margaret looked up from the novelette she was reading.
"are the aristocracy really like what they are in this story?" she asked.
"i don't know," i replied; "i'm not acquainted with the aristocracy, but i should say that they aren't like the aristocracy in that yarn. you see, margaret, i happen to know some of the men who write these novelettes. murray is a don at them; he'll turn one out between breakfast and dinner. to the best of my knowledge murray has never dined in any restaurant more expensive than an a.b.c. shop ... and his characters always dine at the ritz."
"but have you never met anybody with a title?"
"i once collided with a man at the british museum door," i said. "he was a scot.... i know that because neither of us apologised; we merely jerked out 'oh!' i am almost sure that the man was sir j. m. barrie. and i shook hands with two dukes and three lords at a university dinner, but they possibly have forgotten the incident."
no. i don't know the aristocracy well.
i met a titled lady last summer. i was staying at a country house near london, and this lady had the neighbouring house. she[pg 87] came over on the sunday afternoon. my host informed me that she had lost two sons in the war. after she had gone i was asked what i thought of the english aristocracy, and i gave my opinion in these words:—"to the english aristocracy property alone is sacred. that woman has given the lives of her two sons willingly for her country, but if she were asked to give half an acre of her estate to help pay for the war she would go mad with rage and disgust."
when i heard that lady grumble about the wickedness of the munition-workers.... "and, my dear, women in shawls are buying pianos and seal-skin jackets!" ... i realised how hopeless was the cry of the new age for the conscription of wealth. the powerful classes will resist conscription of wealth as strenuously as they resist the germans. yet the conscription of men was in very many cases a conscription of wealth. one had only to read the tribunal cases to discover that thousands of men had to deliver up all their wealth when they joined the army. there was wrangler the actor; his property was his talent to portray character, and from that he drew his income. his property was conscripted along with him. it was fitting that he should give up all when the state required him to give it up. but the state requires all the wealth of the moneyed classes, and because economic power controls political power the state will not conscript the wealth of its real governors.
[pg 88]
i see now that our education is founded on the unpleasant fact that property is more sacred than life. teachers are encouraged to make their pupils patriotic; every boy must be brought up in the belief that it is great and glorious to die for one's country. a real patriotism would lead a boy to realise that it is a great and glorious thing to live for one's country; the true patriot would teach his lads to make their country a great and glorious country to die for. somehow our schools for the most part ignore this branch of patriotism; it does not seem so important as the flag-waving and standing to attention that passes for patriotism.
macdonald is decorating the walls of the school with coloured prints of our warships. "to make them realise how much the navy means to them," he explained to me as i looked at them.
"excellent!" i said. "the navy deserves all the respect we can give it. but, macdonald, in your position i should give a further lesson on patriotism; i should point out to these bairns that while the glorious navy is defending our shores from a foreign enemy the enemy within is plundering the nation. i should tell them that under the protection of the navy the profiteers are raising the prices of necessaries hand over fist. all the patriotic flag-waving in the world won't help these bairns to understand that the patriotism of the masses is being exploited by the self-seeking of the dirty few."
[pg 89]
patriotism! we have popular weeklies that endeavour to make the people patriotic. they lash themselves into a fury over momentous questions: the ich dien on the crest of the prince of wales must go; the duke of so-and-so must have his garter taken from him; who was the spy who sent kitchener to his doom?
the only way to encourage children to be patriotic is to tell them the sober truth about the important things of life. the invention of the word "shirker" managed to effect that the most timid of men should fight for his country; public opinion will always look after the patriotism necessary for war. but my complaint is that public opinion will not look after the patriotism necessary for peace. if we were all true patriots there would be no slums, no exploitation, no profiteering. and the "patriotic" lesson in school should deal with economics instead of jingo ballads of victories won.
* * *
i cycled twelve miles to-night, and i raised a comfortable thirst. when i came to the village i dropped into the glamis arms and had a bottle of lager. as i came out i ran into macdonald.
"lucky fellow!" he laughed, "you have no position to maintain now and you can afford to quench a thirst!"
"position be blowed!" i said, "i drink when i'm dry, and i always did. when i was[pg 90] dominie here i dropped in here more than once in the hot weather."
"and they sacked you!"
"not because of that," i said, "but in spite of it. believe me it was the one thing that made one or two villagers more amiable to me."
the scot's attitude to the public-house is entertaining. if you have any position to keep up you must not enter a public-house ... you must get it in by the dozen. when i first went to london and entered a saloon bar in the strand i was amazed to find women sitting with their husbands; i was also amazed to find no drunks about. in a scots bar the most apparent phenomenon is wrangling. i never heard an argument in a london bar, and i have been in many: i never saw a drunk man in london, and i was there for two years.
the public-house in scotland is not respectable: in england it is. why this should be i can only guess. the scot may be a bigger hypocrite than the englishman; what is more probable is that he may be a harder drinker. in scotland entering a public-house is synonymous with getting drunk. yet there are what you might call alcoholic gradations. a respectable farmer may enter a bar without comment, but a teacher must not enter it. he is the guide of the young, and he must be an example. teachers seldom enter village bars ... and yet scotland is notorious for drinking. if the teachers determined to become regular bar[pg 91] customers i conclude that scotland would drink herself off the face of the map.
i have a theory that the calvinistic attitude to the public-house is the chief cause of scots drunkenness. when a scot enters a bar he knows that he won't have the courage to be seen coming out again ... and he very naturally says to himself: "ach, to hell! aw'll hae another just to fortify mysel' for gaein' oot!" the public-house isn't a public-house at all; it is the most private of houses. peter soutar the leading elder in the kirk here always carries a bundle of church magazines in his hand when he enters the glamis arms; when the date is past magazine time he enters by the back door. jeemes walker the leading free kirk elder goes in to read the gospel to old mrs. melville the invalid mother of the landlord, and the village is uncharitable enough to remark in his hearing that he really goes to interview his brother "johnny." i think that it was the doctor who originated that joke.
a public-house is no place for a public man in scotland.
* * *
the opening of the coal mines has brought to the neighbourhood a new type of person. he is usually an engineer who has spent a good few years abroad, and he is usually married ... very much married. his wife is always a grade above the wife of the engineer next door, and the men appear to spend most of their leisure time in mending quarrels that[pg 92] their wives began. most of the men are amiable fellows with the minimum of ideas and the maximum of knowledge of fishing and card-playing. they have a certain dignity, and they instantly freeze if you casually ask where such-and-such a light railway is to run.
the wives seem to have no interest other than in servants and their manifold wickedness and cussedness. they hold their noses high when they pass through the village, and they bully the local shopkeepers.
when i was a dominie these women patronised me delightfully, but now that i am a cattleman they are quite frank with me. i puzzled over this for some time, and the solution came to me suddenly. they are all english women, and in the english village the dominie is on very much the same social level as the vicar's gardener.
mrs. martinlake likes to chat to me now. she is a middle-aged lady who loves to reminisce about duchesses she has known. she once complained to me because the boys did not touch their caps to her, and on my suggesting that they hadn't been introduced she became very indignant. she called to me this morning as she passed the field i was working in.
"ah! good morning! i've been looking for you for a long time. i wanted to tell you how much the children have improved; every village boy touches his cap to me now!" and she laughed gaily.
"good!" i cried. "if this sort of thing[pg 93] goes on they will be touching their caps to their mothers next."
"and why not?" she demanded with a slight touch of aggression.
i shrugged my shoulders.
"as you say—why not? i think that you ought to persuade your little boy to touch his cap to all the mothers in the village. i notice that he doesn't do it. you take my tip and send him down to macdonald's school; he'll soon pick it up."
she went off without a word, and i realised that i had been distinctly rude to her. somehow i felt glad that i had been rude to her.
i told margaret about the incident afterwards.
"i hate manners, margaret," i said.
"but," she said wonderingly, "you are very mannerly."
"to you i believe i am, margaret," i laughed. "but that is because you don't look for manners. mrs. martinlake is eternally looking for manners, and to her manners mean respect, deference, boot-licking. she doesn't want the boys to doff their caps to her because she is a woman; no, she wants them to recognise the fact that she is mrs. martinlake, self-alleged friend of duchesses. she doesn't care a tupenny damn for the boys and their lives; she is thinking of mrs. martinlake all the time. she once talked to me of the respect due to motherhood ... and you know that she sacked liz smith when she discovered that liz had had an illegitimate child.
[pg 94]
"women of that type get my back up," i went on. "they are stupid, low-minded, arrogant. they are poor imitations of the parisian ladies who curled their lips contemptuously at the plebeian rabble that led them to the guillotine. the parisian ladies had a fine pride of race to redeem their arrogance, but these women have nothing but pride of class. margaret, if a teacher failed to teach a boy anything except the truth that deference is one of the seven deadly virtues, i should say that that teacher was a successful teacher."
* * *
the concert was a success to-night. the singing was good, but the speech of the chairman, peter macmannish, was great.
"ladies and gentlemen,
"we're a' verra weel pleased to see sik a big turn-oot the nicht. aw need hardly say onything aboot the object o' this concert, but it's to get a puckle bawbees to send oot a clean pair o' socks and maybe a clean sark to oor local sojers oot in france.—(cheers).
"weel, ladies and gentlemen, aw've made mony a speech on this platform in the days when aw fought for the conservative candidate, mester fletcher (cheers, and a voice: 'gie it a drink, cobbler!')"
the light of battle leapt to peter's eyes.
"aw ken that wheezin' radical's voice!" he cried, "and aw wud just like to tell that voice that there's no room for radicals in this[pg 95] war. what was the attitude o' that man's party to protection? when mester chamberlain stood up in glesga toon hall what did he say?" i gently touched peter on the arm and reminded him of the concert and its object.
"ladies and gentlemen, we'll no touch on thae topics here, for ye cam here for another object than to listen to me (several voices: 'hear, hear!') afore we begin to the programme aw wud just like to say that we have to thank oor late dominie for gettin' up this concert. some o' us had no love for him as a dominie, but aw say let bygones be bygones. we a' ken that he's no a teacher (laughter), but he's a clever fellow for a' that, and we'll maybe see him in parliament yet. that hoose has muckle need o' new blood. when aw think o' lloyd george and that man churchill; when aw see the condeetion they've brocht the country till; when aw think o' the slack wye they've let the trade unions rob the country; when aw see—" i coughed here, and peter drew up.
"weel, ladies and gentlemen, this is no a poleetical meetin', and aw've muckle pleasure in callin' upon miss jean black for a sang," he peered at his programme, "a sang enteeled: a moonlight sonnita." miss jean black forthwith sat down at the piano.
during the interval peter digged me in the ribs.
"what d'ye think o' my suggestion, dominie, eh?"
[pg 96]
"what suggestion?"
"aboot standin' for parliament. it's a payin' game noo-a-days ... fower hunner a year and yer tea when the hoose is sittin'. goad, dominie, think o' sittin' takkin' yer tea wi' airthur balfoor!" and he sighed wistfully as a child sighs when it dreams of fairyland and wakes to reality.
"aye," he said after a long pause, "aw wance shook hands wi' joe chamberlain. his lawware says to him: 'this is mester macmannish, wan o' yer chief supporters in the county,' and aw just taks my hand oot o' my breek pooch. 'verra pleased to meet ye,' says aw ... 'and hoo is yer missis and the bairns?' man, he lauched at that. goad he lauched!"
peter forgot the crowded hall; he stared at the ceiling unseeingly, and he lived over again the greatest day of his life. it was fitting that a scot should have originated the title "heroes and hero-worship."