Complete Plays of John Galsworthy Part 180

[There is silence, and they all look at MORE.]

SHELDER. There are very excellent reasons for the Government's policy.

MORE. There are always excellent reasons for having your way with the weak.

SHELDER. My dear More, how can you get up any enthusiasm for those cattle-lifting ruffians?

MORE. Better lift cattle than lift freedom.

SHELDER. Well, all we'll ask is that you shouldn't go about the country, saying so.

MORE. But that is just what I must do.

[Again they all look at MORE in consternation.]

HOME. Not down our way, you'll pardon me.

WACE. Really--really, sir----

SHELDER. The time of crusades is past, More.

MORE. Is it?

BANNING. Ah! no, but we don't want to part with you, Mr. More.

It's a bitter thing, this, after three elections. Look at the 'uman side of it! To speak ill of your country when there's been a disaster like this terrible business in the Pa.s.s. There's your own wife. I see her brother's regiment's to start this very afternoon.

Come now--how must she feel?

MORE breaks away to the bay window. The DEPUTATION exchange glances.

MORE. [Turning] To try to muzzle me like this--is going too far.

BANNING. We just want to put you out of temptation.

MORE. I've held my seat with you in all weathers for nine years.

You've all been bricks to me. My heart's in my work, Banning; I'm not eager to undergo political eclipse at forty.

SHELDER. Just so--we don't want to see you in that quandary.

BANNING. It'd be no friendliness to give you a wrong impression of the state of feeling. Silence--till the bitterness is overpast; there's naught else for it, Mr. More, while you feel as you do. That tongue of yours! Come! You owe us something. You're a big man; it's the big view you ought to take.

MORE. I am trying to.

HOME. And what precisely is your view--you'll pardon my asking?

MORE. [Turning on him] Mr. Home a great country such as ours--is trustee for the highest sentiments of mankind. Do these few outrages justify us in stealing the freedom of this little people?

BANNING. Steal--their freedom! That's rather running before the hounds.

MORE. Ah, Banning! now we come to it. In your hearts you're none of you for that--neither by force nor fraud. And yet you all know that we've gone in there to stay, as we've gone into other lands--as all we big Powers go into other lands, when they're little and weak. The Prime Minister's words the other night were these: "If we are forced to spend this blood and money now, we must never again be forced."

What does that mean but swallowing this country?

SHELDER. Well, and quite frankly, it'd be no bad thing.

HOME. We don't want their wretched country--we're forced.

MORE. We are not forced.

SHELDER. My dear More, what is civilization but the logical, inevitable swallowing up of the lower by the higher types of man?

And what else will it be here?

MORE. We shall not agree there, Shelder; and we might argue it all day. But the point is, not whether you or I are right--the point is: What is a man who holds a faith with all his heart to do? Please tell me.

[There is a silence.]

BANNING. [Simply] I was just thinkin' of those poor fellows in the Pa.s.s.

MORE. I can see them, as well as you, Banning. But, imagine! Up in our own country--the Black Valley--twelve hundred foreign devils dead and dying--the crows busy over them--in our own country, our own valley--ours--ours--violated. Would you care about "the poor fellows" in that Pa.s.s?--Invading, stealing dogs! Kill them--kill them! You would, and I would, too!

The pa.s.sion of those words touches and grips as no arguments could; and they are silent.

MORE. Well! What's the difference out there? I'm not so inhuman as not to want to see this disaster in the Pa.s.s wiped out. But once that's done, in spite of my affection for you; my ambitions, and they're not few; [Very low] in spite of my own wife's feeling, I must be free to raise my voice against this war.

BANNING. [Speaking slowly, consulting the others, as it were, with his eyes] Mr. More, there's no man I respect more than yourself. I can't tell what they'll say down there when we go back; but I, for one, don't feel it in me to take a hand in pressing you farther against your faith.

SHELDER. We don't deny that--that you have a case of sorts.

WACE. No--surely.

SHELDER. A--man should be free, I suppose, to hold his own opinions.

MORE. Thank you, Shelder.

BANNING. Well! well! We must take you as you are; but it's a rare pity; there'll be a lot of trouble----

His eyes light on Honk who is leaning forward with hand raised to his ear, listening. Very faint, from far in the distance, there is heard a skirling sound. All become conscious of it, all listen.

HOME. [Suddenly] Bagpipes!

The figure of OLIVE flies past the window, out on the terrace.

KATHERINE turns, as if to follow her.

SHELDER. Highlanders!

[He rises. KATHERINE goes quickly out on to the terrace. One by one they all follow to the window. One by one go out on to the terrace, till MORE is left alone. He turns to the bay window. The music is swelling, coming nearer. MORE leaves the window--his face distorted by the strafe of his emotions. He paces the room, taking, in some sort, the rhythm of the march.]

[Slowly the music dies away in the distance to a drum-tap and the tramp of a company. MORE stops at the table, covering his eyes with his hands.]

[The DEPUTATION troop back across the terrace, and come in at the French windows. Their faces and manners have quite changed.

KATHERINE follows them as far as the window.]