Part 63 (1/2)
Punctual to the moment George Brand arrived in Lisle Street. He was shown into an inner room, where he found Lind seated at a desk, and Reitzei and Beratinsky standing by the fireplace. On an adjacent table where four cups of black coffee, four small gla.s.ses, a bottle of brandy, and a box of cigarettes.
Lind rose to receive him, and was very courteous indeed--apologizing for having had to break in on his preparations for leaving, and offering him coffee, cigarettes, and what not. When the new-comer had declined these, Lind resumed his place and begged the others to be seated.
”We will proceed to business at once, gentlemen,” said he, speaking in quite an ordinary and matter-of-fact way, ”although, I will confess to you, it is not business entirely to my liking. Perhaps I should not say so. This paper, you see, contains my authorization from the Council to summon you and to explain the service they demand: perhaps I should merely obey, and say nothing. But we are friends; we can speak in confidence.”
Here Reitzei, who was even more pallid than usual, and whose fingers seemed somewhat shaky, filled one of the small gla.s.ses of brandy, and drank it off.
”I do not say that I hesitate,” continued Lind--”that I am reluctant, because the service that is required from us--from one of us four--is dangerous--is exceedingly dangerous. No,” he said, with a brief smile, ”as far as I am myself concerned, I have carried my life in my hands too often to think much about that. And you, gentlemen, considering the obligations you have accepted, I take it that the question of possible harm to yourselves is not likely to interfere with your obedience to the commands of the Council.”
”As for me,” said Reitzei, eagerly and nervously, ”I tell you this, I should like to have something exciting now--I do not care what. I am tired of this work in London; it is slow, regular, like the ticking of a clock. I am for something to stir the blood a little. I say that I am ready for anything.”
”As for me,” said Beratinsky, curtly, ”no one has ever yet called me a coward.”
Brand said nothing; but he perceived that this was something unusually serious, and almost unconsciously he closed his right hand that he might feel the clasp of Natalie's ring. There was no need to appeal to his oaths of allegiance.
Lind proceeded, in a graver fas.h.i.+on,
”Yes, I confess that personally I am for avoiding violence, for proceeding according to law. But then the Council would say, perhaps, 'Are there not injuries for which the law gives no redress? Are there not those who are beyond the power of the law? And we, who have given our lives to the redressing of wrongs, to the protection of the poor, to the establishment of the right, are we to stand by and see the moral sense of the community outraged by those in high places, and say no word, and lift no hand?'”
He took up a book that was lying on the table, and opened it at a marked page.
”Yes,” he said, ”there are occasions on which a man may justly take the law into his own hands; may break the law, and go beyond it, and punish those whom the law has failed to punish; and the moral sense of the world will say, 'Well done!' Did you ever happen to read, Mr. Brand, the letter written by Madame von Maders.p.a.ch?”
Brand started at the mention of the name: it recalled the first evening on which he had seen Natalie. What strange things had happened since then! He answered that he did not know of Madame von Maders.p.a.ch's letter.
”By chance I came across it to-day,” said Lind, looking at the book.
”Listen: 'I was torn from the arms of my husband, from the circle of my children, from the hallowed sanctuary of my home, charged with no offence, allowed no hearing, arraigned before no judge. I, a woman, wife, and mother, was in my own native town, before the people accustomed to treat me with respect, dragged into a square of soldiers, and there scourged with rods. Look, I can write this without dropping dead! But my husband killed himself. Robbed of all other weapons, he shot himself with a pocket-pistol. The people rose, and would have killed those who instigated these horrors, but their lives were saved by the interference of the military.' Very well. Von Maders.p.a.ch took his own way; he shot himself. But if, instead of doing that, he had taken the law into his own hands, and killed the author of such an outrage, do you think there is a human being in the world who would have blamed him?”
He appealed directly to Brand. Brand answered calmly, but with his face grown rather white, ”I think if such a thing were done to--to my wife, I would have a shot at somebody.”
Perhaps Lind thought that it was the recital of the wrongs of Madame von Maders.p.a.ch that had made this man's face grow white, and given him that look about the mouth; but at all events he continued, ”Exactly so. I was only seeking to show you that there are occasions on which a man might justly take the law into his own hands. Well, then, some would argue--I don't say so myself, but some would say--that what a man may do justly an a.s.sociation may do justly. What would the quick-spreading civilization of America have done but for the Lynch tribunals? The respectable people said to themselves, 'it is question of life or death. We have to attack those scoundrels at once, or society will be destroyed. We cannot wait for the law: it is powerless.' And so when the president had given his decision, out they went and caught the scoundrels, and strung them up to the nearest tree. You do not call them murderers. John Lynch ought to have a statue in every Western State in America.”
”Certainly, certainly!” exclaimed Reitzei, reaching over and filling out another gla.s.s of brandy with an unsteady hand. He was usually an exceedingly temperate person. ”We are all agreed. Justice must be done, whether the law allows or not; I say the quicker the better.”
Lind paid no heed to him, but proceeded quietly, ”Now I will come more directly to what is required of us by the Council; I have been trying to guess at their view of the question; perhaps I am altogether wrong; but no matter. And I will ask you to imagine yourselves not here in this free country of England, where the law is strong--and not only that, but you have a public opinion that is stronger still--and where it is not possible that a great Churchman should be a man living in open iniquity, and an oppressor and a scoundrel--I will ask you to imagine yourselves living in Italy, let one say in the Papal Territory itself, where the reign of Christ should be, and where the poor should be cared for, if there is Christianity still on the earth. And you are poor, let us say; hardly knowing how to sc.r.a.pe together a handful of food sometimes; and your children ragged and hungry; and you forced from time to time to go to the Monte di Pieta to p.a.w.n your small belongings, or else you will die, or you will see your children die before your eyes.”
”Ah, yes, yes!” exclaimed Reitzei. ”That is the worst of it--to see one's children die! That is worse than one's own hunger.”
”And you,” continued Lind, quietly, but still with a little more distinctness of emphasis, ”you, you poor devils, you see a great dignitary of the Church, a great prince among priests, living in shameless luxury, in violation of every law, human and divine, with the children of his mistresses set up in palaces, himself living on the fat of the land. What law does he not break, this libertine, this usurer?
What makes the corn dear, so that you cannot get it for your starving children?--what but this plunderer, this robber, seizing the funds that extremity has dragged from the poor in order to buy up the grain of the States? A pretty speculation! No wonder that you murmur and complain; that you curse him under your breath, that you call him _il cardinale affamatore_. And no wonder, if you happen to belong to a great a.s.sociation that has promised to see justice done, no wonder you come to that a.s.sociation and say, 'Masters, why cannot justice be done now? It is too long to wait for the Millennium. Remove this oppressor from the face of the earth: down with the Starving Cardinal!'”
”Yes, yes, yes!” cried Reitzei, excitedly. Beratinsky sat silent and sullen. Brand, with some strange foreboding of what was coming, still sat with his hand tight closed on Natalie's ring.
”More,” continued Lind--and now, if he was acting, it was a rare piece of acting, for wrath and indignation gathered on his brow, and increased the emphasis of his voice--”it is not only your purses, it is not only your poor starved homesteadings that are attacked, it is the honor of your women. Whose sister or daughter is safe? Mr. Brand, one of your English poets has made the poor cry to the rich,
”'Our sons are your slaves by day, Our daughters your slaves by night.'
But what if some day a poor man--I will tell you his name--his name is De Bedros; he is not a peasant, but a helpless, poor old man--what if this man comes to the great a.s.sociation that I have mentioned and says, wringing his hands, 'My Brothers and Companions, you have sworn to protect the weak and avenge the injured: what is your oath worth if you do not help me now? My daughter, my only daughter, has been taken from me, she has been stolen from my side, shrieking with fear, and I thrown bleeding into the ditch. By whom? By one who is beyond the law; who laughs at the law; who is the law! But you--you will be the avengers.