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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 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. Crooke the chemist, and then went on to Parliament, the Tower of London and the road to the sea, the sociologists, hiding in their coal cellars 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 Crookes, 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. He managed to find a stray taxicab 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 rebel's 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 horny 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. And yet again others seemed to have 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 cask suspended round his neck by something resembling braces, 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. The captain, who seemed to be in tearing and towering spirits, gained great pleasure from this. But Dorian had his source of amusement too. What have you been doing with yourselves since you lost my judicious guidance? He asked, laughing. And why are parts of you a dull review and parts of you a fancy dress ball? What have you been up to? We've been shopping, said Mr. Patrick Dalroy with some pride. 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 sale. At 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. Dorian lifted his eyes and perceived that a very coarse strip of red rag, possibly collected from a dustbin, had been tied round the wooden side post by way of a red flag of revolution. Not what ladies call chiffon? Inquired the captain with anxiety. Well, anyhow, it is what chiffonniers 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? Asked Mr. Wimpole. 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 of look here, said Dorian. This cheese is pretty heavy as it is. Have I got to carry a piano, too? You misunderstand me, said the captain calmly, and as he had never thought of music shops until his eye had caught one an instant before he darted into the doorway. Returning almost immediately with a long parcel under his arm, he resumed the conversation. Did you go anywhere else? Asked Dorian, except to shops? Anywhere else? Cried Patrick indignantly. 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 beeftheir 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 Ivy Wood, not far from the big watering place they call Pebblewick. I see, said Dorian, and for the first time looked back with intelligent trouble on his face on the marching ranks behind him. Captain Dalroy, said Dorian Wimple in a slightly altered tone, there is one thing that puzzles me. Ivywood talked about having set the police to catch us, and though this is a pretty big crowd, I simply cannot believe that the police as I knew them in my youth, could not catch us. But where are the police? You seem to have marched through half of London with much, if you'll excuse 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. He began ticking off the three on his own huge fingers and seemed to be quite serious about it. 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 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. And even showed some slight traces of a taste for firing on the other side. 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. And the third reason? Asked Dorian. For the real reason, answered Patrick, I'm not fighting a hopeless fight. People who have fought in real fights don't as a rule. But I noticed something singular about the very points you mentioned. 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. Surely. That, said Wimpole, is an unusual complaint. But very clear, said the captain gravely, 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 British army is practically disbanded? There are the sentinels outside Whitehall, replied Patrick in a low voice. But indeed your question puts me in a difficulty. No, the army is not entirely disbanded, of course, but the British army. Did you ever hear, Wimple, of the great destiny of the empire? I seem to have heard the phrase, replied his companion. 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. 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 and other troops as well, said Patrick. I think you'll be surprised when you see them 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, do you know the man who lives now in the estate next to Ivy Wood? No, replied Dorian. I am told he keeps himself very much to himself. And his estate too, said Patrick rather gloomily. 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 defense in a way. 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, the 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. Been making any poems lately? He asked of Wimpole. Nothing particular, replied the poet. Then, said the captain, portentously clearing his 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 have lost their fancies free. And though he was extremely big, he did not break the tree but. But Ivywood, Lord Ivywood, he breaks the tree as Ivywood, and eats the wood as ivy would. Between us and the sea Great Collingwood walked down the glade and flung the acorns free. The oaks might still be in the grove as Oaken as the beams above when the great lover sailors 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 honoured e' en the chips. But Ivywood, Lord Ivywood, he hates the tree as Ivywood, as the dragon of the Ivywood that has us in his grips. 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 split 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. The trouble was that until a little while ago the tree did not know that it knew. 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, Humph? Asked Dalroy of the innkeeper. Yes, answered Humphrey Pump, and said no more. But few have ever heard such fullness in an affirmative. They marched on in silence, and about 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. The impenetrable quality in the woods and 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 a random leader on such a journey, or sleep at his command in such a spot, given the state of the soul, then someone knows no history. I'm afraid, said Dalroy, you'll have to have supper for your breakfast. 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 you will want sleep. When they resumed the march, it was nearly the middle of the afternoon, and the meal, which Dalroy insisted buoyantly on describing as breakfast, 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 that cheese again. Just here. 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 sharp edge of a ridge, and in a few moments he knew by the oddness in the shape of the trees what it had been that the trees were hiding. They had been walking along a swelling 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. All the rest of the plateau was 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. 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 the Ivywood Estates, reached the gates of Ivy Wood House. Strategically and for the purposes of a night's surprise, this might have done credit to the captain in 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 said, and now, before we do anything else going to make a noise? And he produced from under brown paper what appeared to be a musical instrument. A summons to parley? Inquired Dorian with interest. A trumpet of defiance, or something of that kind? No, said Patrick. A serenade. End of Chapter 23 Looking for something

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