23 - The Flying Inn - GK Chesterton

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Narrator / Dorian Wimple

Refreshers contain caffeine Chapter 23 the March on Ivy Wood that storm, spirit or eagle of liberty, which is the sudden soul in a crowd, had descended upon London after a foreign tour of some centuries in which it had commonly alighted upon other capitals. It is always impossible to define the instant and the turn of mood which makes the whole difference between danger being worse than endurance and and endurance being worse than danger. The actual outbreak generally has a symbolic or artistic, or what some would call whimsical cause. Somebody fires off a pistol or appears in an unpopular uniform, or refers in a loud voice to a scandal that is never mentioned in the newspapers. Somebody takes off his hat, or somebody doesn't take off his hat and a city is sacked before midnight. When the ever swelling army of revolt smashed a whole street full of the shops of Mr. Crook the chemist, and then went on to Parliament, the Tower of London, and the road to the sea. The sociologists hiding in their coals, sellers could think in that clarifying darkness of many material and spiritual explanations of such a storm in human souls, but of none that explained it quite enough. Doubtless there was a great deal of sheer drunkenness when the urns and goblets of Asclepius were reclaimed as belonging to Bacchus, and many who went roaring down that road were merely stored with rich Wines and liqueurs which are more comfortably and quietly digested at a city banquet or a West End restaurant. But many of these had been blind drunk 20 times without a thought of rebellion. You could not stretch the material explanation to cover a corner of the case. Much more general was a savage sense of the meanness of Crook's wealthy patrons in keeping a door open for themselves which they had wantonly shut on less happy people. But no explanation can explain it, and no man can say when it will come. Dorian Wimple was at the tail of the procession, which grew more and more crowded every moment for one space of the march. He even had the misfortune to lose it altogether, owing to the startling activity which the rotund cheese, when it escaped from his hands, showed in descending a somewhat steep road toward the river. But in recent days he had gained a pleasure in practical events which was like a second youth.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

He managed to find a stray taxicab

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

and had little difficulty in picking up again the trail of the extraordinary cortege. Inquiries addressed to a policeman with a black eye outside the House of Commons informed him sufficiently of the rebels line of retreat or advance or whatever it was, and in a very short time he beheld the unmistakable legion once more. It was unmistakable because in front of it there walked a red headed giant, apparently carrying with him a wooden portion of some public building, and also because so big a crowd had never followed any man in England for a long time past. But except for such things, the unmistakable crowd might well have been mistaken for another one. Its aspect had been altered almost as much as if it had grown horns or tusks, for many of the company walked with outlandish weapons like iron teeth or horns, bills and poleaxes and spears with strangely shaped heads. What was stranger still, whole rows and rows of them had rifles and even marched with a certain discipline.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

And yet again others seem to have

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

snatched up household or workshop tools, meat, axes, pickaxes, hammers, and even carving knives. Such things need be none the less deadly because they are domestic. They have figured in millions of private murders before they appeared in any public war. Dorian was so fortunate as to meet the flame haired captain almost face to face, and easily fell into step with him at the head of the march. Humphrey Pump walked on the other side with the celebrated casque suspended round his neck by something resembling braces and as if it were a drum. Mr. Wimple had himself taken the opportunity of his brief estrangement to carry the cheese somewhat more easily in a very large loose waterproof knapsack. On his shoulders. The effect in both cases was to suggest dreadful deformities in two persons who happened to be exceptionally cleanly built.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

The captain, who seemed to be in

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

tearing and towering spirits, gained great pleasure from this. But Dorian had his sources of amusement, too.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

What have you been doing with yourself

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

since you lost my judicious guidance? He asked, laughing.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

And why are parts of you a dull review and parts of you a fancy dress ball?

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

What have you been up to? We've been shopping, said Mr. Patrick Dalroy with some pride.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

We are country cousins. I know all about shopping. Let us see, what are the phrases about it? Look at those rifles now. We got them at quite a bargain. We went to all the best gunsmiths in London, and we didn't pay much. In fact, we didn't pay anything. That's what is called a bargain, isn't it? Surely I've seen in those things they send to ladies something about giving them away. Then we went to a remnant saleat least it was a remnant sale when we left. And we bought that piece of stuff we've tied round the sign. Surely it must be what ladies called chiffon.

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

Dorian lifted his eyes and perceived that

Captain Patrick Dalroy

a very coarse strip of red rag, possibly collected from a dustbin, had been tied round the wooden sign post by way of a red flag of revolution. Not what ladies call chiffon? Inquired the Captain with anxiety. Well, anyhow, it is what chiffoniers call it. But as I'm going to call on a lady shortly, I'll try to remember the distinction. Is your shopping over, may I ask?

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

Asked Mr. Wimpole.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

All but one thing, answered the other. I must find a music shop. You know what I mean. Place where they sell pianos and things of that sort. Look here, said Dorian.

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

This cheese is pretty heavy as it is. Have I got to carry a piano, too?

Captain Patrick Dalroy

You misunderstand me, said the Captain calmly, and as he had never thought of music shops until his eye had caught

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

one an instant before, he darted into the doorway. Returning almost immediately with a long parcel under his arm, he resumed the conversation.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

Did you go anywhere else? Asked Dorian, except to shops? Anywhere else?

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

Cried Patrick indignantly.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

Haven't you got any country cousins? Of course we went to all the right places. We went to the Houses of Parliament. But Parliament isn't sitting, so there are no eggs of the quality suitable for elections. We went to the Tower of London. You can't tire country cousins like us. We took away some curiosities of steel and iron. We even took away the halberds from the beef eaters. We pointed out that for the purpose of eating beef, their only avowed public object, knives and forks, had always been found more convenient. To tell the truth, they seemed rather relieved to be relieved of them. And may I ask, said the other with a smile, where you are off to now? Another beauty spot? Cried the captain boisterously. No tiring the country, cousin. I am going to show my young friends from the provinces what is perhaps the finest old country house in England. We are going to Ivywood, not far from the big watering place they call Pebblewick.

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

I see, said Dorian, and for the

Captain Patrick Dalroy

first time looked back with intelligent trouble

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

on his face on the marching ranks behind him.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

Captain Dalroy, said Dorian Wimple in a

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

slightly altered tone, there is one thing that puzzles me. Ivywood talked about having set the police

Captain Patrick Dalroy

to catch us, and though this is a pretty big crowd, I simply cannot

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

believe that the police actually, as I knew them in my youth, could not catch us.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

But where are the police? You seem to have marched through half

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

of London with much, if you'll excuse

Captain Patrick Dalroy

me, of the appearance of carrying murderous weapons. Lord Ivywood threatened that the police would stop us. Well, why didn't they stop us? Your subject, said Patrick, cheerfully, divides itself into three heads. I hope not, said Dorian. There really are three reasons why the police should not be prominent in this business, as their worst enemy cannot say that they were.

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

He began ticking off the three on his own huge fingers and seemed to be quite serious about it.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

First, he said, you have been a long time away from town. Probably you do not know a policeman when you see him. They do not wear helmets as our line regiments did after the Prussians had won. They wear fezes because the Turks have one. Shortly, I have little doubt, they will wear pigtails because the Chinese have one. It is a very interesting branch of moral science. It is called efficiency. Second, explained the captain, you have perhaps omitted to notice that a very considerable number of those wearing such fezes are walking just behind us. Oh, yes, it's quite true. Don't you remember that the whole French Revolution really began because a sort of city militia refused to fire on their own fathers and wives, and even showed some slight traces of a taste for

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

firing on the other side.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

You'll see lots of them behind, and you can tell them by their revolver belts and their walking in step. But don't look back on them too much. It makes them nervous.

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

And the third reason? Asked Dorian. For the real reason, answered Patrick, I'm

Captain Patrick Dalroy

not fighting a hopeless fight. People who have fought in Real fights don't, as a rule. But I noticed something singular about the

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

very point you mentioned.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

Why are there no more police? Why are there no more soldiers? I will tell you. There really are very few policemen or soldiers left in England today.

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

Surely.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

That, said Wimpole, is an unusual complaint,

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

but very clear, said the captain gravely.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

To anyone who has ever seen sailors or soldiers, I will tell you the truth. Our rulers have come to count on the bare bodily cowardice of a mass of Englishmen, as a sheep dog counts on the cowardice of a flock of sheep. Now look here, Mr. Wimple. Wouldn't a shepherd be wise to limit the number of his dogs if he could make his sheep pay by it? At the end you might find millions of sheep managed by a solitary dog. But that is because they are sheep. Suppose the sheep were turned by a miracle into wolves. There are very few dogs they could not tear in pieces. But what is my practical point? There are really very few dogs to tear. You don't mean, said Dorian, that the

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

British army is practically disbanded?

Captain Patrick Dalroy

There are the sentinels outside Whitehall, replied

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

Patrick in a low voice. But indeed your question puts me in a difficulty.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

No, the army is not entirely disbanded, of course, but the British Army. Did you ever hear, Wimple, of the

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

great destiny of the empire? I seem to have heard the phrase, replied his companion.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

It is in four acts, said Dalroy. Victory over barbarians, employment of barbarians, alliance with barbarians, conquest by barbarians. That is the great destiny of empire.

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

I think I begin to see what you mean, returned Dorian Wimple. Of course, Ivywood and the authorities do seem very prone to rely on the sepoy troops.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

And other troops as well, said Patrick. I think you will be surprised when you see them.

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

He tramped on for a while in silence, and then said with some air of abruptness, which yet did not seem to be entirely a changing of the subject.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

Do you know the man who lives now in the estate next to Ivywood? No, replied Dorian.

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

I am told he keeps himself very much to himself. And his estate too, said Patrick rather gloomily.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

If you would climb his garden wall, Wimple, I think you would find an answer to a good many of your questions. Oh, yes, the right honorable gentlemen are making full provision for public order and national defence. In a way.

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

He fell into an almost sullen silence, and several villages had been passed before he spoke again. They tramped through the darkness, and dawn surprised them somewhere in the wilder and more wooded parts where the roads began to rise and roam. Dalroy gave an exclamation of pleasure and pointed ahead Drawing the attention of Dorian to the distance. Against the silver and scarlet bars of the daybreak could be seen afar, a dark purple dome with a crown of dark green leaves, the place they had called roundabout. Dalroy's spirit seemed to revive at the sight, with the customary accompaniment of the threat of vocalism.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

Been making any poems lately?

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

He asked of Wimpole. Nothing particular, replied the poet. Then, said the captain, portentously, clearing his

Captain Patrick Dalroy

throat, you shall listen to one of mine, whether you like it or not. Nay, the more you dislike it, the longer and longer it will be. I begin to understand why soldiers want to sing when on the march, and also why they put up with such rotten songs. The druids waved their golden knives and danced around the oak when they had sacrificed a man. But though the learned search and scan, no single modern person can entirely see the joke. But though they cut the throats of men, they cut not down the tree, and from the blood the saplings sprang of oak woods yet to be. But Ivywood, Lord Ivywood, he rots the tree as ivy would, he clings and crawls as ivy would, about the sacred tree. King Charles, he fled from Worcester fight and hid him in an oak in convent schools no man of tact would trace and praise his every act, or argue that he was in fact a strict and sainted bloke. But not by him the sacred woods

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

have lost their fancies free.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

And though he was extremely big, he did not break the tree but Ivywood, Lord Ivywood, he breaks the tree as ivy wood and eats the wood as ivy wood, between us and the sea, Great Collingwood walked down the glade and

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

flung the acorns free.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

The oaks might still be in the grove as oaken as the beams above when the great lover sailor's love was kissed by death at sea. But though for him the oak trees fell to build the oaken ships, the woodman worshipped what he smote and honored e' en the chips. But Ivywood, Lord Ivywood, he hates the tree as Ivywood, as the dragon of the Ivywood the that has us in his grips.

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

They were ascending a sloping road walled in on both sides by solemn woods, which somehow seemed as watchful as owls awake, Though daybreak was going over them with banners scrolls of scarlet and gold, and with the wind like trumpets of triumph, the dark woods seemed to hold their secret like dark cool cellars. Nor was the strong sunlight seen in them, save in one or two brilliant shafts that looked like splintered emeralds. I should not wonder, said Dorian, if the ivy does not find the tree knows a thing or two also. The tree does, assented the captain.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

The trouble was that until a little while ago the tree did not know that it knew.

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

There was a silence, and as they went up, the incline grew steeper and steeper, and the tall trees seemed more and more to be guarding something from sight, as with the gray shields of giants. Do you remember this road?

Captain Patrick Dalroy

Humph?

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

Asked Dalroy of the innkeeper. Yes, answered Humphrey Pump, and said no more. But few have ever heard such fullness in an affirmative.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

They marched on in silence, and about

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

two hours afterward, toward 11 o', clock, Dalroy called a halt in the forest and said that everybody had better have a few hours sleep.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

The impenetrable quality in the woods and

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

the comparative softness of the carpet of beech mast made the spot as appropriate as the time was inappropriate, and if anyone thinks that common people casually picked up in a street could not follow

Captain Patrick Dalroy

a random leader on such a journey,

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

or sleep at his command in such

Captain Patrick Dalroy

a spot, given the state of the

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

soul, then someone knows no history.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

I'm afraid, said Dalroy, you'll have to

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

have supper for your breakfast.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

I know an excellent place for having breakfast, but it's too exposed for sleep, and sleep you must have, so we won't unpack the stores just now. We'll lie down like babes in the wood, and any bird of an industrious disposition is free to start covering me with leaves. Really, there are things coming before which

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

you will want sleep. When they resumed the march, it was nearly the middle of the afternoon, and

Captain Patrick Dalroy

the meal, which Dalroy insisted buoyantly on

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

describing as breakfast, and was taken about that mysterious hour when ladies die without tea. The steep road had consistently grown steeper and steeper and steeper, and at last Dalroy said to Dorian Wimple, don't drop

Captain Patrick Dalroy

that cheese again just here, or it will roll right away down into the woods. I know it will. No scientific calculations of grades and angles are necessary, because I have seen it do so myself. In fact, I have run after it. Wimpole realized they were mounting to the

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

sharp edge of a ridge, and in

Captain Patrick Dalroy

a few moments he knew by the

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

oddness in the shape of the trees what it had been that the trees were hiding.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

They had been walking along a swelling

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

woodland path beside the sea. On a particular high plateau projecting above the shore stood some dwarfed and crippled apple trees of whose apples no man alive would have eaten, so sour and salt they must be.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

All the rest of the plateau was

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

bald and featureless, but Pump looked at it every inch of it, as if at an inhabited place. This is where we'll have breakfast, he said, pointing to the naked grassy waste. It's the best inn in England. Some of his audience began to laugh, but somehow suddenly ceased doing so as Dalroy strode forward and planted the sign of the old ship on the desolate seashore.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

And now, he said, you have charge of the stores. We brought hump, and we will picnic. As it said in a song I once sang, the Saracen's head. Out of there became King Richard, riding in arms like flame, and where he established his folk to be fed, he set up his spear and the Saracen's head. It was nearly dusk before the mob, much swelled by the many discontented on

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

the Ivywood Estates, reached the gates of Ivywood House. Strategically and for the purposes of a night's surprise, this might have done credit to the captain's military capacity, but the use to which he put it actually was what some might call eccentric. When he had disposed his forces with strict injunctions of silence for the first few minutes, he turned to pump and

Captain Patrick Dalroy

said, and now, before we do anything else, I'm going to make a noise.

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

And he produced from under brown paper what appeared to be a musical instrument. A summons to parley? Inquired Dorian with interest.

Captain Patrick Dalroy

A trumpet of defiance, or something of that kind? No, said Patrick.

Narrator / Dorian Wimple

A serenade. End of chapter 23 when you're a

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maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on track because there is no room for slowdowns. With Grainger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts, and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place so nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickranger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.

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