  On the evening of that day Jasper and Eileen dined on board the “Bombastic,” that latest development of the old trans-Atlantic competition in shipbuilding, the boat that had made her first journey to New York carrying fugitives from England in the days when the threat of the plague grew hourly more imminent. The “Bombastic” had not justified her name, she had fled from Southampton without ceremony, and she had not returned for over a year. The “Apologetic” would have been more apt. And on this evening of her return, the demeanour of that crowd of quiet serious men in the huge over-decorated saloon, gave no hint of bombast. As they listened intently to the rapid story of their two travel-stained and somewhat ragged guests, there was no hint of brag or boast among them all. They came not as conquerors but as friends. “But oh, it’s your story we want to hear,” broke in Eileen at last. She had been strangely quiet so far, she had become suddenly conscious of the defects of her dress. The old associations were swarming about her. Eighteen months ago she had sat in just such another saloon as this, courted and flattered, the daughter Jasper had been more patient. He was not less eager than Eileen to hear the explanation of this wonderful visit, of the resurrection of these twelve hundred men from a dead and silent world. But he had restrained his impatience and told his story first. He knew that so he would be more quickly satisfied. He would be able to listen to men who were not tense with an anxiety to ask questions. They were sitting now at one end of a long table in the saloon, after eating a meal that had provided once more the longed-for satisfaction of salt. “Well,” said an American at the head of the table, turning to Eileen in answer to her protest, “we’ve maybe been selfish in putting all these questions but we’re looking ahead. We aren’t forgetting that we’ve a big work to do.” “But how did you get here?” asked Eileen impetuously. “How is it that you’re all alive?” “Well, as to that, you’d better ask the doctor, there,” replied the American. “He’s a countryman of yours, and he’s been in the thick of it and knows the life story of that plague microbe like the history of England.” The doctor, a bearded, grave-eyed man, looked up and smiled. “Hardly that,” he said. “We shall never know He paused for a moment and then continued: “Now in America both men and women were attacked. There was certainly a greater percentage of male cases, but I suppose something like half the female population was infected as well. As far as one can judge the bacillus was simply losing power. But for all we know it may have developed, it may be entering on a new stage of evolution, and in some apparently haphazard way now be beneficial to man instead of deadly. Such things may be happening every day below the reach of our knowledge. The little world is hidden from us, even as the great world is hidden.... “However,” he went on more briskly, “the thing we do know is that the symptoms of the new plague in America differed materially from our expectation of them, gathered from the accounts that had reached us from the Old World. In England the paralysis lasted, I believe, some forty-eight hours and ended in death. In America the paralysis “That paresis gave us time to do some very clear and consecutive thinking, I may remark,” put in an American. “I had four months to study my ideas of life.” The doctor nodded thoughtfully. “America is no less changed than England,” he said, “but it is another change. Well, you understand that we did not all get the plague over there; the thing was less deadly in attack and about ten per cent of us were left to look after the patients.” “And find food,” interpolated one of the listeners. “That was a time we won’t ever forget,” agreed another. “Sure thing,” said some one, and a general murmur of assent ran round the table. “And all the machines were idle, of course,” continued the doctor, “and even when the tide of recovery began to flow we had to turn our attention first to the getting of food.” “If it hadn’t been for that we’d have been here before this,” said a young man. “I feel we owe England and Europe some kind of an apology, but we just had to get busy on food growing right away. We couldn’t spare a ship’s crew till three weeks ago.” “And the others are hard at it over there still,” put in another. “This is just a pioneer party.” “It’s all so comprehensible now,” said Thrale “We tried to get on to you,” said one of the party, “by cable and wireless. We kept on tapping away for months, but we got no reply. We thought you must be all dead too.” “Well, we guessed you were having a real bad time anyway,” amended another. “You see we knew the way that plague had taken Europe but we kept hoping and trying to get on to you all the same.” “We’ve got a message for Elsie, after all,” Eileen said to Jasper the next day. “There’s hope for us yet.” “Yes, there’s hope,” said Jasper. They had been up at the town railway station assisting a party of Americans to investigate the condition of the rolling stock and the permanent way. Neither could be pronounced satisfactory. A few women had come in from the neighbouring country that morning attracted by the sight of an inexplicable pillar of smoke, and their report of local conditions had been equally uninspiring. They had spoken of famine and failure, but their faces had been lit by a new brightness at the sight of this miraculous little army of men. There had been hope in the faces and bearing of these toil-worn women, faith in the promise of support and succour. Now Jasper and Eileen stood looking down towards the harbour. The tide was creeping in to “Oh, there’s hope,” repeated Jasper. He was thinking of all the work that lay before them, and yet he had faith that a new and better civilization would arise. “We must get things going again,” had been the Americans’ phrase, and they apparently faced the future without a qualm. But Jasper’s mind was perplexed with the detail of the mechanical work that must be faced, detail so intricate and confused that he was bewildered by its complexity. It appeared to him that the crux of the whole problem lay in the North, in the counties of coal and iron. Coal and steel were the first essentials, he thought. They must begin there in however small a way, and America must send out more men, continually more men. To-morrow he was going back in the motor, with two experts, to the cable hut in Sennen Cove. They were going to test the cable and hoped to re-establish communication with America, and then more ships would come and more men, ever more men. And, even so, they could do little at first, and beyond lay the whole of Europe and still further the whole of Asia. Were women there, also, maintaining the terrible fight against Nature in the awful struggle to find food? Steel and coal we must have, Eileen’s thought had flown ahead. With one magnificent leap she had passed from the contemplation of present necessity to a realization of the dim future. And her thought found words. “Hope, lots of hope,” she said. “Hope of a new clean world. We’ve got such a chance to begin all over again, and do it better. No more sweated labour, Jasper, and no more living on the work of others. We’ve just got to pull together and work for each other. If we can get enough food, and we can now with all these dear men come to help us, we can do such wonderful things afterwards. There’ll be lots of children growing up in a few years’ time, and we shall teach them the things we’ve had to learn by the force of necessity. They’ll begin so differently because, although we have had the experience of all history, we sha’n’t be bound by all the foolish conventions that grew out of it. Such a silly incongruous growth, wasn’t it? But I suppose it couldn’t be helped in one way. We were so penned in. We all had our rotten little places to keep and that took all our time. We never had a chance to consider the broad issues, the real fundamental things. But you’ve got to consider the fundamental things when you start clean away from a new beginning. “And, oh! Jasper, surely we have all learnt certain things to avoid, haven’t we? I mean class distinctions and sex distinctions, and things like that. Women won’t trouble any more about titles and all that rot “Oh, it will be splendid,” she broke out in a great burst of enthusiasm, “and we begin to-day. We have begun.” Jasper nodded. “It’s a wonderful opportunity,” he said. “Wonderful, wonderful,” repeated Eileen. “We all, men and women, start level again. Equality, Jasper, It’s a beautiful word—Equality. Of course I know how unequal we all are from one point of view, and there must come a sort of aristocracy of intellect and efficiency. But underneath there will “Well, we’ve got our work to do, here and now,” said Jasper after a long pause. “Work? Of course, and I love it,” returned Eileen, “and while we work we’ve got to think and teach.” The tide was coming in steadily, and near them an old boat that had been lying on the mud was now afloat once more and had taken on some of its old dignity. Eileen pointed to it. “We’re afloat again,” she remarked. “Embarked on the greatest plan the world has ever known,” added Jasper. “Oh, it’s all part of the great plan,” concluded Eileen. THE END THE ARDEN PRESS Title page for advertisement section. A LIST OF CURRENT FICTION AT 21 BEDFORD ST., LONDON, W.C. MR. WILLIAM HEINEMANN’S NEW FICTION BETWEEN TWO THIEVES Author of “The Dop Doctor,” etc. “The book is really an amazing piece of work. Its abounding energy, its grip on our attention, its biting humour, its strong, if sometimes lurid word painting have an effect of richness and fullness of teeming life, that sweeps one with it. What an ample chance for praise and whole hearted enjoyment. The thing unrols with a vividness that never fails.”—Daily News and Leader. BY THE SAME AUTHOR [Now in its 13th Edition. “Pulsatingly real—gloomy, tragic, humorous, dignified, real. The cruelty of battle, the depth of disgusting villainy, the struggles of great souls, the irony of coincidence are all in its pages.... Who touches this book touches a man. I am grateful for the wonderful thrills ‘The Dop Doctor’ has given me. It is a novel among a thousand.”—The Daily Express. A really good “Benson novel” than which no more can be said. Each Crn. 8vo. Price 6/-. ? “The Book of Months” and “A Reaping” form one volume in this Edition. “I cannot find better praise in which to sum up Mr. Galsworthy’s ‘Patrician’ than the one that it is ‘deeply interesting’. Indeed, there is a vividness about the whole story which is absolutely fascinating. It lingers in the memory long, long after other novels of a less distinguished but more thrilling nature have been completely forgotten.”—The Tatler. MINNA A charming idyllic love story set in the beautiful “Saxon Switzerland.” A simpler, sweeter theme than the author’s last book, but written with the same distinction of style and thought. By THE SAME AUTHOR. THE PILGRIM KAMANITA “Behind the imagination which floats ‘The Pilgrim Kamanita’ above the common there is a solid background of historical study which enables Mr. Gjellerup to make his characters and his scenes real. He has managed to catch the atmosphere of ancient India, and so wrap it about every place and act and speech in the story that the illusion and spell are on us from beginning to end.... It is a real romance, full of life and colour—and such colour as only India, in the full sensuous splendour of Hindu rites, can offer.... It is a beautiful allegory of the higher life, full of suggestion and even inspiration for those who have ears to hear. Mr. Gjellerup is to be congratulated not only on a noble idea, most skilfully presented, but also upon a translator who hardly ever lets us feel that we are not reading the original.”—Times. “How delightful it all is.... Mr. De Morgan is worth having for himself alone and for the point of view of the world that he shows us.”—Standard. “The book is great fun.... Much amusement, much cause for sly chuckling throughout the book.... I have enjoyed every line of it.”—T.P.’s Weekly. “You cannot resist the charm of the narrator, who makes you feel as if you were listening to an improvisation.”—The Spectator. SIR GUY AND LADY RANNARD Author of “Keddy,” etc. “Extraordinarily clever indeed in this study. Apart from the absorbing interest of the two central characters, the book is full of able and suggestive studies. The whole book is one of the most remarkable that a young man has produced for many a long year.”—Morning Post. THE MAGNATE “It is a story that every reader will recommend after reading it—and with excellent reason, for it is fresh, original, and powerfully written.”—Daily Graphic. “Mr. Elson has what Dickens and Thackeray and other great writers of fiction have. He has a personality. ‘The Magnate’ is quite the freshest story that we have read for a long time. We have no hesitation in recommending it to all persons who like a novel which is full of thought and detail and brims over with optimism.”—Daily Mail. Author of “The Shuttle,” “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” etc. Large Cr. 8vo, with coloured Illustrations by CHARLES ROBINSON. “The treatment by the authoress is as skilled in technique and vivid in human interest as the reader would expect from her.... The illustrations by Mr. Charles Robinson are the work of an artist rarely gifted.”—Daily Telegraph. HE WHO PASSED “As a story, it is one of the most enthralling I have read for a long time.... Six—seven o’clock struck—half-past-seven—and yet this extraordinary narrative of a woman’s life held me absolutely enthralled.... I forgot the weather; I forgot my own grievances; I forgot everything, in fact, under the spell of this wonderful book.... In fact the whole book bears the stamp of reality from cover to cover. There is hardly a false or strained note in it. It is the ruthless study of a woman’s life.... If it is not the novel of the season, the season is not likely to give us anything much better.”—The Tatler. Ready shortly, by the same author: “The Life Mask.” LESS THAN THE DUST “There is something delightfully fresh in the method of treatment, something that seems to mark the passing of another milestone in the work of the literary woman. Literary is the right word, for Miss Hamilton’s style bears the stamp of a natural purity of diction, while her analysis of emotion and character is keen without being over-protracted.”—Daily Telegraph. “Mrs. Steel has made for herself a high reputation by the excellence of her Indian novels; in the vividness of the Oriental picture which it presents her ‘King Errant’ stands on quite as high a level as her other books. “Historically accurate and sufficiently absorbing, and the results of Mrs. Steel’s careful study of his character is that Baber stands out from the mists of nearly four centuries as a very real and attractive person.”—Times. ESSENCE OF HONEYMOON “Mr. Perry Robinson has never written a more fascinating and delightful little story than ‘Essence of Honeymoon’.... Mr. Perry Robinson says exactly the right thing.... An inimitable piece of sporting fun, admirably carried out, and we can recommend no better literature for all young people about to be married, or even after they have taken that sobering step, than Mr. Perry Robinson’s delightful pages.”—The Field. A PRISON WITHOUT A WALL Author of “The Scandalous Mr. Waldo.” “This beautiful, whimsical, tragic biography. We are lost in admiration of Mr. Straus’ skill to portray the quintessential don. His pictures of combination room etiquette are literally to the life. But be knows also a wider world, and his touch is sure in drawing the eccentric great lady, the old-school politician, the passionate mondaine, and the fashionable charlatan.... This perfectly told story.”—Daily Mail. Translated by GILBERT CANNAN. Author of “Little Brother,” etc. “To most readers he will be a revelation, a new interest in their lives. Take the book up where you will, and you feel interested at once. You can read it and re-read it. It never wearies nor grows irritating.”—The Daily Telegraph. “His English exercises so easy an effect that the reader has never for an instant the irritating sense of missing beauties through the inadequacies of a borrowed language; we have also compared it in many cases with the original and found it remarkably accurate. Readers may then be assured that they will lose but little of Mr. Rolland’s beauty and wisdom, even though they are unable to read him in the original, and Mr. Cannan is to be warmly congratulated.”—The Standard. “A noble piece of work, which must, without any doubt whatever, ultimately receive the praise and attention which it so undoubtedly merits.... There is hardly a single book more illustrative, more informing and more inspiring ... than M. Romain Rolland’s creative work, ‘John Christopher’.”—Extract from descriptive review in The Daily Telegraph. WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO...? Author of “Come and Find Me,” etc. “She has, indeed, in this fine novel, splendidly fulfilled the high purpose that inspired her to draw attention to a social danger and existing evil, no less horrible than real.”—Pall Mall Gazette. “Never, not even when Charles Reade, making robust romance from Blue books, was denouncing our prison and madhouse systems, has such determined and forceful use been made of fiction for the purpose of undoing a grevious social evil.”—The Daily Chronicle. MOLYNEUX OF MAYFAIR Author of “The Book of a Bachelor,” etc. “This the third of Mr. Schwann’s novels, is by a very long way his best. Mr. Schwann has beyond question written a book that may be termed light and frivolous, if you wish, but that nevertheless, as a picture of a certain section of modern London Society, has its more important side to it. In deftness, interest, and human nature it shows a great advance on ‘The Book of a Bachelor.’”—Standard. BY THE SAME AUTHOR THE MAGIC OF THE HILL “The book is in fact, to be read for its light-hearted pictures of modern Paris, Paris seen with eyes of someone who knows it intimately and loves it. Mr. Schwann has more than a little of Thackeray’s absorbing interest in minor characters, minor events, and minor problems. The book proves that Mr. Schwann, as a student of life, has the right touch and the right humour.”—The Standard. “In a word, he has achieved a masterpiece. He has written a book in which wit and invention never flag: a book, the writing of which he has enjoyed so tremendously that the reader enjoys it with him, as it were, personally, a book that is all of a piece, never halts, never drops; a book that is a sheer delight from cover to cover.”—Alfred Sutton in The Daily Mail. “The book is delightfully written.... Mrs. Chartres has humour, she has style, she has pathos.”—The Standard. “It is a great feat for any author to succeed in interesting her readers in three successive generations of heroines within the covers of a single novel without diminution of sympathy; yet that feat has been accomplished in ‘The Devourers’ ... it is an irresistible story and full of sympathetic charm.”—The Evening Standard. “Mr. Upton Sinclair has written around such a great subject with such marvellous intuition and skill, and has presented so many problems which are engaging general attention, that all feminists and theorists upon social subjects will be eager to read his latest book.”—Daily Telegraph. PASSION FRUIT “The interest all through depends mainly upon the male characters, who are drawn with unusual vigour and certainty.... The book as a whole is marked by a breadth of handling which sets it apart from the average novel.”—Morning Post. “‘Passion Fruit’ is the work of a past-master in story telling.”—Sheffield Independent. BORROWERS OF FORTUNE Author of “Young Life,” etc. A novel of happier vein than has sometimes been the case with Miss Herbertson. Her lighter heart is as infectious as her gravity was impressive. THE DECLENSION OF HENRY D’ALBIAC Author of “Nigel Thomson,” and “Majorie Stevens.” “It is by far the best and the liveliest of the suffragist stories we have come across, though by the way, the particular propaganda is by no means the chief object of the book. Indeed, propaganda of any kind is in its pages always subordinate to the author’s abundant and vivacious sense of humour.”—Manchester Guardian. THE NOVELS OF HALL CAINE (of which over 3 million copies have been sold). “These volumes are in every way a pleasure to read. Of living authors, Mr. Hall Caine must certainly sway as multitudinous a following as any living man. A novel from his pen has become indeed for England and America something of an international event.”—Times. A PORTENTOUS HISTORY “With considerable skill we are shown how ignorant and conventional prejudice of all the normal inhabitants of the village are roused against the poor, good giant, only because he is greater than they are. Mr. Tennyson gives a vivid and unpleasant picture of prejudice and instinctive cruelty. In Mr. Tennyson we have a new novelist with something real and weighty to say.”—Westminster Gazette. THE MARRIAGE OF CAPTAIN KETTLE Author of “Captain Kettle,” etc. “When one has once opened ‘The Marriage of Kettle’ it is impossible to put it down unfinished. Mr. Cutcliffe Hyne has such a vivid pen and seems so intimately acquainted with the sea and seafaring life, and introduces us to so many humorous and realistic characters, that we feel as if we had actually sailed with the great Kettle on his adventurous voyages, and had shared his hairbreadth escapes.”—Evening Standard and St. James’s Gazette. TALES OF THE UNEASY Author of “The Wife of Altamont.” “Miss Violet Hunt is eminently skilful, albeit a relentless ‘raconteuse’, the light of her inspiration burns with a hard gemlike flame. Miss Hunt has gained greatly in craftsmanship during the last few years: her style is excellent, her grip of subjects sure, and her insight exceptionally clear and sane.”—The AthenÆum. ESTHER “The book is well written and the characters are well drawn.”—Pall Mall Gazette. “Miss Jacomb has written in ‘Esther’ a very interesting novel; its situations are original, and the characters are sufficiently individual to make a convincing whole....”—Morning Post. “An extraordinarily intimate and sympathetic study of a little girl and of the influence school-life has upon her gives unusual charm and interest to this story.”—Daily Mail. “‘Stalky for Girls’ might very well be the sub-title of Mr. Richardson’s story. What ‘Stalky & Co.’ did for the boy, ‘The Getting of Wisdom’ tries to do for the girl. It is a bright, vivid piece of character writing.”—Saturday Review. “I have long regarded the stories of Mr. Jack London as a welcome relief from the dulness of most contemporary fiction, and his latest, ‘Burning Daylight,’ did not disappoint me in this respect. No one who has read the author’s previous works will need to be told with what wonderful skill the atmosphere of this grim and unfriendly land is conveyed. There is one chapter, especially, which tells how, for a bet, Daylight raced two thousand miles over an unbroken trail of ice in sixty days that seems to me absolutely the best piece of descriptive writing of its kind that ever I read.”—Punch. “A book of real distinction, both of style and thought. Many of the descriptive passages have an almost lyrical charm, and the characterisation is, generally speaking, deft and life-like. ‘The White Peacock’ is a book not only worth reading but worth reckoning with, for we are inclined to think that its author has come to stay.”—Morning Post. LOVE LIKE THE SEA Author of “Tillers of the Soil,” etc. “He tells his story to the sound of wind and waves, and if now and again his ardour for and knowledge of the sea leads him aside from the purpose of his scheme, the digressions are so admirably done that the book would lose from the point of view of literary interest were they omitted.... The three principal characters are well drawn (there are minor ones also excellently delineated).”—The Globe. ADNAM’S ORCHARD “Admirers of Mrs. Grand will be glad to find in her new book ‘Adnam’s Orchard’ the same vivacity and the same provocative spirit that gave its wide currency to her ‘Heavenly Twins,’ Both qualities sustain and inspire her to the last page of the six hundred and thirty which make up her latest novel.”—Morning Post. THE REWARD OF VIRTUE “There is cleverness enough and to spare, but it is ... a spontaneous cleverness, innate, not laboriously acquired.... The dialogue ... is so natural, so unaffected, that it is quite possible to read it without noticing the high artistic quality of it.... For a first novel Miss Reeves’s is a remarkable achievement; it would be a distinct achievement even were it not a first novel.”—Daily Chronicle. THE COST OF IT Author of “The Garden of Contentment.” “Packed full of character and real life.... The character of the heroine is admirably drawn upon quite unconventional lines ... the situation is worked out with remarkable vigour and intensity. This is a fine, powerful and impressive novel, triumphing over inadequacies of literary training by sheer force of sincerity and of glowing human sentiment.”—Daily Telegraph. A RUNAWAY RING Author of “Maids’ Money,” “The Orchard Thief,” “A Large Room,” etc. “Her previous work has been good, but in ‘A Runaway Ring’ she has surpassed her best previous efforts, and it is no easy matter to do her sufficient honour. To make a romance from life’s ‘fedious afternoon’ without being simply sentimental is a task which scarcely any accomplish, and so, when the thing is done, it can only be judged on its own merits and without comparison.”—The Standard. THE ADJUSTMENT Author of “Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker,” etc. “‘The Adjustment’ ... is a notable novel.”—Westminster Gazette. “It is an admirable book, of an original and impressive nature, the authoress well understands the portrayal of human passions, whether love or hate, and makes her characters singularly attractive.... Many excellent situations add to the general interest.... We advise all who enjoy a thoroughly good novel to add ‘The Adjustment’ to their library list.”—The Globe. Illustrated by CLARA WATERS. A brightly coloured story, the scene of which is laid in Barcelona. A young Irish girl who is dependent on herself for a means of subsistence becomes a “star” turn at a circus. While in the back-waters of that existence she falls in with certain gentlemen of international importance. She becomes their dupe and slave and passes through many adventures. But there is a way of escape and she takes it. Decidedly a book of swift movement and keen excitement. THE NOVELS OF LEO TOLSTOY WAR AND PEACE 3/6 net “Mrs. Garnett’s translations from the Russian are always distinguished by most careful accuracy and a fine literary flavour. In this new rendering of Tolstoy she has surpassed herself.”—The Bookman. “Mrs. Garnett’s translation has all the ease and vigour which Matthew Arnold found in French versions of Russian novels and missed in English. She is indeed so successful that, but for the names, one might easily forget he was reading a foreign author.”—The Contemporary Review. THE NOVELS OF DOSTOEVSKY “By the genius of Dostoevsky you are always in the presence of living, passionate characters. They are not puppets, they are not acting to keep the plot in motion. They are men and women—I should say you can hear them breathe—irresistibly moving to their appointed ends.”—Evening News. “No other writer perhaps has given to materials so ugly, not merely strength and life, but grave pathos and tragic beauty.”—Times. II. THE IDIOT Ready Shortly: Now for the first time translated in full from the Russian by CONSTANCE GARNETT, translator of the Novels of TURGENEV and TOLSTOY. 21 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C. |
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