The Men Who Wrought
CHAPTER I
THE DANGER
"Amongst the many uncertainties which this deplorable, patched-up peace has brought us, there is, at least, one significant certainty, my boy. It's the inventor. He's buzzing about our heads like a fly in summer-time, and he's just about as – sticky."
Sir Andrew Farlow sighed. His sigh was an expression of relief; relief at the thought that he and his son, dining together at Dorby Towers for the first time since the dissolution of Parliament had released the latter from his political duties, had at last reached the end of a long discussion of the position brought about by the hopelessly patched-up peace, which, for the moment, had suspended the three years of terrible hostilities which had hurled the whole of Europe headlong over the precipice of ruin.
The great ship-owner toyed with the delicate stem of his liquor glass. There was a smile in his keen blue eyes. But it was a smile without lightness of heart to support it.
"Yes, I know. They've been busy enough throughout the war – and to some purpose. Now we have a breathing space they'll spread like a – plague."
Ruxton Farlow sipped his coffee. The weight of the recent discussion was still oppressing him. His mind was full of the appalling threat which the whole world knew to be overshadowing the future.
The dinner was drawing to its close. The butler, grown old in Sir Andrew's service, had finally withdrawn. The great Jacobean dining-hall of Dorby Towers, with its aged oak beams and beautifully carved panelling, was lost in the dim shadows cast by the carefully shaded table lights. Father and son were occupying only the extreme end of the dining-table, which had, at some far-distant age, served to bear the burden of the daily meals of half a hundred monks. There were no other lights in the room, and even the figures of the two diners were only illuminated by the reflected glow from the spotless damask on the table, a fashion to which the conservative habits of the household still ardently clung. It was a fitting setting for such a meeting as the present.
Sir Andrew Farlow, Baronet, was one of the greatest magnates of shipping and ship-building in the country, and was also one of the greatest sufferers by the German submarine warfare during the late war. His extreme wealth, and the fact of the enormous Government contracts in his ship-building yards, had left him practically immune from the consequences of his losses, but the losses to his fleet had been felt by the man, who was, before all things in the world, a shipmaster.
His son, and only partner, had spent those past three years in the service of his country. Not in the actual fighting line but in the work of organization, an important position which his wealth and capacity had entitled him to.
Sir Andrew pierced and lit a cigar.
"We mustn't ridicule them, though," he said, in his hearty Yorkshire way. "We've laughed at 'em too often in the past. It's a laugh which cost our country a couple of thousand millions, and a world-wide suffering which mankind will never forget." Then his manner lightened. "Henceforth the inventor must be to us a rare and precious orchid. We must spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on him, the same as I spend thousands on my orchid houses. I count myself well repaid if I succeed in raising one single perfect bloom on some rare plant. That is, if my rivals have failed with the same plant. The inventor is the orchid of modern civilization, and the perfect blooms he produces are very, very precious and – rare."
"You are thinking of those diabolical engines of destruction which were prepared for this war."
Ruxton helped himself to a cigar.
"On the contrary, I am thinking of the defence, not the offence, of this old country of ours."
The younger man nodded as he lit his cigar.
"That is it. We must prepare – prepare. We have only a breathing space for it."
"There must be no more slumbering."
"And no more sacrificing the country to self-seeking demagogues."
"Yes, and no more slavery to Party prejudices, as antique as the timbers of this house."
"Nor the knaveries of men who seek power through dividing the country into classes, and setting each at the other's throat."
"Nor must we ever again allow the nation's security, economic or military, to be hurled into the cockpit of Party politics."
"Gad! It makes me shiver when I think how near – how near – "
"We were to destruction," added Sir Andrew gravely.
It was again a moment of intense thought. Each man was regarding from his own view-point that intangible threat inspired by the unsatisfactory termination of the war, which left the Teutonic races in a position to brew further mischief with which to flood the world.
The pucker of thought, the drawn brows, completed the likeness of Sir Andrew Farlow to England's national symbolic figure. His broad shoulders and shortish figure; his round, strong, Yorkshire face, with its crowning of snow-white, curly hair, and the old-fashioned, crisp side whiskers made him a typical John Bull, even in his modern evening dress.
In the case of his son Ruxton it was almost in every respect an antithesis.
No foreigner would have taken Ruxton Farlow for anything but an Englishman, just as no Englishman but would have charged him with possessing foreign blood in his veins. And the Englishman would have been right.
Sir Andrew Farlow had spent a brief married life of a few months over one year with one of the most beautiful women amongst the Russian nobility, and the birth of his son left him a widower.
From his mother young Ruxton had inherited all those characteristics which foreign Europe assigns to the British born; his great size, his fair, waving hair and his darkly serious eyes. These things all came from his Russian mother, who had possessed them herself in a marked degree. Furthermore he inherited other qualities which could never be claimed for his Yorkshire father. The boy from his earliest childhood was an idealist: an idealist of but a single purpose which developed into a brilliant specimen of the modern product of an old-fashioned patriotism.
But he brought more to bear upon his patriotism than the mere passionate devotion to his country. He was a fine product of public school and university with the backing of a keen, well-balanced brain, and a natural aptitude for statecraft in relation to the rest of the world. He saw with eyes wide open to those interests dearest to his heart, and clearly, without one single smudge of the fog of personal self-interest.
"It's never out of my thoughts, Dad," Ruxton said at last. "It is with me at all times. It is the purpose of my life to devote myself to, and associate myself with, only those who will place their country before all else in life."
"An ideal difficult to realize in Great Britain," observed his father drily.
"Do you think that? Do you really think that?"
Sir Andrew stirred impatiently.
"It is not what I think. It is not what any of us think. It is what we see and hear – and know. This war has shown up so many weaknesses in the armor of our social economy as well as the psychology of our people that one hardly knows where to hurl one's condemnation the most forcefully. So many weaknesses and failures stand out crying aloud for the bitter castigations of national conscience that it is difficult to point out one worthy feature. Oh, you think that too sweeping," cried the baronet with flushed rugged cheeks and brow, as his son raised questioning eyes in his direction. "That is what every other man and woman in the country would say in their purblind vanity. But it is true. True of the country. True of us all. There is one thing which appeals to me as our greatest failure, however. One failure preëminent over all others that has sunk deep down in my heart, and the scar of which can never be obliterated. I was brought up in the early Victorian days when patriotism was no mere head-line in a sensation-loving press. It was something real. Something big. Something which gripped the sense of duty and made our men and women yearn for active participation when danger threatened our Empire, even to the sacrifice of all they held dear in life. That national spirit was sick to death when this war broke out. Our press was divided, our politicians were divided, and, yes, our people were largely indifferent.