,
but under this smiling exterior there is concealed a savage spirit.
The people are not civilised like the people of Wherisit. They do
not speak the same language as us, a sure sign of depravity; and
their manners and customs and institutions are different from ours,
thereby affording evidence of a most deplorable lack of
culture."
"They are happy," said The Soldier.
"Hogs are happy, wallowing in the mud," the Devil replied. "We
of Wherisit have a higher standard of happiness than hoggish
contentment, and it is our destiny to govern and guide those races
less liberally endowed."
"Let them live their own lives," said The Soldier. "At least
they do us no harm."
"There's where you are mistaken," the Devil cried. "They hate us
because of our superior civilisation, and all the time are planning
to get together a great army to subjugate Wherisit and enslave its
citizens."
"If I thought that..." said The Soldier, the poison beginning to
work upon him.
"I assure you it is so," urged the Devil. "I will give you, in
proof, some things that have come under my own observation."
He then proceeded to exercise his utmost ingenuity as the Father
of Lies, and slandered the people of that country so convincingly,
and represented them in such a villainous light, that the blood of
The Soldier grew hot within him, and instinctively his hand went to
his side.
While the conversation was going on the Devil had cunningly
contrived to lead The Soldier back to the farmhouse, halting at the
spot where he had flung down his sword.
"I see your weapon lying there," he said. "Shame, that a
patriotic son of the great Kingdom of Wherisit should cast away the
instrument of its glory."
The Soldier stooped and picked up the sword; and at that moment
there issued from the farmhouse a strapping young man, with an
elderly couple laughing and talking behind him.
At sight of The Soldier sword in hand the young man rushed back
into the house, to return in an instant similarly armed.
"There is your enemy!" said the Devil.
With cool courage The Soldier advanced, to be met half way by
the no less valorous youth. The fight was fierce, but it was soon
ended. Experience and skill prevailed over mere impetuosity, and
the young man fell to the ground mortally wounded.
As he did so, another wonder occurred.
Again the scene was transformed. The fields were desolated as
before. Black ruin lay around. The villages were but heaps of
debris. Anguish and horror brooded over all.
From a distant camp the notes of a bugle floated, to mingle with
the wail of a heartbroken mother.
The Soldier started eagerly at the bugle's sound.
"Your country calls you!" cried the Devil.
And, as he uttered these words, from somewhere in the calm
heavens there came a peal of laughter.
When the God who dearly loved a joke created Wherisit, he
fashioned it on lines of law and order, and then let loose in it a
lawless and disorderly spirit.
From this circumstance the most humorous inconsistencies arose,
and not a day passed without the Supreme Joker deriving exquisite
satisfaction from his ingenious contradiction.
The sun and the moon and the stars never for a moment deviated
from the course laid down for them. THEY had no irresponsible
impulses. THEY went on doing the same old things exactly as it was
ordained they should; no one could ever accuse THEM of being
actuated by wilful and wanton motives.
But how different was the state of that mankind upon which they
gazed down with a mild surprise, even while they shed their rays of
warmth and light with irreproachable regularity for its
benefit.
Mankind did very little that it was supposed to do, and, on the
other hand, was continually doing the things that were not mapped
out for it.
This erratic streak in its character, when opposed to the
unfailing reliability of natural phenomena, was productive of some
really funny situations, and God enjoyed them greatly. It was good
sport to see men striving to turn night into day, and then day into
night; and to observe the queer devices by which they sought to
keep cool in the summer and warm in the winter was most
amusing.
There were other ways in which Nature's orderliness and Man's
waywardness had comic results when they clashed together. But,
after all, there was not a great deal of variety in the joke, and
before many thousands of years had passed God rather wearied of
it.
So he pondered the matter for an eon or two; and then there
flashed into his mind an idea so replete with humorous
possibilities that he chuckled over the very thought of it for
several centuries.
The idea was this: To give a certain section of mankind an
interest in inventing laws, and implant in the minds of another
section a passion for maintaining them.
To you it may not appear to promise much amusement, but God sees
below the surface of things, and the entertaining possibilities
that the scheme disclosed in the course of time were obvious to him
in the instant of its conception.
Presently, in conformity with his will, there arose among
mankind a class that by the practices of exploitation grew wealthy,
and with the object of protecting their wealth began to suggest
that anyone who interfered with or jeopardised their possessions
was guilty of an offence against God and humanity, and ought to be
punished for it.
And almost simultaneously there came into existence another
class that devised measures to safeguard the Rich from the danger
of losing by force what they had gained by fraud. And among these
The Lawyer was first and foremost.
So enamoured of law was he that he divided the human race into
those who kept the law and those who broke it.
And he built up a great legal system, full of the most amazing
inconsistencies and absurdities, but invested with sacred sanctions
and surrounded with secular solemnities; and to this system he made
human nature subservient; and when human nature grew restive or
rebelled he brought into operation a code of penalties that quickly
repressed it, and turned it into a degraded semblance of
itself.
* * *
Thus endowed and buttressed, the Rich became the Rulers of
Wherisit.
And then the joke began.
The poverty caused by the depredations of the Rich brought into
being many petty offenders against the law, and it was highly
diverting to the Supreme Joker to watch the anomalous encounters
that ensued—the big thieves laying violent hands on the
little ones, and gravely indicting as enemies of society those who
were less criminal than themselves.
The Lawyer was exceptionally stern in his attitude towards those
who were charged with theft. He had no mercy for them whatever. And
when he was made a Judge the sentences he inflicted on all such
offenders were characterised by a ruthless severity.
He would not listen to the plea of extenuating circumstances. He
held that the most powerful of human emotions should be respect for
the law, and was in the habit of saying that if he and those whom
he loved were starving he would not steal bread, though it lay
within his reach.
In this connection a remarkable adventure once befell The
Lawyer, and I'm going to tell you about it.
* * *
He was about to pass sentence on a man who had been found guilty
of breaking into a house and stealing food. Addressing him, he
said:
"The jury have recommended you to mercy because, at the time,
you were hungry, and your wife and children were starving. I cannot
allow such a plea to have any weight with me. The laws of the land
are superior to all private considerations, and must be observed
under every circumstance, or their violation punished, otherwise
the very foundations of society would be shaken, and orderly
government become impossible."
"The thought of my famishing wife and little ones made me
desperate," murmured the man.
The Lawyer bent upon him an implacable eye.
"Prisoner," he said, "the greater the temptation to break the
law, the more firmly should we abide by it. No misfortune, no
suffering, would ever induce ME to offend against the laws of my
country."
As these words fell from his lips he heard a sound of distant
laughter, that seemed to come from the heavens. At the same moment
the court-room and everybody in it faded away...
The Lawyer found himself sitting by a roadside, on the outskirts
of the city...
* * *
He felt that something extraordinary had happened to him, and
his heart was filled with fear. He was no longer attired in an
ermine robe, with a wig upon his head, but wore the clothes of a
labourer—shabby, dirty, and patched.
His hands, once soft and white, were now coarse and knotted, and
his face, that had been so carefully shaven, was covered with a
stubble of hair.
He was not himself!...He was somebody else!...Who was he?
The question was no sooner asked than answered. He was that man
he was about to sentence when this inexplicable and terrible change
took place!
He knew he had been the Judge; and now was conscious of being
that miserable criminal.
"I am faint with hunger," he muttered, "and my wife and children
are starving at home. I must get food from somewhere."
Rising to his feet, he approached a house near by, and knocking
at the door, mumbled his pitiful tale and begged for bread.
"We have nothing for you," said the housewife, and turned
within.
Broken and despairing, he walked slowly along the verandah,
when, chancing to glance in through an open casement, he saw a
table spread for a substantial meal.
There was nobody in the room...The neighbourhood was a quiet
one.
Obeying a primal impulse, he entered swiftly by the window,
grasped a loaf of bread, and cramming other eatables into his
pockets, made his escape from the room.
Alas, he was observed! A man saw him climbing out of the window
with the loaf in his hand, and seized him as he was emerging from
the gate, attempting to conceal the evidence of his guilt beneath
his coat.
He struggled with his captor, but weak with privation was easily
overcome and dragged off to the police station, where he was
charged with housebreaking, and locked in a cell.
How he hated the law that treated him so unjustly? He was the
helpless victim of a monster called Society, that denied him the
opportunity to work for his livelihood, punished his wife and
children for being dependent upon him, threatened them all with
starvation, and when he took bread to save their lives, flung legal
meshes around him, and confronted him with the hypocritical
austerity of an ethical code.
"Ten thousand curses on the law!"...
A tremor passed through his body as he uttered this malediction,
for he realised that in some occult way he was still the Judge as
well as the criminal.
But now he held in detestation principles that had been to him
the very texture of his mind and spirit. He saw now that they were
not devised for the good of the community, but for the
aggrandisement and protection of a predatory class.
The law was the pillar of an evil social system. Upon it there
was reared an edifice of fraud, corruption and injustice.
How clear it had all grown to him! Want and suffering had
sharpened his perception of the truth. Never again would he
reverence law till it ceased to be the mainstay of oppression and
became the support of a free and happy people; not founded on
terror, but on love.
These rebellious thoughts calmed the turbulence of his soul. He
fell asleep that night with a smile upon his lips.
* * *
Next morning, when he awoke, to his great astonishment he was
once more seated on the bench in the court, wearing his robe of
ermine, and on his head a wig; with the banisters, policemen and
jury before him, and in the dock, waiting to be sentenced, the man
who had stolen food.
And still there surged in his brain the words: "Ten thousand
curses on the law!"
Still there lurked in his heart the truth—that the law was
compounded of cant and cruelty, and that the whole complex system
of statutes and precedents had been invented in the interests of an
exploiting class.
But what was that to him—now?
Again he was the Judge who had been reared in the law; who for
long years had expounded the law; who was regarded as an eminent
authority on the principles of jurisprudence; and who, moreover,
was a member of that class that looked to the law to suppress all
who interfered with their comfort or threatened their security.
Addressing the prisoner, he said
"I should be wanting in my duty to my country if I permitted my
feelings of compassion to influence me in dealing with
transgressions against the law, which is the sheet-anchor of our
civilisation. In the interests of public order, and in vindication
of the rights of property, I must be just rather than merciful. The
sentence of the court is ten years' imprisonment with hard
labour."
"You're a canting hypocrite, and you know it!" cried the
man.
The court was thrown into a state of consternation...The Judge
turned as white as the ermine on his robe...Policemen laid hands on
the man, and dragged him away...
And again, from the sky that was visible through the windows of
the court, there came the sound of laughter.
It was God, enjoying a joke that only he could see.
I had almost forgotten that Young Rebel with whom I began this
roundabout cycle of tales. So many other things have occupied me in
the meantime. But having nothing else to think of just at present,
back he has popped into my mind, clamouring for attention.
And of course he's a very important character in the drama I am
somehow unfolding. Not only does it commence with his death, but I
rather fancy it will end with it, too; though you mustn't hold me
to that, for I haven't decided the point yet.
My immediate purpose is to relate the adventures he met with in
the big city that is the capital of Wherisit, whither the Old Poet
had sent him to find Pain, Courage and Love, because without these
he could not save the oppressed workers.
It will not take me long to tell you what I know, but you must
not conclude that things happened in this flashlight fashion to our
Young Rebel. He was years experiencing the events that I throw upon
the screen in a few minutes.
That is the difference between Life and Literature. Life covers
every inch of the ground, much of it dull and uninteresting.
Literature leaps to illuminated climaxes.
And now, lest I should be too lifelike, and bore you, I'll get
along with the story of how the Young Rebel found Pain.
* * *
You might imagine he'd have no trouble in finding THAT, and if
you do it shows that you haven't learned what Pain is.
Falling downstairs and dislocating your collarbone doesn't teach
you what it is. Barking your shins against a sharp corner, and
doing a dance of torture on one leg, leaves you in ignorance of its
essential nature.
It isn't physical suffering, at all. It's something related to
it in a sort of way, and yet it is entirely different. It's a sense
of the sorrows of others, with a good, big pang of your own thrown
in.
Now in this way the Young Rebel had never known Pain. He was a
thoughtful lad, but even his soberest thoughts were shot with
golden threads of pleasure. The world was a very nice place to live
in. The Old Poet had told him of the woeful condition of the
workers, and he had a natural hatred of injustice that made him
burn with indignation when he dwelt upon their wrongs, Yet he was
never sad.
In spite of oppression; in spite of hard labour, and poverty,
and sickness, and all the squalid circumstance of servitude, there
were pleasant features of existence, and Youth was a harp that
thrilled into music with every passing wind.
Even when he went to work as a labourer in an iron foundry, and
for many hours a day his life was encompassed by filth and fire,
and the stark grimness of toil—even then, in his heart there
was always a note of exultation; and when his body was wearied to
the point of exhaustion his mind still gloried in a universe of
beauty, as though he were one of an Olympian race, condemned to
earthly tasks, yet rejoicing in his immortality.
He hated the physical degradation of his job, nevertheless. And,
as the days passed, this feeling gained upon him, and bodily
fatigue grew to be so insistent that he felt himself in danger of
losing his grip upon the splendid verities of life, and subsiding
into a dreaming drudge.
"This won't do!" he said.
So one day he stayed away from the foundry, ignoring the
strident summons of its whistle, and went into the wooded country
on the outskirts of the city.
He wanted to hear a bird's song, for he knew that in this there
was more true wisdom than whole libraries of learning could impart.
And when presently he stood listening to a Lark trilling its
raptures in the blue and silver morning, the message of the music
illumined the deepest recesses of his being.
"You, too, have wings!" sang the Lark. "Spread them! Don't stay
too close to the earth, lest its soil get into your soul."
Then he wandered into a thicket, and coming on a tree-shadowed
Pool, peered into the gleaming blackness of its mirror till he saw
the future therein, in dim colours and wavering forms.
And his old friends, the Frogs, with their usual readiness to
oblige, gave him the benefit of their advice.
"Never get into a hole you can't climb out of!" they
croaked.
He thanked them warmly, understanding the application of their
words; for in the cryptic utterances of this stolid folk there is
always a hidden meaning of great practical value.
By this time the day was nearing its end, and in the twilight
sky the Moon rose with a gracious splendour, smiling to see him
waiting for her. No need to tell HER what he wished to know. The
Moon, from her great altitude, sees into the hearts of men as the
aeronaut into the deeps of the sea. Before he could speak she
answered:
"Better to starve in freedom than eat in slavery!"
"But—" said he.
"True," interrupted the Moon, who divines what you are going to
say ere you can say it "Only the slaves can save the slaves, But
first the gospel of liberty must inflame their minds; and no slave
can preach it."
"I will never go back to the works!" said the Young Rebel
firmly.
As he voiced this determination, fraught with a destiny he did
not suspect, a loud peal of laughter came from the heavens.
He thought it was the Moon, and felt hurt at her levity.
"You are mistaken," she said; "it wasn't me."
"Who, then?" he asked.
But not another word could he get from her.
* * *
After that he did only casual labour—no more than sufficed
to provide him with the barest necessaries of existence. The
remainder of his time he devoted to the work of agitation, talking
at the street corners, or wheresoever a crowd could be gathered
together.
It happened to be a troublous period. The hands of the
exploiters lay heavily upon the workers. They were subjected to
intolerable sweating; wages were so low that they and their
families were ill-fed, ill-housed and ill-clad. Misery was the
common lot; and this condition, brought as it often was into
glaring contrast with the ostentatious wealth of those who
oppressed them, had created widespread discontent and a smouldering
fire of anger.
Such a state of affairs could not last. The tension was too
great for human nature to bear.
It was an absolute relief when, one day, something gave way and
broke, and the men streamed out of the places of toil—on
strike!
For a while the enthusiasm was overwhelming. Huge mass meetings
were held. Torchlight processions were organised. Fiery resolutions
were passed; and the Moon, gazing down on excited multitudes, saw
the Young Rebel holding forth, and heard the cheers evoked by his
eloquent declamation. But it was not long before Hunger knocked
ominously at the doors of the strikers. They were not provisioned
for a siege. Their powers of resistance had been sapped by
continuous poverty and will-destroying labour.
Loudly Hunger knocked.
And at that terrifying sound the children began to cry. And the
wives went white with fear. And the fire died down in the strikers'
hearts and turned to ashes; and they listened sullenly to the
exhortations of their leaders; and the eloquence of the Young Rebel
aroused no answering spirit in them.
* * *
This was the Devil's opportunity. He seized it with the
consummate skill of one who has had unnumbered centuries of
experience in the arts of deceit.
Disguised as a gray-haired worker, he climbed upon the platform
after the Young Rebel had addressed an immense meeting, and spoke
as follows:
"Comrades, don't be misled by what you've just heard. What does
that bit of a lad know about our wrongs an' rights? Has HE suffered
as we have? No. Has HE a wife and children crying for food, as we
have? No. Was HE born an' bred here, as we were? He was not. Nobody
knows where he comes from. (Voices: That's truer) Maybe he's a
foreigner. There's some of 'em prowling about in Wherisit, spying
for them foreign Powers that envy us our greatness, an' would like
to rob us of this glorious land of ours." (Loud cries of "Down with
the foreigners!")
Seeing he was making an impression, the Devil continued in his
most insinuating manner:
"An', after all, mates, what's this trouble all about? We think
we've been hardly used, but our masters have their worries, don't
forget. They haven't been making much money lately. An' what's the
cause of it? Foreign competition! That's our enemy, not the
masters. Foreign competition, an' these agitators who seldom do any
work themselves, but go around stirring up discontent an' battening
on those who are fools enough to listen to 'em."
Prolonged applause greeted this statement from a section of the
crowd, while another section shouted curses at the Young Rebel, who
stood looking on, astounded and dazed by an exhibition of mob
fickleness such as he had not thought possible.
They were so obviously the victims of a terrible injustice, too,
that he could have wept at the sight of their haggard features, and
the marks of wretchedness they bore all over them.
"Mates," went on the Devil, looking the very picture of a bluff
and honest workman, "let us go to the masters an' talk the matter
over. They'll give us a fair deal, I'm sure. They're men, like us,
an' not foreign spies. All their interests are in Wherisit, an' it
follows—doesn't it?—that the more prosperous they make
this country the better for them. (Cheers.) I hear they're willing
to give us a Judge to fix a livid wage for us, an' decide how many
hours a day we shall work—-"
THE YOUNG REBEL (interjecting bitterly): "Yes, one of their own
class, at thirty pounds a week, to say whether we shall have thirty
shillings!"
THE DEVIL (pointing a good imitation of a toil-twisted finger at
him): "Hearken to the foreigner!" (Uproarious applause.)
Then, craftily seizing the psychological moment, the Devil leapt
from the platform exclaiming:
"The masters are holding a conference now. Let's go and
interview them, an' call the strike off. Follow me!"
With one accord, cheering lustily, the crowd swept behind the
Devil: and in a few minutes the meeting place was deserted, save
for a disillusioned agitator, standing there with a brain
bewildered and a heart filled and brimming over with mortification
and anguish.
* * *
And that was how the Young Rebel found Pain.
After the strike the Young Rebel could get employment nowhere.
He appeared to be known at every place he applied for a job.
"We want no agitators here!" was the curt answer he invariably
received, sometimes accompanied with a bitter sneer or a brutal
smile.
Before long he was in danger of starvation.
"It's a big world," said the Moon significantly, peeping in at
his window one night as he sat dejected and despairing.
He took the hint, and tramped into another part of the country.
Here he obtained work as a labourer on a farm; and then for many
months the daylight was spent in arduous toil and the darkness in
heavy sleep.
He had made up his mind to concern himself no more with the
wrongs of the working class; to give no further thought to the
theories of social justice that the Old Poet had taught him. Why
should he sacrifice himself for such an ignorant and ungrateful
crowd?
He would work long enough in the country, where nobody knew him,
to save up a goodly sum of money, and then—oh, for the city,
and some at least of the joys which youth demands as its sovereign
right.
But he had forgotten one thing. Drudgery destroys the will to
pleasure. It benumbs the brain; it dulls the nerves. Desire falls
into a slumber that is almost stupefaction.
As the days passed, he lost the inclination to break away from
his servitude. Out into the fields he went with the dawn, but
scarcely lifting his head to the glorious pageant of the heavens,
and mowed with the scythe or delved with the spade till his arms
ached and his back was straightened with difficulty, and his mind
was a weary chaos in which nothing existed but a medley of thoughts
about toil, food and sleep.
"Shake yourself up!" said the Moon, rising over the horizon
before he had left the field, "or you're a slave forever."
The Lark, singing its hymn to the departing day, circled high
above his head.
"Spread wings!" it shrilled, "or your soul will get clogged with
the dust."
And one of the elders of the Frog tribe, on its way to the dewy
wood, stayed for a moment to solemnly remark:
"Climb out of the hole, brother, before you slip too deep!"
He flung down the sickle he had been wielding, as the venerable
Frog resumed its leaping course for home. Something stirred
suddenly in his brain, and set its torpid molecules in motion.
"To-morrow," he said resolutely, looking up at the Moon, "I
shall return to the big city. I feel that I am needed there."
At the instant that he uttered these words a loud burst of
hilarity pealed through the sky.
"I see nothing to laugh at," he muttered, flushing with injured
pride.
"Wrong again," said the Moon. "It wasn't me."
* * *
You and I know Who it was, though the Moon had never breathed
the secret to a living creature.
It was God, enjoying another step forward in the great practical
joke he was going to play on the Rulers of Wherisit.
He knew that the hour had come for the Young Rebel to find
Courage as he had already found Pain, and it amused him very much
to contemplate the near approach of a comic climax he had planned
out millions and millions of years before.
* * *
By the time the Young Rebel reached the big city he had cast off
the lethargy that incessant labour had laid upon him, and his
faculties were as alert and keen as in the days when he played the
difficult role of an agitator.
The city was at its gayest.
Since the breaking of the strike the working class had given no
further trouble. An advance of a few shillings a week, granted by
an industrial court which had been instituted under the King's
seal, completely deluded them.
They now worked harder than ever, to compensate the employers
for this increase in the wages bill; for always at the back of the
worker's mind there is the fear that he is taking the boss
down.
There was consequently more wealth in the big city than at any
previous period of its history. (See on this interesting point an
admirable brochure entitled, "Comparative Statistics of Wherisit,"
by Professor Fatuous, D.O., N.K.Y., obtainable at any
self-respecting public museum.)
But the Young Rebel soon discovered that, under the surface
prosperity and gaiety, there were seething depths of
misery—depths so abysmal that no one could plumb them and
survive.
In the constant contemplation of this mass of wretchedness he
quickly lost all appetite for pleasure. The smouldering passion for
justice leapt into flame in his breast once more.
"What can I do for them?" he kept on murmuring to himself. "What
can I do for them?"
The Moon, sailing far above the roofs, made answer:
"You can die for them."
The words pierced his heart like a knife-thrust from a trusted
hand.
"I want to live for them!" he cried.
"Only in death can you live for them," said the Moon, and her
face was gray with grief.
* * *
The time had now come for the Young Rebel to find Courage.
'Tis a rare virtue. Don't confound it with physical heroism.
That is common enough, even in its highest manifestation on the
battlefield. Under the stimulus of excitement and public applause,
and the goad of retaliation, men are heroes all.
Courage exhibits itself in very different conditions. It is that
which impels a man forward without the hope of victory, without the
support of approbation; to certain defeat, to the hatred and
contempt of his fellows.
A rare virtue, indeed! Not one in a thousand is afflicted with
it. Yet over and over again it has saved the race.
When the Young Rebel stood up at the street corner few would
listen to him. Working men, with slavery branded on their brows,
turned away, scoffing and sneering at one who spoke a message of
freedom.
Wherever he went insult, or what was worse, indifference, was
the experience that awaited him. He was taunted with the failure of
the strike. He was called a foreigner. And grown men who had never
left off being childish asked jeeringly:
"Can a boy like this teach US?"
But in the course of months of seemingly hopeless propaganda
there gathered about him a little band of fearless followers. These
attended all his meetings, and some of them spoke in support of the
gospel of Unity that he preached.
"No man can be free by himself," he said. "Freedom is
fraternity. No man can be saved alone. Salvation is mutual
aid."
Day after day he and his friends spoke thus to the people, and
although few seemed to heed, and the great majority were hostile or
apathetic, the seeds of truth sowed in this unpromising soil did
not perish utterly, but germinated in many hearts, and put forth
roots, and struggled into leaf and bud.
Revolutionary ideas, in fact, became so prevalent, and made
themselves manifest in such unlikely places, that the Rulers of
Wherisit became alarmed, and wondered what they should do.
"Leave it to me," said the Devil, figuring in their councils as
a distinguished diplomat.
And assuming the disguise of the honest old workman, which had
served him so well before, he made for a public park where he knew
the Young Rebel would be speaking.
* * *
"There are thieves in power in this land," were the first words
he heard, as he mingled with the crowd the Young Rebel was
addressing.
"Then why don't you go and accuse them?" the sham old workman
interjected.
Voices: "Hear, hear! That's the sort of talk!"
Sham Old Workman: "Give the thieves a chance to answer you."
More Voices: "He ain't game! He talks behind their backs!"
This was as the Devil had foreseen. He chuckled under cover of
his disguise. The Young Rebel was discredited again!
But not so fast, O Fox of the Ages! Cunning may overreach itself
and ingenuity foil its own plots.
"I am going straight up to the palace now!" said the Young Rebel
calmly. "Let who will come with me, and hear the thieves impeached.
And let all who hear make it known throughout Wherisit, that the
people may decide the issues and deliver the judgment."
He descended from the platform, and began to move towards the
King's palace.
The crowd of workers, astounded at this dramatic turn of
affairs, followed him, marvelling what would happen next.
* * *
Now the Young Rebel knew that he was going to his doom. He knew
that what the Moon had told him was about to be fulfilled.
And though never had he loved life as at that hour; though the
blue of the sky filled him with a poignant desire for its beauty,
and the very taste of the air tempted him like wine to the paths of
pleasure, and the sights and sounds of Nature were sirens luring
him to live, he went steadily on to defeat and death, not for an
instant faltering in his determination.
And that was how the Young Rebel found Courage.
The news spread quickly to the palace that a mob was coming,
headed by the notorious Young Rebel who had been the principal
fomentor of the strike.
The King, a very nervy man, got into a flutter of fear at
once.
"What can the wretches want?" he cried, and kept running to the
window to watch for the dreaded approach. "Its a trying situation
for one like me, who has never been trained to argue."
"I'll call out the troops!" said The Soldier. "Rifles are more
convincing than reasons."
"I'll threaten them with Hell!" said The High Priest. "The next
life has more terror for them than this."
"I'll read a proclamation!" said The Lawyer. "The extreme
penalty has power to deter the boldest."
"I'll buy their leader!" said The Moneylord. "Gold succeeds
where gods, guns, and gallows fail."
But at this point the Devil intervened. (It was he, by the way,
who had hurried ahead to carry the news to the palace.) Assuming
the character of Chief of the Diplomatic Staff, and First Lord of
the Grovel Department, he thus addressed the King:
"Pardon me, your Majesty, for presuming to offer a suggestion to
one whose wisdom the whole world admires. But I perceive that it is
already your royal intention to grant an audience to this infamous
Rebel, and by the simple device of encouraging him to speak, get
him to furnish us with direct evidence for a charge of high
treason. I think that that would be a stroke of strategic genius
worthy of your Majesty's great intellect, and although I know your
Imperial will needs no prompting from one of the humblest of your
servants, I am proud to be able to discern, however inadequately,
what is in your Majesty's unparalleled mind. As your Majesty has so
sagely remarked, there is no better way of deluding the people than
by a show of justice."
Now of course the King had made no such remark, nor had he any
plan whatever in his head. But, like most persons of fastidious
appetite, he could swallow the grossest flattery with pleasure, and
was therefore much impressed by the foregoing speech, and more
particularly by the manner of its delivery, for the Devil is an
adept in the art of persuasion, as you doubtless have reason to
know.
He can persuade an ugly woman that she is handsome, and a dull
man that he is clever, and a sinner that he is a saint.
He does this, not by telling lies, which is a very amateur form
of deceit, but by a skilful manipulation of the truth. In the
ugliest there is some beauty; in the dullest some wit; in the
wickedest some good: and the Devil understands how to make the most
of this universal fact, and twist it to his own ends.
"You are right," said the delighted King. "I have decided to
receive the Rebel in the State Room, and entrap him with fair
words."
* * *
By this time the crowd had reached the door of the palace, and
were vigorously ringing the bell.
So confident had the King now grown in his own sagacity that he
went down to the door himself. Opening it wide he said,﹃Walk right
in!﹄with a heartiness that was really surprising under the
circumstances.
And when the crowd saw who it was that stood there, with a smile
on his face and a crown on his head, they were so astonished that
they became quite timid and tame, and backed away, touching their
caps.
Not, however, the Young Rebel. He entered the palace without a
moment's hesitation, and with no word nor gesture of servility. And
the few who believed in him, followed at his heels.
* * *
Into the State Room the King led them.
Then, seating himself on the throne, with the Devil on his right
to prompt him, and on his left the High Priest, The Soldier, The
Lawyer and The Moneylord to support him, and at his back an array
of picked troops to protect him, and Courtiers and other flunkeys
all around to applaud him, he turned to the Young Rebel and
said:
"You are trying to breed dissension in this happy realm of Ours.
You are stirring up the people against Us. What have you to say for
yourself?"
The Young Rebel replied: "For myself I have nothing to say. It
is for the people I would speak."
"Speak, then!" commanded the King.
So the Young Rebel spoke.
He said that the people were hungry, because thieves were
permitted to plunder them.
He said that the people were ignorant, because teachers were
employed to delude them.
He said that the people were broken with toil, because they had
to feed and clothe an idle class.
He said that this idle class had to be maintained in luxury and
splendour, and grand houses built for them, and many privileges
accorded them; and that they monopolised all the honours of the
land, all the positions of dignity and power, and set themselves up
as a superior caste, made of a finer clay than the people, with a
blood of different colour flowing in their veins.
The Devil, standing deferentially beside the King, thought the
moment had come to bring matters to a head, and lure the Young
Rebel to utter the incriminating word for which they were all
waiting.
"What his Majesty wants to know," he said, cringing towards the
throne, "is this. How do you propose to remedy that which you
complain of?"
The Young Rebel was well aware of the object of this question.
He perceived in it the gaping jaw of a trap that would close upon
him fatally the instant that he touched it. Yet he did not
hesitate. The Courage he had found braced him to the crisis.
Not looking at the Devil, nor at the High Priest, The Soldier,
The Lawyer, and The Moneylord, but fixing his gaze unfalteringly on
the countenance of the King, the Young Rebel made answer:
"I would remedy the evils of which I complain by sweeping away
their causes. I would rescue the people from hunger by compelling
the thieves who rob them to earn an honest living."
The Moneylord flushed with rage.
"I would redeem the people from ignorance by discrediting the
false teachers and endowing the truth."
The High Priest muttered angrily to himself.
"I would relieve the people of body-breaking drudgery by calling
upon the idle class to cease their burdensome toll on the labours
of others, and perform their just share of useful service to the
community."
The Courtiers and other flunkeys gasped indignantly.
"I would repeal all statutes bolstering up the evil state of
things existing, and acknowledge no law but the will of the workers
and their welfare."
The Lawyer turned pale as parchment with wrath.
"I would abolish the army, the navy, and all the
instrumentalities of force—(The Soldier clapped hand to his
sword )—which only the reign of injustice renders necessary,
and rely for the preservation of peace on the sense of brotherhood
and fair-dealing and orderliness that is inherent in human nature,
but up to now has never been given a chance."
"Yes," said the Devil, smirking obsequiously at the King. "But
in your new State you must have some representative of authority,
some recognised sovereignty of power, to which all citizens would
loyally yield obedience. Who or what would it be?"
The Young Rebel saw that the teeth of the trap were about to
close upon him. Yet he did not flinch.
"In the new State," he said quietly, "there will be no
authority, no sovereignty, save that of the People!"
As with one accord a loud shout of "Treason!" went up from the
King's supporters.
"Seize him!" cried The Soldier.
In a moment the troops were swarming round the Young Rebel, and
he was a prisoner in their midst. His faithful few made a desperate
effort to defend him, but the armed men swept them aside, and in a
little while they were driven out of the palace into the road,
where the fickle mob received them with hoots and groans.
"This Rebel," said the King, "merits no consideration at Our
hands; nevertheless Our intentions towards him shall be guided by
Our merciful thoughtfulness rather than by that detestation of his
criminal utterances which was the first impulse of Our royal heart.
Take him away and guard him well. He shall be indicted before the
Supreme Court of Wherisit, and punished in due accordance with the
law and the constitution."
* * *
The time had now come for the Young Rebel to find Love.
What IS Love?
Is it the affection of husbands and wives? Of parents and
children? Of brothers and sisters? Is it being fond of those who
are fond of us?
Ah, Love is not such an easy thing as that. Love is not a
reciprocity of regard. Love is a feeling of tenderness for those
who use us despitefully—who abuse us and injure us, and
foment hatred against us.
The Young Rebel, sitting in his cell, could hear the crowd
outside clamouring for his death.
And he was filled with a great pity for them; for he knew that
their ignorance, their degradation, their cruelty, their inconstant
passions were due, not to any natural depravity in them, but to
their pernicious environment and the influence of many generations
of perverted heredity...
At night the Moon peered in through the prison bars with a sad
face.
"Only by dying for the people can you live for the people," she
said.
"I am ready," was the firm response.
* * *
And that was how the Young Rebel found Love.
This cycle of tales is rapidly drawing to a close—if that
can be called the close which is also the beginning.
You may think that by bringing you back by a circuitous route to
the place where we began I am playing it rather low down on you.
But my mind is perfectly at ease on the matter.
These tales were bound to start at the end, and end at the
start, for they deal with life; and what is life but a circus ring,
with a whip to keep things jogging, and a clown to relieve the
sadness with a jest almost as melancholy?
* * *
I have nothing more to tell you about the Young Rebel except
that they tried him for sedition, found him guilty, and condemned
him to be crucified.
The trial, of course, was a mere mockery. All trials for
sedition are. Judge Bygone sits on the bench, and passes sentence
on the Future.
And it's a silly thing to do, because the Future cannot be
prevented from happening. It may be nailed on the Cross to-day; but
to-morrow it is in our midst, superintending the funeral of its
enemies.
That is where the Devil is always liable to fall in. He is
unable to see a single inch in front of his nose. In the direction
indicated by his tail his vision is wonderful. But it's no use
looking back when you've got to deal with God, and the Devil's
extensive surveys of the rear did not save him from tumbling into
the hole that lay immediately before him.
That was the cream of God's joke.
He knew that the Rulers of Wherisit, prompted by the Devil,
would strain their eyes on the scenery of the Past, and believe
themselves secure if no foe was visible there. And it pleased him
mightily to foresee the Future, embodied in the Young Rebel,
digging a pit of doom for their unsuspecting feet.
* * *
When the Rulers of Wherisit saw the Cross raised on a hill
outside the city walls, and the Young Rebel dead upon it, they
congratulated one another, and the King conferred on the Devil the
greatest honour in the royal gift; that is to say, he made him
Grand High Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of Mischievous
Meddlers.
"You have saved the Kingdom of Wherisit," said the King. "And I
am sure we are all of us very willing to acknowledge our
indebtedness to you."
"Undoubtedly," said the High Priest, bowing to the Devil. "Your
wisdom shall henceforth be incorporated in the Canon of the
Temple."
"I shall always think of you when I draw the sword," said The
Soldier.
"While ever there is a Criminal Code you shall not be
forgotten," said The Lawyer.
"I shall have your image cast in gold," said The Moneylord.
"You are all extremely flattering," returned the Devil. "And as
for Your Majesty—(turning to the King with a profound
obeisance)—the generosity of your sentiments is a proverb in
the mouths of men."
It was at the very moment when the Rulers of Wherisit and the
Devil were thus exchanging compliments that the voice of God was
heard propounding the momentous question,﹃Who is the Most Powerful
Person in the World?﹄as related in the first tale of this
veracious cycle.
I need not repeat what happened then. I need not tell you how
the King exclaimed, "I AM, to be sure!" and of the humiliating
experience that taught him otherwise.
Nor need I remind you of the humbling of the High Priest, The
Soldier, The Lawyer, and The Moneylord, and of the bitterness of
soul that was theirs when the Supreme Joker, shaking the skies with
his laughter, transfigured the crucified Rebel with a ray of light,
and said, "THERE is the Most Powerful Person in the World!"
All this I have already placed on record; and I may mention, by
the way, that the original MS. is to be preserved in the archives
of All Fools College. And, really, I think I have nothing more to
impart to you.
You know how the Revolution came to pass. I have shown you the
common people pouring out of their hovels into the streets, with
the truth that the Young Rebel had spoken burning in their breasts
like a flame.
You have witnessed the downfall of the Rulers. You have seen the
King's sceptre become a rush and his crown a dunce's cap.
You have seen the gorgeous vestments of the High Priest change
to filthy rags, stained with the foulness of centuries and the
blood of many victims.
You have seen the gold of The Moneylord turn to dust and
ashes.
And you know that when all this was done God's joke was
consummated, for you heard his voice come out of the heavens,
taunting the fallen Rulers of Wherisit.
"You have slain the Rebel," said God. "You have buried him deep,
with a great stone upon his grave. But the Truth he uttered you
could not slay, and no grave could contain it."
And then you heard the Supreme Jester's mocking query,﹃Who is
the Most Powerful Person in the World?﹄and the sound of his
hilarity you heard also, reverberating through the universe.
I would tell you more if I knew it, but I don't. I would tell
you what became of the people who had cast the Rulers down.
Were they happy ever after?
"I am dying to know, myself, but Time alone can answer, and all
that can be got from HIM is a sly smile and Wait and see!"
Did poverty disappear from the land when the people were no
longer plundered?
Did they become intelligent when teachers were not paid to keep
them dull?
Did war cease when the power of the predatory class was broken,
and the workers owned the earth?
These, I am sorry to admit, are questions to which I have no
reply. I am like a man in a house of locked doors, with no key, nor
any means of forcing an entry into rooms that excite an insatiable
curiosity.
Yet though unable to say what followed on the Revolution in
Wherisit, three things I believe:
(1) That the people elevated humanity to heights never known
before.
(2) That they set all mankind free, for the first time since the
world began; and imbued them with a passion for truth and justice;
and established a Confraternity of Nations, each enjoying the sun
above it, and envying not its fellows what share of the sunlight
fell to them.
(3) That happiness became as common and as sweet as the air, so
that every creature was able to inhale it deeply and feel it
quickening all the faculties of life.
And let me add, to dispel the least vestige of doubt, that my
faith is sustained by the high authority of the Moon.
"There's a meaning in God's joke, you may depend on it," said
she, when I met her by appointment the other night, long after
every Wiseacre had gone to bed, and Respectability had doused its
glim. "He did not bring the Rebel into existence merely to cast
down wicked Rulers, but to create a new world of Love, Liberty, and
Joy."
I was delighted to hear her say this, for I have the highest
opinion of her sagacity—especially when it confirms my own
view—and I am sure no one is better able to plumb the depths
of the divine humour, and perceive in the abyss the secret
significance of it all.
* * *
Anyway, I have done what I can for you.
I have told you the story of the practical joke that was played
by God on the Rulers of Wherisit. I have told it as it came to my
knowledge, and have assured you it is true.
Whether you believe it or not is no concern of mine.
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