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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b9cd7e3 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #66932 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66932) diff --git a/old/66932-0.txt b/old/66932-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 7171750..0000000 --- a/old/66932-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4760 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Woman of Knockaloe: A Parable, by Hall -Caine - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Woman of Knockaloe: A Parable - -Author: Hall Caine - -Release Date: December 12, 2021 [eBook #66932] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Tim Lindell, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The Internet - Archive/Canadian Libraries) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOMAN OF KNOCKALOE: A -PARABLE *** - -THE WOMAN OF KNOCKALOE - - -The publishers wish it to be understood that nothing in this book is -intended to refer to real-life persons in the Isle of Man or elsewhere. - - - - -THE WOMAN -OF KNOCKALOE - -_A Parable_ - -By -HALL CAINE - -“_Love is strong as death; jealousy -is cruel as the grave;... Many -waters cannot quench love, neither -can the floods drown it._” - -TORONTO -THE RYERSON PRESS -1923 - - - - -COPYRIGHT, 1923, -BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC. - - -PRINTED IN U. S. A. - - -VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY -BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK - - - - -EDITORIAL NOTE - - -“The Woman of Knockaloe” is first of all a love story. In our opinion -it is a charming and natural love story, beautiful in its purity, -and irresistible in its human appeal; so simple in its incidents -that it might be a nursery tale, so stark in its telling that it -might be a Saga, so inevitable in the march of its scenes, from its -almost breathless beginning to its tremendous end, that it might be a -Greek tragedy. In this character alone I think it calls for serious -consideration. - -But it is more than a love story. It is a Parable, carrying an -unmistakable message, an ostensible argument. Readers all over -the world will so interpret it. They will see that it has special -application to the times, that it is directed against War as the -first author of the racial hatred, the material ruin, the sorrow and -suffering, the poverty and want, which are now threatening the world -with destruction; that it is a plea for universal peace, for speedy and -universal disarmament, as the only alternative to universal anarchy. - -The story is laid in a little backwater of the war--a backwater -which has never before, perhaps, been explored in literature--but -nevertheless it is not in the ordinary sense a war story. The late -Great War does not enter it at all, except as an evil wind which blows -over a mile and a half by half a mile of land in a small island in the -Irish Sea, an Internment Camp, wherein twenty-five thousand men and -one woman, cut off from life, pass four and a half years within an -enclosure of barbed wire. - -This narrow space of blackened earth is intended to stand for the world -in little, from 1914 to the present year, and the few incidents of the -simple yet poignant tale are meant to illustrate the effect of the late -war on the heart of humanity, to describe at very close quarters the -consequences of what we call The Peace on the condition of the world -and the soul of mankind, and to point to what the author believes to be -the only hope of saving both from the spiritual and material suicide to -which they are hurrying on. It is neither pro-British nor pro-German -in sympathy, but purely pro-human. War itself is the only enemy the -Parable is intended to attack. - -The battlefield the author has chosen is dangerous ground, but the -public will not question his sincerity. Hall Caine is seventy years of -age, and down to 1914 he was a life-long and even an extreme pacifist. -More than one of his best known books was intended to show not only -the barbarity and immorality of warfare, but also its cowardice and -futility. Yet when the Great War broke out no man of letters became -more speedily or remained more consistently an advocate of the Allied -cause. The paradox is not difficult of explanation. In the face of -what he, in common with countless pre-war pacifists, believed to be a -deliberate plot whereby liberty was to be violated, civilization was to -be outraged, religion was to be degraded, the right was to be wronged, -the weak were to be oppressed, the helpless were to be injured, and -before the iron arm of a merciless military tyranny, justice and mercy -and charity were to be wiped out of the world, he became one of the -most passionate supporters of the war of resistance. The Great War -stood to him, as to others, as a war to end war. - -It cannot be necessary to describe in detail his war activities even -at a moment when, by the publication of this challenging book, his -patriotism may possibly be questioned. They are matters of common -knowledge not only in Great Britain and America, but also in many -foreign countries in which his books have made his name known and his -opinions respected. For his war services he was honoured by his own -nation, and at least one of her Allies, being knighted in 1918, made an -Officer of the Order of Leopold in 1920, and a Companion of Honour in -1922. - -But the war-propagandist never wholly submerged the pacifist. His last -war article was written on Armistice Day, 1918, and it was intended to -show that while the price paid for the victory of the Allied cause had -been a terribly bitter one it had been justified, inasmuch as it had -killed warfare, and so banished from the earth for ever the greatest -scourge of mankind. - -Hall Caine has lived long enough since to see the falseness of that -judgment. No one can have suffered more from the disappointments and -disillusionment of the war, its political uselessness, its immeasurable -cruelty, its limitless waste, its widespread wretchedness, and above -all its inhuman demoralization. That the Great War has been in vain, -that so much sacrifice, so much heroism, so many brave young lives have -been thrown away, he would not for one moment say, being sure that in -the long review of a mysterious Providence all these must have their -place. But he is none the less sure that the late war has left the -world worse than it found it; that the after-war, which we call The -Peace, has been more productive of evil passions than the war itself -was; that violence has never been more rampant or faith in the sanctity -of life so low; that the poor have never been poorer, or the struggle -to live so severe; and that Christian Europe has never before been -such a chaos of separate and selfish interests or so full of threats -of renewed and still deadlier warfare in the future--in a word that -the Great War has not only failed to kill war but has frightfully -strengthened and inflamed the spirit of it. - -And now he publishes his Parable, the little story called “The Woman of -Knockaloe,” in the hope of showing that there can be “no peace under -the soldier’s sword,” that the salvation of the world from the moral -and material destruction which threatens to overwhelm it is not to be -found in governments or parliaments or peace conferences, but only in -a purging of the heart of individual man of the hatreds and jealousies -and other corruptions which the war created--in a personal return of -all men, regardless of nation or race, or politics or creed, or (as in -the case of the American people) remoteness from the central scene of -strife, to the spiritual and natural laws which alone can bring the -human family back to true peace and real security--the laws of love and -mutual sacrifice, above all the law of human brotherhood, which was at -once the law and the first commandment of Christ. - -That this is a great Evangel none can doubt, and that it will go far -in the beautiful human form in which it is presented, that of a deeply -moving story, few will question. But is the world prepared for it? Is -this the hour for such a plea? Is the Great War too recent to permit -any of the nations who engaged in it to forgive their enemies? In -this new book Hall Caine touches upon wounds that are not yet healed -and sometimes the touch hurts. If it is an all-healing touch the -pain may be endured. But is it? What will the British people think? -What will the Belgians, the French and the Americans, who are still -suffering from their bereavements, say to a writer who asks them, in -effect, to shake hands with the Germans who caused them? Will not the -nations which have suffered most from the war say that, having beaten -the Germans, it is their first duty to themselves and to humanity to -keep them beaten? Will not a residue of bitterness against an author -who calls upon the peoples of the world to make an effort that is -impossible to the human heart at such a time obscure the sublimity of -his message? - -On the other hand will it not be agreed that the Christian ideal of -the forgiveness of injuries and the brotherhood of man is the only -remaining hope of the redemption of the world from the lamentable -condition into which the war, and the passions provoked by the war, -have plunged it; that without this ideal, politics are a meaningless -mockery, religion is an organized hypocrisy, and the churches are -a snare, and that, however hard it may be to learn the lesson, and -however cruel the pain of it, there never was a time when it was more -needed than now? - -Here lies the theme for many a sermon, and judging of “The Woman of -Knockaloe” by its effect upon those who, besides myself, have read it, -it is hardly possible to question its missionary value, apart from its -human beauty and charm. At least it is certain that readers in many -lands will think and continue to think of some of the greatest of human -problems long after they have closed the book. - -THE PUBLISHERS. - - - _Ere on my bed my limbs I lay, - It hath not been my use to pray - With moving lips or bended knees, - But silently, by slow degrees, - My spirit I to love compose, - In humble trust mine eyelids close, - With reverential resignation. - No wish conceived, no thought exprest, - Only a sense of supplication; - A sense o’er all my soul imprest - That I am weak, yet not unblest, - Since in me, round me, everywhere - Eternal Strength and Wisdom are._ - - _But yester-night I prayed aloud, - In anguish and in agony, - Upstarting from the fiendish crowd - Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me: - A lurid light, a trampling throng, - Sense of intolerable wrong, - And whom I scorned, those only strong: - Thirst of revenge, the powerless will - Still baffled, and yet burning still! - Desire with loathing strangely mixed - On wild and hateful objects fixed, - Fantastic passions! maddening brawl! - And shame and terror over all!_ - - COLERIDGE. - - - - - “_I cannot but regard with warm respect and admiration the - conduct of one who, holding Hall Caine’s position as an admired - and accepted novelist, stakes himself on so bold a protestation - on behalf of the things which are unseen, as against those which - are seen and are so terribly effective in chaining us down to the - level of our earthly existence._” - - --W. E. GLADSTONE - - - - -THE WOMAN OF KNOCKALOE - - - - -INTRODUCTORY - - -I should like to say, for whatever it may be worth in excuse and -explanation, that the following story, in all its essential features, -came to me in a dream on a night of disturbed sleep early in December, -1922. Awakening in the grey dawning with the dream still clear in my -mind, I wrote it out hastily, briefly, in the present tense, without -any consciousness of effort, not as a smooth and continuous tale, but -in broken scenes, now vague, now vivid, just as it seemed to pass -before me. - -Only then did I realize, first, that my dream contained incidents of -actual occurrence which had quite faded from my conscious memory; -next, that it could not claim to be otherwise true to the scene of it; -and finally, that it was in the nature of a parable which expressed, -through the medium of a simple domestic tale, the feelings which had -long oppressed me on seeing that my cherished hope of a blessed Peace -that should wipe out war by war and build up a glorious future for -mankind, had fallen to a welter of wreck and ruin. - -There were reasons why I should not put aside an urgent task and write -out my dream into a story, and other reasons why I should not attempt -to publish anything that was so much opposed to the temper of the -time, but I had to write it for the relief of my own feelings, and -here it is written. And now I publish it with many misgivings and only -one expectation--that in the present troubled condition of the world, -in the midst of the jealousy and hatred, the suffering and misery of -the nations, which leave them groaning and travailing in pain, and -heading on to an apparently inevitable catastrophe, even so humble -and so slight a thing as this may perhaps help the march of a moving -Providence and the healing of the Almighty hand. - - - “It was a dream. Ah, what is not a dream?” - - - - -_FIRST CHAPTER_ - - -Knockaloe[1] is a large farm on the west of the Isle of Man, a little -to the south of the fishing town of Peel. From the farmstead I can see -the harbour and the breakwater, with the fishing boats moored within -and the broad curve of the sea outside. - -There is a ridge of hills that separates the farm from the coast, which -is rocky and precipitous. On the crest of the hills there is a square -tower that is commonly called “Corrin’s Folly,” and at the foot of the -tower there is a small graveyard surrounded by a stone wall. - -Too far inland to hear the roar of the sea except in winter, it is -near enough to feel its salt breath in the summer. Not rich or leafy -or luxuriant, but with a broad sunny bareness as of a place where a -glacier has been and passed over, and with a deep peace, a glacial -peace, always lying on it--such is Knockaloe. - -The farm-house lies in the valley, close under the shelter of the -hills. It is a substantial building with large outhouses, and it is -approached from the road by a long, straight, narrow lane that is -bordered by short trees. - -The farmer is Robert Craine, a stalwart old man in a sleeve waistcoat. -I seem to know him well. He has farmed Knockaloe all his life, -following three or four generations of his family. But now he is a -little past his best, and rarely goes far from home except on Sundays -to one or other of the chapels round about, for he is a local preacher -among the Wesleyans. - -“I’m not too good at the farming now,” he says, “but, man, I love to -preach.” - -His wife is dead, and she is buried in the churchyard of Kirk Patrick, -which lies near his gate at the turn of the road to the railway -station. He has a son and a daughter. The son, another Robert, but -commonly called Robbie, is a fine young fellow with clear flashing -eyes, about six and twenty, as fresh as the heather on the mountains, -and his father’s right-hand man. The daughter is named Mona, and -she is a splendid girl of about twenty-three or four, distinctly -good-looking, tall, full-bosomed, strong of limb, even muscular, with -firm step and upright figure, big brown eyes and coal-black hair--a -picture of grown-up health. Since her mother’s death she has become -“the big woman” of the farm, managing everything and everybody, the -farm-servants of both sexes, her brother and even her father. - -Mona has no sweetheart, but she has many suitors. The most persistent -is heir to the cold and “boney” farm which makes boundary with -Knockaloe. They call him “long John Corlett,” and his love-making is as -crude as his figure. - -“Wouldn’t it be grand if we only had enough cattle between us to run -milk into Douglas?” - -Mona reads him like a book and sends him about his business. - -Knockaloe has a few fields under cultivation (I see some acres of oats -and wheat), but it is chiefly a grazing farm, supplying most of the -milk for the people of Peel. At six in the morning the maids milk the -cows, and at seven Mona drives the milk into town in a shandry that is -full of tall milk-cans. - -It is Sunday morning in the early part of August, nineteen hundred and -fourteen. The sun has risen bright and clear, giving promise of another -good day. Mona is driving out of the gate when she hears the crack of -a rocket from the rocket-house connected with the lifeboat. She looks -towards the sea. It lies as calm as a sleeping child, and there is not -a ship in sight anywhere. What does it mean? - -A cock is crowing in the barn-yard, Robbie’s dog is barking among the -sheep on the hill, the bees are humming in the hedges of yellow gorse -and the larks are singing in the blue sky. There is no other sound -except the rattle of the shandry in which the fine girl, as fresh as -the morning, stands driving in the midst of her pails, and whistling to -herself as she drives. - -On reaching Peel she sees men in the blue costume of the naval reserve -bursting out of their houses, shouting hurried adieux to their wives -and children, and then flying off with cries and laughter in the -direction of the railway station. - -“What’s going on?” asks Mona of one of the wives. - -“Haven’t you heard, woman? It’s the war! Mobilization begins to-day, -and four steamers are leaving Douglas”--the chief port of the -island--“to take the men to their ships.” - -“And who are we going to war with?” - -“The Germans, of course.” - -Germany has jumped on Belgium--the big brute on the little creature, -and the men are going to show her how to mend her manners. - -“They will, too,” says Mona. - -They will give the Germans a jolly good thrashing and then the war will -soon be over. She has always hated the Germans--she hardly knows why. -May they get what they deserve this time! - -Back at Knockaloe she finds Robbie visibly excited. - -“You’ve heard the news, then?” - -“I have that.” - -“They’ll be calling you boys off the land next.” - -“Will they? Do you think they will, girl?” - -Robbie’s black eyes were glistening. He looks round on the fields near -the house. They are yellow and red; the harvest will soon be over, and -then.... - -It is a fortnight later. There is high commotion in the island. -Kitchener has put out his cry: “Your King and Country need you.” It -is posted up on all the walls and printed in the insular newspapers. -Young men from the remotest parts are hurrying off to the recruiting -stations. Mona and Robbie are at work in the harvest fields. Mona -cannot contain her excitement. - -“Oh, why am I not a man?” - -“Would you go yourself, girl?” - -“Wouldn’t I just,” says Mona, throwing up her head. - -The corn is cut and stooked; nothing remains but to stack it. Robbie -has gone into town for the evening. Mona and her father are indoors. -The old man is looking grave. He remembers the Crimean war and its -consequences. - -“Robbie is getting restless,” he says. - -“What wonder?” says Mona. - -Suddenly, like a whirlwind, Robbie dashes into the house. - -“I’ve joined up, dad! I’ve joined up, Mona!” - -Mona flings her arms about his neck and kisses him. The old man says -little, and after a while he goes up to bed. - - -A few days pass. It is the evening of Robbie’s departure. The household -(all except Robbie) are at tea in the kitchen--the old man at the top -of the long table, the maids and men-servants at either side of it, and -Mona serving, according to Manx custom. Robbie comes leaping downstairs -in his khaki uniform. Mona has never before seen her brother look so -fine. - -“Good-bye all! Good-bye!” - -Mona goes down to the gate with Robbie, linking arms with him, walking -with long strides and talking excitedly. He is to kill more and more -Germans. The dirts! The scoundrels! Oh, if she could only go with him! - -There is a joyful noise of men tramping on the high road. A company of -khaki-clad lads on their way to the station come down from a mining -village on the mountain, with high step, singing their “Tipperary.” - -Robbie falls in, and Mona watches him until he turns the corner by Kirk -Patrick and the trees have hidden him. Then she goes slowly back to the -house. Her father, with a heavy heart, has gone to bed. God’s way is on -the sea, and His path is on the great deep. - - -Two months have passed. Mona is managing the farm splendidly and -everything is going well. About once a week there is a post-card from -Robbie. At first the post-cards are playful, almost jubilant. War is a -fine old game, a great adventure; he is to be sent to the front soon. -Later there are letters from Robbie, and they are more serious. But -nobody is to trouble about him. He is all right. They will lick these -rascals before long and be home for Christmas. - -Every night after supper the old man sits by the fire and reads aloud -to the household from an English newspaper, never before having read -anything except his Bible and the weekly insular paper. - -There are hideous reports of German atrocities in Belgium. Mona is -furious. Why doesn’t God hunt the whole race of wild beasts off the -face of the earth? She would if she were God. The old man is silent. -When the time comes to read the chapter from the Gospels he cannot do -so, and creeps off to bed. Dark is the way of Providence. Who shall say -what is meant by it? - - -The winter is deepening. It is a wild night outside. The old man is -reading a report of shocking treachery in London. Germans, whom the -English people had believed to be loyal friends and honest servants, -have turned out to be nothing but spies. There has been a Zeppelin raid -over London, and, though no lives have been lost, it is clear that -Germans have been giving signals. - -“Why doesn’t the Government put them all in prison?” says Mona. “Yes, -every one of them. The hypocrites! The traitors! The assassins!” - -The old man, who had opened the Bible, closes it, and goes upstairs. - -“You’re hard, woman, you’re hard,” he says. - -FOOTNOTE: - -[1] Pronounced Knock-ā-loe. - - - - -_SECOND CHAPTER_ - - -Christmas has gone; the spring has come; the seed is in the ground; -the cattle are out on the hill after their long winter imprisonment in -the cow-houses; but the war is still going on and Robbie has not yet -returned home. - -It is a bright spring morning. Mona is coming back from Peel in her -shandry when she sees three gentlemen walking over the farm with her -father, one of them in officer’s uniform, the other two in silk hats -and light overcoats. - -As she turns in at the gate she sees a fourth gentleman come down from -the hillside and join them in the lane. He wears a Norfolk jacket, has -a gun under his arm and two or three dogs at his heels. Mona recognizes -the fourth gentleman as their landlord, and as she drives slowly past -she hears her father say to him: - -“But what about the farm, sir, when the war is over?” - -“Don’t trouble about that,” says the landlord. “You are here for life, -Robert--you and your children.” - -Mona puts up her horse and goes into the house, and when the gentlemen -have gone her father comes in to her. With a halting embarrassment he -tells her what has happened. One of the gentlemen had been the Governor -of the island, the strangers had been officials from the Home Office. - -“It seems the Government in London have come to your opinion, girl.” - -“What’s that?” says Mona. - -“That the civilian Germans must be interned.” - -“Interned? What does that mean?” - -“Shut up in camps to keep them out of mischief.” - -“Prison camps?” - -“That’s so.” - -“Serve them right, the spies and sneaks! But why did the gentlemen come -here?” - -“The Governor brought them. He thinks Knockaloe is the best place in -the island for an internment camp.” - -Mona is aghast. - -“What? Those creatures! Are we to be turned out of the farm for the -like of them?” - -“Not that exactly,” says the old man, and he explains the plan that had -been proposed to him by the gentlemen from London. He and his family -are to remain in the farm-house and keep that part of the pasture land -that lies on the hill-side in order to provide the fresh milk that will -be required for the camp. - -Mona is indignant. - -“Do you mean that we are to work to keep alive those Germans whose -brothers are killing our boys in France? Never! Never in this world.” - -Her father must refuse. Of course he must. The farm is theirs--for as -long as the lease lasts, anyway. - -“Tell the Governor to find some other place for his internment camp.” - -The old man explains that he has no choice. What the Government wants -in a time of war it must have. - -“Very well,” says Mona; “let them have the farm and we’ll go elsewhere.” - -The old man tells her that he must remain. He is practically -conscripted. - -“They don’t want _me_, though, do they?” - -“Well, yes, they do. They are not for having other women about the -camp, but under the circumstances they must have one woman anyway.” - -“It won’t be me, then. Not likely!” - -The old man pleads with the girl. Is she going to leave him alone? - -“Me growing old, too, and Robbie at the war!” - -At length Mona consents. She will remain for her father’s sake, but -she hates the thought of living in the midst of Germans and helping to -provide for them. - -“It will be worse than being at the war--a thousand times worse.” - - -It is a fortnight later. Huge wagons, full of bricks and timber and -other building materials, with vast rolls of barbed wire, have been -arriving at the farm, and a multitude of bricklayers and carpenters -have been working all day long and half the night. Ugly stone-paved -paths have been cut through the green fields; the grass-grown lane -from the farm-house to the high road has been made into a broad bare -avenue; gorse-covered hedges, already beginning to bloom, have been -torn down, and long rows of hideous wooden booths have been thrown up -and then tarred and pitched on their faces and roofs. It has been like -magic--black magic, Mona calls it. - -Already a large area on the left of the avenue, encompassed by double -lines of barbed wire, which look like cages for wild beasts, is ready -for occupation. It is called Compound Number One. - -Mona is now the only woman on the land, the maids being dismissed, and -men and boys employed to take their places. The last of the girls to go -is a pert young thing from Peel. Her name is Liza Kinnish, and before -the war she used to make eyes at Robbie. Now that other men are to come -she wants to remain, but Mona packs her off with the rest. - -It is evening. Mona hears the whistle of the last train pulling up -in the railway station, and a little later the cadenced tramp, tramp, -tramp, as of an advancing army on the high road. - -It is the first of the Germans. From the door of the house she looks -at them as they come up the avenue--a long procession of men in dark -civilian clothes, marching in double file, with a thinner line of -British soldiers on either side of them. Mona shudders. She thinks they -look like a long black serpent. - -Next morning from the window of her bedroom Mona sees more of them. -They are a sullen-looking lot, but generally well-dressed and with a -certain air of breeding. On going towards the cow-house she speaks to -one of the guard. He tells her they are the best she is likely to see. -Many of them are well-to-do men. Some are rich, and have been carrying -on great businesses in London and living in large houses and even -mansions. Later she hears from her father that they are grumbling about -their quarters and the food provided for them. - -“Let them,” she says. “They deserve no better.” - -In a half-hearted way the old man excuses them. After all they are -prisoners, cut off from their wives and children. - -“Well, and what worse off are they than our men who are fighting at the -front? The hypocrites! The traitors!” - -“You’re hard, woman, you’re hard,” says the old man. - - -It is another fortnight later. The black magic has been going on as -before, and Compound Number Two, on the right of the avenue, is ready -for occupation. - -At the same hour in the evening Mona hears the tramp, tramp, tramp, as -of another army coming up the high road. It is the second company of -the Germans, and they are a hundredfold worse-looking than the first. -A coarse, dirty, brutal lot, some of them in rags--sailors, chiefly, -who have been captured at the docks in Liverpool and Glasgow and in -certain cases taken off ships at sea. But they are all in high spirits, -or pretend to be so. They come up the avenue laughing, singing and -swearing. - -Mona is standing at the door to look at them. They see her, address her -with coarse pleasantries which she does not understand, and finally -make noises with their lips as if they were kissing her. She turns -indoors. - -“The scum! The beasts!” she says. - -“You’re hard, woman, you’re hard,” says the old man. - - -A month later Compound Number Three is ready, and once more there is -the sound of marching on the high road. Mona, who is in the house, -will not go to the door again. She is sour of heart and stomach at the -thought that she has to live among the Germans and help to provide for -them. - -She hears the new batch pass through to their compound, which is on the -seaward side of the farm-house, and is compelled to notice that, unlike -their predecessors, they make no noise. Next morning her father tells -her they are young men for the most part, young clerks, young doctors, -young professional men of many sorts. - -“Quite a decent-looking lot,” the old man says. - -Mona curls her lips. They are Germans. That’s enough for her. - -“You’re hard, woman, you’re hard,” the old man says. “What did the old -Book teach thee to pray?--_Our_ Father!” - -Mona’s hatred of the Germans is deepening every hour, yet twice a day -she has to meet with some of them. Morning and evening she serves -the regulated supply of milk to the men who come from the compounds, -attended by their guard. They try to engage her in conversation, but -she rarely answers them, and she tries not to listen. - -Always the last to come is a pale-faced young fellow from the -Third Compound. He has a hacking cough, and Mona thinks he must be -consumptive. An impulse of pity sometimes seizes her, but she fights it -down. After all, what matter? He belongs to the breed of the brutes who -plotted the war. - -The newspapers continue to come, and every night after supper the old -man reads the war news to his household. The Germans, who seem to have -been always advancing, are beginning to fall back. The armies of the -Allies are co-operating, and it is hoped that before long a decisive -blow will be struck. The old man’s voice, which has usually had a -certain tremor, grows strong and triumphant to-night. And when he has -come to the end of his reading of the Gospel, which always follows the -reading of the newspaper, he closes the big book, drops his head over -it, shuts his eyes and, putting his hands together, says: - -“Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you; not as the world -giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it -be afraid.” - -When the farm-servants have gone out of the kitchen, Mona, who has been -standing by the fireplace leaning one hand on the high mantelpiece, -says, in a vibrant voice: - -“Father, do you really want peace?” - -“Goodness sakes, girl, why not?” - -“_I_ don’t. I want war and more war until those demons are driven home -or wiped out of the world.” - -A few days later a letter comes from Robbie. He has been made -lieutenant, and is in high spirits. They have had a pretty rotten time -thus far, but things are coming round now. He has heard it whispered -that there is to be a great offensive soon, and that he himself is to -go, for the first time, up to the front trenches. He is in a hurry now, -preparations going forward so furiously, but they’ll hear of him again -before long. - -“So bye-bye for the present, dad, and wish me luck! And, by the way, -tell Mona I read a part of her last letter to some of the officers at -the mess last night, and when I had finished they all cried out, like -one man, ‘My God! That girl’s a stunner!’ And then the major said, ‘If -we had a thousand men with the spirit of your sister the war wouldn’t -last a month longer.’” - -A week has passed since Robbie’s letter, and the newspapers report -a wonderful victory--the enemy is on the run. Every evening, at the -hour when the postman is expected to arrive at the camp, the old -man, who has said nothing, has been out on the paved way in front of -the farm-house (the “street,” as the Manx call it), in his sleeve -waistcoat, smoking his pipe and with the setting sun from over the sea -on his face. - -The other letter Robbie promised has not come yet. But this evening -through the kitchen window Mona sees the postman striding slowly up the -garden path with his head down and a letter in his hand, and something -grips at her heart. The postman gives the letter to her father, and -goes off without speaking. The old man fumbles it, turning the envelope -over and over in his hands. It is a large one, and it has printing -across the top. At length, as if making a call on his resolution, he -opens it with a trembling hand, tearing the letter as he drags it out -of the envelope. He looks at it, seems to be trying to read it and -finding himself unable to do so. Mona goes out to him, and he gives her -the torn sheet of typewriting. - -“Read it, girl,” he says helplessly, and then he lays hold of the -trammon tree that grows by the porch. Mona begins, “The Secretary of -State for War regrets....” - -She stops. There is no need to go farther. Robbie has fallen in action. - -The truth dawns on the old man in a moment. An unseen flash as of -lightning seems to strike him, and he reels as if about to fall. Mona -calls to some of the farm hands, and they help her father indoors and -up to bed, and then run for the nearest doctor--the English doctor of -the First Compound. - -The old man has had a stroke. It is a slight one, but he must stay in -bed for a long time and be kept absolutely quiet. No more letters or -newspapers--nothing that will startle or distress him. It is his only -chance. - -Mona does not cry, but her eyes flash and her nostrils quiver. Her -hatred of the Germans is now fiercer than ever. They have killed her -brother and stricken her father. May God punish them--every one of -them! Not their Kings and Kaisers only, but every man, woman and child! -If He does not, there is no God at all--there cannot be. - - - - -_THIRD CHAPTER_ - - -Three months pass. The Internment Camp has been growing larger and -larger. There are five compounds in it now, and twenty-five thousand -civilian prisoners, besides the British Commandant and his officers and -guard--two thousand more. It is a big ugly blotch of booths and tents -and bare ground, surrounded by barbed wire and covering with black -ashes like a black hand the green pastures where the sweet-smelling -farm had been. In the middle of the camp, cut off from the compounds, -is the farm-house, and its outhouses, with their many cows, and its -farm-servants who sleep in the rooms over the dairy. - -Mona is the only woman among twenty-seven thousand men. The Commandant, -who is kind, calls her “The Woman of Knockaloe.” The first shock -of her brother’s loss and her father’s seizure is over and she is -going on with her work as before. After all the “creatures” of the -cow-house have to be attended to, and if she could not leave Knockaloe -before the Germans came she cannot leave it now when her father lies -half-paralysed upstairs. - -As often as she can do so during the day she runs up to him, and at -night, after she has given the men their supper, she reads to him. -It is only the Bible now, and by the old man’s choice no longer -the Gospels, but the Old Testament--Job with its lamentations, and -afterwards the Psalms, but not the joyful ones, only those in which -David calls on the Lord to revenge him upon his enemies. Her father is -a changed man. His heart has grown bitter. He takes a fierce joy in -David’s denunciations and mutters them to himself when he is alone. - -The girl was right. Those spawn of the Pit--what fate is too bad for -them? - -Christmas comes, the second Christmas, then spring, the second spring. -Mona watches the life of the camp with loathing. Rising in the grey of -the morning, she sees the prisoners ranging round their compounds like -beasts in a cage, and on going to bed in the dark she sees the white -light of the arc-lamps which have been set up at the far corners of the -camp to prevent their escape during the night. She hears of frequent -rioting, rigorously put down, and then of an attempt at insurrection -in the messroom of the First Compound and of four prisoners being shot -down by the guard. Serve them right! She has no pity. - -She overhears the guards talking of indescribable vices among the -men of the Third Compound and then of terrible punishments. Her work -sometimes requires that she should pass this compound, and as often as -she does so she becomes conscious that behind the barbed wires the men -are looking at her with evil eyes and laughing like monkeys. Her flesh -creeps--she feels as if they were stripping her naked. The beasts! The -monsters! - -One sunny morning in the early summer Mona is awakened by the loud -boom of a gun from the sea. Looking out she sees a warship coming to -anchor in the bay. Later she sees great activity in the officers’ -quarters and hears that the Home Secretary has come from London to -make an inspection of the camp and that the Commandant has sent for -the Governor. Still later she sees the three going the rounds of -the compounds. Towards noon they pass the farm on their way to the -Commandant’s dining-room, and, the kitchen window being open, Mona -hears what the stranger, who looks angry, is saying: - -“What can you expect? Shut men up like dogs and what wonder if they -develop the vices of dogs! The only remedy is work, work, work.” - -A few days after that the joiners and bricklayers are building -workshops all over the camp and within a month there is the sound -of hammering and sawing and planing from inside these places, as if -the prisoners were working. Mona laughs. They will never turn these -creatures into human beings--never! - - -Autumn comes and the fields outside the camp are waving yellow and red -to the harvest, but the Manx boys, nearly all that are worth anything, -are away at the war, and the farmers are saying the corn will lie down -uncut and rot on the ground if they cannot get help to gather it. - -One night she hears that the better-behaved of the prisoners are to be -sent out to the neighbouring farms to work at the harvesting, and next -morning she sees a batch of them going off with their guard, down the -avenue and through the gates. - -“There’ll be trouble coming of this,” she thinks. “Such men are not to -be trusted.” - -Inside a month the camp is ringing with a scandal. The letters arriving -at the camp for the prisoners have always been examined by censors. -Most of the letters have come from friends in their own country, but -now it is found that some are from Manx girls, who, having met with -German prisoners while working on the land, have struck up friendships. -One of these girls has written to tell her German lover that she is in -“trouble” and that the wife of her master is turning her out. Her name -is Liza Kinnish. - -Mona’s anger is unbounded. The slut! She has a brother at the war too! -Mona has no pity for such creatures. While their boys out there at the -front are fighting and dying for them they are carrying on at home with -these German reptiles! Serve them right, whatever the disgrace that -falls on them! - -“I’d have such women whipped--yes, whipped in the public market-place.” - -From that time forward Mona hates the prisoners as she had never hated -them before. She cannot bear to look into their German faces or to hear -the sound of their German voices. All the same she has to live among -them for her father’s sake and even to serve them twice a day with the -milk from the dairy. - - -Late in the year, at seven in the morning, she is measuring the milk -into the cans, which are marked with the numbers of the various -compounds. The prisoners come to carry them away, saluting her with the -mist about their mouths as they do so, but she makes no answer. When -she thinks they have all gone she finds the can of the Third Compound -still standing by the dairy door where she had left it. - -The pale-faced boy who coughed always came for that, and was generally -the last to arrive. After a while, when she has her back to the door, -she hears a voice behind her. - -“Is this for me, miss?” - -She starts. Something in his voice arrests her. It is not harsh and -guttural, like that of the other prisoners, but soft, deep and human. -For one dizzy moment she almost thinks it is Robbie’s. - -She turns. A young man, whom she has never seen before, is on the -threshold. He is about thirty years of age, tall, slim, erect, -fair-haired, with hazel eyes and a clean-cut face that has an open -expression. Can this be a German? - -After a moment of silence Mona says: - -“Who are you?” - -He tells her. The young fellow who had fetched the milk before had -broken a blood-vessel on awakening early that morning and been carried -up to the hospital. - -“What’s your name?” - -“Oskar.” - -“Oskar what?” - -“Oskar Heine.” - -“And you are in Compound Three?” - -“Yes.” - -Mona gazes at him in silence for a moment, and then recovering herself, -she says: - -“Yes, that’s yours.” - -The young man touches his cap and says: - -“Thank you.” - -Mona tries to answer him but she cannot. He goes off, carrying his can, -and with his guard behind him. Mona finds herself looking after him, -first through the door and then through the dairy window. - -All that day she goes about her work with a serious face and is cross -with the farm hands when they do anything amiss. And at night, when -supper is over, and her father calls down to her to come up and read -his Bible, she calls back. - -“Not to-night, dad--I’ve got a headache.” - -Then she sits before the fire alone and does not go to bed until -morning. - - - - -_FOURTH CHAPTER_ - - -Another month has passed. Mona has been fighting a hard battle with -herself. Some evil spirit seems to have found its way into her heart -and she has had to struggle against it all day and every day. - -“It can’t be true! It’s impossible! I should hate myself,” she thinks. - -To fortify herself against her secret enemy she spends as much time as -she can spare with her father. The old man is now bitterer than ever -against the Germans. They have killed his son, and he can never forgive -them. - -“Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered.... Let not the ungodly -have their desire, O Lord; let hot burning coals fall upon them; let -them be cast into the fire and into the pit, that they may never rise -again.” - -Mona hears the old man’s voice through the thin partition wall that -separates her room from his, and she makes an effort to join in his -imprecations. But the terrible thing is that she catches herself -thinking they are wicked psalms, and that David, when he said such -things, was not “a man after God’s own heart” but a devil. - -This frightens her and she tries to make amends to her conscience by -being as harsh as possible to the prisoners. When Oskar comes to the -dairy with the rest she never allows herself to look at him, and when -he speaks, which is seldom, she snaps at him or else tries not to hear -what he is saying. But one morning she is compelled to listen. - -“Ludwig’s gone.” - -“Ludwig?” - -“The man who used to come for the milk.” - -“The boy with the cough?” - -“Yes. Died in the night and is to be buried to-morrow. Just twenty-two -and such a quiet young fellow. He was the only son of his mother -too, and she is a widow. I’ve got to write and tell her. She’ll be -broken-hearted.” - -Mona feels a tightening at her throat, and then tears in her eyes, but -she forces herself to say: “Well, she’s not the only mother who has -lost a son. People who make wars must expect to suffer for them.” - -Oskar looks at her for a moment and then goes off without speaking -again. At the next moment she catches herself looking after him through -the window just as he turns his head and looks back. - -“Oh God, forgive me! Forgive me!” she thinks and feels as if she would -like to beat herself. - -A week later when Oskar comes as usual he is carrying a small wooden -box, which he sets down inside the dairy door. It is from Ludwig’s -mother, and contains one of the little glass domes of artificial -flowers which the Germans lay on the graves of their dead. - -“She asks me to lay them on Ludwig’s, but how can I, not being allowed -to go out of the gates?” - -The lid of the box has been loosened, and lifting it, he shows the -glass dome with an inscription attached. Mona allows herself to stoop -and look at it. It is in German. - -“What does it say?” she asks. - -“‘With Mother’s everlasting love.’” - -Mona feels as if a knife has gone to her heart, but she rises hastily -and says sharply: “You may take it away. I’ll have nothing to do with -it,” and Oskar goes off, but he leaves the box behind him. - -All day long she tries not to look at it, but it is constantly meeting -her eye, and in the evening, when her work is done and everything is -quiet, she picks up the box, puts it under her cloak and turns towards -the gates of the encampment. - -“Better have it out of my sight,” she thinks as she goes into the -churchyard of Kirk Patrick. - -She has no difficulty in finding the place. Other Germans have died -and been buried since the camp began. Here they lie in a little square -by themselves at the back of the church, with recumbent white marble -stones above them inscribed with their foreign names. On the last of -the graves, not yet covered, she lays the flowers and then throws the -box away. - -“After all, it’s only human. Nobody can blame me for that.” - -But do what she will she cannot help thinking of the German boy and of -his mother weeping for him in his German home. - -She has heard the tramp of a horse’s hoofs on the road behind her, and -as she returns through the lych-gate the rider draws up and speaks -to her. It is the Commandant, who has been taking his evening ride -before dinner. He asks what she has been doing and she tells him quite -truthfully. He looks serious and says: “It’s natural that you should -feel pity for some of these men, but take an old man’s advice, my -child, and don’t let it go any further.” - - -Mona tries to follow the Commandant’s counsel, but doing so tears her -heart until it bleeds. Even the hours with her father fail to fortify -her. The old man is well enough now to sit up in a chair in his bedroom -and certain of his neighbouring farmers are permitted to see him. -One of them, a babbling fellow, tells him of the sinking of a great -passenger liner by an enemy submarine and the loss of more than a -thousand lives. - -The old man breaks into a towering passion. “Those sons of darkness, -may the Lord destroy them for ever! May the captain of that submarine -never know another night’s sleep as long as he lives! May the cries of -the drowning torment his soul until it comes up for judgment, and may -it then be damned for ever!” - -“Be quiet, father,” says Mona. “You know what the doctor said. Besides, -is it Christian-like to follow the sins of a man to the next world and -wish his soul in hell?” - -But when she is alone in her own room she knows that her Christian -charity is all a delusion. - -“Oh God help me! God help me! Send me something to help me,” she cries. - - -One morning in summer the Commandant calls on her father and she leads -him upstairs. He takes a little leather-covered case out of his pocket -and, opening it by its spring, shows a military medal. - -“What is it?” asks the old man. - -“The Victoria Cross, old friend, won by your son for conspicuous -bravery in battle and sent to you by the King.” - -The old man wipes his eyes and says: “But who is to wear it now that -Robbie is gone?” - -“May I make a suggestion?” says the Commandant. “Let your daughter wear -it. Why not?” - -“Yes, yes, why not?” says Mona, and she seizes it convulsively and pins -it on her breast. - -Next morning, feeling braver, with the medal on her breast, she looks -Oskar Heine full in the face when he comes to the dairy door as usual. -He sees it and asks what it is and where it came from, and with a proud -lift of the head she tells him, almost defiantly, about Robbie and what -he did at the war. - -“What a splendid fellow your brother must have been,” says Oskar. - -Mona gasps. All her pride and defiance seem to be stricken out of her -in a moment. - -The English newspapers continue to come, and one evening, in the midst -of reports of indescribable German barbarities, Mona finds a letter -from an English soldier to his family telling of a good act by an -enemy. He had been wounded in an engagement in Belgium and, left all -day for dead on the battlefield, he had crawled at night on his stomach -over half a mile of churned-up land to a lonely farmhouse, being drawn -to it by a dim light in a window. The farmer had turned out to be an -old German, but he had been “a white man” for all that, and though some -of the officers of the victorious German army were even then drinking -and singing and making merry in his front parlour, he had smuggled the -wounded British lad into his cellar, and helped him to escape in the -morning. - -Some dizzy impulse, vaguely associated with misty thoughts of Oskar, -causes Mona to carry the newspaper upstairs and to read the boy’s -letter to her father. - -“So there’s good and bad in all races, you see. That old German farmer -must be a good creature,” she says. Whereupon the old man, who has -pulled himself up in bed to listen, says, with tight-set lips and an -angry frown: - -“Maybe he is, but who knows if he isn’t the father of the brute who -fired the explosive bullet into my son’s heart?” - -Mona drops the newspaper and flies from the room, and the old man cries -after her in a whimpering voice: - -“What’s coming over thee, girl? I can’t tell in the world what’s coming -over thee.” - - - - -_FIFTH CHAPTER_ - - -One morning Mona hears of something that seems to strengthen her -against her secret enemy. A prisoner in Compound Four, which lies -nearest to the hill, has been captured during the night in an attempt -to escape by means of a tunnel from his dormitory to the open -field under “Corrin’s Folly.” The case has been brought before the -Commandant, and he has referred it to the civil court in Peel. With -nothing to complain of now, what ingrates these Germans are! - -Mona hurries to the court-house. It is full to overflowing with police, -guards and townspeople. The Governor of the island has been sent for, -and he is sitting on the bench with the High Bailiff. The prisoner is -in the dock with a soldier on either side of him. His appearance is -a shock to Mona. Instead of the hardened sinner she had expected to -look upon, she sees a thin, pale, timid-looking man with fever in his -frightened eyes. - -The facts are proved against him by the captain of the guard, and -by one of his fellow-prisoners. For two months at least he had been -tunnelling the ground from beneath his bed to the field outside the -barbed-wire fences, working at night, while the other prisoners were -asleep, and concealing the soil he dug out of the ground in the empty -space under the stage of the camp theatre, which was also the camp -chapel. At the last moment, just as he was about to emerge from the -earth in the darkness of night, he had been caught by one of the guard, -who had acted on the information of his nearest bed-fellow. - -Already the story of this treachery has swallowed up Mona’s feeling -against the prisoner, but when, in reply to the Governor, who addresses -him sharply, he tells his own story, in halting words and with a tremor -in his voice, she finds the tears dropping on the military medal she is -wearing on her bosom. - -He is a hairdresser, married to an Englishwoman and has two children, -both little. After his marriage he had always meant to take out his -nationalization papers, but when he had saved enough money to do so his -wife was not well, for she was expecting her first baby, so he spent it -in taking her to the seaside for a holiday. Afterwards they set up a -shop in a suburb of London and that took everything. - -“Come to the point. Don’t waste the time of the court,” says the -Governor. - -The prisoner struggles on with his story. At first when he was brought -to the camp his wife wrote every week, telling him how she was and how -the children were. His eldest little girl had been going to a private -school, and when her schoolmates asked her where was her father she -used to say: “Daddy is at the war,” for that was what his wife had told -the child. But the truth got out at last, and then the parents of the -other children demanded that his little girl should be dismissed, and -she was, and now she was on the streets. - -“Quick! What has all that got to do with your attempt to escape?” says -the Governor, and Mona feels as if she wants to strike him. - -“But that’s not everything, your Excellency,” says the prisoner. - -“Go on,” says the High Bailiff. - -“After a time my wife stopped writing, and then I had a letter from a -neighbour.” - -“What did it say?” asks the High Bailiff, and with a fierce flash of -his wild eyes the prisoner tells him. - -Another German, who for some reason had been exempted from internment, -had been put in by the authorities to help his wife to carry on the -business, which was going to wreck and ruin. He was a scoundrel, and he -had got hold of his wife, who had given in to him for the sake of the -children. - -“It drove me mad to think of it, sir. That’s why I worked at night, -making that tunnel under the ground, while the other men were sleeping. -I wanted to get back and kill him.” - -“Good thing we caught you in time, then,” says the Governor. - -The sentence is bread and water and seven days’ solitary confinement. - -Mona, who wants to cry out in court, hurries home, and she is there -when the guard brings the prisoner back. He looks like a picture of -despair--bewildered, distraught and hopeless. - - -Mona finds it harder than ever after this to listen to her father’s -imprecations when somebody tells him of German victories. - -“Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered.... Root them out, O -Lord, that they be no more a people.” - -Sometimes she makes a sort of remonstrance, and then the old man looks -up at her and says again: - -“What’s come over thee, woman? I don’t know in the world what’s coming -over thee.” - -Every morning on getting up she looks away over the barbed-wire fence -to the open fields beyond where the young men and the girls are -working, as Robbie and she used to do in the early dawn at harvest. -And every night on going to bed she stares down at the bare, black, -cinder-covered encampment lit up from end to end by its fierce white -arc-lights. More than ever now she feels like that hairdresser, and -wants to escape from the camp. Yet the strange thing is that she knows -quite well that even if she could do so she would not. - -Oskar Heine has been made a camp captain for good behaviour, and is -permitted to move about as he likes, yet they rarely meet and hardly -ever speak. But one day he comes alone to the door of the dairy, and -holding out something that is in the palm of his hand he says: - -“Do you know this?” - -It is Robbie’s silver lever watch. - -“Where did you get it?” - -“An old schoolfellow of mine sent it from home--from Mannheim.” - -“How did he come by it?” - -He tells her. At the beginning of the last British advance his -schoolfellow had been shot immediately in front of the first line of -the British trenches. He had lain there for some time with the bullets -whistling over his head, crying out for his mother (as men do on the -battlefield if they think they are dying), when he heard an English -soldier say: - -“Look here, lads, I can’t listen to this chap any longer; I’m going to -fetch him in.” Then the soldier had climbed over the top and dragged -him down to the British trench; but in doing so he had himself been -potted. The British lads had put them both into a dug-out, lying side -by side, and when their advance began they had gone on and left them. -How long they lay together Oskar’s schoolfellow did not know. When he -came to himself he had found he was getting better, but his companion -was fatally wounded. At length the brave fellow (he was a lieutenant) -had tugged at his pocket, and dragged out his watch and said: “Look -here, Fritz old chap, if you live to go home send this to my sister; -she lives at Knockaloe.” - -Mona tosses in bed all that night, gazing into the darkness with -terror, after she has drawn her curtains close to shut out the light -of the arc-lamps. Remembering what her father had said when she read -the soldier boy’s letter, she had not shown the watch to her father, -but hidden it away in a drawer. It had come to her like a reproach from -the dead, and she was afraid to look at it. - -All at once she asks herself _why_? If those two brave boys lying out -there in that deserted dug-out, the one thinking of his sister at -Knockaloe and the other of his mother in her German home, could be -friends at the last, was it the devil that had made them so? - -“Oh God, my God, why do men make wars?” - - - - -_SIXTH CHAPTER_ - - -Mona knows that this is the beginning of the end. She finds herself -thinking of Oskar constantly, and especially when she is dropping -off to sleep at night and awakening in the morning. With a hot and -quivering heart she asks herself what is to come of it all. She does -not know. She dare not think. A feeling of shame and dread seems to -clutch her by the throat. - -One day the neighbouring farmer who comes to visit her father blurts -out another of his shocking stories. It is about a mid-day raid over -London. - -Towards noon on a beautiful summer day, in an infant school in East -London, a hundred little children, ranging in age from three years to -six, had been singing their hymn before the time came to scamper home -in childish glee to dinner, when out of the sunshine of the sky two -bombs had fallen from a German air-machine and killed ten of them and -wounded fifty. The scene had been a frightful shambles. Some of the -children had been destroyed beyond all recognition, their sweet limbs -being splashed like a bloody avalanche against the broken walls. And -when, a moment later, their mothers had come breathless, bare-headed -and with wild eyes to the schoolhouse door, they saw the mangled bodies -of their little ones brought out in a stream of blood. - -Mona enters her father’s bedroom just as the babbler is finishing his -story. The old man, who is quivering with rage, has struggled to his -feet and is stamping his stick on the floor and swearing--nobody ever -having heard an oath from his lips before. - -“They’ll pay for it, though--these damned madmen and their -masters--they’ll pay for it to the uttermost farthing! Cursed be of -God, these sons of hell!” - -The Government in London must make reprisals. They must destroy -a thousand German children for every British child that had been -destroyed! - -Mona tries first to appease and then to reprove him. What good will it -do the poor dead children in London that other children in Germany, -now living in the fulness of their childish joy, should be massacred? - -“The children are innocent....” - -“Innocent? They’ll not be long innocent. They’ll grow up and do the -same themselves. Oh my God, do Thou to them as with the Midianites who -perished at Endor, and became as the dung of the earth!” - -“Hush! Hush! Father! Father!” - -“Why not? What’s coming over thee, woman? What’s been happening -downstairs to change thee?” - -At that word Mona feels as if a sword has pierced her heart, and she -hurries out of the room. - -After a while the mother-instinct in her comes uppermost. Her father is -right. To make war on children is the crime of crimes. The people who -do such things must belong to the race of the devil. - -That evening she is crossing to the “haggard” when she meets Oskar -Heine coming out of his compound. She does not look his way, but he -stops her and speaks. - -“You’ve heard what’s in the papers?” - -“Indeed I have.” - -“I’m ashamed. I’m sorry.” - -“Never mind about sorry. Wait until the same is done to your own -people, and then we’ll see, we’ll see.” - -He is about to tell her something, but she will not listen, and goes -off with uplifted head. - -A week passes. Mona has seen nothing more of Oskar Heine. Being free -to come and go as he likes, he must be keeping out of her way. She is -feeling less bitter about that shocking thing in London. After all, -it was war. It is true that all the victories of war are as nothing -against the golden head of one darling child, but then nobody sees that -now. Nobody in the world has ever seen it--nobody but He.... - -“_Suffer the little children to come unto me...._” - -But only think! That was said two thousand years ago, and yet ... and -yet.... - -Christmas is near, the third Christmas. Mona reads in the newspaper -that it has been agreed by the Marshal and generals commanding on both -sides of the Western Front that there shall be a four hours’ truce of -the battlefields on Christmas Eve. How splendid! A truce of God in -memory of what happened two thousand years ago! Why couldn’t they have -it in the camp also? She suggests the idea to Oskar. - -“Glorious! Why can’t we?” he says. - -He will find a way to put the matter up to the Commandant, and then he -will speak to the prisoners. - -Since the prisoners have been set to work they have been living a more -human life in their amusements also. Every compound has its band. The -guards have their band, too. Mona hears from Oskar that the Commandant -consents. - -“It’s Christmas! God bless me, yes, why not?” he says. - -The prisoners are delighted, and the guards agree to pray with them. - -“Oh, they’re not such bad chaps after all,” the captain says. - - -At the beginning of Christmas week there is the muffled sound at night -of the bands in various parts of the camp practising inside their -booths. Oskar comes to the door of the farm-house to say that they -intend to play in unison, and want the “Woman of Knockaloe” to choose -the carols and hymns for them. Mona chooses what she knows. “Noël,” -“The Feast of Stephen,” and “Lead, Kindly Light.” - -“Splendid!” says Oskar. He is to be the conductor in Compound Three. - -Snow falls, then comes frost, and on Christmas Eve the ground of -the black camp is white and hard, and a moon is shining--a typical -Christmas. - -Mona has had a bustling day, but at nine she is finished and goes -upstairs to sit with her father. The old man, who is in bed, has heard -something of her activities, and is not too well pleased with them. - -“What’s coming over thee, girl?” he keeps on repeating. “What’s coming -over thee anyway?” - -“Goodness sakes, why ask me that, dad? It’s Christmas, isn’t it?” - -Having three hours to wait, she sits by the fire and reads to him--from -the Gospels this time: - -“_And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the -Lord shone round about them; and they were sore afraid._ - -“_And the angel said unto them, Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good -tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people._ - -“_For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which -is Christ the Lord...._ - -“_And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly -host, praising God and saying_, - -“_Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward -men._” - -Mona stops. The old man is breathing heavily. He has fallen asleep. - -At eleven o’clock Mona is in her own room. What a magnificent night! -The moon is shining full through the window, making its pattern on the -carpet. Outside it is so bright that the entire camp is lit up by it, -and there had been no need to switch on the big arc-lamps. - -The camp lies white in the sparkling snow. For the first time for more -than three years it is not distinguishable from the country round -about. The white mantle of winter has made camp and country one. - -It is quiet out there in the night. Not a breath of wind is stirring. A -dog is barking in the Fifth Compound, which is half a mile away. There -is no other sound except a kind of smothered hum from the inside of the -booths, where twenty-five thousand men are waiting for the first hour -of Christmas Day--only this and the rhythmical throb of the tide on the -distant shore. The old man in the next room is still breathing heavily. - -Mona, too, is waiting. She is sitting up on her bed, half-covered by -the counterpane. At one moment she remembers Robbie’s watch and thinks -of taking it out of the drawer and winding it up and putting it on, but -something says “Not yet.” Although Peel church is nearly a mile away, -she tells herself that on this silent night she will hear the striking -of the clock. - -She thinks of the battlefront in France. The truce of God is there too. -No booming of cannon, no shrieking of shells, only the low murmur of -a sea of men in the underground trenches and the bright moon over the -white waste about them. Thank God! Thank God! - -At a quarter to twelve she is up again and at the window. A dim, -mysterious, divine majesty seems to have come down on all the troubled -world. The moon is shining full on her face. She hears marching on the -crinkling snow--the band of the guard are crossing the avenue to take -up the place assigned to them on the officers’ tennis-court. Behind -them there is the shuffling of irregular feet--her farm-hands are -following. - -Then, through the thin air comes the silvery sound of the clock of -Peel church striking midnight, and then, clear and distinct, from the -guards’ band the first bar of “The Feast of Stephen.” - -“_When the snow lay on the ground...._” - -After that another bar of it from the Third Compound (Oskar must be -conducting): - -“_Deep and crisp and even...._” - -Then comes another bar from the First Compound, and then another and -another from the distant Compounds Four and Five. - -After that there is a second carol: - -“_Noël, Noël, born is the King of Israel...._” - -Then another carol and another, all played like the first, and finally, -verse by verse, from near and far, the hymn she had selected: - -“_Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom._” - -Mona is crying. Now she understands herself--why she suggested this to -Oskar and why Oskar has carried it out. If only peace would come the -barrier that divides them would be broken down! God send it! God send -it! - -Her breath on the window-pane has frosted the cold glass, but she is -sure she sees somebody coming towards the house. It is a man, and he is -stumbling along, half doubled up as if drunk or wounded. He is making -for the front door. Trembling with half-conscious apprehension of the -truth, Mona runs downstairs to open it. - -The man is Oskar Heine. By the light of the lamp she had left burning -on the table she sees him. He is clutching with one hand a bough of the -trammon tree that grows by the porch, and in the other he holds a sheet -of blue paper. His cap is pushed back from his forehead, which is wet -with perspiration, his eyes are wild, and his face is ashen. - -“May I come in?” - -“Indeed yes.” - -He comes into the house, never having done so before, and drops heavily -into the old man’s seat by the fire, which is dying out. - -“What is it?” she asks. - -“Look,” he says, and hands her the paper. “It has just come. The post -was late to-night.” His voice seems to be dying out also. - -Mona takes the paper. It is in English, and, standing by the lamp, she -begins to read it aloud: - -“_American Consulate_--_Mannheim_.” - -“That’s my home--Mannheim.” - -“_I regret to inform you...._” - -“Don’t! Don’t!” - -Mona reads the rest of the letter to herself. It is from the American -Consul, and tells Oskar that in a British air raid in the middle of -the night the house in which his mother had lived with his sister had -been struck by a bomb, and the wing in which his sister slept had been -utterly destroyed. - -Mona makes a cry and involuntarily reads aloud again: - -“_The child is missing and it is believed...._” - -“Don’t! Don’t!” - -There is silence between them for a moment, only broken by Oskar’s low -sobs and Mona’s quick breathing. - -“Your sister?” - -“Yes, I wanted to tell you about her that night of....” - -“I know,” says Mona. With a stab of remorse the memory of what she had -said has come back to her. - -“Only ten. Such a sweet little thing--the sweetest darling in the -world. Used to write every week and send me her sketches. My father -died when she was a baby, and since then she has looked on me as father -and brother too. And now.... Oh, it is too stupid! It is too stupid!” - -Mona cannot speak, and he goes on saying: - -“It is too stupid. It is too stupid!” - -He drops his head into his hands, and Mona sees the tears oozing out -between his fingers. - -“Mignon! My little Mignon!” - -Still Mona does not utter a word, and at last he gets up and says: - -“I had to tell you. There was no one else.” - -His face is broken up and he is turning to go. Mona can bear no more. -By a swift, irresistible, unconquerable, almighty impulse she flings -her arms about his neck. - - -Meantime, the old man upstairs had been awakened by the bands. He had -raised himself in bed to listen. The carols out there in the night -touched him at first, but after a while they made him feel still more -bitter. He was thinking about Robbie. What was the good of singing -about peace in the midst of war? Peace? There would be no peace until -the righteous God, with His mighty hand and outstretched arm, had hewn -His enemies to pieces! - -He heard a heavy thud at the door downstairs, and then a man’s voice, -with Mona’s, in the kitchen. His first thought was of “The Waits,” for -which Manx girls stayed up on Christmas Eve, and then a blacker thought -came to him. - -He struggled out of bed, pulled on his dressing-gown, fumbled for his -walking-stick, and made for the stairs. It was dark on the landing, -but there was light below coming from the kitchen, and, making a great -effort, he staggered down. - - -How long Mona and Oskar were in each other’s arms they did not know. It -might have been only for a moment. But all at once they became aware of -a shuffling step behind them. Mona turns to look. Her father is on the -threshold. - -The old man’s face is ghastly. His eyes blaze, his mouth is open and -his lips quiver, as if he is struggling for breath and voice. At length -both come, and he falls on Mona with fearful cries. - -“Harlot! Strumpet! So this is what has been changing thee! Thy brother -dead in France, and thou in the arms of this German! May God punish -thee! May thy brother’s spirit follow thee day and night and destroy -thee! Curse thee! Curse thee! May the curse of God....” - -The old man’s voice chokes in his throat. His face changes colour, and -he totters and falls. - -Before Mona is aware of it some of the farmhands are in the house -picking the old man up. She had left the outer door open, and they had -heard her father’s cries. - -They carry him back to bed, limp and unconscious. Mona stands for -some moments as if smitten by a blow on the brain. A horror of great -darkness has fallen on her. When she recovers self-possession she looks -round for Oskar. He has gone. - - - - -_SEVENTH CHAPTER_ - - -The old farmer died, without speaking, a few days after his second -seizure. Mona watched with him constantly. Sometimes she prayed, with -all the fervour of her soul, that he might recover consciousness. But -the strange thing was that sometimes she found herself hoping that he -might never do so. - -When the end came she was overwhelmed with remorse, but still -struggling to defend herself. It was early morning, and she was alone -with him at the last. In the wild burstings of affection, mingled with -self-reproach, she cried: - -“I couldn’t help it, father. I couldn’t help it.” - -They buried her father at Kirk Patrick in the family grave of the -Craines, which was close to the German quarter. Her relations from all -parts of the island came “to see the old man home.” There were uncles -and aunts and cousins to the third and fourth degree, most of them -quite unknown to her. When the service was over they went back to the -farm-house, by permission of the camp authorities, to hear the will -read by the vicar. It had been made shortly after the death of Robbie -and consisted of one line only: - -“_I leave all I have to my dear daughter._” - -The uncles and aunts and cousins, who had no claim on the dead man, -were shocked at his selfishness. - -“Is there no legacy to anybody, parson?” - -“None.” - -“Not so much as a remembrance?” - -“Nothing. Everything goes to Mona.” - -“We’ll leave it with her, then,” they said, and rose to go. As they -passed out of the house Mona heard one of them say to another: - -“It will be enough to make the man turn in his grave, though, if the -farm goes to a Boche some day.” - -That night, sitting late over a dying fire, Mona overhears a group of -men and boys talking on “the street,” outside. They are her servants on -the farm. Having heard her father’s denunciation of her on Christmas -Eve they have since been circulating damaging reports, and now they are -busy with their own plans for the future. - -“She has killed the old man, that’s the long and short of it.” - -“So it is.” - -“I’m working no more for a woman that’s done a thing like that.” - -“Me neither.” - -A week later they came to Mona one by one with various lying excuses -for leaving her. Asking no questions she pays them off and lets them go. - - -She has been alone for three days when the Commandant, with his kind -eyes, comes to see what he can do. What if he sends some of the guard -to help her? - -“No, sir, no.” - -“Some of the Germans, then?” - -“N-o.” - -“But, good gracious, girl, you can’t carry on the farm by yourself.” - -“I’m strong. I’ll manage somehow, sir.” - -“But sixteen cows--it’s utterly impossible--utterly!” - -“Half of them are dry now and will have to go out to grass. I can -attend to the rest, sir.” - -“But won’t you be afraid to live in this house alone--a woman, with men -like these about you?” - -“I don’t think I will, sir.” - - -Half a year has passed. Mona has seen nothing of Oskar since Christmas. -With a thrill of the heart she hears of the wide liberty he has won by -his ability and good behaviour. But even in that there is a certain -sting. He is free of the camp now as far as the barbed wire extends; -why does he not come to see her? Sometimes she feels bitter that he -does not come, but again the strange thing is that sometimes she is -sure that if he did come she would run away from him. - -All the same, she has a sense of his presence always about her. No -matter how early she rises in the morning she finds that the rough work -of the farm, unfit for a woman, has been done by other hands before she -has reached the cow-house. - -For a long time this sense as of a supernatural presence, unseen and -unheard, helping her and caring for her and keeping guard over her, -strengthens her days and sweetens her nights. But at length something -happens which causes her courage to fail. - -Rumour has come to the camp that a great enemy offensive is shortly to -be made on the Western front. To meet the need of it the old guard of -tried and trusted men are sent overseas, and their places filled by a -new guard, which seem to have been recruited from the very sweepings of -the streets. - -The captain of this new guard assigned to the first three compounds -(the nearest to the farmhouse) turns out to be a brute. His antecedents -are doubtful. His own men, to whom he is a tyrant, say he has been a -barman in a public-house somewhere, and that a few years before the war -he was convicted of a criminal assault on a woman. - -Mona becomes aware that she is attracting the attention of this -ruffian. He is asking questions about her, following her with his evil -eyes, and making coarse remarks that are intended to meet her ears. - -“Fine gal! Splendid! What a woman for a wife, too!” - -During the day he finds excuses to call at the farm-house and engage -her in conversation. At length he knocks at her door at night. It is -late, the camp is quiet, nobody is in sight anywhere. Before knowing -who knocked Mona has opened the door. The man makes an effort to enter, -but she refuses to admit him. He pleads, coaxes, threatens and finally -tries to force his way into the house. - -“Don’t be a fool, girl. Let me in,” he whispers. - -She struggles to shut the door in his face. Her strength is great, but -his is greater, and he has almost conquered her resistance when the -figure of another man comes from behind. - -It is Oskar. With both hands he takes the blackguard by the throat, -drags him from the door and flings him five yards back into the road, -where he falls heavily and lies for a moment. Then he gets up and -shambles off, saying nothing, and at the next instant Oskar himself, -without a word to Mona, turns away. - - -It is midsummer. The insular horse-racing has begun--an event in which -the prisoners are keenly interested, but of which they are supposed -to know nothing. Since the changing of the guard the _morale_ of the -camp has gone down headlong. Drink has been getting in--nobody knows -how. It is first discovered in the First Compound, commonly called the -millionaire’s quarter. - -Suspecting an illicit traffic the officers raid a tent occupied -by a German baron, and find half a dozen men about a table, with -champagne, cigars, brandy and every luxury of a fashionable night -club. A searching inquiry is made by the Commandant. It has no result. -The captain of the guard, who is zealous in helping, can offer no -explanation. - -Later it is discovered that still worse corruption is going on in the -Second Compound. The sailors are quarrelling, fighting and rioting -under the influence of raw spirits, generally rum, probably much -above proof. Where does their money come from? And how does the drink -get into the camp? For their work in the workshops and on the land -the prisoners are paid, but their small earnings (less a tax to the -camp and a small sum for “fag-money”) go into the camp bank, to be -distributed when the war is over. Once more an inquiry is fruitless. -The men refuse to speak, and the captain of the guard is bewildered. - -One morning, on rising, Mona sees Oskar Heine in the avenue talking -through the barbed-wire fence to a group of sailors in the Second -Compound. The men are behaving like infuriated animals, clenching -and shaking their fists as if vowing vengeance. A moment afterwards -she sees the captain, with a quick step, as if coming from the First -Compound, cross the avenue, disperse the men by a fierce command, and -then turn hotly on Oskar. Mona is too far away to hear what is being -said, but she sees that Oskar, without answering, walks slowly away. - -An hour afterwards, when she is at work in the dairy, she hears harsh -cries from the Second Compound. Going to the door she sees a shocking -scene. The infuriated prisoners, whom she had seen talking to Oskar, -augmented by at least a hundred others, are hunting a man as if with -the intention of lynching him. They are shouting and gesticulating, -and the man is screaming. They have torn his coat off, and the upper -part of his body is almost naked. He is running to and fro as if trying -to escape from his pursuers, and they are beating him as he flies and -kicking him when he falls. The soldiers on guard at the gate of the -compound are racing to the man’s relief and threatening with their -rifles, but the rifles are being wrenched out of their hands and turned -against them. The clamour is fearful. The whole compound is in wild -disorder. - -“The thief! The cheat! Search him! Strip him!” - -Without waiting to think what she is doing, but with a frightful -apprehension of danger to Oskar, Mona runs into the compound (there -being no one at the gate to prevent her), and with her strong arms, -which are bare to the elbows, she struggles through the mob of drunken -men. - -“Stop! Stand back! You brutes!” - -More from the sound of her voice than from the strength of her muscles -the prisoners fall away and she reaches their victim. He is on the -ground at her feet, bleeding about the face and head and crying for -mercy. - -It is the captain of the guard! - -When the miserable creature sees who has rescued him he squirms to her -feet and calls on her to save him. A body of the guard from another -compound come running up and carry him away, and the infuriated men -slink off to the cover of their quarters. - -Later in the day Mona hears that six of the prisoners have been -arrested and sent to the lock-up at Peel and that Oskar Heine is one of -them. Still later she learns that they are to be brought up for trial -in the morning. - -What is Oskar to be charged with? Mona has not been summoned, but she -decides to go to the trial. She has a presentiment of something evil -that is to happen to her there, but all the same she determines to go. - - - - -_EIGHTH CHAPTER_ - - -Mona rises next day before the cows have begun to call, and as soon as -her work in the dairy is done she hurries off to Peel. The court-house -is as crowded as before with guards and townspeople. With difficulty -she crushes her way into the last place by the door. - -The proceedings have begun and the prisoners are standing in the dock -with their backs to her--five unkempt heads of common-looking sailors -and Oskar’s erect figure, with his fair hair, at the end of them. -The Governor is on the bench, and he has the High Bailiff and the -Commandant on either side of him. The captain of the guard, with a -bandage across his forehead, is in the witness-box. He is answering the -questions of the advocate for the Crown. - -“And now, Captain, tell us your own story.” - -Humbly saluting the court, with many “sirs” and “worships” and -“excellencies,” the captain tells his tale. It was yesterday about -this time. He had hardly entered the Second Compound in the ordinary -discharge of his duty when he was set upon, without the slightest -warning or provocation, by a gang of the prisoners. There must have -been two hundred of them, but the six men in the dock had been the -ring-leaders. Five of the six belonged to the Second Compound, but the -sixth came from the Third, and he was the worst of the lot. Being a -camp captain he was allowed to move about anywhere, and he had often -abused his liberty to undermine the captain’s authority. - -“How do you know that?” asks the High Bailiff. - -“My guard have told me what he has said, your Worship, but I heard him -myself in this case.” - -“What did you hear?” - -“I was behind the baron’s bungalow in the First Compound, your Worship, -when I heard him telling the men of the second to lynch and murder me.” - -The Governor leans forward and says: - -“You mean that this sixth man has a spite against you?” - -“A most bitter spite, your Excellency.” - -“Have you given him any cause?” - -“No cause whatever, your Excellency.” - -“What is his name?” - -“Oskar Heine.” - -“Let Oskar Heine be called,” says the Governor. - -As Oskar steps out of the dock Mona feels hot and dizzy. Being a -prisoner he is not sworn. - -He stands at the foot of the witness-box, but his head is up, and when -he answers the questions of the advocate appointed to represent the -prisoners he does not seem to be afraid. - -“You have heard the evidence of the captain.” - -“I have.” - -“Is it true--what he says about yourself?” - -“No, sir, not a word of it.” - -“Did you take any part in the attack that was made on him?” - -“None whatever.” - -“Did you tell the other prisoners to do what they did?” - -“No, I did not; but if I had known as much about the captain then as I -know now I should have done.” - -“Done what?” asks the Governor sharply. - -“Told them to do what they did--and worse.” - -“And what do you know now, if you please?” - -“That he has been cheating and bullying and blackmailing and corrupting -them.” - -“And if you had known this before what would you have told them to do, -as you say?” - -“Thrash him within an inch of his life.” - -“You admit that?” - -“I do, sir.” - -The Governor turns to the High Bailiff and says: - -“Is it necessary to go further? The man denies that he took part in -the actual assault, but no evidence could be more corroborative of the -captain’s story.” - -The High Bailiff appears to assent, and the advocate for the defence, -who had intended to call the other prisoners, signifies by a gesture -that he thinks it is hopeless to do so now. - -“I ask for the utmost penalty of the law against the six prisoners,” -says the advocate for the Crown, “for a brutal and cowardly assault on -an officer of the army in the lawful discharge of his duty.” - -There is some low talking on the bench which Mona, who is breathing -audibly, does not hear, and then the High Bailiff prepares to give -judgment. - -“This is a serious offence. If such riots were to be permitted at -the encampment all military discipline would be at an end. Therefore -it is the duty of the civil authorities in dealing with civilian -prisoners....” - -The High Bailiff’s voice is drowned by a noise near the door. A woman’s -tremulous voice is heard to say: - -“Wait a minute, sir.” - -At the next moment Mona is seen pushing her way to the front. The -advocate for the Crown recognizes her, and thinking she comes to -support his case, he rises and says: - -“This is the young woman I spoke of in my opening as having saved the -life of the captain from the fury of the prisoners. If it is not too -late she may be able to say something that will throw light on the -conduct of the men and on their motive.” - -“No, not on the conduct and motive of the men, but on that of the -captain,” says Mona. - -There is further murmuring on the bench, and then the High Bailiff says: - -“Let her be called.” - -Being in the witness-box and sworn, Mona, with the eyes of the judges, -advocates and spectators upon her, begins to tremble all over, but she -answers firmly when spoken to. - -“You wish to say something about the captain--what is it?” - -“That he is a bad man, and a disgrace to the army.” - -The Governor puts up his eyeglass and looks at her. Then he smiles -rather cynically and says: - -“You seem to know something about the army, miss. What is the medal you -are wearing on your breast?” - -“The Victoria Cross, sir,” says Mona, throwing up her head, “won by -my brother when he died in the war, and sent home to my father by the -King.” - -The eyeglass drops from the Governor’s nose and his face straightens. -After a moment of silence the High Bailiff says: - -“What you say of the captain--is it from hearsay or from personal -experience?” - -“From personal experience, sir.” - -There is another moment of silence and then the High Bailiff says: - -“Tell us.” - -Mona takes hold of the rail of the witness-box, and it is seen that her -fingers are trembling. She tries to begin, but at first the words will -not come. At length, lifting her eyes as if saying to herself, “Oh, -what matter about me?” she tells the story of the captain’s attempt at -a criminal assault upon her; how, late at night, when she was alone and -unprotected he had tried to force his way into her house and had almost -overcome her resistance when Oskar Heine came up and laid hold of him -by the throat and flung him back into the road. - -“So if there’s any spite,” she says, “it’s not Heine’s against the -captain, but the captain’s against Heine.” - -There is a dead hush in the court-house until she has done. Then -the High Bailiff looks down at Oskar, who is still standing by the -witness-box, and says: - -“Is this true?” - -Oskar answers in a husky voice: - -“I’m sorry the young lady has said it, sir, but it’s true, perfectly -true.” - -“It’s a lie,” shouts the captain, tossing up his red face defiantly. - -“Is it?” cries Oskar quickly. And then throwing out his arm and -pointing to the captain, he says: - -“Look at him. The marks of my hands are on his throat at this moment.” - -Instantly the captain drops his chin into his breast, but not before -everybody on the bench has seen the black stamp of four fingers and a -thumb on the man’s red throat. - -The advocate for the defence rises and asks permission (things having -gone so far) to call the other prisoners. - -One by one the five are called and tell the same story--that when the -horse-racing began the captain, who went to Belle Vue nearly every -afternoon, enticed them to trust him with their stakes; but though they -found out afterwards that their horses had often won, he had always -lied to them and kept their money. - -“Heine advised us to complain to the Commandant, but we decided to -strip the man and search his pockets, and having a drop to drink we -went further than we intended.” - -“It’s a pack of lies,” roars the captain. - -“No, it’s not that neither,” says a voice from behind the prisoners. - -It is one of the guard who had brought the men to court, and stepping -out of the bench at the back of the dock, he says: - -“Swear me next, your Worship.” - -“Take care what you’re saying, Radcliffe,” cries the captain in a voice -that is almost unintelligible from anger. “No lies here, remember.” - -“No, I’ve told enough for you at the camp. I’m going to tell the truth -for once, Captain.” - -The soldier corroborates the evidence of the prisoners, and adds that -the guard themselves have been similarly cheated, blackmailed and -bullied. - -“More than that, it’s the captain himself who has been bringing drink -into the camp, especially into the millionaires’ compound. He is making -a big purse out of it, too, and only two nights ago, when he was in -liquor, he boasted that he had five hundred pounds in the bank already.” - -After that the proceedings are brought to a quick conclusion, the -Governor being afraid of further disclosures. The six men are sentenced -to one day’s imprisonment, but having been as long as that in custody -already they are acquitted. - -And then the trial being over, the Commandant addresses the captain, -telling him he is not to return to the camp, but to prepare to be sent -over the water to-morrow morning. - -“It’s a few men like you who give the enemy their excuse for saying we -are as bad as they are.” - -The court having risen, the prisoners are taken out between their -guard. Oskar Heine passes close to the place where Mona is standing, -but he does not raise his eyes to her. - -Only then, her excitement being over, does Mona realize what she has -done for herself. The townspeople are surging out of the court-house, -and, as they go, they are casting black looks at her. She awaits until -she thinks they are gone, and then, venturing out, she finds a throng -of them, women as well as men, on the steps and about the gate, and -they fall on her with insults. - -“Here she comes!” “The traitor!” “It’s an ill bird that fouls its own -nest.” “The woman might have held her tongue, anyway; not given away -her own countryman to save a dirty Boche.” - -A hiss that is like the sound of water boiling over hot stones follows -her down the street and out of the town, until she reaches the country. - -Half-way home she is overtaken by the Commandant in his motor-car. He -stops to speak to her, and his kind face looks serious, almost stern. - -“I’m willing to believe that what you did was done in the interest of -justice, but all the same I’m sorry for you, my girl, very sorry.” - -The six prisoners have arrived at the camp before her, and a report of -what she has done at the trial has passed with the speed of a forest -fire over the five compounds. As she walks up the avenue, hardly able -to support herself, the brutal sailors of the Second Compound, the same -that had formerly offended her by their vulgar familiarity, rush to the -barbed wire to lift their caps to her. She does not look at them, but -hurries into the house, overwhelmed with shame and confusion. - -To get through the work of the day is hard, and when night comes she -drops into her father’s seat by the fire and sits there for hours, -forgetting that she has eaten nothing since morning. - -It is all over. The secret she has been struggling so hard to hide even -from herself, denying it over and over again to her conscience, she has -proclaimed aloud in public. - -She loves this German--she who had hated all his race as no one else -had ever hated them! Everybody knows it, too, and everybody loathes -her. And her father--if she had killed her father before, as people -said, she has killed him a second time that day, covering his very -grave with disgrace. - -“I couldn’t help it,” she thinks, but that brings her no comfort now. - -At one moment she tells herself that since she has renounced her race -she must run away somewhere--she cannot live at Knockaloe any longer. -But then she thinks of Oskar, that he must remain, and cries in her -heart: - -“I can’t! I can’t!” - -And remembering what Oskar had said about her in court she throws up -her head and thinks: - -“Why should I?” - -When the time comes to lock up the house for the night she finds a -letter which has been pushed under the door. It is on prisoners’ -notepaper and in a handwriting she has never seen before, and it -contains three words only: - -“_God bless you!_” - -Instantly, instinctively, she lifts it to her lips and kisses it. But -at the next moment, as she is going upstairs, the old weakness comes -sweeping back on her. - -“I couldn’t help it! I couldn’t help it! God forgive me!” - - - - -_NINTH CHAPTER_ - - -It is Christmas week again--the last Christmas of the war. Two Swiss -doctors, appointed by the warring nations to inspect the Internment -Camps throughout Europe, have arrived at Knockaloe. - -After going the rounds of the five compounds they come to the farm to -test the milk. They are pleasant men, and Mona asks them to take tea. - -Sitting at the table in the kitchen they talk together, not paying -much attention to Mona, of the complaints made by the prisoners, -particularly by one of them, who had said he had not been able to eat -the potatoes provided because they had been full of maggots, whereupon -the sergeant of the guard, who had been showing them round, had cried: - -“Don’t believe a word of it--the man’s a liar,” and then the prisoner -had said no more. - -“I dare say the fellow was lying all right,” says one of the doctors, -“but that sergeant is a bit of a beast.” - -“Is it like that in all the camps--in Germany, for instance?” asks Mona. - -“Worse there than anywhere. Some of the officers in German camps are -barbarians without bowels of compassion for anybody, and some of your -British prisoners are living the lives of the damned.” - -“But that’s the devilish way of war. It seems to make martyrs and -heroes of the men who lose by it, and brutes and demons of the men who -win.” - -“Not always, my friend.” - -“No, not always, thank God!” - -After that they turn to Mona, congratulating her on the cleanliness of -her dairy, and asking her what help she has to keep things going. Being -afraid to speak of Oskar, she tells them she is alone. - -“Wonderful!” says one of them. “But it’s what I always say--one person -working with his heart will do more than ten who are working with their -hands only.” - -“It’s the same on the battlefield,” says the other. “And that’s why -this country has won the war, and the Germans have lost it.” - -“Lost it?” says Mona. “Is the war over, then?” - -“It soon will be, my girl. Your enemy may make a last kick, but the war -cannot last much longer.” - -Mona’s heart leaps up. Can it be possible that the war is coming to an -end? Then it will soon be well with her and Oskar. - -It is not because Oskar is a German, but because the Germans are at war -with her own people that her people look black at her. It is war, not -race, that is the great obstacle to their love, and when the war is -over the obstacle will be gone. - -“O Lord, stop the war, stop it, stop it,” she prays every night and -every morning. - - -There are to be no carols this Christmas, but special services are to -be held in the camp on Christmas Day, and a great Lutheran preacher is -coming to conduct them. - -On Christmas Eve Mona is carrying a bowl of oats to a young bull -she has put out on the mountain, when she hears the singing of a -hymn in the prison chapel and she stops to listen. It must be the -prisoner-choir practising for to-morrow’s service, and it must be Oskar -who is playing the harmonium. - -“_Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott...._” - -The language is unknown to her, but the tune is familiar; she used to -sing it herself when she was in the choir of the Wesleyan Chapel: - -“_A sure stronghold our God is still...._” - -The same hymn, the same religion, the same God, the same Saviour, and -yet.... How wicked! How stupid! - -On Christmas morning Mona has finished her work in the dairy when she -hears the far-off sound of the church bells in Peel, and looking out -over the camp she sees groups of the prisoners (Oskar among them) -making their way to the prison chapel. - -Suddenly, as she thinks, a new thought comes to her. If it is the same -religion, why shouldn’t she go to the service? If the guard will -permit her to pass, why shouldn’t she? - -Almost before she is aware of what she is doing she has run upstairs, -changed into her chapel clothes, and is crossing the avenue towards the -gate of the Third Compound. - -The camp chapel (half church, half theatre) is a large wooden barn -with a stage at one end, no seats on the floor. On the stage, behind a -small deal table, the Lutheran pastor, in a black gown, is reading the -lesson from his big Bible. On the floor in front of him are five or six -hundred men, all standing in lines. They make a pitiful spectacle--some -young (almost boys), some elderly (almost old), some wearing good -clothes, some in rags, some well shod, some with their naked feet -showing through the holes in their worn-out shoes, some with fine -clear-cut features, and some with faces degraded by drink and debased -by crime. Every eye is on the pastor, and there is no sound in the bare -place but the sound of his voice. - -The silence is broken by the lifting of the latch of a door near to -the stage. At the next moment a woman enters. Everybody knows her--it -is “the Woman of Knockaloe.” She stands for a moment as if dazed by the -eyes that are on her, and then somebody by her side (she knows who it -is, although she does not look at him) touches her arm and leads her -to a chair, which has been hurriedly brought in from an ante-room and -placed in the middle of the front row. - -When the lesson is finished the pastor gives out a hymn. It is the -same hymn as she heard last night, but after the man from the door has -stepped forward and played the overture on the harmonium, she finds -herself on her feet in the midst of the prisoners. - -In full, clear, resonant voices the men are singing in their German, -when suddenly they become aware that a woman is singing with them in -English--the same hymn to the same tune. - -“_Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott...._” - -“_A sure stronghold our God is still...._” - -The voices of the men sink for a moment, as if they are listening, and -then, as by one spontaneous impulse, they rise and swell until the -place seems to throb with them. - -When the hymn comes to an end Mona sits and the pastor begins his -sermon. She can understand only a word of it now and again, and her -eyes wander to the door. Oskar is there. His head is up and his eyes -are shining. - -“O Lord, stop the war, stop it, stop it!” - - -Summer has come again; the sun rises and sets, the birds sing and nest, -the landscape preserves its solemn peace, but still the war goes on. -The last kick of the enemy, which the Swiss doctors had foreseen, has -been made and it is over. After a devastating advance, there has been a -still more devastating retreat. - -The prisoners in the camp know all about it. Their spirits had risen -and fallen according to the fortunes of their armies at the front. At -first they were truculent. They talked braggingly about vast German -forces marching upon London, blowing up Buckingham Palace, putting -an end to the British Empire, and then turning their attention to -America. Afterwards they were sceptical. If the English newspapers -reported German defeats they knew better, having received their German -newspapers which reported German victories. Now they are sullen. What -is the war about, anyway? Nothing at all! In ten years’ time nobody -will know what was the cause of it! - -Mona is in a fever of excitement. Is the war coming to an end at last? -What does Oskar think? Why doesn’t he come to her? Is he still thinking -he has brought trouble enough on her already? - -At length he comes. It is late at night. She hears his voice calling to -her in a tremulous tone from the other side of the open door. - -“Mona!” - -He has never called her by that name before. - -“Yes?” - -She is standing on the threshold, trembling from head to foot, never -before having been face to face with him since the night of her -father’s seizure. - -“It’s all over, Mona.” - -“What is, Oskar?” - -“Germany is beaten. The Hindenburg line is broken, and revolution has -begun in Berlin.” - -“Does that mean that the war will soon be at an end?” - -“It must be.” - -She hesitates for a moment, then she says, with a quivering at her -heart: - -“But surely you are glad of that, Oskar--that the war will soon be at -an end?” - -He looks into her face and then turns away his own. - -“I don’t know. I can’t say,” he answers. - -She looks after him as he goes off. Her eyes gleam and her heart throbs. - - - - -_TENTH CHAPTER_ - - -The tenth of November, nineteen hundred and eighteen. All day long -there has been great commotion in the officers’ quarters. The telephone -with Government Office has been going constantly since early morning, -and there has been much hurrying to and fro. - -An internment camp is like a desert in one thing--rumour passes over -it on the wings of the wind. Before midday every prisoner knows -everything. The Kaiser has been hurled from his throne by his own -people; the German command have asked for an armistice, and the Allied -Commander-in-Chief has given them until nine o’clock to-morrow to sign -the terms of peace he has prepared for them. - -If they do not sign within that time the war will go on to -extermination. If they do, the news will be flashed over the world -immediately. At eleven o’clock they will have it at Knockaloe. The -guns will be fired in the fort at Douglas, the sirens will be sounded -from the steamers in the bay, and the church bells will be rung all -over the island. - -Mona is in raptures. The war is near to an end, and all she has prayed -for is about to come to pass. Yet even at that moment she is conscious -of conflicting feelings. When she thinks of Robbie, she wants to shout -with joy that the war has come to a right ending, and the cruel enemy -who made it, with all its barbarities and horrors, is humbled to the -dust. But when she thinks of Oskar, she feels ... she does not know -what she feels. - -Where _is_ Oskar? - - -She awakes next morning before the day has dawned and while the -arc-lamps are still burning. The first thing she is aware of is a deep -murmur, like that of the sea on a quiet but sullen day, which seems to -come from all parts of the camp. It was the last thing she had been -conscious of when she fell asleep the night before. The prisoners were -then walking to and fro in their compounds, in and out of the sinister -shadows, and talking, talking, talking. Could it be possible that they -had walked and talked all night long? - -What wonder? The day that was about to dawn might be the day of doom -for them. When night came again their Fatherland might have fallen; -they might be men without a country--mere outcasts thrown on to an -overburdened world. - -When the day breaks and the arc-lamps are put out, Mona sees the men -moving about like wraiths in the grey light. But silence has now fallen -on them. The ordinary regulations of the camp have been relaxed for the -day, and they are not required to go to their workshops. When the bell -rings for breakfast some of them forget they are hungry and remain in -the open. - -It is a November day like many another, fine and clear and cold -and with occasional gleams of sunshine on the sea. The cows in the -cow-house are lowing, the sheep on the hill are bleating. Nature is -going on as usual. - -Mona goes to her work in the dairy. When the men come for the milk, -she can hardly bear to look into their drawn faces. The prisoners in -the First Compound are standing in groups, and if they are talking at -all it can only be in whispers. The sailors in the Second Compound are -standing together in crowds, but the old riotous spirit is gone; there -is no more shouting or swearing. - -The hours drag on. Looking beyond the barbed wire boundary of the -encampment, Mona sees country carts rattling down the high road at a -fast trot as if going to a fair. Somebody is on the church tower of -Kirk Patrick doing something with the flagstaff. - -At half-past ten the world seems to be standing still. The camp is on -tiptoe. All over it men are looking towards Douglas. Their faces are -grim, almost ghastly. They seem to be rooted to the ground. Sometimes -one of them digs his foot into the earth like a restless horse tired of -waiting, but that is the only movement. - -Where is Oskar? What is he doing? - -At length, at long length, there is a certain activity in the officers’ -quarters. Mona distinctly hears the ringing of the telephone bell in -the Commandant’s tent, which is not far from the farm-house. In the -quiet air and the dead silence she believes she hears the Commandant’s -voice. - -“Hello! Who’s there? Government office?... Well?... Signed, is it? -Good!” - -At the same moment she hears the striking of the clock at Peel. And -before the clock has finished striking there comes the deep boom of a -gun. - -There can be no mistaking that. It rolls down the valley from the -direction of Douglas, strikes the hills on either side, and then sweeps -over the black camp towards the sea. - -A moment later comes the screaming of sirens, deadened by distance, -then the ringing of church bells, now far, now near, and then the dull -sound of wild cheering at Peel, where the people, who have been waiting -from early morning in the market place, are going frantic in their joy, -clasping each other’s hands and kissing. - -The twenty-five thousand prisoners in the camp stand silent and -breathless for a moment. The worst has happened to them--their -Fatherland has fallen. - -The strain is broken by a ridiculous incident. A terrier bitch -belonging to a German baron in the “millionaires’” quarters leaps up to -the roof of his tent and begins to bark furiously at the tumult in the -air. The little creature’s anger becomes amusing. The men look at the -dog and then burst into peals of laughter. - -A few minutes afterwards the prisoners of the First Compound have -recovered themselves and are shaking hands and congratulating each -other. After all the war is over and they will soon be free! Free to -leave this place and go back home--home to their houses and their wives -and children. - -The sailors in the Second Compound are going crazy with delight, and -behaving like demented creatures. They are laughing and singing at the -top of their lungs, punching each other and boxing, playing leap-frog -and turning cart-wheels. What does it matter about country? Who cares -about the Fatherland, anyway? All the world is their country--all the -world and the sea. - -Mona is standing at the door of her dairy, quivering with emotion. She -is like a woman possessed. What she has hoped for and prayed for has -come to pass at last. Peace! Peace! Peace over all the earth! Never has -the world had such a chance before. Never will it have such a chance -again. The cruelties and barbarities of war will be no more heard of, -and the senseless jealousies and hatreds of races will be wiped out for -ever. And then ... and then.... - -All at once she becomes aware of somebody behind her. She knows who -it is, but she does not turn. There is a moment of silence between -them, and then, in a voice which she can scarcely control, she says, -half-crying, half laughing: - -“You, too, will be free to go home soon, Oskar. Aren’t you glad?” - -There is another moment of silence between them, and then in a low, -tremulous voice Oskar answers: - -“No, you know I’m not, Mona.” - -Mona drops her hand to her side, partly behind her, and at the next -moment she feels it tightened in a quivering grasp. - - - - -_ELEVENTH CHAPTER_ - - -A month has passed, yet the camp looks much the same as before. Mona -had expected that the prisoners would be liberated by this time, but -they are here still. The Commandant is said to be waiting for orders. - -Meantime regulations have been relaxed. The men are no longer -restricted to the various compounds. There is no limit to their liberty -of moving about, except the big gates, guarded by soldiers, and the -three lines of barbed wire by which the camp is surrounded. Why not? -Nobody is likely to attempt to escape. Within a few weeks everybody -will be free. - -Mona has all the help she can do with now. The prisoners are constantly -about the farm-house, doing anything they can for her. They show her -photographs of their wives and children and get her to count up the -savings that are coming to them. - -At length comes word that the Peace Congress has begun and that the -Commandant has received his orders. Two hundred and fifty of the -prisoners are to be sent over the water every day until the camp is -empty. - -But there is a condition attaching to the liberation. Mona hears of -it first from three prisoners belonging to distant compounds, who are -talking outside the house. To her surprise they are speaking not only -in English, but in British dialects. - -“They ca’ me a Jarmin,” says one, “but what am I? I were browt to -Owdham when I were five year owd and now ’am fifty, so ’am five year -Jarmin and forty-five English. Yet they’re sending me back to Jarmany.” - -“I’m no so sure but my case isna war’ nor that, though,” says the -other. “I came to Glasgie when I was a bairn in my mither’s arms, -and I’ve lived there all my life. I married there and my two sons -were born there. And now that I’ve lost both of them fighting in the -British army, and my wife’s dead of a broken heart and I’ve nobody left -belonging to me, they’re for sending me back to a foreign country.” - -“Aw well,” says the third man, speaking with a snatch of the -Anglo-Manx, “I wouldn’t trust but my case is worse nor either of yours. -I’m German born, that’s truth enough, but I’ve lived in this very -island since I was a lump of a lad, and maybe I’m as Manx myself as -some ones they make magistrates and judges of. More than that, my only -son was born here, and when he grew up to be a fine young fellow, and -they said his King and country needed him, he was one of the first to -join up and go off to the war. Well, what d’ye think? Twelve month ago -he was wounded and invalided home, and then, being no use for foreign -service, they sent him to Knockaloe as one of the guard--to guard, -among others, his own father. Think of that now! My son outside the -barbed wire and me inside! And one of these days he’ll have to march me -down to Douglas and ship me off to Germany, where I’ve neither chick -nor child, no kith nor kin.... Yes, _my_ lad, that I used to carry on -my back and rock in his cradle!” - -Mona is aghast. Something seems to creep between her skin and flesh. -Never before, in all the long agony of the war, with its blood and -tears and terror, has she heard of anything so cruel. What a mockery -of the Almighty! Race, race, race! Mother and author of half the wars -of the world--when, oh when would the Father of all living wipe the -blasphemous word out of the mouths of Christian men? - -But the conversation Mona has overheard cuts deeper and closer than -that even. If all German-born prisoners are to be sent back to Germany, -Oskar will have to go, and what _then?_ - -That night a knock comes to her door. It is Oskar himself. His eyes are -wild and his lips are trembling. - -“You’ve heard of the new order?” he asks. - -“Yes. Will you have to go back also?” - -“I must. I suppose I must.” - - -The first batch to go are from the “millionaires’” quarters. Being rich -they have reconciled themselves to the conditions. Park Lane or the -Thiergarten--what matter which? In their black clothes, their spats -and fur-lined coats, and with their suit-cases packed in a truck, they -march off merrily. - -The next to go are from the Second Compound, and they make a different -picture--ill-clad, ill-shod, without an overcoat among them, with -nothing in their pockets except the little money they have drawn at the -last moment from the camp bank, and nothing in their hands except the -canvas bags which contain all their belongings. - -It is a miserable January morning, with drizzling rain and a thick mist -over the mountains. At a sharp word of command the men go tramping -towards the gate, a silent and melancholy lot, totally unlike the -singing and swaggering gang who came up the avenue four years ago. - -Later in the day the captain of the guard (the new captain) who has -seen the men off by the steamer tells Mona a wretched story. The -prisoners had passed through Douglas with heads down like men going to -execution; they had been drawn up like sheep on the pier, while the -ordinary passengers went aboard to their cabins, and then they had -been hurried down the gangway to the steerage quarters. And as the -steamer moved away they had looked back with longing eyes at the island -they were leaving behind them. - -“Poor devils! They used to talk about the camp as a hell, but inside -six months they’ll be ready to crawl on their stomachs to get back to -it.” - -“But why ... why are they all to be sent to Germany?” asks Mona. - -“It’s the order of the congress, miss. No country wants to harbour its -enemies--not a second time--unless they have something to make them -friends.” - -“But if they have?” - -“Well, if a German has an English wife and an English business....” - -“They let him remain--do they?” - -“I believe they do, miss.” - -Mona’s heart leaps, and a new thought comes to her. If Oskar does -not wish to go back to Germany, why shouldn’t he stay here and farm -Knockaloe? - -Next morning, after the third gang has gone, she is on her way to her -landlord’s. Her last half-year’s rent is due, and then there’s the -question of the lease, which runs out in November. - -It is a beautiful morning with blue sky and bright sunshine. The -snowdrops are beginning to peep and the yellow eyes of the gorse are -showing. As she goes down the road with a high step she is thinking of -her landlord’s answer to her father when, four years ago, he asked what -was to happen to the farm after the war was over: “Don’t trouble about -that. You are here for life, Robert--you and your children.” - -She meets her landlord at the gate of his house. He is in his -church-going clothes, having just returned from Peel, where he has been -sitting on the bench as a magistrate. - -“The rent, I suppose?” he says, and he leads her into the sitting-room. - -She counts it out to him in Treasury notes, and he gives her a receipt -for it. Then he rises and makes for the door, as if wishing to be rid -of her. She keeps her seat and says: - -“What about the lease, sir?” - -“We’ll not talk about that to-day,” says the landlord. - -“I’m afraid we must. I have to make important arrangements.” - -The landlord looks embarrassed. - -“But if you say it will be all right when the time comes, we can leave -it for the present, sir,” says Mona. - -The landlord, who has reached the door and is holding it open, puts on -a bold front and says: - -“Well, to tell you the truth, I’ve had to make other arrangements.” - -Mona is thunderstruck, and she rises rigidly. - -“You don’t mean to say, sir, that you are ... letting the farm over my -head?” - -“And if I am, why shouldn’t I? It’s mine, I suppose, and I can do what -I like with it.” - -“But you promised my father--faithfully promised him when the farm was -turned into a camp....” - -“Circumstances alter cases. Your father is dead and so is his son....” - -“But his daughter is alive, and what has she done....” - -“Don’t ask me what she’s done, miss.” - -“But I do, sir, I do.” - -“Then if you must have it, you must. I want a good man of my own race -to farm my land, not an enemy alien.” - -Mona is speechless for one moment, choking with anger; at the next she -is back on the road, weeping bitterly. - -Oskar is in the avenue when she returns to it, and seeing she is in -trouble he speaks to her. - -She tells him what has happened, omitting what was said about himself. - -“Your family have lived in Knockaloe for generations, haven’t they?” he -says. - -“Four generations.” - -“And you were born there, weren’t you?” - -“Yes.” - -“It’s a shame--a damned shame.” - -Mona is crushed. Knockaloe is lost to her. And this is the peace she -has prayed and prayed for! - -One day passes, then another. Every morning Mona sees a fresh batch of -prisoners leaving the camp, and her heart sinks at the sight of them. -Oskar’s turn will come some day. It tears her to pieces to think of -it--Oskar going off at that melancholy pace, down the avenue and round -by Kirk Patrick. - -At length a spirit of defiance takes possession of her. Knockaloe is -dear to her by a thousand memories, but it is not the only place on -the island. She has heard of a farm in the north that is to be let in -November. It is large, therefore it is not everybody who can stock -it, but _she_ can, because she has always thought it her duty to put -everything she has earned during the war into cattle to meet the -requirements of the camp. - -She is upstairs in her bedroom, making ready for a visit to the -northern landlord, when she hears the loud clatter of hoofs in the -avenue. Long John Corlett, who used to come courting her for the sake -of the stock, is riding a heavy cart-horse up to the house. He sees -her and, without troubling to dismount, he calls to her to come down. -Resenting his impudence, she makes him wait, but at length she goes out -to him. - -“Well, what is it, John Corlett?” - -“You’ll have heard, my girl, that I’m the new tenant of Knockaloe?” - -“I haven’t; but if you are, what of it?” - -“I’ve come to ask you how long you want to stay.” - -“Until the lease runs out--what else do you expect, sir?” - -“But why should you? The camp will be empty before that time comes, and -what can you do with your milk when the men are gone?” - -“I can do what I did before they came, if you want to know.” - -“Oh, no, you can’t. You’ve lost your milk run, and you can never get it -back again.” - -“Who says I can’t?” - -“I say so. Everybody says so. Ask anybody you like, woman--any of your -old customers.” - -Mona is colouring up to the eyes. - -“Then tell them I don’t care if I never can,” she says, and turns back -to the house. - -“Wait! There’s something else, though. What about the dilapidations?” - -“Dilapidations?” - -“According to the agreement with the Government the landlord has to -make good the damage to the houses and the tenant the injury to the -land.” - -It is true--she had forgotten all about it. - -“Twenty-five thousand men here for four years--it will take something -to put the land into cultivation.” - -In a halting voice she asks Corlett what he thinks it will cost, and he -mentions a monstrous figure. - -“Three years’ rent of the farm--that’s the best I can make it.” - -Mona gasps and her face becomes white. - -“But that would leave me without a shilling,” she says. - -“Tut, woman! With the big rent you’ve had from the Government you must -have a nice little nest-egg somewhere.” - -“But I haven’t. I’ve put everything into stock.” - -The hulking fellow slaps his leg with his riding whip and makes a long -whistle. - -“Well, so much the better if it’s all on the land.” - -Then he drops from his saddle to the ground, and comes close to Mona as -if to coax her. - -“Look here, Mona woman, no one shall say John Corlett is a hard man. -Leave everything on the farm as it stands, and we’ll cry quits this -very minute.” - -Mona looks at him in silence for a moment. Then she says, breathing -rapidly: - -“John Corlett, do you want to turn me out of my father’s farm a beggar -and a pauper?” - -“Chut, girl, what’s the odds? There’s somebody will be wanting you to -follow him to foreign parts when he goes himself--though you might have -done better at home, I’m thinking.” - -Mona’s breath comes hot and fast and her face grows crimson. Then she -falls on the man like a fury. - -“Out of this, you robber, you thief, you dirt!” - -The big bully leaps back into his saddle. Snatching at his reins, he -shouts that if she won’t listen to reason he will “put the law on her,” -and not a beast shall she take off the land until his dues as incoming -tenant are paid to him. - -“Out of it!” cries Mona, and she lifts up a stick that lies near to her. - -Seeing it swinging in the air and likely to fall on him, the man tugs -at his reins to swirl out of reach of the blow, and the stick falls on -his horse’s flank. The horse throws up her hind legs, leaps forward, -and goes down the avenue at a gallop. - -The rider has as much as he can do to keep his seat, and the last that -is seen of him (shouting something about “you and your Boche”) is of -his hindmost parts bobbing up and down as his horse dashes through the -gate and up the road towards home. - -Some of the guard who have been looking on and listening burst into -roars of laughter. Mona bursts into tears and goes indoors. If her -stock is to be taken, the island, as well as Knockaloe, is lost to her! - - -Late that night Oskar comes again. His eyes are fierce and his face is -twitching. - -“I’ve heard what happened,” he says, “and if I were a free man I should -break every bone in the blackguard’s skin. But I can’t let you go on -suffering like this for me. You must give me up, Mona.” - -It is the first time an open acknowledgment of their love has passed -between them. Mona is confused for a moment. Then she says, - -“Do you _want_ me to give you up, Oskar?” - -He does not answer. - -“To see you go away with the rest, and to think no more about you?” - -Still he does not answer. - -“Do you?” - -“God knows I don’t,” he says, and at the next moment he is gone. - - - - -_TWELFTH CHAPTER_ - - -Three nights later Oskar comes again. As usual he will not enter the -house, so she has to stand at the door to speak to him. His eyes are -bright and he is eager and excited. - -“Mona, I have something to suggest to you.” - -“Yes?” - -“It’s not to be wondered at that people brought up in a little island -like this should have these hard feelings and narrow ideas. But the -English are not like that. They are a great, great people, and if you -are willing to go with me to England....” - -“What are you thinking of, Oskar?” - -He tells her more about himself than she has ever yet heard. He is an -electrical engineer, and before being brought to Knockaloe he had been -chief engineer to a big English company on the Mersey, at a salary of a -thousand a year. When the war broke out his sympathies had been dead -against his own country, chiefly because of “that quack, the Kaiser.” - -“Oskar!” - -“It’s true. I can’t account for it. I was secretly ashamed of it in -those days, but I would have joined up in the British Army if they -would have had me. They wouldn’t!” - -On the contrary, the authorities had called him up for internment. Then -his firm, which had been loathe to lose him, had tried to obtain his -exemption. They had failed, and when the time came for him to go the -chairman of the company had said: “Heine, we’re sorry you have to leave -us, but if you want to come back when the war is over, your place will -be waiting for you.” - -“But could he ... do you think it possible....” - -“Certain! Oh, he’s a great old man, Mona, and if he were to break his -word to me I should lose faith in human nature. So I ... I....” - -“Well?” - -“I intend to write to him, telling him I shall soon be at liberty, and -if you will only agree to go with me....” - -He stops, seeing tears in her eyes. Then, in a husky voice, he says: - -“I’m sorry to ask you to leave your island.” - -“It is turning me out, Oskar; that’s the bitterest part of it.” - -“Then you _will_ go to England with me?” - -“Yes,” she says, and he hurries off in high spirits to write his letter. - -During the next week Mona tries hard to feel happy, but little by -little vague doubts oppress her. One day she overhears scraps of a -conversation between the Commandant and the Governor, who are arranging -for the breaking up of the camp and the disposal of its portable -property. As they stand in the avenue they are talking about the Peace -Conference. - -“It’s a pity,” the Commandant is saying, “but it has always been my -experience that the first years of a peace are worse than the last -years of a war.” - -And the Governor is answering: “All the same, we should be fools to -trust those traitors again. We have beaten the German brutes, and what -we have got to do now is to keep them beaten.” - -“I’m not like that, your Excellency,” says the Commandant. “I’ll fight -my enemy with the best, but when the fighting is over I want to forget -and, if I can, forgive. I was at the front in the early days, and after -a bad bit of an engagement I came upon a German officer in a shell -hole. He was in a terrible state, poor fellow, and we couldn’t take him -in, so I decided to stay with him. His mind was perfectly clear, and he -said, ‘Colonel’ (I was colonel in those days), ‘don’t you think this is -strange?’ ‘What’s strange?’ I asked. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘if you and I had -met in the trenches I suppose you would have tried to kill me for the -sake of Motherland, and I should have tried to kill you for the sake -of Fatherland, yet here you are trying to save me for the sake of ... -Brotherland.’ More of the same kind he said in those last hours, and -when the end came he was in my arms and his head was on my breast, and -I don’t mind telling you I ... kissed him.” - -Mona felt a thrill going through and through her. Brotherland! That was -what all the world would be soon. And then Oskar and she, living in -Liverpool, in their great love would be happy and unashamed. - -That night Oskar comes back. His face is pale and his lips are -quivering. He tries to speak, but finding it hard to do so he hands her -a letter. It is from the engineering firm on the Mersey. - - - SIR,--We have received your letter of the 10th inst. addressed - to our late chairman, who died during the war, and regret to say - in reply to your request that you should be taken back in your - former position, that it is now filled to our satisfaction by - another engineer, and that even if it were vacant we should find - it impossible to re-engage you for the reason that feeling against - the Germans is so strong among British workmen that none of them - would be willing to serve under you, and the fact that you had - married an English wife, as you say, would increase, not lessen, - their hostility. - - Yours, etc. - - -“I wouldn’t have believed it,” says Oskar. - -“It’s the war,” says Mona. “Will it never, never end?” - -“Never,” says Oskar, and he turns away with clenched teeth. - -Mona goes to bed that night with a heavy heart. If English workmen will -not work with Oskar, England, also, is closed to them, and Brotherland -is a cruel dream. - - -Another week passes. The disbanding of the camp goes on as usual, with -its toll of two hundred and fifty men daily. The Fourth and Second -Compounds are now beginning to be called upon. The men of the Third -are being kept to the last, because many of them, like Oskar, are -engineers, and therefore useful in removing the electric plant, which -is to be sold separately. But their turn will come soon and then ... -what _then?_ - -A week later Oskar comes again. His face is thin and pinched and his -eyes are bleared as from want of sleep, but his spirits are high, -almost hysterical. - -“Mona,” he says, “I know what we have to do.” - -“What?” - -“The English may be hard and unforgiving, but the Germans are not like -that.” - -“The Germans?” - -“Oh, I know my people. They may fight like fiends and demons--they do, -I know they do--but when the fighting is over they are willing to be -friends with their enemies.” - -“What are you thinking of now, Oskar?” says Mona, but she sees what is -coming. - -“If you were willing ... if you could only find it possible to go with -me to Germany....” - -“Germany?” - -Mona feels dizzy. - -“It’s a sin and a shame to ask you to leave your native country, Mona, -but since it is turning you out, as you say....” - -Mona is covering her ears. - -“Don’t speak of it, Oskar. I can’t listen to you! It’s impossible.” - -Oskar is silent for a moment, then he says in a tremulous voice: - -“I would make it up to you, Mona. Yes, I swear to God I should make it -up to you. I should dedicate every day and hour of my life to make it -up to you. You should never regret it--never for one single moment.” - -“But how could I go....” - -“Just as other women are going. Lots of the men are taking their German -wives back with them. Why shouldn’t I take my English wife?” - -“Wife?” - -“Certainly. The chaplain would marry us.” - -“The chaplain?” - -“Yes, in the camp chapel, late at night or early in the morning, with -two of my comrades as witnesses.” - -“Have you spoken to him, then?” - -“I have, and he says that being made in a Lutheran church by a Lutheran -clergyman, it would be a good marriage according to German law, so -Germany would receive you.” - -“But where ... where should we go to?” - -“My mother’s first.” - -“Your mother’s?” - -“Where else? Oh, she’d love it! She’s the best mother a man ever had. -Do you know, she has written to me every single week since I came here. -And now she’s only living to welcome me home.” - -“But, Oskar, are you sure she will....” - -“Welcome you? Of course she will. She’s growing old, poor soul, and has -been lonely since my sister’s death. After we’re married I’ll write to -say I’m bringing another daughter home to love and comfort her....” - -“Write first, Oskar.” - -“As you please. It isn’t necessary, though. I know quite well what -she’ll say. But even if she couldn’t welcome you for yourself--and why -shouldn’t she?--she would for my sake, anyway.” - -“All the same, write first, Oskar.” - -“Very well, I will. And if her answer is all right, you’ll go?” - -“Ye-s.” - -“Heavens, how happy I am! What have I done to deserve to be so happy?” - -Mona watches him as he goes off, with his quick step, until he is lost -in the sinister shadows cast by the big arc-lamps that cut through the -night. Then she goes indoors and tries to compose herself. It takes -her a long time to do so, but at length, being in bed, she remembers -a beautiful thing she had read to her father in the days when he lay -upstairs: - -“_Whither thou goest, I will go. Thy people shall be my people, and thy -God my God._” - -For days after that Mona finds herself singing as she goes about her -work. And at night, when she is alone, she is always thinking of her -forthcoming life in Oskar’s home. She can scarcely remember her own -mother, except that she was an invalid for years, but she sees herself -nursing Oskar’s mother, now that she is old and has lost her daughter. - -“I mustn’t go empty-handed, though,” she thinks. - -That brings back the memory of Long John Corlett and his threat of -“putting the law” on her. - -It must have been stuff and nonsense about the dilapidations eating -up the stock, but she will see an advocate and have things settled up -immediately. - - -“I’m afraid the man is right, miss.” - -It is the advocate whom Mona is consulting. - -“It was a bad bargain your poor father made with the Government, -and the only people likely to profit by it are the landlord and the -incoming tenant.” - -“Then what do you advise me to do, sir?” - -“Sell up your stock, have the dilapidations valued, pay the money due, -and start afresh on whatever is left.” - -“Do it for me at once, please,” says Mona, and she sets off home with -an easy, if not a happy, mind. - -But hardly has she got there and changed into her dairy clothes, -and begun on her evening milking in the cow-house, with the watery -winter sun coming in on her through the open door, when she sees Oskar -approaching with a look that strikes to her heart. His face is white, -almost ghastly, and he is walking like an old man, bent and feeble. - -“What has happened?” - -“There! What do you think of that?” he says, and with a grating laugh -he gives her a letter. - -“Is it from your mother?” - -“Look at it.” - -“Is she refusing to receive me?” - -“Read it. It’s written in English--for your benefit, apparently.” - -Mona reads: - - - “OSKAR,--The contents of your letter have distressed me beyond - measure. That a son of mine should think of marrying an - Englishwoman--one of the vile and wicked race that killed his - sister--is the most shocking thing that has ever happened to me in - my life.” - - -There is more of the same kind--that if Oskar attempts to bring his -Englishwoman to Germany his mother will refuse to receive her; that if -she did receive her every self-respecting German woman would cry shame -on her and shun her house for ever; that the feeling in Germany against -the abominable English is so bitter, because of their brutal methods -of warfare and their barbarous ideas of peace (starving hundreds of -German children by their infamous blockade, drowning German sailors -under the sea in their submarines, burning German airmen alive in the -air, and now ruining everybody by crushing demands for reparations -which will leave Germany a nation of beggars), that no decent house -would shelter any of them. - - - “Tell your Englishwoman from me that if she marries you and comes - to this country she will be as a leper whom nobody will touch. - Never shall she cross this threshold! Oskar, my son, I love you, - and I have waited all this time for you; I am old, too, and have - not much longer to live, but rather than hear you had married an - Englishwoman I would see you dead and buried.” - - -When Mona looks up from the letter, Oskar is gazing into her face with -a ghastly smile. - -“That’s a nice thing to send a fellow after four years’ imprisonment, -isn’t it?” he says, and then he breaks into heart-breaking laughter. - -“I was so sure of her, too. I thought she would do anything for -me--anything.” - -Again he laughs--wildly, fiercely. - -“What has happened to the woman? Has the accursed war taken all the -heart out of her? The German people, too--have they all gone mad? -Starving German children, drowning German sailors, burning German -airmen! Good Lord, has the whole nation gone crazy?” - -Mona feels as if she were choking. - -“She is old and hasn’t much longer to live, and just because I’m going -to marry the best girl in the world and take her home with me....” - -But his laughter breaks into sobs and he can say no more. Mona feels -the tears in her throat as well as in her eyes, but at length she says: - -“Oskar, it’s all my fault. I’ve come between you. You must go home -without me--to your country and your mother.” - -Oskar lifts his broken face and cries: - -“Country? Mother? I’ve got no country and no mother either. Go home to -them? Never! Never in this world!” - -At the next moment he has gone off, with long strides, before Mona can -reach out her hand to stop him. - -Being alone, she has to go on with her work as usual--the “creatures” -have to be milked and foddered. But after the men from the compounds -have been served (only three of them now) she has time to think out her -situation. - -Since Oskar’s mother refuses to receive her, Germany also is closed -to them. Because she loves Oskar, and Oskar loves her, and they are -of different races and their nations have been at war, they are to be -hunted through the world as outcasts, and no place is to be left for -them. - -“Poor Oskar! It’s hardest for him, though,” she thinks. - - - - -_THIRTEENTH CHAPTER_ - - -The men of the Fourth and Fifth Compounds, three-quarters of the guard -and many of the officers have gone, when a stranger comes to the camp -to make a bid for the purchase of the booths and huts. - -After a tour of the wooden buildings he arrives at the farm-yard, and -steps on to the mounting-block to take a general view, and at the same -moment Mona comes to the door of her dairy. - -He is an American, a cheerful and rather free-spoken person, and -he says, with a smile on his lips, by way of excuse for opening a -conversation: - -“I guess the farm-house is not for sale, is it?” - -“You must ask the landlord about that, sir,” says Mona. - -“Not you also? You’re the tenant of the farm, aren’t you?” - -“Yes, but I’m leaving it presently.” - -“Ah, I remember! I’ve heard something about you. And where are you -going to when you leave here?” - -“I don’t know yet, sir.” - -He looks at her as if measuring her from head to foot, and then says, -with another smile: - -“Come to my country, girlie. We have some strapping young women out -west, but we can do with a few more of the same sort, I guess.” - -Mona is startled. Obvious as the word is, it comes like an inspiration. -America! “The melting-pot of the nations!” All the races of the world -are there. They must live in peace together or life could not go on. - -When Oskar comes that night she tells him what the stranger has said, -and his big, heavy, sleepless eyes become bright and excited. - -“Why not? Why shouldn’t we? That great free country! What a relief to -leave all the d----d mess of this life in Europe behind us!” - -There is a difficulty, though. He has heard that America refuses to -admit people who have been in prison. He has been four years in an -internment camp--will America allow him to land? He must ask the -chaplain. - -The following night Oskar comes back with a still brighter face. - -“It’s all right, Mona. Internment is not imprisonment in the eyes of -American law.” - -But there is one other difficulty. America requires that every -immigrant shall have something in his pocket to prevent him from -becoming a burden on the new country. - -“It’s not much, but I have too little. If I had been a free man I -should have earned four thousand pounds in the time I’ve been here, but -when I leave the camp I shall only have fifty.” - -Mona is overjoyed--at length _she_ can do something. - -“That’s no difficulty at all, Oskar. The auction is to come off soon, -and after I’ve paid what I owe I shall have enough for both of us.” - - -It is the day before the auction, and Mona is gathering up the stock -and bringing them down to the houses--the beasts she had put out on -the grass, the “dry” cows that are stretched on their bellies chewing -the cud, the sheep that are bleating, and the early lambs that are -baa-ing. - -She is going up the mountain to fetch the young bull to which she has -taken a bowl of wheat twice a week throughout the winter. A new wave of -hope has come to her, a golden radiance is shining in the future, and -she is singing to herself as she climbs through the heather. - -Suddenly, when she reaches the top of the hill, by the tower called -“Corrin’s Folly,” she hears fierce animals snorting, and at the next -moment sees that three bulls are fighting. One of them is her own young -bull, small and lithe, the two others are old and large and black and -have iron rings in their nostrils. She remembers the old ones. They -belong to John Corlett, and must have leapt over the boundary to get at -the young one, and are now goring it fearfully. - -The fight is frightful. The young bull is bleeding horribly and trying -to escape. It leaps over the wall of the little cemetery around the -tower and makes for the land on the other side of it which goes down -by a steep descent to precipitous cliffs, with the broad sea lying -below at a terrible depth. But the old bulls, making hoarse noises from -their nostrils, are following it up on either side and intercepting it. -As often as the hunted animal runs to the right they gore it back to -the left, and when it flies to the left they gore it back to the right. - -At length the young bull stands for a moment, with its wild eyes -flashing fire and its face towards the cliffs. And then, with a loud -snort as of despair and defiance, it bounds forward, gallops straight -ahead, and leaps clear over the cliff-head into the sea. The old bulls -look after it for a moment with heaving nostrils and dilated eyes, and -then begin to graze as if nothing had happened. - -Mona has stood helpless and trembling while the fight has lasted, and -when it is over and she comes to herself she finds Oskar standing -behind her. He has been working on the roof of the tower, to remove the -electric wires which have been attached to it, and from there he has -seen everything. - -“It was horrible, wasn’t it?” - -“Horrible!” - -“So cruel and cowardly.” - -“Yes,” he says, from between his clenched teeth, “and so damnably -human.” - -Mona looks at him. They go down the hill together without saying any -more. - - -At last it has come, the day of the sale. The Commandant has permitted -it to be held at the farm, although the camp is not yet entirely -cleared. It is his last act before leaving, for he is going away -that morning. Mona sees him driving off in his motor car, hardly -recognizable in his civilian clothes. As he passes the farm-house he -raises his hat to her--an English gentleman, every inch of him. - -Towards eleven o’clock there is much commotion about the farmstead. -The guards (they have had orders to help) are bringing the big beasts -out of the houses into the “haggard” and driving the sheep and lambs -into pens. There is a great deal of bleating and lowing. Mona, who is -compelled to hear, but cannot bring herself to see what is going on, is -indoors, trying not to look or listen. - -At length there is the sound of voices. The Advocate, with the -auctioneer and his clerk, are coming up the avenue, and behind them are -many farmers. Long John Corlett, in his chapel clothes, is prominent -among the latter, talking and laughing and hobnobbing with everybody. -Mona sees the look of impudent certainty in the man’s empty face. She -also sees Oskar, who is behind the barbed wire of the Third Compound, -with a face that is white and fierce. - -After a short period for inspection the auction begins. The Advocate -reads the conditions of sale (the whole of the stock on the farm is -to be sold without reserve), and then the auctioneer steps up to the -top of the mounting-block, while the clerk takes his place at the foot -of it, and the farmers form a circle around them. There are the usual -facetiæ. - -“Now, gentlemen, you’ve got the chance of your lives this morning. -John Corlett, I know you’ve come to buy up everything, so get your -purse-strings loosened. Mr. Lace, thou knows a good beast if anybody on -the island does, and there are lashings of them here, I can tell thee.” - -The first animal to be led out by the guard into the circle of the -spectators is a fine milch cow, five years old. Mona remembers that she -gave forty pounds for it in the middle of the war. It is knocked down -for twenty. - -“What name?” - -“John Corlett.” - -For a long half-hour there are scenes of the same kind. Every fresh -beast put up is knocked down at half its value, and always, after the -crack of the auctioneer’s hammer, there comes the same name--“John -Corlett.” - -At length Mona’s anger becomes ungovernable. It is conspiracy, -collusion! John Corlett has bought up all competitors! She rises from -her seat by the fire with the intention of throwing up the window and -shouting her protest. But while her hand is on the sash she sees Oskar -at the other side of the barbed wire, striding hastily away, and she -returns to her seat. - -The auction goes on for an hour longer. Mona does not look out again, -but she hears everything that is said outside, every word, almost every -whisper. - -The farmers are beginning to laugh at the monotony of the proceedings. -At length there is a murmur of conversation between the auctioneer and -the Advocate, and the auctioneer says, “Very well, if you wish, sir,” -whereupon the Advocate raises his voice and cries: - -“Gentlemen, this is going too far. If I hadn’t announced that the sale -would be without reserve I should stop it on my own responsibility. -Come now, be Manxmen. What’s doing on you anyway? Is it the war--or -what? Men, we all knew old Robert Craine. He is dead. Let us be fair to -his only daughter.” - -After that there is no more laughter, but there is less bidding and -the results are the same. The sale, which was expected to last until -evening, is over by lunch-time. - -“Gentlemen,” says the auctioneer, “I thank you for your attendance. -It’s just as I expected--John Corlett has bought in all the stock on -the farm.” - -“And much good may it do him,” says the Advocate. - -“I might have given her more for it without the auction, sir,” says -John Corlett. - -“And so you might, or you should have been d---- well ashamed of -yourself.” - -Then Mona hears the sound of trapesing feet on the avenue and the -various voices of people passing under her window. - -“Serve her right, though! We want no Huns settling here on the island.” - -“No, nor no good Manx money going over to Germany neither.” - -A moment later the Advocate comes into the house. - -“I’m sorry the sale has not been as good as we expected, miss. The -total receipts will scarcely cover the valuation.” - -“Then there’s nothing left for me--nothing whatever?” - -“Nothing! I’m sorry, very sorry.” - -Mona, who had risen, sinks back into her seat as if stunned. After a -while, the Advocate having gone, she hears the barking of dogs, the -shouting of men, the bleating of sheep and the lowing of cattle. The -stock are being driven back to the hill by the servants of their new -owner. - -At length there is silence. It is not at first that Mona is able to -realize the full meaning of what has happened, but at last it falls -on her. America is closed to her now. And that means that there is no -place left to her in the world! - - -Oskar comes towards bed-time. He is biting his lips and his eyes are -bloodshot. She looks up at him helplessly--all the strength of her soul -has gone out of her. - -“You’ve heard the result?” - -“Yes, I have heard,” he says, speaking between his teeth. - -“I can’t think how people could be so unkind.” - -“Unkind!” - -He is laughing bitterly, fiercely. - -“One’s nearest neighbours--the people one has known all one’s life.” - -“Oh, your people are no worse than any other--not an atom. People are -the same everywhere. It’s the war, Mona. It has drained every drop of -humanity out of them.” - -He is laughing again, still more bitterly and fiercely. - -“War! What a damned stupid, idiotic thing it is--and the people who -make it! Patriots? Criminals, I call them! Crowned criminals and their -mountebank crew conspiring against God and Nature.” - -He smites the doorpost with his fist and says: - -“But the war is not the worst by a long way.” - -“What is, Oskar?” - -“This damnable peace that has followed it. People thought when the -peace came they could go to sleep and forget. What fools! Think of -it! Miserable old men spouting about a table, gambling in the fate -of the young and the unborn; forgetting their loss in precious human -lives, but wrangling about their reparations, about land, about money, -which the little mother rocking her baby’s cradle will have to pay the -interest of in blood and tears some day; setting nation against nation; -brewing a cauldron of hate which is hardening the hearts and poisoning -the souls of men and women all the world over.” - -Mona, who has hardly heard what he has said, is still looking up at him -helplessly. - -“We couldn’t help it, could we, Oskar?” - -Oskar, recovering his self-command, pity-struck and ashamed, lifts up -her work-stained hands and puts them to his lips. - -“Forgive me, Mona.” - -“We struggled hard, didn’t we?” - -“Yes.” - -“But since God had put it into our hearts we couldn’t resist it, could -we?” - -“No.” - -“And now He doesn’t seem to care, does He?” - -“No! He doesn’t seem to care,” says Oskar. And then he goes off with -head down. - - - - -_FOURTEENTH CHAPTER_ - - -It is the Saturday before Easter. - -Looking out of her bedroom window in the morning, Mona sees nothing -but a desolate black waste where the crowded compounds have been. -Four unborn springs and summers buried in the bosom of the blackened -fields--when, oh when will they grow green again? - -Only in the Third Compound is there any activity. Few men are left even -there. Oskar has told her he is to leave with the last batch, but the -time for him to go is coming on inexorably. - -The “houses” are empty, the “creatures” no longer call, and the -unnatural silence of the farmyard oppresses her. As long as she had the -work of three farm hands to do her strength never failed her, but now -that she has only to attend to herself she is always tired and weary. - -The spring is beginning to appear, and through the open door she sees -that the daffodils are blooming in the little patch of garden in -front of the house. This reminds her of what she did on the day of her -father’s burial, and she plucks some of the flowers, intending to lay -them on his grave. - -There is nobody in the avenue when she walks through--between the lines -of barbed-wire fences that have no faces behind them now--and past the -empty guards’ houses near to the gate. There is nobody on the road -either, as far as to the lych-gate of Kirk Patrick. - -There he lies, her father, his upright head-stone, inscribed to “Robert -Craine of Knockaloe,” cheek by jowl with the sloping marbles that -mark the graves of the Germans who had died during the four years of -internment--all his race-hatred quenched in the peace of death. - -Only a few yards away, on the grass of a mound that had no stone -over it, is the glass dome of artificial flowers which she herself -had placed on the grave of Ludwig, the boy with the cough. The glass -is cracked, no doubt by the snow and frost of winter, and the white -flowers have perished. Poor father! Who knows but in a little while -his dust may mingle with that of the German boy in the mother-bosom -that bore them both! Oh God, how wicked is war, how cruel, how -senseless! - -Mona is coming out of the churchyard when she hears the tapping of a -mason’s chisel and then sees the mason himself behind a canvas screen, -which shelters him from the winnowing of a light breeze that is blowing -up from the sea. He is at work on a large block of granite, lettering a -long list of names. - -After a moment she speaks to him, and he tells her what the block -is--the base of a cross to the men of the district who fell in the war. -It is to be set up outside the gate of the parish church at Peel. The -ceremony of unveiling it is to be on Easter Monday--that is to say, the -day after to-morrow. The time is to be nine in the morning, because -that is the hour when the boys of Peel and Patrick who have survived -the war are expected to return home by the steamer that is to leave -Liverpool on Sunday night. The Lord Bishop of the Island is to unveil -the memorial, and all the clergy and Town Commissioners and big people -of the two parishes are to be present. All the men, too, and their -mothers and wives and children. - -“It will be a grand sight, girl. I suppose you won’t be going, though?” - -Mona catches her breath and answers: - -“No.” - -After another moment she begins to look over the names. All four sides -of the base are full of them, and the mason seems to be lettering the -last. She tries to find her brother’s name and cannot do so. At length, -not without an effort, she says: - -“But where is Robbie’s name?” - -The mason pauses in his work, and then answers: - -“Robbie Craine’s? Well, to tell you the truth, it is not on the list -they made out for me.” - -“They--who are they?” - -“Well, the Bishop and the clergy and the Town Commissioners and so on.” - -“But my brother died in the war, and won the Victoria Cross, didn’t he?” - -“Maybe he did.” - -“You know he did. Then what has he done that his name is not in the -list with the rest?” - -The mason, preparing to resume his work, replies: - -“Maybe it’s what somebody else has done that has kept him out of it.” - -The word falls on her like a blow on the brain, and she goes off -hurriedly. As she turns the corner of the road she hears the thin ring -of the mason’s chisel, and it sounds like the thud of doom. Is she, -and everybody who has ever belonged to her, to be wiped out of living -memory? What has she done to deserve it? But after a moment of fierce -anger her former helplessness comes back on her and she begins to cry. - -“I can’t tell in the world why good people should be so unkind.” - - -Later in the day a new strength, the strength of defiance, comes over -her. Oskar may say it is the war, and even the peace, that has poisoned -people’s souls, but if it was God who put it into her heart to love -Oskar, and into Oskar’s heart to love her, it is for God to see them -through. He will, too--certainly He will. If she has to become a -servant girl herself and scrub her fingers to the bone, why shouldn’t -she? God will open people’s eyes some day, and then the Bishop and the -clergy and the Town Commissioners will have to be ashamed of themselves. - -“I’m a good woman--why shouldn’t they?” - -Being without stock of her own now she has to go into town that evening -to buy provisions for housekeeping. The shop-keepers show her scant -courtesy, but she puts up with no neglect and no disrespect. It is -almost dark when she has finished her shopping, and then, for a near -cut back to Knockaloe, she passes, with her string bag in her hand, -through a by-street which has an ale-house at one corner. - -There she comes upon a tumultuous scene. In front of a small house, -with the door standing open, a crowd of women and children have -gathered to listen to a wild quarrel that is going on within. There is -a man’s voice swearing, a girl’s voice screaming and an old woman’s -pleading. - -“So this is what my maintenance from the army has been spent -on--keeping you and your ... German bastard.” - -“It’s not my fault, Harry; I tried to get another place and nobody -would have me.” - -“Neither will I have you, so get out of this house quick.” - -“Leave me alone! Leave me alone, I tell you! If you touch my child I’ll -scratch your eyes out.” - -“Out you go, you harlot, and to ... with you.” - -“Harry! Liza! Harry! Harry! Children!” cries the old woman. - -Mona asks the women of the crowd what is going on. - -“Don’t you know, miss? It’s Liza Kinnish, the girl with the German -baby. Her brother has come home from the war, and he is turning her -out--and no wonder.” - -A number of men, half-intoxicated, come from the ale-house, but they -make no attempt to intervene, and at the next moment a bare-headed -soldier, also in drink, with the upper buttons of his tunic torn open, -comes from the house, dragging after him a girl with a baby in her arms -and her disordered hair streaming on to her shoulders. - -“Out you go--you and your d---- German offal!” - -Flinging the girl into the street, the man returns to the house and -clashes the door behind him. - -“Let me in!” screams the girl, hammering at the door with her spare -hand. - -The door opens and the soldier comes to the threshold. - -“Look here, you ... I’m not going to have the fellows sneering at me -when they come home on Monday morning, so if you are not gone to ... -out of this inside two minutes....” - -“Why did _you_ come home?” cries the girl. “You beast! You brute! Why -didn’t the Germans kill you?” - -At that the soldier, foaming at the mouth, is lifting his clenched fist -to the girl when Mona, crushing through the crowd of women and throwing -down her string bag, lifts her own hand and strikes the man full in -the jaw, and he falls like a log. - -Then, while he squirms on the ground, stunned and winded, she turns on -the men from the ale-house, who have previously been drinking with him -and taunting him and egging him on. - -“And you!” she cries. “What _are_ you? Are you _men?_ You white-livered -mongrels! Your mothers were _women_, and they’d be ashamed of you.” - -By this time the soldier has scrambled to his feet and, with blood in -his mouth, he is trying to laugh. - -“Ha, ha, ha! So this is another of them, is it? She’s in the same case -herself, they’re telling me. Oh, I’ve heard of you, my lady. You used -to think great things of yourself, but when the parson marries you -there’ll be three of you before him at the altar, as the saying is. Ha, -ha, ha!” - -The men laugh and some of the women begin to titter. A harder blow -than she had dealt the soldier had fallen upon Mona. She stands for a -moment as if turned to stone, then picks up her bag, sweeps through the -crowd and hastens away. - -So this is what people think of her! After all the struggling of her -heart and the travailing of her soul, this is what people think! Oh, -God! Oh, God! - -She had been sleeping badly of late, but that night she hardly sleeps -at all. Towards the grey dawning she has a sense of Robbie being in -the room with her. He is wearing his officer’s uniform, just as in her -mind’s eye, when she felt so proud, she had often seen him. She knows -he is dead, and she thinks this is his spirit, and it has come to -reproach her. - -“Mona, if anybody had told me three years ago that such a thing would -happen I should have killed him. Yes, by God, I should have killed him.” - -Mona tries to speak, but cannot. - -“Rob....” - -“Lord, how proud I was of you! When they told me I had won the Victoria -Cross I laughed and said, ‘My sister would have won it long ago if she -had been here.’ Nobody hated the Germans as you used to do, but now -that you’ve given yourself to one of them....” - -“Rob ... Rob....” - -“What else could you have done it for? Everybody believes it, too. -Father believed it, and it was that that killed him.” - -Again Mona tries to cry out and cannot. - -“Hide yourself away, Mona. Hide your sin and shame in some miserable -corner of the earth where nobody will know you. You’ve broken my heart, -and now....” - -“Robbie! Robbie!” - -Her own voice awakens her. The rising sun shines on her as she sits up -in bed in her wretchedness. - -Only a dream! Yet it has told her everything. This is the end. Here -has her road finally led her. Her love is doomed. Life, as well as the -world, is now closed to her. But to stand in the pillory as long as she -lives for a sin she has not committed--it is too much! Better die--a -thousand times better! - -When she asks herself how, it seems so simple. And when she thinks -of the consequences they seem so slight. There will be nobody to -care--nobody except Oskar. He will be better without her, and can go -home when his time comes. Either of them could get on alone. It is only -together that they are not allowed to live, and since only one of them -can live, it is so much better it should be Oskar. - -There is a pang in the thought that Oskar will suffer. Yes, he will be -sorry. But he will get over it. And when he is at home and the first -pang of losing her is past and he wants to be happy, being so young and -such a _man_, perhaps ... who knows.... - -But no, she cannot think of that. - - - - -_FIFTEENTH CHAPTER_ - - -Easter Day--one of the God-blest mornings in the sweet of the year when -it is happiness enough to be alive. - -Mona is setting her house in order and feeling as if she were doing -everything for the last time. When she thinks she has finished she -suddenly remembers that she has not had breakfast. But that does not -matter now. How thirsty she is, though! So she brews herself a pot of -tea and drinks two strong cups of it. - -The church bells begin to ring, and she determines to go to -church--also for the last time. Why not? It is true she intends to do -something which good people would condemn, but it is no use thinking of -that now. - -How sweet the air outside is, with the odour of the violets and the -gorse and with that tang of salt that comes up from the sea! The young -birds, too, how merrily they are singing! It is a pity! A great pity! - -She is late. The bells have ceased to ring, and there is nobody on the -road. It had taken her long to dress--she had felt so tired and had had -to sit down so often. - -The service has begun when she reaches the church. Through the inner -door, which is half open, she can see the congregation on their knees -and hear the vicar reading the General Confession, with the people -repeating it after him. She cannot go in just now, so she stands by the -porch and waits. - -The Sunday-school children, kneeling together on the right of the -pulpit, are bobbing their heads up and down at intervals--they are so -happy and proud in their new Easter clothes. She, too, used to be proud -and happy in her Easter clothes. It is almost heartbreaking. Life looks -sweet now, death being at the door. - -When the voices cease and she is about to enter, some of the -congregation look round at her. She feels as if they are thinking of -her as the kind of woman-penitent who in the old days used to stand at -the door of the church in her shame. That stops her, and she remains -where she is standing. - -The service goes on--the psalms and lessons and hymns appropriate to -the day. At length comes the last hymn before the sermon: - - - “_Jesu, lover of my soul,_ - _Let me to thy bosom fly...._” - - -Mona has known it all her life, yet it seems as if she had never -understood it until now. - - - “_While the gathering waters roll,_ - _While the tempest still is high._” - - -She is in tears before she is aware of it. The sermon begins, and the -vicar’s voice comes out to her in the open air and mingles with the -twittering of the birds in the trees and the bleating of the lambs in -the fields. - -It is about the last days of Jesus--His death and resurrection, the -hatred of His enemies and the desertion of His friends--all the -dreadful yet beautiful story. - -“He might have avoided His death, but He did not do so. He died of His -own free will. Why? Because He was confirmed in the belief that His -death would save the world.” - -Jesus died to show that nothing mattered to man but the welfare of -his soul. Riches did not matter, rank did not matter, poverty did not -matter. It was nothing to Jesus that He was hated and despised and -friendless and homeless and alone and cast out of the family of men. -Nothing mattered to Him but love, and because He loved the world He -died for it. - -“And that is why all suffering souls come to Him--have been coming -to Him through all the two thousand years since His pilgrimage here -below--will continue to come to Him as long as the world lasts! ‘_Let -me to thy bosom fly._’” - -Before the vicar’s voice has ceased, and while he is pronouncing the -blessing, Mona is hurrying home. There are no tears in her eyes now, -and in her heart there is only a great exaltation. - -Hitherto she has been thinking of what she intends to do as something -that God would have to forgive her for. Not so now. If Jesus died of -His own free will, if He died for love, why shouldn’t she? And if by -dying He saved the world, would it not be the same with her also? - -In the dizzy whirl of her brain she can see no difference. What she -intends to do ceases to be a sin and becomes a sacrifice. If the world -is full of hatred, as the consequence of the war, her death may save -it. She is only a poor girl, and nobody on earth may ever know what she -has done and why she has done it, yet God will know. - -But Oskar? She had not intended to tell Oskar. He loved her so much -that he might have tried to dissuade her. Just to slip away when the -time came for him to go back to his own country--that had been her -plan. But she could not reconcile herself to this now--not now, after -this great new thought. Oskar must know everything. - -Hours pass. She is sure Oskar will come to-day--quite sure. While -waiting for him she drinks many cups of tea, forgetting that she has -not eaten since yesterday. At last he comes. As usual, it is late at -night, and she is so weak from emotion and want of food that she can -scarcely reach the door to open it. - -“May I come in?” - -“Yes, indeed, come.” - -He steps into the house, never having done so since the night of her -father’s seizure, and sits by her side before the fire. His face is -lividly white, his lips are twitching, and his voice is hoarse. - -“What’s to do with you, Oskar?” - -“Nothing. Don’t be afraid. I have come to tell you something.” - -“What?” - -“I’ve just had my orders. I am to go away in the morning.” - -“In the morning?” - -“Yes, with the last batch. The last of the officers and guard are going -too, so the camp will be empty after to-morrow.” - -Mona’s heart is beating hard, and she tries to ease it by asking an -irrelevant question. - -“What are the men saying?” - -He laughs bitterly, and his words spurt out of his mouth. - -“The men? Oh, they’re saying they’ll soon be here again. They want -to stay in England, and if they are to be sent back to their own -overburdened country, to suffer and to starve, they will return some -day with hatred in their hearts.” - -“That means another war some day, doesn’t it?” - -“It does, and when that day comes God help the poor old world and -everything in it.” - -In her excited mood Mona thinks she knows better, but she cannot speak -of that yet; and Oskar, too, as if trying to gain time, goes on talking. - -“The world had its great chance at the end of the war, Mona, but then -came those damnable old men with their conferences making a peace -that was worse than the war itself. And now the churches--look at -the churches who have been told to teach that there’s no peace under -the soldier’s sword, standing by while the world is rushing on to -destruction! What snares! What hypocrisy! What spiritual harlotry! -Why don’t they burn down their altars and shut their doors and be -honest?... But that is not what I came to say--to tell you.” - -“What is, Oskar?” - -He hesitates for a moment, and then in a flood of words he says: - -“I don’t want to frighten you, Mona. You must not let me frighten you. -I should never forgive myself if.... But you are all I have now, and -... I can’t go away and leave you behind me.... I simply can’t.... It’s -impossible, quite impossible.” - -“But if they force you, Oskar?” - -Oskar laughs again--it is wild laughter. - -“Force me? Nobody can be forced if only he has courage.” - -“Courage?” - -“Yes, courage.... Don’t you see what I’ve come to tell you, Mona? Come, -don’t you? When the idea came to me first I thought you might be afraid -and perhaps faint and even try to turn me from my purpose, so I made -up my mind to say nothing. But when the order came to-night I said to -myself, ‘No, she’s not like some women. She’s brave; she’ll see there’s -nothing else for it.’” - -Mona sees what is coming, and her heart is throbbing hard, but she says: - -“Tell me. It’s better that I should know, Oskar.” - -With that he gets closer to her and speaks in a whisper, as if afraid -the very walls may hear: - -“When they look for me in the morning I shall be gone.... Don’t you -understand me now?--gone! So I’ve come to-night to say farewell. We are -meeting for the last time, Mona.” - -He looks at her, thinking she will cry out, perhaps scream, but her -eyes are shining. All the pain in the thought of their parting has -passed away with a mighty rushing. - -“Oskar,” she says, “don’t you think it would be just as hard for me ... -to stay here after you were ... gone?” - -The tears are in Oskar’s eyes now, for flesh is weak and his wild heart -is softening. - -“What would become of me without you, Oskar?” - -“Don’t say that, Mona.” - -“But if ... if it’s inevitable that you should go, if there is nothing -else for it, can’t we ... can’t we go _together_?” - -“Together?” He is looking searchingly into her shining face. “Do you -mean ...?” - -She takes his hand. It is trembling. Her own is trembling also. - -“Oskar, do you remember the fight of the bulls on the cliff-head?” - -“When the old ones wouldn’t let the young one live, and he had to....” - -She bows her head. He is breathing rapidly. She lifts her eyes and -looks at him. They are silent for a moment, then he says: - -“My God, Mona! Do you mean _that_?... Really mean it?” - -“Yes.” - -And then she tells him everything--all her great, divine, delirious -project. - -He gasps, and then his face also shines, as little by little her dream -rises before them. - -“Do you think that vain and foolish, Oskar ... that we should do as He -did, of our own free will, to save the world from all this hatred and -bitterness?” - -Oskar throws up his head; his eyes are streaming. - -“No! No! For God’s in His heaven, Mona.” - -And then, these two poor creatures whom the world has cast out, -clasped hand in hand, and seeing no difference in the wild confusion -and delirium of their whirling thoughts, talk together in whispers of -how they are going to save the world from war, and the bitter results -of war, by doing as He did who was the great Vanquisher of death -and Redeemer of the soul from sin--give up their lives in love and -sacrifice. - -“So even if the churches are all you say, there’s Jesus still....” - -“Yes, yes, there’s Jesus still, Mona.” - - - - -_SIXTEENTH CHAPTER_ - - -At five o’clock next morning a young man and a young woman are climbing -the hill that stands between the camp and the sea. - -There is only a pale grey light in the sky; the last stars are dying -out; the morning is very quiet. Sometimes a cock crows in the closed-up -hen houses of the neighbouring farms; sometimes a dog barks through the -half-darkness. Save for these there is no sound except that of the soft -breeze which passes over the earth before daybreak. - -The two walk side by side. They can hardly see each other’s faces, and -are holding hands to keep together. Partly because of the darkness and -partly for reasons obscure even to themselves, they are walking slowly, -and pausing at every few steps to take breath. They are trying to make -their journey as long as possible. It is to be their last. - -“Forgive me, Oskar,” says Mona. - -“There is nothing to forgive, Mona. It had to be.” - -“Yes, it had to be. There was no other way, was there?” - -“No, there was no other way, Mona.” - -What remained of the internment camp had not been stirring when they -passed through the lane that led from the farm to the grazing land, -but by the time they are half-way up the hill there are sounds from -the black ground below them. Looking back, they see groups of vague -figures moving about in the Third Compound. A little later they hear -the call of a bugle--the last batch of prisoners is being gathered up. -Still later, when the light is better, there is the sharp ringing of a -bell--the roll has been called and Oskar is missing. - -“It’s for me,” he says, and they stop. - -By this time they are near to the wall of the little cemetery that -surrounds the tower, and to avoid being seen they wait under its dark -shelter. - -There is a period of suspense in which neither speaks, but after a -while they see the black-coated prisoners form into file, with their -yellow-clothed guard on either side, and march out of their compound. - -“They’ve given me up,” says Oskar, and they both breathe freely. - -They hear the word of command, deadened by distance. Then they see the -procession of men pass down the avenue and through the big outer gates -into the high road. At first there is only the dull thud of many feet -on the hard ground, but as the guards close the gates behind them, and -the sharp clang of the iron hasps comes up through the still air, the -prisoners break into a cheer. - -It is wild, broken, irregular cheering, as of fierce disdain, and it is -followed by defiant singing-- - - - “_Glo-ry to the brave men of old,_ - _Their sons will copy their virtues bold,_ - _Courage in heart and a sword in hand...._” - - -A few minutes later the dark figures are hidden by trees, and as they -turn the corner of the road by Kirk Patrick their voices die away. - -They are gone--back to their own country, which wants them not. The -camp that has been their prison for four years is empty. It lies, in -the quickening daylight, like a vast black scar on the green face of -the mountain. - -Suddenly a new thought comes to Mona. They may still avoid death. Life -may yet be open to them. - -“Oskar,” she says, speaking in a rapid whisper, “now that the officers -and the guard have gone, isn’t it possible that we could escape to -somewhere ... where we should be unknown....” - -“Impossible! Quite impossible, Mona.” - -“Ah yes, I suppose it is,” she says, and they rise to resume their -journey. - -But just then, in the first rays of morning, from a cottage that is -between them and the sea, she hears the voice of a woman singing. She -knows who the woman is--one of her former maids, who has lately been -married to a farm labourer. Perhaps her husband has gone to his work in -the fields, and she is out in their little garden, gathering up the -eggs of the hens that are clucking. How happy she must be! - -For a moment Mona’s heart fails her. She forgets the great thoughts of -yesterday, and regrets the loss of the simple joys that are reserved -for other women. - -“It seems a pity, though, doesn’t it?” she says. - -“Do you regret it, Mona?” says Oskar, looking round at her. But at the -next moment her soul has regained its strength. - -“No! Oh, no! It had to be.... And then there is our great hope, our -wonderful idea!” - -“Yes, our great hope, our wonderful idea.” - -They continue their climbing, still holding each other’s hands, but -rarely speaking. Sometimes she stumbles, but he holds her up. The -larks are singing now, and the young lambs on John Corlett’s farm are -bleating. Far down, on the seaward side, sheltering in the arms of its -red cliffs, is the little white town of Peel. It is beginning to smoke -for breakfast. - -“Oskar, do you still think that when all this is over, and the hatred -and bitterness have died out of people’s hearts, they will make war on -each other no longer?” - -“Yes, in the years to come, perhaps--or they must wipe themselves off -the earth, Mona.” - -“And do you think that God will accept our sacrifice?” - -“I’m sure He will--because we shall have died for love and given up -all.” - -“Yes, we shall have died for love and given up all,” says Mona, and -after that she liberates her hand and walks on firmly. - -As they approach the crest of the hill the deep murmur of the sea comes -over to them, and when they reach the top its salt breath smites their -faces. There it lies in a broad half-circle, stretching from east to -west, cold and grey and cruel. - -Mona trembles, and the revulsion which comes to the strongest souls -at the first sight of death seizes her for an instant. In a faltering -voice she says: - -“It won’t be long, will it, Oskar?” - -“No, it won’t be long, Mona.” - -“Only a few moments?” - -“Yes, only a few moments.” - -“And then we shall be together again for ever?” - -“For ever.” - -“Oh, I shan’t care if at the cost of a few moments of suffering I can -be happy with you for ever.” - -She is not afraid now. In front of them are the heather-clad slopes -that go down to the precipitous cliffs. They clasp hands again and walk -forward. Tears are in their eyes, but the light of heaven is there also. - -In a few minutes more they are on the cliff head. It overhangs the sea, -which is heaving and singing in its many voices, seventy feet below. -The sun is rising, and the sky to the east is flecked with crimson. -There is nothing else in sight anywhere, and no other sound except the -cry of the sea fowl on the rocks beneath. - -“This is the place, isn’t it?” - -“This is the place, Mona.” - -“Shall we do as we intended?” - -“Yes, let us do as we intended.” - -And then these two children of the universal Father, cast out of the -company of men, separated in life and about to be united in death, go -through the burial service which they have appointed for themselves. - -First, they kneel on the cliff edge, as close as they can get to it, -and repeat their prayer: - - - “_Our Father, who art in Heaven ..._ - _Geheiligt wird dein name ..._ - _Forgive us our trespasses ..._ - _As we forgive them that trespass against us...._” - - -Then they rise, and, standing hand in hand, with their heads up and -their faces to the sea, they sing their hymn: - - - “_Jesu, lover of my soul ..._ - _Lass mir an dein brust liegen...._” - - -Then Oskar unfastens his coat, and taking off the long belt he is -wearing he straps it about both of them. They are now eye to eye, -breast to breast, heart to heart. - -“The time has come, hasn’t it, Oskar?” - -“Yes, the time has come, Mona.” - -“I can kiss you now, can’t I?” - -He puts his arms tenderly about her and kisses her on the lips. She -kisses him. It is their first kiss and their last. - -“God bless you for loving me, Oskar.” - -“And God bless you, too, Mona. And now good-bye!” - -“No, not good-bye. Only--until then.” - -“Until then.” - - -The sun rises above the horizon in a blaze of glory. The broad sea -sings her everlasting song. The cliff head is empty. - - -After a while, when the sky is blue and the morning sunlight is dancing -on the waters, a steamer, decked with flags from stem to stern, comes -round the headland on the south. It is crowded with soldiers, who are -crushing to starboard to catch their first sight of the town which lies -behind the headland to the north. - -There is the sharp crack of a rocket from the lifeboat house at Peel, -and then a band on the steamer begins to play, and the soldiers to sing -in rapturous chorus: - - - “_Keep the home-fires burning..._ - _Till the boys come home...._” - - -A little later the church bells begin to ring. They ring louder and -louder and faster and faster every moment, as if pealing their joyous -message up to the cloudless sky: - - “PEACE! PEACE! PEACE!” - - - - -CONCLUSION - - -Queenstown, _April_, 1919.--_Rather more than a week ago the bodies -of a young man and a young woman, tightly strapped together, closely -clasped in each other’s arms, and floating out towards the ocean, were -picked up by Kinsdale fishermen as they were returning to harbour in -the early hours of morning. Inquiries into identity appear to show that -the young man was a German of good family and superior education, who, -until recently, was a prisoner at Knockaloe, the well-known internment -camp for alien civilians in the Isle of Man, and that the young woman -was a native of the island, a girl of fine character, the owner of a -farm which is connected with the camp and called by the same name._ - -_It is known that, in spite of the difference of race and -notwithstanding the difficulties of their position, they became -strongly attached, and that when, shortly after the Armistice, the -order was given that prisoners of war should be returned to the -countries of their origin, the young German tried, first, to remain in -England with the girl, whom he wished to marry, and afterwards to be -allowed to take her back with him to Germany. Failing in both efforts, -he fell into a deep melancholy, which seems to have communicated itself -to the young woman, and to have resulted in a death-pact._ - -_When the time came for the camp to be closed the young man had -disappeared, and later it was discovered that the young woman was also -missing. How they escaped is unknown, but it is assumed that they threw -themselves into the sea from the cliffs of Contrary, the most westerly -headland in Man, and, being caught in the Gulf stream, which flows -close to the island at that point, were carried down to the waters in -which they were found._ - -_The mackerel fishers of Kinsdale (simple, but imaginative and often -religious men, belonging to many nationalities--Irish, Scotch, -French, and even German) have been deeply touched by the fate of the -young lovers who, finding their love doomed by the hatred between -their races, and nothing left to them in life, preferred death to -separation. A few days ago they asked permission to bury the bodies, -and yesterday they did so, choosing as the place of rest the summit of -Cape Clear, which looks out on the Atlantic. To-day they have built -over the spot a broad and lofty cairn, which will henceforth be the -first thing seen by the passengers on the great liners who are coming -in from the New World to the Old, and the last by those who are going -out from the Old World to the New._--The Times. - - -“_Love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave.... Many -waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it._” - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOMAN OF KNOCKALOE: A -PARABLE *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Woman of Knockaloe: A Parable</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Hall Caine</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 12, 2021 [eBook #66932]</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Tim Lindell, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)</div> - -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOMAN OF KNOCKALOE: A PARABLE ***</div> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/front.jpg" alt="front" /></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p> - -<h1>THE WOMAN OF KNOCKALOE</h1> - -<hr /> - -<div class="box"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</a></span></p> -<p>The publishers wish it to be understood that nothing in this book is -intended to refer to real-life persons in the Isle of Man or elsewhere.</p></div> - -<hr /> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/title.jpg" alt="title page" /></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">THE WOMAN<br />OF KNOCKALOE</p> - -<p class="bold"><i>A Parable</i></p> - -<p class="bold">By<br />HALL CAINE</p> - -<div class="box"> -<p>“<i>Love is strong as death; jealousy<br /> -is cruel as the grave;... Many<br /> -waters cannot quench love, neither<br /> -can the floods drown it.</i>”</p></div> - -<p class="bold space-above">TORONTO<br />THE RYERSON PRESS<br />1923</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1923,<br /> -<span class="smcap">By</span> DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, <span class="smcap">Inc.</span></p> - -<p class="center space-above">PRINTED IN U. S. A.</p> - -<p class="center">VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY<br />BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> - -<h2>EDITORIAL NOTE</h2> - -<p>“The Woman of Knockaloe” is first of all a love story. In our opinion -it is a charming and natural love story, beautiful in its purity, -and irresistible in its human appeal; so simple in its incidents -that it might be a nursery tale, so stark in its telling that it -might be a Saga, so inevitable in the march of its scenes, from its -almost breathless beginning to its tremendous end, that it might be a -Greek tragedy. In this character alone I think it calls for serious -consideration.</p> - -<p>But it is more than a love story. It is a Parable, carrying an -unmistakable message, an ostensible argument. Readers all over -the world will so interpret it. They will see that it has special -application to the times, that it is directed against War as the -first author of the racial hatred, the material ruin, the sorrow and -suffering, the poverty and want, which are now threatening the world -with destruction; that it is a plea for universal peace, for speedy and -universal disarmament, as the only alternative to universal anarchy.</p> - -<p>The story is laid in a little backwater of the war—a backwater -which has never before, perhaps, been explored in literature—but -nevertheless it is not in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> ordinary sense a war story. The late -Great War does not enter it at all, except as an evil wind which blows -over a mile and a half by half a mile of land in a small island in the -Irish Sea, an Internment Camp, wherein twenty-five thousand men and -one woman, cut off from life, pass four and a half years within an -enclosure of barbed wire.</p> - -<p>This narrow space of blackened earth is intended to stand for the world -in little, from 1914 to the present year, and the few incidents of the -simple yet poignant tale are meant to illustrate the effect of the late -war on the heart of humanity, to describe at very close quarters the -consequences of what we call The Peace on the condition of the world -and the soul of mankind, and to point to what the author believes to be -the only hope of saving both from the spiritual and material suicide to -which they are hurrying on. It is neither pro-British nor pro-German -in sympathy, but purely pro-human. War itself is the only enemy the -Parable is intended to attack.</p> - -<p>The battlefield the author has chosen is dangerous ground, but the -public will not question his sincerity. Hall Caine is seventy years of -age, and down to 1914 he was a life-long and even an extreme pacifist. -More than one of his best known books was intended to show not only -the barbarity and immorality of warfare, but also its cowardice and -futility. Yet when the Great War broke out no man of letters became -more speedily or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span> remained more consistently an advocate of the Allied -cause. The paradox is not difficult of explanation. In the face of -what he, in common with countless pre-war pacifists, believed to be a -deliberate plot whereby liberty was to be violated, civilization was to -be outraged, religion was to be degraded, the right was to be wronged, -the weak were to be oppressed, the helpless were to be injured, and -before the iron arm of a merciless military tyranny, justice and mercy -and charity were to be wiped out of the world, he became one of the -most passionate supporters of the war of resistance. The Great War -stood to him, as to others, as a war to end war.</p> - -<p>It cannot be necessary to describe in detail his war activities even -at a moment when, by the publication of this challenging book, his -patriotism may possibly be questioned. They are matters of common -knowledge not only in Great Britain and America, but also in many -foreign countries in which his books have made his name known and his -opinions respected. For his war services he was honoured by his own -nation, and at least one of her Allies, being knighted in 1918, made an -Officer of the Order of Leopold in 1920, and a Companion of Honour in -1922.</p> - -<p>But the war-propagandist never wholly submerged the pacifist. His last -war article was written on Armistice Day, 1918, and it was intended to -show that while the price paid for the victory of the Allied cause had -been a terribly bitter one it had been justified, inasmuch as it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span> had -killed warfare, and so banished from the earth for ever the greatest -scourge of mankind.</p> - -<p>Hall Caine has lived long enough since to see the falseness of that -judgment. No one can have suffered more from the disappointments and -disillusionment of the war, its political uselessness, its immeasurable -cruelty, its limitless waste, its widespread wretchedness, and above -all its inhuman demoralization. That the Great War has been in vain, -that so much sacrifice, so much heroism, so many brave young lives have -been thrown away, he would not for one moment say, being sure that in -the long review of a mysterious Providence all these must have their -place. But he is none the less sure that the late war has left the -world worse than it found it; that the after-war, which we call The -Peace, has been more productive of evil passions than the war itself -was; that violence has never been more rampant or faith in the sanctity -of life so low; that the poor have never been poorer, or the struggle -to live so severe; and that Christian Europe has never before been -such a chaos of separate and selfish interests or so full of threats -of renewed and still deadlier warfare in the future—in a word that -the Great War has not only failed to kill war but has frightfully -strengthened and inflamed the spirit of it.</p> - -<p>And now he publishes his Parable, the little story called “The Woman of -Knockaloe,” in the hope of showing that there can be “no peace under -the soldier’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span> sword,” that the salvation of the world from the moral -and material destruction which threatens to overwhelm it is not to be -found in governments or parliaments or peace conferences, but only in -a purging of the heart of individual man of the hatreds and jealousies -and other corruptions which the war created—in a personal return of -all men, regardless of nation or race, or politics or creed, or (as in -the case of the American people) remoteness from the central scene of -strife, to the spiritual and natural laws which alone can bring the -human family back to true peace and real security—the laws of love and -mutual sacrifice, above all the law of human brotherhood, which was at -once the law and the first commandment of Christ.</p> - -<p>That this is a great Evangel none can doubt, and that it will go far -in the beautiful human form in which it is presented, that of a deeply -moving story, few will question. But is the world prepared for it? Is -this the hour for such a plea? Is the Great War too recent to permit -any of the nations who engaged in it to forgive their enemies? In -this new book Hall Caine touches upon wounds that are not yet healed -and sometimes the touch hurts. If it is an all-healing touch the -pain may be endured. But is it? What will the British people think? -What will the Belgians, the French and the Americans, who are still -suffering from their bereavements, say to a writer who asks them, in -effect, to shake hands with the Germans who caused them? Will not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span> the -nations which have suffered most from the war say that, having beaten -the Germans, it is their first duty to themselves and to humanity to -keep them beaten? Will not a residue of bitterness against an author -who calls upon the peoples of the world to make an effort that is -impossible to the human heart at such a time obscure the sublimity of -his message?</p> - -<p>On the other hand will it not be agreed that the Christian ideal of -the forgiveness of injuries and the brotherhood of man is the only -remaining hope of the redemption of the world from the lamentable -condition into which the war, and the passions provoked by the war, -have plunged it; that without this ideal, politics are a meaningless -mockery, religion is an organized hypocrisy, and the churches are -a snare, and that, however hard it may be to learn the lesson, and -however cruel the pain of it, there never was a time when it was more -needed than now?</p> - -<p>Here lies the theme for many a sermon, and judging of “The Woman of -Knockaloe” by its effect upon those who, besides myself, have read it, -it is hardly possible to question its missionary value, apart from its -human beauty and charm. At least it is certain that readers in many -lands will think and continue to think of some of the greatest of human -problems long after they have closed the book.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Publishers.</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div><i>Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,</i></div> -<div><i>It hath not been my use to pray</i></div> -<div><i>With moving lips or bended knees</i>,</div> -<div><i>But silently, by slow degrees,</i></div> -<div><i>My spirit I to love compose,</i></div> -<div><i>In humble trust mine eyelids close,</i></div> -<div><i>With reverential resignation.</i></div> -<div><i>No wish conceived, no thought exprest,</i></div> -<div><i>Only a sense of supplication;</i></div> -<div><i>A sense o’er all my soul imprest</i></div> -<div><i>That I am weak, yet not unblest,</i></div> -<div><i>Since in me, round me, everywhere</i></div> -<div><i>Eternal Strength and Wisdom are.</i></div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div><i>But yester-night I prayed aloud,</i></div> -<div><i>In anguish and in agony,</i></div> -<div><i>Upstarting from the fiendish crowd</i></div> -<div><i>Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me:</i></div> -<div><i>A lurid light, a trampling throng,</i></div> -<div><i>Sense of intolerable wrong,</i></div> -<div><i>And whom I scorned, those only strong:</i></div> -<div><i>Thirst of revenge, the powerless will</i></div> -<div><i>Still baffled, and yet burning still!</i></div> -<div><i>Desire with loathing strangely mixed</i></div> -<div><i>On wild and hateful objects fixed,</i></div> -<div><i>Fantastic passions! maddening brawl!</i></div> -<div><i>And shame and terror over all!</i></div> -<div class="right"><span class="smcap">Coleridge.</span></div> -</div></div></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span></p> - -<div class="center"><img src="images/box.jpg" alt="Gladstone" /></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">THE WOMAN OF KNOCKALOE </p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> - -<h2>INTRODUCTORY</h2> - -<p>I should like to say, for whatever it may be worth in excuse and -explanation, that the following story, in all its essential features, -came to me in a dream on a night of disturbed sleep early in December, -1922. Awakening in the grey dawning with the dream still clear in my -mind, I wrote it out hastily, briefly, in the present tense, without -any consciousness of effort, not as a smooth and continuous tale, but -in broken scenes, now vague, now vivid, just as it seemed to pass -before me.</p> - -<p>Only then did I realize, first, that my dream contained incidents of -actual occurrence which had quite faded from my conscious memory; -next, that it could not claim to be otherwise true to the scene of it; -and finally, that it was in the nature of a parable which expressed, -through the medium of a simple domestic tale, the feelings which had -long oppressed me on seeing that my cherished<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> hope of a blessed Peace -that should wipe out war by war and build up a glorious future for -mankind, had fallen to a welter of wreck and ruin.</p> - -<p>There were reasons why I should not put aside an urgent task and write -out my dream into a story, and other reasons why I should not attempt -to publish anything that was so much opposed to the temper of the -time, but I had to write it for the relief of my own feelings, and -here it is written. And now I publish it with many misgivings and only -one expectation—that in the present troubled condition of the world, -in the midst of the jealousy and hatred, the suffering and misery of -the nations, which leave them groaning and travailing in pain, and -heading on to an apparently inevitable catastrophe, even so humble -and so slight a thing as this may perhaps help the march of a moving -Providence and the healing of the Almighty hand.</p> - -<p class="center">“It was a dream. Ah, what is not a dream?”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>FIRST CHAPTER</i></h2> - -<p>Knockaloe<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" >[1]</a> is a large farm on the west of the Isle of Man, a little -to the south of the fishing town of Peel. From the farmstead I can see -the harbour and the breakwater, with the fishing boats moored within -and the broad curve of the sea outside.</p> - -<p>There is a ridge of hills that separates the farm from the coast, which -is rocky and precipitous. On the crest of the hills there is a square -tower that is commonly called “Corrin’s Folly,” and at the foot of the -tower there is a small graveyard surrounded by a stone wall.</p> - -<p>Too far inland to hear the roar of the sea except in winter, it is -near enough to feel its salt breath in the summer. Not rich or leafy -or luxuriant, but with a broad sunny bareness as of a place where a -glacier has been and passed over,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> and with a deep peace, a glacial -peace, always lying on it—such is Knockaloe.</p> - -<p>The farm-house lies in the valley, close under the shelter of the -hills. It is a substantial building with large outhouses, and it is -approached from the road by a long, straight, narrow lane that is -bordered by short trees.</p> - -<p>The farmer is Robert Craine, a stalwart old man in a sleeve waistcoat. -I seem to know him well. He has farmed Knockaloe all his life, -following three or four generations of his family. But now he is a -little past his best, and rarely goes far from home except on Sundays -to one or other of the chapels round about, for he is a local preacher -among the Wesleyans.</p> - -<p>“I’m not too good at the farming now,” he says, “but, man, I love to -preach.”</p> - -<p>His wife is dead, and she is buried in the churchyard of Kirk Patrick, -which lies near his gate at the turn of the road to the railway -station. He has a son and a daughter. The son, another Robert, but -commonly called Robbie, is a fine young fellow with clear flashing -eyes, about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> six and twenty, as fresh as the heather on the mountains, -and his father’s right-hand man. The daughter is named Mona, and -she is a splendid girl of about twenty-three or four, distinctly -good-looking, tall, full-bosomed, strong of limb, even muscular, with -firm step and upright figure, big brown eyes and coal-black hair—a -picture of grown-up health. Since her mother’s death she has become -“the big woman” of the farm, managing everything and everybody, the -farm-servants of both sexes, her brother and even her father.</p> - -<p>Mona has no sweetheart, but she has many suitors. The most persistent -is heir to the cold and “boney” farm which makes boundary with -Knockaloe. They call him “long John Corlett,” and his love-making is as -crude as his figure.</p> - -<p>“Wouldn’t it be grand if we only had enough cattle between us to run -milk into Douglas?”</p> - -<p>Mona reads him like a book and sends him about his business.</p> - -<p>Knockaloe has a few fields under cultivation (I see some acres of oats -and wheat), but it is chiefly a grazing farm, supplying most of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> -milk for the people of Peel. At six in the morning the maids milk the -cows, and at seven Mona drives the milk into town in a shandry that is -full of tall milk-cans.</p> - -<p>It is Sunday morning in the early part of August, nineteen hundred and -fourteen. The sun has risen bright and clear, giving promise of another -good day. Mona is driving out of the gate when she hears the crack of -a rocket from the rocket-house connected with the lifeboat. She looks -towards the sea. It lies as calm as a sleeping child, and there is not -a ship in sight anywhere. What does it mean?</p> - -<p>A cock is crowing in the barn-yard, Robbie’s dog is barking among the -sheep on the hill, the bees are humming in the hedges of yellow gorse -and the larks are singing in the blue sky. There is no other sound -except the rattle of the shandry in which the fine girl, as fresh as -the morning, stands driving in the midst of her pails, and whistling to -herself as she drives.</p> - -<p>On reaching Peel she sees men in the blue costume of the naval reserve -bursting out of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> houses, shouting hurried adieux to their wives -and children, and then flying off with cries and laughter in the -direction of the railway station.</p> - -<p>“What’s going on?” asks Mona of one of the wives.</p> - -<p>“Haven’t you heard, woman? It’s the war! Mobilization begins to-day, -and four steamers are leaving Douglas”—the chief port of the -island—“to take the men to their ships.”</p> - -<p>“And who are we going to war with?”</p> - -<p>“The Germans, of course.”</p> - -<p>Germany has jumped on Belgium—the big brute on the little creature, -and the men are going to show her how to mend her manners.</p> - -<p>“They will, too,” says Mona.</p> - -<p>They will give the Germans a jolly good thrashing and then the war will -soon be over. She has always hated the Germans—she hardly knows why. -May they get what they deserve this time!</p> - -<p>Back at Knockaloe she finds Robbie visibly excited.</p> - -<p>“You’ve heard the news, then?”</p> - -<p>“I have that.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p> - -<p>“They’ll be calling you boys off the land next.”</p> - -<p>“Will they? Do you think they will, girl?”</p> - -<p>Robbie’s black eyes were glistening. He looks round on the fields near -the house. They are yellow and red; the harvest will soon be over, and -then....</p> - -<p>It is a fortnight later. There is high commotion in the island. -Kitchener has put out his cry: “Your King and Country need you.” It -is posted up on all the walls and printed in the insular newspapers. -Young men from the remotest parts are hurrying off to the recruiting -stations. Mona and Robbie are at work in the harvest fields. Mona -cannot contain her excitement.</p> - -<p>“Oh, why am I not a man?”</p> - -<p>“Would you go yourself, girl?”</p> - -<p>“Wouldn’t I just,” says Mona, throwing up her head.</p> - -<p>The corn is cut and stooked; nothing remains but to stack it. Robbie -has gone into town for the evening. Mona and her father are indoors. -The old man is looking grave. He remembers the Crimean war and its -consequences. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Robbie is getting restless,” he says.</p> - -<p>“What wonder?” says Mona.</p> - -<p>Suddenly, like a whirlwind, Robbie dashes into the house.</p> - -<p>“I’ve joined up, dad! I’ve joined up, Mona!”</p> - -<p>Mona flings her arms about his neck and kisses him. The old man says -little, and after a while he goes up to bed.</p> - -<p class="space-above">A few days pass. It is the evening of Robbie’s departure. The household -(all except Robbie) are at tea in the kitchen—the old man at the top -of the long table, the maids and men-servants at either side of it, and -Mona serving, according to Manx custom. Robbie comes leaping downstairs -in his khaki uniform. Mona has never before seen her brother look so -fine.</p> - -<p>“Good-bye all! Good-bye!”</p> - -<p>Mona goes down to the gate with Robbie, linking arms with him, walking -with long strides and talking excitedly. He is to kill more and more -Germans. The dirts! The scoundrels! Oh, if she could only go with him! </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p> - -<p>There is a joyful noise of men tramping on the high road. A company of -khaki-clad lads on their way to the station come down from a mining -village on the mountain, with high step, singing their “Tipperary.”</p> - -<p>Robbie falls in, and Mona watches him until he turns the corner by Kirk -Patrick and the trees have hidden him. Then she goes slowly back to the -house. Her father, with a heavy heart, has gone to bed. God’s way is on -the sea, and His path is on the great deep.</p> - -<p class="space-above">Two months have passed. Mona is managing the farm splendidly and -everything is going well. About once a week there is a post-card from -Robbie. At first the post-cards are playful, almost jubilant. War is a -fine old game, a great adventure; he is to be sent to the front soon. -Later there are letters from Robbie, and they are more serious. But -nobody is to trouble about him. He is all right. They will lick these -rascals before long and be home for Christmas.</p> - -<p>Every night after supper the old man sits by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> fire and reads aloud -to the household from an English newspaper, never before having read -anything except his Bible and the weekly insular paper.</p> - -<p>There are hideous reports of German atrocities in Belgium. Mona is -furious. Why doesn’t God hunt the whole race of wild beasts off the -face of the earth? She would if she were God. The old man is silent. -When the time comes to read the chapter from the Gospels he cannot do -so, and creeps off to bed. Dark is the way of Providence. Who shall say -what is meant by it?</p> - -<p class="space-above">The winter is deepening. It is a wild night outside. The old man is -reading a report of shocking treachery in London. Germans, whom the -English people had believed to be loyal friends and honest servants, -have turned out to be nothing but spies. There has been a Zeppelin raid -over London, and, though no lives have been lost, it is clear that -Germans have been giving signals.</p> - -<p>“Why doesn’t the Government put them all in prison?” says Mona. “Yes, -every one of them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> The hypocrites! The traitors! The assassins!”</p> - -<p>The old man, who had opened the Bible, closes it, and goes upstairs.</p> - -<p>“You’re hard, woman, you’re hard,” he says.</p> - -<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1">[1]</a> Pronounced Knock-ā-loe.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>SECOND CHAPTER</i></h2> - -<p>Christmas has gone; the spring has come; the seed is in the ground; -the cattle are out on the hill after their long winter imprisonment in -the cow-houses; but the war is still going on and Robbie has not yet -returned home.</p> - -<p>It is a bright spring morning. Mona is coming back from Peel in her -shandry when she sees three gentlemen walking over the farm with her -father, one of them in officer’s uniform, the other two in silk hats -and light overcoats.</p> - -<p>As she turns in at the gate she sees a fourth gentleman come down from -the hillside and join them in the lane. He wears a Norfolk jacket, has -a gun under his arm and two or three dogs at his heels. Mona recognizes -the fourth gentleman as their landlord, and as she drives slowly past -she hears her father say to him:</p> - -<p>“But what about the farm, sir, when the war is over?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Don’t trouble about that,” says the landlord. “You are here for life, -Robert—you and your children.”</p> - -<p>Mona puts up her horse and goes into the house, and when the gentlemen -have gone her father comes in to her. With a halting embarrassment he -tells her what has happened. One of the gentlemen had been the Governor -of the island, the strangers had been officials from the Home Office.</p> - -<p>“It seems the Government in London have come to your opinion, girl.”</p> - -<p>“What’s that?” says Mona.</p> - -<p>“That the civilian Germans must be interned.”</p> - -<p>“Interned? What does that mean?”</p> - -<p>“Shut up in camps to keep them out of mischief.”</p> - -<p>“Prison camps?”</p> - -<p>“That’s so.”</p> - -<p>“Serve them right, the spies and sneaks! But why did the gentlemen come -here?”</p> - -<p>“The Governor brought them. He thinks Knockaloe is the best place in -the island for an internment camp.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mona is aghast.</p> - -<p>“What? Those creatures! Are we to be turned out of the farm for the -like of them?”</p> - -<p>“Not that exactly,” says the old man, and he explains the plan that had -been proposed to him by the gentlemen from London. He and his family -are to remain in the farm-house and keep that part of the pasture land -that lies on the hill-side in order to provide the fresh milk that will -be required for the camp.</p> - -<p>Mona is indignant.</p> - -<p>“Do you mean that we are to work to keep alive those Germans whose -brothers are killing our boys in France? Never! Never in this world.”</p> - -<p>Her father must refuse. Of course he must. The farm is theirs—for as -long as the lease lasts, anyway.</p> - -<p>“Tell the Governor to find some other place for his internment camp.”</p> - -<p>The old man explains that he has no choice. What the Government wants -in a time of war it must have. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Very well,” says Mona; “let them have the farm and we’ll go elsewhere.”</p> - -<p>The old man tells her that he must remain. He is practically -conscripted.</p> - -<p>“They don’t want <i>me</i>, though, do they?”</p> - -<p>“Well, yes, they do. They are not for having other women about the -camp, but under the circumstances they must have one woman anyway.”</p> - -<p>“It won’t be me, then. Not likely!”</p> - -<p>The old man pleads with the girl. Is she going to leave him alone?</p> - -<p>“Me growing old, too, and Robbie at the war!”</p> - -<p>At length Mona consents. She will remain for her father’s sake, but -she hates the thought of living in the midst of Germans and helping to -provide for them.</p> - -<p>“It will be worse than being at the war—a thousand times worse.”</p> - -<p class="space-above">It is a fortnight later. Huge wagons, full of bricks and timber and -other building materials, with vast rolls of barbed wire, have been -arriving at the farm, and a multitude of bricklayers and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> carpenters -have been working all day long and half the night. Ugly stone-paved -paths have been cut through the green fields; the grass-grown lane -from the farm-house to the high road has been made into a broad bare -avenue; gorse-covered hedges, already beginning to bloom, have been -torn down, and long rows of hideous wooden booths have been thrown up -and then tarred and pitched on their faces and roofs. It has been like -magic—black magic, Mona calls it.</p> - -<p>Already a large area on the left of the avenue, encompassed by double -lines of barbed wire, which look like cages for wild beasts, is ready -for occupation. It is called Compound Number One.</p> - -<p>Mona is now the only woman on the land, the maids being dismissed, and -men and boys employed to take their places. The last of the girls to go -is a pert young thing from Peel. Her name is Liza Kinnish, and before -the war she used to make eyes at Robbie. Now that other men are to come -she wants to remain, but Mona packs her off with the rest.</p> - -<p>It is evening. Mona hears the whistle of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> last train pulling up -in the railway station, and a little later the cadenced tramp, tramp, -tramp, as of an advancing army on the high road.</p> - -<p>It is the first of the Germans. From the door of the house she looks -at them as they come up the avenue—a long procession of men in dark -civilian clothes, marching in double file, with a thinner line of -British soldiers on either side of them. Mona shudders. She thinks they -look like a long black serpent.</p> - -<p>Next morning from the window of her bedroom Mona sees more of them. -They are a sullen-looking lot, but generally well-dressed and with a -certain air of breeding. On going towards the cow-house she speaks to -one of the guard. He tells her they are the best she is likely to see. -Many of them are well-to-do men. Some are rich, and have been carrying -on great businesses in London and living in large houses and even -mansions. Later she hears from her father that they are grumbling about -their quarters and the food provided for them. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Let them,” she says. “They deserve no better.”</p> - -<p>In a half-hearted way the old man excuses them. After all they are -prisoners, cut off from their wives and children.</p> - -<p>“Well, and what worse off are they than our men who are fighting at the -front? The hypocrites! The traitors!”</p> - -<p>“You’re hard, woman, you’re hard,” says the old man.</p> - -<p class="space-above">It is another fortnight later. The black magic has been going on as -before, and Compound Number Two, on the right of the avenue, is ready -for occupation.</p> - -<p>At the same hour in the evening Mona hears the tramp, tramp, tramp, as -of another army coming up the high road. It is the second company of -the Germans, and they are a hundredfold worse-looking than the first. -A coarse, dirty, brutal lot, some of them in rags—sailors, chiefly, -who have been captured at the docks in Liverpool and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>Glasgow and in -certain cases taken off ships at sea. But they are all in high spirits, -or pretend to be so. They come up the avenue laughing, singing and -swearing.</p> - -<p>Mona is standing at the door to look at them. They see her, address her -with coarse pleasantries which she does not understand, and finally -make noises with their lips as if they were kissing her. She turns -indoors.</p> - -<p>“The scum! The beasts!” she says.</p> - -<p>“You’re hard, woman, you’re hard,” says the old man.</p> - -<p class="space-above">A month later Compound Number Three is ready, and once more there is -the sound of marching on the high road. Mona, who is in the house, -will not go to the door again. She is sour of heart and stomach at the -thought that she has to live among the Germans and help to provide for -them.</p> - -<p>She hears the new batch pass through to their compound, which is on the -seaward side of the farm-house, and is compelled to notice that, unlike -their predecessors, they make no noise. Next<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> morning her father tells -her they are young men for the most part, young clerks, young doctors, -young professional men of many sorts.</p> - -<p>“Quite a decent-looking lot,” the old man says.</p> - -<p>Mona curls her lips. They are Germans. That’s enough for her.</p> - -<p>“You’re hard, woman, you’re hard,” the old man says. “What did the old -Book teach thee to pray?—<i>Our</i> Father!”</p> - -<p>Mona’s hatred of the Germans is deepening every hour, yet twice a day -she has to meet with some of them. Morning and evening she serves -the regulated supply of milk to the men who come from the compounds, -attended by their guard. They try to engage her in conversation, but -she rarely answers them, and she tries not to listen.</p> - -<p>Always the last to come is a pale-faced young fellow from the -Third Compound. He has a hacking cough, and Mona thinks he must be -consumptive. An impulse of pity sometimes seizes her, but she fights it -down. After all, what matter? He belongs to the breed of the brutes who -plotted the war. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p> - -<p>The newspapers continue to come, and every night after supper the old -man reads the war news to his household. The Germans, who seem to have -been always advancing, are beginning to fall back. The armies of the -Allies are co-operating, and it is hoped that before long a decisive -blow will be struck. The old man’s voice, which has usually had a -certain tremor, grows strong and triumphant to-night. And when he has -come to the end of his reading of the Gospel, which always follows the -reading of the newspaper, he closes the big book, drops his head over -it, shuts his eyes and, putting his hands together, says:</p> - -<p>“Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you; not as the world -giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it -be afraid.”</p> - -<p>When the farm-servants have gone out of the kitchen, Mona, who has been -standing by the fireplace leaning one hand on the high mantelpiece, -says, in a vibrant voice:</p> - -<p>“Father, do you really want peace?”</p> - -<p>“Goodness sakes, girl, why not?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> - -<p>“<i>I</i> don’t. I want war and more war until those demons are driven home -or wiped out of the world.”</p> - -<p>A few days later a letter comes from Robbie. He has been made -lieutenant, and is in high spirits. They have had a pretty rotten time -thus far, but things are coming round now. He has heard it whispered -that there is to be a great offensive soon, and that he himself is to -go, for the first time, up to the front trenches. He is in a hurry now, -preparations going forward so furiously, but they’ll hear of him again -before long.</p> - -<p>“So bye-bye for the present, dad, and wish me luck! And, by the way, -tell Mona I read a part of her last letter to some of the officers at -the mess last night, and when I had finished they all cried out, like -one man, ‘My God! That girl’s a stunner!’ And then the major said, ‘If -we had a thousand men with the spirit of your sister the war wouldn’t -last a month longer.’”</p> - -<p>A week has passed since Robbie’s letter, and the newspapers report -a wonderful victory—the enemy is on the run. Every evening, at the -hour<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> when the postman is expected to arrive at the camp, the old -man, who has said nothing, has been out on the paved way in front of -the farm-house (the “street,” as the Manx call it), in his sleeve -waistcoat, smoking his pipe and with the setting sun from over the sea -on his face.</p> - -<p>The other letter Robbie promised has not come yet. But this evening -through the kitchen window Mona sees the postman striding slowly up the -garden path with his head down and a letter in his hand, and something -grips at her heart. The postman gives the letter to her father, and -goes off without speaking. The old man fumbles it, turning the envelope -over and over in his hands. It is a large one, and it has printing -across the top. At length, as if making a call on his resolution, he -opens it with a trembling hand, tearing the letter as he drags it out -of the envelope. He looks at it, seems to be trying to read it and -finding himself unable to do so. Mona goes out to him, and he gives her -the torn sheet of typewriting.</p> - -<p>“Read it, girl,” he says helplessly, and then he lays hold of the -trammon tree that grows by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> porch. Mona begins, “The Secretary of -State for War regrets....”</p> - -<p>She stops. There is no need to go farther. Robbie has fallen in action.</p> - -<p>The truth dawns on the old man in a moment. An unseen flash as of -lightning seems to strike him, and he reels as if about to fall. Mona -calls to some of the farm hands, and they help her father indoors and -up to bed, and then run for the nearest doctor—the English doctor of -the First Compound.</p> - -<p>The old man has had a stroke. It is a slight one, but he must stay in -bed for a long time and be kept absolutely quiet. No more letters or -newspapers—nothing that will startle or distress him. It is his only -chance.</p> - -<p>Mona does not cry, but her eyes flash and her nostrils quiver. Her -hatred of the Germans is now fiercer than ever. They have killed her -brother and stricken her father. May God punish them—every one of -them! Not their Kings and Kaisers only, but every man, woman and child! -If He does not, there is no God at all—there cannot be.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>THIRD CHAPTER</i></h2> - -<p>Three months pass. The Internment Camp has been growing larger and -larger. There are five compounds in it now, and twenty-five thousand -civilian prisoners, besides the British Commandant and his officers and -guard—two thousand more. It is a big ugly blotch of booths and tents -and bare ground, surrounded by barbed wire and covering with black -ashes like a black hand the green pastures where the sweet-smelling -farm had been. In the middle of the camp, cut off from the compounds, -is the farm-house, and its outhouses, with their many cows, and its -farm-servants who sleep in the rooms over the dairy.</p> - -<p>Mona is the only woman among twenty-seven thousand men. The Commandant, -who is kind, calls her “The Woman of Knockaloe.” The first shock -of her brother’s loss and her father’s seizure is over and she is -going on with her work as <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>before. After all the “creatures” of the -cow-house have to be attended to, and if she could not leave Knockaloe -before the Germans came she cannot leave it now when her father lies -half-paralysed upstairs.</p> - -<p>As often as she can do so during the day she runs up to him, and at -night, after she has given the men their supper, she reads to him. -It is only the Bible now, and by the old man’s choice no longer -the Gospels, but the Old Testament—Job with its lamentations, and -afterwards the Psalms, but not the joyful ones, only those in which -David calls on the Lord to revenge him upon his enemies. Her father is -a changed man. His heart has grown bitter. He takes a fierce joy in -David’s denunciations and mutters them to himself when he is alone.</p> - -<p>The girl was right. Those spawn of the Pit—what fate is too bad for -them?</p> - -<p>Christmas comes, the second Christmas, then spring, the second spring. -Mona watches the life of the camp with loathing. Rising in the grey of -the morning, she sees the prisoners ranging round<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> their compounds like -beasts in a cage, and on going to bed in the dark she sees the white -light of the arc-lamps which have been set up at the far corners of the -camp to prevent their escape during the night. She hears of frequent -rioting, rigorously put down, and then of an attempt at insurrection -in the messroom of the First Compound and of four prisoners being shot -down by the guard. Serve them right! She has no pity.</p> - -<p>She overhears the guards talking of indescribable vices among the -men of the Third Compound and then of terrible punishments. Her work -sometimes requires that she should pass this compound, and as often as -she does so she becomes conscious that behind the barbed wires the men -are looking at her with evil eyes and laughing like monkeys. Her flesh -creeps—she feels as if they were stripping her naked. The beasts! The -monsters!</p> - -<p>One sunny morning in the early summer Mona is awakened by the loud -boom of a gun from the sea. Looking out she sees a warship coming to -anchor in the bay. Later she sees great activity in the officers’ -quarters and hears that the Home<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> Secretary has come from London to -make an inspection of the camp and that the Commandant has sent for -the Governor. Still later she sees the three going the rounds of -the compounds. Towards noon they pass the farm on their way to the -Commandant’s dining-room, and, the kitchen window being open, Mona -hears what the stranger, who looks angry, is saying:</p> - -<p>“What can you expect? Shut men up like dogs and what wonder if they -develop the vices of dogs! The only remedy is work, work, work.”</p> - -<p>A few days after that the joiners and bricklayers are building -workshops all over the camp and within a month there is the sound -of hammering and sawing and planing from inside these places, as if -the prisoners were working. Mona laughs. They will never turn these -creatures into human beings—never!</p> - -<p class="space-above">Autumn comes and the fields outside the camp are waving yellow and red -to the harvest, but the Manx boys, nearly all that are worth anything, -are away at the war, and the farmers are saying the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> corn will lie down -uncut and rot on the ground if they cannot get help to gather it.</p> - -<p>One night she hears that the better-behaved of the prisoners are to be -sent out to the neighbouring farms to work at the harvesting, and next -morning she sees a batch of them going off with their guard, down the -avenue and through the gates.</p> - -<p>“There’ll be trouble coming of this,” she thinks. “Such men are not to -be trusted.”</p> - -<p>Inside a month the camp is ringing with a scandal. The letters arriving -at the camp for the prisoners have always been examined by censors. -Most of the letters have come from friends in their own country, but -now it is found that some are from Manx girls, who, having met with -German prisoners while working on the land, have struck up friendships. -One of these girls has written to tell her German lover that she is in -“trouble” and that the wife of her master is turning her out. Her name -is Liza Kinnish.</p> - -<p>Mona’s anger is unbounded. The slut! She has a brother at the war too! -Mona has no pity for such creatures. While their boys out there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> at the -front are fighting and dying for them they are carrying on at home with -these German reptiles! Serve them right, whatever the disgrace that -falls on them!</p> - -<p>“I’d have such women whipped—yes, whipped in the public market-place.”</p> - -<p>From that time forward Mona hates the prisoners as she had never hated -them before. She cannot bear to look into their German faces or to hear -the sound of their German voices. All the same she has to live among -them for her father’s sake and even to serve them twice a day with the -milk from the dairy.</p> - -<p class="space-above">Late in the year, at seven in the morning, she is measuring the milk -into the cans, which are marked with the numbers of the various -compounds. The prisoners come to carry them away, saluting her with the -mist about their mouths as they do so, but she makes no answer. When -she thinks they have all gone she finds the can of the Third Compound -still standing by the dairy door where she had left it. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> - -<p>The pale-faced boy who coughed always came for that, and was generally -the last to arrive. After a while, when she has her back to the door, -she hears a voice behind her.</p> - -<p>“Is this for me, miss?”</p> - -<p>She starts. Something in his voice arrests her. It is not harsh and -guttural, like that of the other prisoners, but soft, deep and human. -For one dizzy moment she almost thinks it is Robbie’s.</p> - -<p>She turns. A young man, whom she has never seen before, is on the -threshold. He is about thirty years of age, tall, slim, erect, -fair-haired, with hazel eyes and a clean-cut face that has an open -expression. Can this be a German?</p> - -<p>After a moment of silence Mona says:</p> - -<p>“Who are you?”</p> - -<p>He tells her. The young fellow who had fetched the milk before had -broken a blood-vessel on awakening early that morning and been carried -up to the hospital.</p> - -<p>“What’s your name?”</p> - -<p>“Oskar.”</p> - -<p>“Oskar what?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Oskar Heine.”</p> - -<p>“And you are in Compound Three?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>Mona gazes at him in silence for a moment, and then recovering herself, -she says:</p> - -<p>“Yes, that’s yours.”</p> - -<p>The young man touches his cap and says:</p> - -<p>“Thank you.”</p> - -<p>Mona tries to answer him but she cannot. He goes off, carrying his can, -and with his guard behind him. Mona finds herself looking after him, -first through the door and then through the dairy window.</p> - -<p>All that day she goes about her work with a serious face and is cross -with the farm hands when they do anything amiss. And at night, when -supper is over, and her father calls down to her to come up and read -his Bible, she calls back.</p> - -<p>“Not to-night, dad—I’ve got a headache.”</p> - -<p>Then she sits before the fire alone and does not go to bed until -morning.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>FOURTH CHAPTER</i></h2> - -<p>Another month has passed. Mona has been fighting a hard battle with -herself. Some evil spirit seems to have found its way into her heart -and she has had to struggle against it all day and every day.</p> - -<p>“It can’t be true! It’s impossible! I should hate myself,” she thinks.</p> - -<p>To fortify herself against her secret enemy she spends as much time as -she can spare with her father. The old man is now bitterer than ever -against the Germans. They have killed his son, and he can never forgive -them.</p> - -<p>“Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered.... Let not the ungodly -have their desire, O Lord; let hot burning coals fall upon them; let -them be cast into the fire and into the pit, that they may never rise -again.”</p> - -<p>Mona hears the old man’s voice through the thin partition wall that -separates her room from his,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> and she makes an effort to join in his -imprecations. But the terrible thing is that she catches herself -thinking they are wicked psalms, and that David, when he said such -things, was not “a man after God’s own heart” but a devil.</p> - -<p>This frightens her and she tries to make amends to her conscience by -being as harsh as possible to the prisoners. When Oskar comes to the -dairy with the rest she never allows herself to look at him, and when -he speaks, which is seldom, she snaps at him or else tries not to hear -what he is saying. But one morning she is compelled to listen.</p> - -<p>“Ludwig’s gone.”</p> - -<p>“Ludwig?”</p> - -<p>“The man who used to come for the milk.”</p> - -<p>“The boy with the cough?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. Died in the night and is to be buried to-morrow. Just twenty-two -and such a quiet young fellow. He was the only son of his mother -too, and she is a widow. I’ve got to write and tell her. She’ll be -broken-hearted.”</p> - -<p>Mona feels a tightening at her throat, and then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> tears in her eyes, but -she forces herself to say: “Well, she’s not the only mother who has -lost a son. People who make wars must expect to suffer for them.”</p> - -<p>Oskar looks at her for a moment and then goes off without speaking -again. At the next moment she catches herself looking after him through -the window just as he turns his head and looks back.</p> - -<p>“Oh God, forgive me! Forgive me!” she thinks and feels as if she would -like to beat herself.</p> - -<p>A week later when Oskar comes as usual he is carrying a small wooden -box, which he sets down inside the dairy door. It is from Ludwig’s -mother, and contains one of the little glass domes of artificial -flowers which the Germans lay on the graves of their dead.</p> - -<p>“She asks me to lay them on Ludwig’s, but how can I, not being allowed -to go out of the gates?”</p> - -<p>The lid of the box has been loosened, and lifting it, he shows the -glass dome with an inscription attached. Mona allows herself to stoop -and look at it. It is in German. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p> - -<p>“What does it say?” she asks.</p> - -<p>“‘With Mother’s everlasting love.’”</p> - -<p>Mona feels as if a knife has gone to her heart, but she rises hastily -and says sharply: “You may take it away. I’ll have nothing to do with -it,” and Oskar goes off, but he leaves the box behind him.</p> - -<p>All day long she tries not to look at it, but it is constantly meeting -her eye, and in the evening, when her work is done and everything is -quiet, she picks up the box, puts it under her cloak and turns towards -the gates of the encampment.</p> - -<p>“Better have it out of my sight,” she thinks as she goes into the -churchyard of Kirk Patrick.</p> - -<p>She has no difficulty in finding the place. Other Germans have died -and been buried since the camp began. Here they lie in a little square -by themselves at the back of the church, with recumbent white marble -stones above them inscribed with their foreign names. On the last of -the graves, not yet covered, she lays the flowers and then throws the -box away.</p> - -<p>“After all, it’s only human. Nobody can blame me for that.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> - -<p>But do what she will she cannot help thinking of the German boy and of -his mother weeping for him in his German home.</p> - -<p>She has heard the tramp of a horse’s hoofs on the road behind her, and -as she returns through the lych-gate the rider draws up and speaks -to her. It is the Commandant, who has been taking his evening ride -before dinner. He asks what she has been doing and she tells him quite -truthfully. He looks serious and says: “It’s natural that you should -feel pity for some of these men, but take an old man’s advice, my -child, and don’t let it go any further.”</p> - -<p class="space-above">Mona tries to follow the Commandant’s counsel, but doing so tears her -heart until it bleeds. Even the hours with her father fail to fortify -her. The old man is well enough now to sit up in a chair in his bedroom -and certain of his neighbouring farmers are permitted to see him. -One of them, a babbling fellow, tells him of the sinking of a great -passenger liner by an enemy submarine and the loss of more than a -thousand lives. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> - -<p>The old man breaks into a towering passion. “Those sons of darkness, -may the Lord destroy them for ever! May the captain of that submarine -never know another night’s sleep as long as he lives! May the cries of -the drowning torment his soul until it comes up for judgment, and may -it then be damned for ever!”</p> - -<p>“Be quiet, father,” says Mona. “You know what the doctor said. Besides, -is it Christian-like to follow the sins of a man to the next world and -wish his soul in hell?”</p> - -<p>But when she is alone in her own room she knows that her Christian -charity is all a delusion.</p> - -<p>“Oh God help me! God help me! Send me something to help me,” she cries.</p> - -<p class="space-above">One morning in summer the Commandant calls on her father and she leads -him upstairs. He takes a little leather-covered case out of his pocket -and, opening it by its spring, shows a military medal.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” asks the old man.</p> - -<p>“The Victoria Cross, old friend, won by your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> son for conspicuous -bravery in battle and sent to you by the King.”</p> - -<p>The old man wipes his eyes and says: “But who is to wear it now that -Robbie is gone?”</p> - -<p>“May I make a suggestion?” says the Commandant. “Let your daughter wear -it. Why not?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes, why not?” says Mona, and she seizes it convulsively and pins -it on her breast.</p> - -<p>Next morning, feeling braver, with the medal on her breast, she looks -Oskar Heine full in the face when he comes to the dairy door as usual. -He sees it and asks what it is and where it came from, and with a proud -lift of the head she tells him, almost defiantly, about Robbie and what -he did at the war.</p> - -<p>“What a splendid fellow your brother must have been,” says Oskar.</p> - -<p>Mona gasps. All her pride and defiance seem to be stricken out of her -in a moment.</p> - -<p>The English newspapers continue to come, and one evening, in the midst -of reports of indescribable German barbarities, Mona finds a letter -from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> an English soldier to his family telling of a good act by an -enemy. He had been wounded in an engagement in Belgium and, left all -day for dead on the battlefield, he had crawled at night on his stomach -over half a mile of churned-up land to a lonely farmhouse, being drawn -to it by a dim light in a window. The farmer had turned out to be an -old German, but he had been “a white man” for all that, and though some -of the officers of the victorious German army were even then drinking -and singing and making merry in his front parlour, he had smuggled the -wounded British lad into his cellar, and helped him to escape in the -morning.</p> - -<p>Some dizzy impulse, vaguely associated with misty thoughts of Oskar, -causes Mona to carry the newspaper upstairs and to read the boy’s -letter to her father.</p> - -<p>“So there’s good and bad in all races, you see. That old German farmer -must be a good creature,” she says. Whereupon the old man, who has -pulled himself up in bed to listen, says, with tight-set lips and an -angry frown: </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Maybe he is, but who knows if he isn’t the father of the brute who -fired the explosive bullet into my son’s heart?”</p> - -<p>Mona drops the newspaper and flies from the room, and the old man cries -after her in a whimpering voice:</p> - -<p>“What’s coming over thee, girl? I can’t tell in the world what’s coming -over thee.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>FIFTH CHAPTER</i></h2> - -<p>One morning Mona hears of something that seems to strengthen her -against her secret enemy. A prisoner in Compound Four, which lies -nearest to the hill, has been captured during the night in an attempt -to escape by means of a tunnel from his dormitory to the open -field under “Corrin’s Folly.” The case has been brought before the -Commandant, and he has referred it to the civil court in Peel. With -nothing to complain of now, what ingrates these Germans are!</p> - -<p>Mona hurries to the court-house. It is full to overflowing with police, -guards and townspeople. The Governor of the island has been sent for, -and he is sitting on the bench with the High Bailiff. The prisoner is -in the dock with a soldier on either side of him. His appearance is -a shock to Mona. Instead of the hardened sinner she had expected to -look upon, she sees a thin, pale, timid-looking <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>man with fever in his -frightened eyes.</p> - -<p>The facts are proved against him by the captain of the guard, and -by one of his fellow-prisoners. For two months at least he had been -tunnelling the ground from beneath his bed to the field outside the -barbed-wire fences, working at night, while the other prisoners were -asleep, and concealing the soil he dug out of the ground in the empty -space under the stage of the camp theatre, which was also the camp -chapel. At the last moment, just as he was about to emerge from the -earth in the darkness of night, he had been caught by one of the guard, -who had acted on the information of his nearest bed-fellow.</p> - -<p>Already the story of this treachery has swallowed up Mona’s feeling -against the prisoner, but when, in reply to the Governor, who addresses -him sharply, he tells his own story, in halting words and with a tremor -in his voice, she finds the tears dropping on the military medal she is -wearing on her bosom.</p> - -<p>He is a hairdresser, married to an <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>Englishwoman and has two children, -both little. After his marriage he had always meant to take out his -nationalization papers, but when he had saved enough money to do so his -wife was not well, for she was expecting her first baby, so he spent it -in taking her to the seaside for a holiday. Afterwards they set up a -shop in a suburb of London and that took everything.</p> - -<p>“Come to the point. Don’t waste the time of the court,” says the -Governor.</p> - -<p>The prisoner struggles on with his story. At first when he was brought -to the camp his wife wrote every week, telling him how she was and how -the children were. His eldest little girl had been going to a private -school, and when her schoolmates asked her where was her father she -used to say: “Daddy is at the war,” for that was what his wife had told -the child. But the truth got out at last, and then the parents of the -other children demanded that his little girl should be dismissed, and -she was, and now she was on the streets. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Quick! What has all that got to do with your attempt to escape?” says -the Governor, and Mona feels as if she wants to strike him.</p> - -<p>“But that’s not everything, your Excellency,” says the prisoner.</p> - -<p>“Go on,” says the High Bailiff.</p> - -<p>“After a time my wife stopped writing, and then I had a letter from a -neighbour.”</p> - -<p>“What did it say?” asks the High Bailiff, and with a fierce flash of -his wild eyes the prisoner tells him.</p> - -<p>Another German, who for some reason had been exempted from internment, -had been put in by the authorities to help his wife to carry on the -business, which was going to wreck and ruin. He was a scoundrel, and he -had got hold of his wife, who had given in to him for the sake of the -children.</p> - -<p>“It drove me mad to think of it, sir. That’s why I worked at night, -making that tunnel under the ground, while the other men were sleeping. -I wanted to get back and kill him.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Good thing we caught you in time, then,” says the Governor.</p> - -<p>The sentence is bread and water and seven days’ solitary confinement.</p> - -<p>Mona, who wants to cry out in court, hurries home, and she is there -when the guard brings the prisoner back. He looks like a picture of -despair—bewildered, distraught and hopeless.</p> - -<p class="space-above">Mona finds it harder than ever after this to listen to her father’s -imprecations when somebody tells him of German victories.</p> - -<p>“Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered.... Root them out, O -Lord, that they be no more a people.”</p> - -<p>Sometimes she makes a sort of remonstrance, and then the old man looks -up at her and says again:</p> - -<p>“What’s come over thee, woman? I don’t know in the world what’s coming -over thee.”</p> - -<p>Every morning on getting up she looks away over the barbed-wire fence -to the open fields <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>beyond where the young men and the girls are -working, as Robbie and she used to do in the early dawn at harvest. -And every night on going to bed she stares down at the bare, black, -cinder-covered encampment lit up from end to end by its fierce white -arc-lights. More than ever now she feels like that hairdresser, and -wants to escape from the camp. Yet the strange thing is that she knows -quite well that even if she could do so she would not.</p> - -<p>Oskar Heine has been made a camp captain for good behaviour, and is -permitted to move about as he likes, yet they rarely meet and hardly -ever speak. But one day he comes alone to the door of the dairy, and -holding out something that is in the palm of his hand he says:</p> - -<p>“Do you know this?”</p> - -<p>It is Robbie’s silver lever watch.</p> - -<p>“Where did you get it?”</p> - -<p>“An old schoolfellow of mine sent it from home—from Mannheim.”</p> - -<p>“How did he come by it?”</p> - -<p>He tells her. At the beginning of the last British advance his -schoolfellow had been shot <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>immediately in front of the first line of -the British trenches. He had lain there for some time with the bullets -whistling over his head, crying out for his mother (as men do on the -battlefield if they think they are dying), when he heard an English -soldier say:</p> - -<p>“Look here, lads, I can’t listen to this chap any longer; I’m going to -fetch him in.” Then the soldier had climbed over the top and dragged -him down to the British trench; but in doing so he had himself been -potted. The British lads had put them both into a dug-out, lying side -by side, and when their advance began they had gone on and left them. -How long they lay together Oskar’s schoolfellow did not know. When he -came to himself he had found he was getting better, but his companion -was fatally wounded. At length the brave fellow (he was a lieutenant) -had tugged at his pocket, and dragged out his watch and said: “Look -here, Fritz old chap, if you live to go home send this to my sister; -she lives at Knockaloe.”</p> - -<p>Mona tosses in bed all that night, gazing into the darkness with -terror, after she has drawn her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> curtains close to shut out the light -of the arc-lamps. Remembering what her father had said when she read -the soldier boy’s letter, she had not shown the watch to her father, -but hidden it away in a drawer. It had come to her like a reproach from -the dead, and she was afraid to look at it.</p> - -<p>All at once she asks herself <i>why</i>? If those two brave boys lying out -there in that deserted dug-out, the one thinking of his sister at -Knockaloe and the other of his mother in her German home, could be -friends at the last, was it the devil that had made them so?</p> - -<p>“Oh God, my God, why do men make wars?”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>SIXTH CHAPTER</i></h2> - -<p>Mona knows that this is the beginning of the end. She finds herself -thinking of Oskar constantly, and especially when she is dropping -off to sleep at night and awakening in the morning. With a hot and -quivering heart she asks herself what is to come of it all. She does -not know. She dare not think. A feeling of shame and dread seems to -clutch her by the throat.</p> - -<p>One day the neighbouring farmer who comes to visit her father blurts -out another of his shocking stories. It is about a mid-day raid over -London.</p> - -<p>Towards noon on a beautiful summer day, in an infant school in East -London, a hundred little children, ranging in age from three years to -six, had been singing their hymn before the time came to scamper home -in childish glee to dinner, when out of the sunshine of the sky two -bombs had fallen from a German air-machine and killed ten of them and -wounded fifty. The scene had been a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>frightful shambles. Some of the -children had been destroyed beyond all recognition, their sweet limbs -being splashed like a bloody avalanche against the broken walls. And -when, a moment later, their mothers had come breathless, bare-headed -and with wild eyes to the schoolhouse door, they saw the mangled bodies -of their little ones brought out in a stream of blood.</p> - -<p>Mona enters her father’s bedroom just as the babbler is finishing his -story. The old man, who is quivering with rage, has struggled to his -feet and is stamping his stick on the floor and swearing—nobody ever -having heard an oath from his lips before.</p> - -<p>“They’ll pay for it, though—these damned madmen and their -masters—they’ll pay for it to the uttermost farthing! Cursed be of -God, these sons of hell!”</p> - -<p>The Government in London must make reprisals. They must destroy -a thousand German children for every British child that had been -destroyed!</p> - -<p>Mona tries first to appease and then to reprove him. What good will it -do the poor dead <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>children in London that other children in Germany, -now living in the fulness of their childish joy, should be massacred?</p> - -<p>“The children are innocent....”</p> - -<p>“Innocent? They’ll not be long innocent. They’ll grow up and do the -same themselves. Oh my God, do Thou to them as with the Midianites who -perished at Endor, and became as the dung of the earth!”</p> - -<p>“Hush! Hush! Father! Father!”</p> - -<p>“Why not? What’s coming over thee, woman? What’s been happening -downstairs to change thee?”</p> - -<p>At that word Mona feels as if a sword has pierced her heart, and she -hurries out of the room.</p> - -<p>After a while the mother-instinct in her comes uppermost. Her father is -right. To make war on children is the crime of crimes. The people who -do such things must belong to the race of the devil.</p> - -<p>That evening she is crossing to the “haggard” when she meets Oskar -Heine coming out of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> compound. She does not look his way, but he -stops her and speaks.</p> - -<p>“You’ve heard what’s in the papers?”</p> - -<p>“Indeed I have.”</p> - -<p>“I’m ashamed. I’m sorry.”</p> - -<p>“Never mind about sorry. Wait until the same is done to your own -people, and then we’ll see, we’ll see.”</p> - -<p>He is about to tell her something, but she will not listen, and goes -off with uplifted head.</p> - -<p>A week passes. Mona has seen nothing more of Oskar Heine. Being free -to come and go as he likes, he must be keeping out of her way. She is -feeling less bitter about that shocking thing in London. After all, -it was war. It is true that all the victories of war are as nothing -against the golden head of one darling child, but then nobody sees that -now. Nobody in the world has ever seen it—nobody but He....</p> - -<p>“<i>Suffer the little children to come unto me....</i>”</p> - -<p>But only think! That was said two thousand years ago, and yet ... and -yet.... </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> - -<p>Christmas is near, the third Christmas. Mona reads in the newspaper -that it has been agreed by the Marshal and generals commanding on both -sides of the Western Front that there shall be a four hours’ truce of -the battlefields on Christmas Eve. How splendid! A truce of God in -memory of what happened two thousand years ago! Why couldn’t they have -it in the camp also? She suggests the idea to Oskar.</p> - -<p>“Glorious! Why can’t we?” he says.</p> - -<p>He will find a way to put the matter up to the Commandant, and then he -will speak to the prisoners.</p> - -<p>Since the prisoners have been set to work they have been living a more -human life in their amusements also. Every compound has its band. The -guards have their band, too. Mona hears from Oskar that the Commandant -consents.</p> - -<p>“It’s Christmas! God bless me, yes, why not?” he says.</p> - -<p>The prisoners are delighted, and the guards agree to pray with them. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Oh, they’re not such bad chaps after all,” the captain says.</p> - -<p class="space-above">At the beginning of Christmas week there is the muffled sound at night -of the bands in various parts of the camp practising inside their -booths. Oskar comes to the door of the farm-house to say that they -intend to play in unison, and want the “Woman of Knockaloe” to choose -the carols and hymns for them. Mona chooses what she knows. “Noël,” -“The Feast of Stephen,” and “Lead, Kindly Light.”</p> - -<p>“Splendid!” says Oskar. He is to be the conductor in Compound Three.</p> - -<p>Snow falls, then comes frost, and on Christmas Eve the ground of -the black camp is white and hard, and a moon is shining—a typical -Christmas.</p> - -<p>Mona has had a bustling day, but at nine she is finished and goes -upstairs to sit with her father. The old man, who is in bed, has heard -something of her activities, and is not too well pleased with them.</p> - -<p>“What’s coming over thee, girl?” he keeps on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> repeating. “What’s coming -over thee anyway?”</p> - -<p>“Goodness sakes, why ask me that, dad? It’s Christmas, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>Having three hours to wait, she sits by the fire and reads to him—from -the Gospels this time:</p> - -<p>“<i>And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the -Lord shone round about them; and they were sore afraid.</i></p> - -<p>“<i>And the angel said unto them, Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good -tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.</i></p> - -<p>“<i>For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which -is Christ the Lord....</i></p> - -<p>“<i>And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly -host, praising God and saying</i>,</p> - -<p>“<i>Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward -men.</i>”</p> - -<p>Mona stops. The old man is breathing heavily. He has fallen asleep.</p> - -<p>At eleven o’clock Mona is in her own room. What a magnificent night! -The moon is shining full through the window, making its pattern on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> -carpet. Outside it is so bright that the entire camp is lit up by it, -and there had been no need to switch on the big arc-lamps.</p> - -<p>The camp lies white in the sparkling snow. For the first time for more -than three years it is not distinguishable from the country round -about. The white mantle of winter has made camp and country one.</p> - -<p>It is quiet out there in the night. Not a breath of wind is stirring. A -dog is barking in the Fifth Compound, which is half a mile away. There -is no other sound except a kind of smothered hum from the inside of the -booths, where twenty-five thousand men are waiting for the first hour -of Christmas Day—only this and the rhythmical throb of the tide on the -distant shore. The old man in the next room is still breathing heavily.</p> - -<p>Mona, too, is waiting. She is sitting up on her bed, half-covered by -the counterpane. At one moment she remembers Robbie’s watch and thinks -of taking it out of the drawer and winding it up and putting it on, but -something says “Not yet.” <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>Although Peel church is nearly a mile away, -she tells herself that on this silent night she will hear the striking -of the clock.</p> - -<p>She thinks of the battlefront in France. The truce of God is there too. -No booming of cannon, no shrieking of shells, only the low murmur of -a sea of men in the underground trenches and the bright moon over the -white waste about them. Thank God! Thank God!</p> - -<p>At a quarter to twelve she is up again and at the window. A dim, -mysterious, divine majesty seems to have come down on all the troubled -world. The moon is shining full on her face. She hears marching on the -crinkling snow—the band of the guard are crossing the avenue to take -up the place assigned to them on the officers’ tennis-court. Behind -them there is the shuffling of irregular feet—her farm-hands are -following.</p> - -<p>Then, through the thin air comes the silvery sound of the clock of -Peel church striking midnight, and then, clear and distinct, from the -guards’ band the first bar of “The Feast of Stephen.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p> - -<p>“<i>When the snow lay on the ground....</i>”</p> - -<p>After that another bar of it from the Third Compound (Oskar must be -conducting):</p> - -<p>“<i>Deep and crisp and even....</i>”</p> - -<p>Then comes another bar from the First Compound, and then another and -another from the distant Compounds Four and Five.</p> - -<p>After that there is a second carol:</p> - -<p>“<i>Noël, Noël, born is the King of Israel....</i>”</p> - -<p>Then another carol and another, all played like the first, and finally, -verse by verse, from near and far, the hymn she had selected:</p> - -<p>“<i>Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom.</i>”</p> - -<p>Mona is crying. Now she understands herself—why she suggested this to -Oskar and why Oskar has carried it out. If only peace would come the -barrier that divides them would be broken down! God send it! God send -it!</p> - -<p>Her breath on the window-pane has frosted the cold glass, but she is -sure she sees somebody coming towards the house. It is a man, and he is -stumbling along, half doubled up as if drunk or wounded. He is making -for the front door.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> Trembling with half-conscious apprehension of the -truth, Mona runs downstairs to open it.</p> - -<p>The man is Oskar Heine. By the light of the lamp she had left burning -on the table she sees him. He is clutching with one hand a bough of the -trammon tree that grows by the porch, and in the other he holds a sheet -of blue paper. His cap is pushed back from his forehead, which is wet -with perspiration, his eyes are wild, and his face is ashen.</p> - -<p>“May I come in?”</p> - -<p>“Indeed yes.”</p> - -<p>He comes into the house, never having done so before, and drops heavily -into the old man’s seat by the fire, which is dying out.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” she asks.</p> - -<p>“Look,” he says, and hands her the paper. “It has just come. The post -was late to-night.” His voice seems to be dying out also.</p> - -<p>Mona takes the paper. It is in English, and, standing by the lamp, she -begins to read it aloud:</p> - -<p>“<i>American Consulate</i>—<i>Mannheim</i>.”</p> - -<p>“That’s my home—Mannheim.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> - -<p>“<i>I regret to inform you....</i>”</p> - -<p>“Don’t! Don’t!”</p> - -<p>Mona reads the rest of the letter to herself. It is from the American -Consul, and tells Oskar that in a British air raid in the middle of -the night the house in which his mother had lived with his sister had -been struck by a bomb, and the wing in which his sister slept had been -utterly destroyed.</p> - -<p>Mona makes a cry and involuntarily reads aloud again:</p> - -<p>“<i>The child is missing and it is believed....</i>”</p> - -<p>“Don’t! Don’t!”</p> - -<p>There is silence between them for a moment, only broken by Oskar’s low -sobs and Mona’s quick breathing.</p> - -<p>“Your sister?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I wanted to tell you about her that night of....”</p> - -<p>“I know,” says Mona. With a stab of remorse the memory of what she had -said has come back to her.</p> - -<p>“Only ten. Such a sweet little thing—the sweetest darling in the -world. Used to write<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> every week and send me her sketches. My father -died when she was a baby, and since then she has looked on me as father -and brother too. And now.... Oh, it is too stupid! It is too stupid!”</p> - -<p>Mona cannot speak, and he goes on saying:</p> - -<p>“It is too stupid. It is too stupid!”</p> - -<p>He drops his head into his hands, and Mona sees the tears oozing out -between his fingers.</p> - -<p>“Mignon! My little Mignon!”</p> - -<p>Still Mona does not utter a word, and at last he gets up and says:</p> - -<p>“I had to tell you. There was no one else.”</p> - -<p>His face is broken up and he is turning to go. Mona can bear no more. -By a swift, irresistible, unconquerable, almighty impulse she flings -her arms about his neck.</p> - -<p class="space-above">Meantime, the old man upstairs had been awakened by the bands. He had -raised himself in bed to listen. The carols out there in the night -touched him at first, but after a while they made him feel still more -bitter. He was thinking about Robbie. What was the good of singing -about peace in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> midst of war? Peace? There would be no peace until -the righteous God, with His mighty hand and outstretched arm, had hewn -His enemies to pieces!</p> - -<p>He heard a heavy thud at the door downstairs, and then a man’s voice, -with Mona’s, in the kitchen. His first thought was of “The Waits,” for -which Manx girls stayed up on Christmas Eve, and then a blacker thought -came to him.</p> - -<p>He struggled out of bed, pulled on his dressing-gown, fumbled for his -walking-stick, and made for the stairs. It was dark on the landing, -but there was light below coming from the kitchen, and, making a great -effort, he staggered down.</p> - -<p class="space-above">How long Mona and Oskar were in each other’s arms they did not know. It -might have been only for a moment. But all at once they became aware of -a shuffling step behind them. Mona turns to look. Her father is on the -threshold.</p> - -<p>The old man’s face is ghastly. His eyes blaze, his mouth is open and -his lips quiver, as if he is struggling for breath and voice. At length -both come, and he falls on Mona with fearful cries. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Harlot! Strumpet! So this is what has been changing thee! Thy brother -dead in France, and thou in the arms of this German! May God punish -thee! May thy brother’s spirit follow thee day and night and destroy -thee! Curse thee! Curse thee! May the curse of God....”</p> - -<p>The old man’s voice chokes in his throat. His face changes colour, and -he totters and falls.</p> - -<p>Before Mona is aware of it some of the farmhands are in the house -picking the old man up. She had left the outer door open, and they had -heard her father’s cries.</p> - -<p>They carry him back to bed, limp and unconscious. Mona stands for -some moments as if smitten by a blow on the brain. A horror of great -darkness has fallen on her. When she recovers self-possession she looks -round for Oskar. He has gone.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>SEVENTH CHAPTER</i></h2> - -<p>The old farmer died, without speaking, a few days after his second -seizure. Mona watched with him constantly. Sometimes she prayed, with -all the fervour of her soul, that he might recover consciousness. But -the strange thing was that sometimes she found herself hoping that he -might never do so.</p> - -<p>When the end came she was overwhelmed with remorse, but still -struggling to defend herself. It was early morning, and she was alone -with him at the last. In the wild burstings of affection, mingled with -self-reproach, she cried:</p> - -<p>“I couldn’t help it, father. I couldn’t help it.”</p> - -<p>They buried her father at Kirk Patrick in the family grave of the -Craines, which was close to the German quarter. Her relations from all -parts of the island came “to see the old man home.” There were uncles -and aunts and cousins to the third and fourth degree, most of them -quite <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>unknown to her. When the service was over they went back to the -farm-house, by permission of the camp authorities, to hear the will -read by the vicar. It had been made shortly after the death of Robbie -and consisted of one line only:</p> - -<p>“<i>I leave all I have to my dear daughter.</i>”</p> - -<p>The uncles and aunts and cousins, who had no claim on the dead man, -were shocked at his selfishness.</p> - -<p>“Is there no legacy to anybody, parson?”</p> - -<p>“None.”</p> - -<p>“Not so much as a remembrance?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing. Everything goes to Mona.”</p> - -<p>“We’ll leave it with her, then,” they said, and rose to go. As they -passed out of the house Mona heard one of them say to another:</p> - -<p>“It will be enough to make the man turn in his grave, though, if the -farm goes to a Boche some day.”</p> - -<p>That night, sitting late over a dying fire, Mona overhears a group of -men and boys talking on “the street,” outside. They are her servants on -the farm. Having heard her father’s denunciation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> of her on Christmas -Eve they have since been circulating damaging reports, and now they are -busy with their own plans for the future.</p> - -<p>“She has killed the old man, that’s the long and short of it.”</p> - -<p>“So it is.”</p> - -<p>“I’m working no more for a woman that’s done a thing like that.”</p> - -<p>“Me neither.”</p> - -<p>A week later they came to Mona one by one with various lying excuses -for leaving her. Asking no questions she pays them off and lets them go.</p> - -<p class="space-above">She has been alone for three days when the Commandant, with his kind -eyes, comes to see what he can do. What if he sends some of the guard -to help her?</p> - -<p>“No, sir, no.”</p> - -<p>“Some of the Germans, then?”</p> - -<p>“N-o.”</p> - -<p>“But, good gracious, girl, you can’t carry on the farm by yourself.”</p> - -<p>“I’m strong. I’ll manage somehow, sir.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p> - -<p>“But sixteen cows—it’s utterly impossible—utterly!”</p> - -<p>“Half of them are dry now and will have to go out to grass. I can -attend to the rest, sir.”</p> - -<p>“But won’t you be afraid to live in this house alone—a woman, with men -like these about you?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think I will, sir.”</p> - -<p class="space-above">Half a year has passed. Mona has seen nothing of Oskar since Christmas. -With a thrill of the heart she hears of the wide liberty he has won by -his ability and good behaviour. But even in that there is a certain -sting. He is free of the camp now as far as the barbed wire extends; -why does he not come to see her? Sometimes she feels bitter that he -does not come, but again the strange thing is that sometimes she is -sure that if he did come she would run away from him.</p> - -<p>All the same, she has a sense of his presence always about her. No -matter how early she rises in the morning she finds that the rough work -of the farm, unfit for a woman, has been done by other hands before she -has reached the cow-house. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> - -<p>For a long time this sense as of a supernatural presence, unseen and -unheard, helping her and caring for her and keeping guard over her, -strengthens her days and sweetens her nights. But at length something -happens which causes her courage to fail.</p> - -<p>Rumour has come to the camp that a great enemy offensive is shortly to -be made on the Western front. To meet the need of it the old guard of -tried and trusted men are sent overseas, and their places filled by a -new guard, which seem to have been recruited from the very sweepings of -the streets.</p> - -<p>The captain of this new guard assigned to the first three compounds -(the nearest to the farmhouse) turns out to be a brute. His antecedents -are doubtful. His own men, to whom he is a tyrant, say he has been a -barman in a public-house somewhere, and that a few years before the war -he was convicted of a criminal assault on a woman.</p> - -<p>Mona becomes aware that she is attracting the attention of this -ruffian. He is asking questions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> about her, following her with his evil -eyes, and making coarse remarks that are intended to meet her ears.</p> - -<p>“Fine gal! Splendid! What a woman for a wife, too!”</p> - -<p>During the day he finds excuses to call at the farm-house and engage -her in conversation. At length he knocks at her door at night. It is -late, the camp is quiet, nobody is in sight anywhere. Before knowing -who knocked Mona has opened the door. The man makes an effort to enter, -but she refuses to admit him. He pleads, coaxes, threatens and finally -tries to force his way into the house.</p> - -<p>“Don’t be a fool, girl. Let me in,” he whispers.</p> - -<p>She struggles to shut the door in his face. Her strength is great, but -his is greater, and he has almost conquered her resistance when the -figure of another man comes from behind.</p> - -<p>It is Oskar. With both hands he takes the blackguard by the throat, -drags him from the door and flings him five yards back into the road, -where he falls heavily and lies for a moment. Then he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> gets up and -shambles off, saying nothing, and at the next instant Oskar himself, -without a word to Mona, turns away.</p> - -<p class="space-above">It is midsummer. The insular horse-racing has begun—an event in which -the prisoners are keenly interested, but of which they are supposed -to know nothing. Since the changing of the guard the <i>morale</i> of the -camp has gone down headlong. Drink has been getting in—nobody knows -how. It is first discovered in the First Compound, commonly called the -millionaire’s quarter.</p> - -<p>Suspecting an illicit traffic the officers raid a tent occupied -by a German baron, and find half a dozen men about a table, with -champagne, cigars, brandy and every luxury of a fashionable night -club. A searching inquiry is made by the Commandant. It has no result. -The captain of the guard, who is zealous in helping, can offer no -explanation.</p> - -<p>Later it is discovered that still worse corruption is going on in the -Second Compound. The sailors are quarrelling, fighting and rioting -under the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>influence of raw spirits, generally rum, probably much -above proof. Where does their money come from? And how does the drink -get into the camp? For their work in the workshops and on the land -the prisoners are paid, but their small earnings (less a tax to the -camp and a small sum for “fag-money”) go into the camp bank, to be -distributed when the war is over. Once more an inquiry is fruitless. -The men refuse to speak, and the captain of the guard is bewildered.</p> - -<p>One morning, on rising, Mona sees Oskar Heine in the avenue talking -through the barbed-wire fence to a group of sailors in the Second -Compound. The men are behaving like infuriated animals, clenching -and shaking their fists as if vowing vengeance. A moment afterwards -she sees the captain, with a quick step, as if coming from the First -Compound, cross the avenue, disperse the men by a fierce command, and -then turn hotly on Oskar. Mona is too far away to hear what is being -said, but she sees that Oskar, without answering, walks slowly away.</p> - -<p>An hour afterwards, when she is at work in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> dairy, she hears harsh -cries from the Second Compound. Going to the door she sees a shocking -scene. The infuriated prisoners, whom she had seen talking to Oskar, -augmented by at least a hundred others, are hunting a man as if with -the intention of lynching him. They are shouting and gesticulating, -and the man is screaming. They have torn his coat off, and the upper -part of his body is almost naked. He is running to and fro as if trying -to escape from his pursuers, and they are beating him as he flies and -kicking him when he falls. The soldiers on guard at the gate of the -compound are racing to the man’s relief and threatening with their -rifles, but the rifles are being wrenched out of their hands and turned -against them. The clamour is fearful. The whole compound is in wild -disorder.</p> - -<p>“The thief! The cheat! Search him! Strip him!”</p> - -<p>Without waiting to think what she is doing, but with a frightful -apprehension of danger to Oskar, Mona runs into the compound (there -being no one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> at the gate to prevent her), and with her strong arms, -which are bare to the elbows, she struggles through the mob of drunken -men.</p> - -<p>“Stop! Stand back! You brutes!”</p> - -<p>More from the sound of her voice than from the strength of her muscles -the prisoners fall away and she reaches their victim. He is on the -ground at her feet, bleeding about the face and head and crying for -mercy.</p> - -<p>It is the captain of the guard!</p> - -<p>When the miserable creature sees who has rescued him he squirms to her -feet and calls on her to save him. A body of the guard from another -compound come running up and carry him away, and the infuriated men -slink off to the cover of their quarters.</p> - -<p>Later in the day Mona hears that six of the prisoners have been -arrested and sent to the lock-up at Peel and that Oskar Heine is one of -them. Still later she learns that they are to be brought up for trial -in the morning.</p> - -<p>What is Oskar to be charged with? Mona has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> not been summoned, but she -decides to go to the trial. She has a presentiment of something evil -that is to happen to her there, but all the same she determines to go.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>EIGHTH CHAPTER</i></h2> - -<p>Mona rises next day before the cows have begun to call, and as soon as -her work in the dairy is done she hurries off to Peel. The court-house -is as crowded as before with guards and townspeople. With difficulty -she crushes her way into the last place by the door.</p> - -<p>The proceedings have begun and the prisoners are standing in the dock -with their backs to her—five unkempt heads of common-looking sailors -and Oskar’s erect figure, with his fair hair, at the end of them. -The Governor is on the bench, and he has the High Bailiff and the -Commandant on either side of him. The captain of the guard, with a -bandage across his forehead, is in the witness-box. He is answering the -questions of the advocate for the Crown.</p> - -<p>“And now, Captain, tell us your own story.”</p> - -<p>Humbly saluting the court, with many “sirs” and “worships” and -“excellencies,” the captain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> tells his tale. It was yesterday about -this time. He had hardly entered the Second Compound in the ordinary -discharge of his duty when he was set upon, without the slightest -warning or provocation, by a gang of the prisoners. There must have -been two hundred of them, but the six men in the dock had been the -ring-leaders. Five of the six belonged to the Second Compound, but the -sixth came from the Third, and he was the worst of the lot. Being a -camp captain he was allowed to move about anywhere, and he had often -abused his liberty to undermine the captain’s authority.</p> - -<p>“How do you know that?” asks the High Bailiff.</p> - -<p>“My guard have told me what he has said, your Worship, but I heard him -myself in this case.”</p> - -<p>“What did you hear?”</p> - -<p>“I was behind the baron’s bungalow in the First Compound, your Worship, -when I heard him telling the men of the second to lynch and murder me.”</p> - -<p>The Governor leans forward and says: </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> - -<p>“You mean that this sixth man has a spite against you?”</p> - -<p>“A most bitter spite, your Excellency.”</p> - -<p>“Have you given him any cause?”</p> - -<p>“No cause whatever, your Excellency.”</p> - -<p>“What is his name?”</p> - -<p>“Oskar Heine.”</p> - -<p>“Let Oskar Heine be called,” says the Governor.</p> - -<p>As Oskar steps out of the dock Mona feels hot and dizzy. Being a -prisoner he is not sworn.</p> - -<p>He stands at the foot of the witness-box, but his head is up, and when -he answers the questions of the advocate appointed to represent the -prisoners he does not seem to be afraid.</p> - -<p>“You have heard the evidence of the captain.”</p> - -<p>“I have.”</p> - -<p>“Is it true—what he says about yourself?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir, not a word of it.”</p> - -<p>“Did you take any part in the attack that was made on him?”</p> - -<p>“None whatever.”</p> - -<p>“Did you tell the other prisoners to do what they did?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> - -<p>“No, I did not; but if I had known as much about the captain then as I -know now I should have done.”</p> - -<p>“Done what?” asks the Governor sharply.</p> - -<p>“Told them to do what they did—and worse.”</p> - -<p>“And what do you know now, if you please?”</p> - -<p>“That he has been cheating and bullying and blackmailing and corrupting -them.”</p> - -<p>“And if you had known this before what would you have told them to do, -as you say?”</p> - -<p>“Thrash him within an inch of his life.”</p> - -<p>“You admit that?”</p> - -<p>“I do, sir.”</p> - -<p>The Governor turns to the High Bailiff and says:</p> - -<p>“Is it necessary to go further? The man denies that he took part in -the actual assault, but no evidence could be more corroborative of the -captain’s story.”</p> - -<p>The High Bailiff appears to assent, and the advocate for the defence, -who had intended to call the other prisoners, signifies by a gesture -that he thinks it is hopeless to do so now. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I ask for the utmost penalty of the law against the six prisoners,” -says the advocate for the Crown, “for a brutal and cowardly assault on -an officer of the army in the lawful discharge of his duty.”</p> - -<p>There is some low talking on the bench which Mona, who is breathing -audibly, does not hear, and then the High Bailiff prepares to give -judgment.</p> - -<p>“This is a serious offence. If such riots were to be permitted at -the encampment all military discipline would be at an end. Therefore -it is the duty of the civil authorities in dealing with civilian -prisoners....”</p> - -<p>The High Bailiff’s voice is drowned by a noise near the door. A woman’s -tremulous voice is heard to say:</p> - -<p>“Wait a minute, sir.”</p> - -<p>At the next moment Mona is seen pushing her way to the front. The -advocate for the Crown recognizes her, and thinking she comes to -support his case, he rises and says:</p> - -<p>“This is the young woman I spoke of in my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> opening as having saved the -life of the captain from the fury of the prisoners. If it is not too -late she may be able to say something that will throw light on the -conduct of the men and on their motive.”</p> - -<p>“No, not on the conduct and motive of the men, but on that of the -captain,” says Mona.</p> - -<p>There is further murmuring on the bench, and then the High Bailiff says:</p> - -<p>“Let her be called.”</p> - -<p>Being in the witness-box and sworn, Mona, with the eyes of the judges, -advocates and spectators upon her, begins to tremble all over, but she -answers firmly when spoken to.</p> - -<p>“You wish to say something about the captain—what is it?”</p> - -<p>“That he is a bad man, and a disgrace to the army.”</p> - -<p>The Governor puts up his eyeglass and looks at her. Then he smiles -rather cynically and says:</p> - -<p>“You seem to know something about the army, miss. What is the medal you -are wearing on your breast?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> - -<p>“The Victoria Cross, sir,” says Mona, throwing up her head, “won by -my brother when he died in the war, and sent home to my father by the -King.”</p> - -<p>The eyeglass drops from the Governor’s nose and his face straightens. -After a moment of silence the High Bailiff says:</p> - -<p>“What you say of the captain—is it from hearsay or from personal -experience?”</p> - -<p>“From personal experience, sir.”</p> - -<p>There is another moment of silence and then the High Bailiff says:</p> - -<p>“Tell us.”</p> - -<p>Mona takes hold of the rail of the witness-box, and it is seen that her -fingers are trembling. She tries to begin, but at first the words will -not come. At length, lifting her eyes as if saying to herself, “Oh, -what matter about me?” she tells the story of the captain’s attempt at -a criminal assault upon her; how, late at night, when she was alone and -unprotected he had tried to force his way into her house and had almost -overcome her resistance when Oskar Heine came up and laid hold of him -by the throat and flung him back into the road. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> - -<p>“So if there’s any spite,” she says, “it’s not Heine’s against the -captain, but the captain’s against Heine.”</p> - -<p>There is a dead hush in the court-house until she has done. Then -the High Bailiff looks down at Oskar, who is still standing by the -witness-box, and says:</p> - -<p>“Is this true?”</p> - -<p>Oskar answers in a husky voice:</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry the young lady has said it, sir, but it’s true, perfectly -true.”</p> - -<p>“It’s a lie,” shouts the captain, tossing up his red face defiantly.</p> - -<p>“Is it?” cries Oskar quickly. And then throwing out his arm and -pointing to the captain, he says:</p> - -<p>“Look at him. The marks of my hands are on his throat at this moment.”</p> - -<p>Instantly the captain drops his chin into his breast, but not before -everybody on the bench has seen the black stamp of four fingers and a -thumb on the man’s red throat.</p> - -<p>The advocate for the defence rises and asks <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>permission (things having -gone so far) to call the other prisoners.</p> - -<p>One by one the five are called and tell the same story—that when the -horse-racing began the captain, who went to Belle Vue nearly every -afternoon, enticed them to trust him with their stakes; but though they -found out afterwards that their horses had often won, he had always -lied to them and kept their money.</p> - -<p>“Heine advised us to complain to the Commandant, but we decided to -strip the man and search his pockets, and having a drop to drink we -went further than we intended.”</p> - -<p>“It’s a pack of lies,” roars the captain.</p> - -<p>“No, it’s not that neither,” says a voice from behind the prisoners.</p> - -<p>It is one of the guard who had brought the men to court, and stepping -out of the bench at the back of the dock, he says:</p> - -<p>“Swear me next, your Worship.”</p> - -<p>“Take care what you’re saying, Radcliffe,” cries the captain in a voice -that is almost unintelligible from anger. “No lies here, remember.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p> - -<p>“No, I’ve told enough for you at the camp. I’m going to tell the truth -for once, Captain.”</p> - -<p>The soldier corroborates the evidence of the prisoners, and adds that -the guard themselves have been similarly cheated, blackmailed and -bullied.</p> - -<p>“More than that, it’s the captain himself who has been bringing drink -into the camp, especially into the millionaires’ compound. He is making -a big purse out of it, too, and only two nights ago, when he was in -liquor, he boasted that he had five hundred pounds in the bank already.”</p> - -<p>After that the proceedings are brought to a quick conclusion, the -Governor being afraid of further disclosures. The six men are sentenced -to one day’s imprisonment, but having been as long as that in custody -already they are acquitted.</p> - -<p>And then the trial being over, the Commandant addresses the captain, -telling him he is not to return to the camp, but to prepare to be sent -over the water to-morrow morning.</p> - -<p>“It’s a few men like you who give the enemy their excuse for saying we -are as bad as they are.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p> - -<p>The court having risen, the prisoners are taken out between their -guard. Oskar Heine passes close to the place where Mona is standing, -but he does not raise his eyes to her.</p> - -<p>Only then, her excitement being over, does Mona realize what she has -done for herself. The townspeople are surging out of the court-house, -and, as they go, they are casting black looks at her. She awaits until -she thinks they are gone, and then, venturing out, she finds a throng -of them, women as well as men, on the steps and about the gate, and -they fall on her with insults.</p> - -<p>“Here she comes!” “The traitor!” “It’s an ill bird that fouls its own -nest.” “The woman might have held her tongue, anyway; not given away -her own countryman to save a dirty Boche.”</p> - -<p>A hiss that is like the sound of water boiling over hot stones follows -her down the street and out of the town, until she reaches the country.</p> - -<p>Half-way home she is overtaken by the Commandant in his motor-car. He -stops to speak to her, and his kind face looks serious, almost stern. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I’m willing to believe that what you did was done in the interest of -justice, but all the same I’m sorry for you, my girl, very sorry.”</p> - -<p>The six prisoners have arrived at the camp before her, and a report of -what she has done at the trial has passed with the speed of a forest -fire over the five compounds. As she walks up the avenue, hardly able -to support herself, the brutal sailors of the Second Compound, the same -that had formerly offended her by their vulgar familiarity, rush to the -barbed wire to lift their caps to her. She does not look at them, but -hurries into the house, overwhelmed with shame and confusion.</p> - -<p>To get through the work of the day is hard, and when night comes she -drops into her father’s seat by the fire and sits there for hours, -forgetting that she has eaten nothing since morning.</p> - -<p>It is all over. The secret she has been struggling so hard to hide even -from herself, denying it over and over again to her conscience, she has -proclaimed aloud in public.</p> - -<p>She loves this German—she who had hated all his race as no one else -had ever hated them!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> Everybody knows it, too, and everybody loathes -her. And her father—if she had killed her father before, as people -said, she has killed him a second time that day, covering his very -grave with disgrace.</p> - -<p>“I couldn’t help it,” she thinks, but that brings her no comfort now.</p> - -<p>At one moment she tells herself that since she has renounced her race -she must run away somewhere—she cannot live at Knockaloe any longer. -But then she thinks of Oskar, that he must remain, and cries in her -heart:</p> - -<p>“I can’t! I can’t!”</p> - -<p>And remembering what Oskar had said about her in court she throws up -her head and thinks:</p> - -<p>“Why should I?”</p> - -<p>When the time comes to lock up the house for the night she finds a -letter which has been pushed under the door. It is on prisoners’ -notepaper and in a handwriting she has never seen before, and it -contains three words only:</p> - -<p>“<i>God bless you!</i>”</p> - -<p>Instantly, instinctively, she lifts it to her lips<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> and kisses it. But -at the next moment, as she is going upstairs, the old weakness comes -sweeping back on her.</p> - -<p>“I couldn’t help it! I couldn’t help it! God forgive me!”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>NINTH CHAPTER</i></h2> - -<p>It is Christmas week again—the last Christmas of the war. Two Swiss -doctors, appointed by the warring nations to inspect the Internment -Camps throughout Europe, have arrived at Knockaloe.</p> - -<p>After going the rounds of the five compounds they come to the farm to -test the milk. They are pleasant men, and Mona asks them to take tea.</p> - -<p>Sitting at the table in the kitchen they talk together, not paying -much attention to Mona, of the complaints made by the prisoners, -particularly by one of them, who had said he had not been able to eat -the potatoes provided because they had been full of maggots, whereupon -the sergeant of the guard, who had been showing them round, had cried:</p> - -<p>“Don’t believe a word of it—the man’s a liar,” and then the prisoner -had said no more.</p> - -<p>“I dare say the fellow was lying all right,” says<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> one of the doctors, -“but that sergeant is a bit of a beast.”</p> - -<p>“Is it like that in all the camps—in Germany, for instance?” asks Mona.</p> - -<p>“Worse there than anywhere. Some of the officers in German camps are -barbarians without bowels of compassion for anybody, and some of your -British prisoners are living the lives of the damned.”</p> - -<p>“But that’s the devilish way of war. It seems to make martyrs and -heroes of the men who lose by it, and brutes and demons of the men who -win.”</p> - -<p>“Not always, my friend.”</p> - -<p>“No, not always, thank God!”</p> - -<p>After that they turn to Mona, congratulating her on the cleanliness of -her dairy, and asking her what help she has to keep things going. Being -afraid to speak of Oskar, she tells them she is alone.</p> - -<p>“Wonderful!” says one of them. “But it’s what I always say—one person -working with his heart will do more than ten who are working with their -hands only.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> - -<p>“It’s the same on the battlefield,” says the other. “And that’s why -this country has won the war, and the Germans have lost it.”</p> - -<p>“Lost it?” says Mona. “Is the war over, then?”</p> - -<p>“It soon will be, my girl. Your enemy may make a last kick, but the war -cannot last much longer.”</p> - -<p>Mona’s heart leaps up. Can it be possible that the war is coming to an -end? Then it will soon be well with her and Oskar.</p> - -<p>It is not because Oskar is a German, but because the Germans are at war -with her own people that her people look black at her. It is war, not -race, that is the great obstacle to their love, and when the war is -over the obstacle will be gone.</p> - -<p>“O Lord, stop the war, stop it, stop it,” she prays every night and -every morning.</p> - -<p class="space-above">There are to be no carols this Christmas, but special services are to -be held in the camp on Christmas Day, and a great Lutheran preacher is -coming to conduct them.</p> - -<p>On Christmas Eve Mona is carrying a bowl of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> oats to a young bull -she has put out on the mountain, when she hears the singing of a -hymn in the prison chapel and she stops to listen. It must be the -prisoner-choir practising for to-morrow’s service, and it must be Oskar -who is playing the harmonium.</p> - -<p>“<i>Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott....</i>”</p> - -<p>The language is unknown to her, but the tune is familiar; she used to -sing it herself when she was in the choir of the Wesleyan Chapel:</p> - -<p>“<i>A sure stronghold our God is still....</i>”</p> - -<p>The same hymn, the same religion, the same God, the same Saviour, and -yet.... How wicked! How stupid!</p> - -<p>On Christmas morning Mona has finished her work in the dairy when she -hears the far-off sound of the church bells in Peel, and looking out -over the camp she sees groups of the prisoners (Oskar among them) -making their way to the prison chapel.</p> - -<p>Suddenly, as she thinks, a new thought comes to her. If it is the same -religion, why shouldn’t she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> go to the service? If the guard will -permit her to pass, why shouldn’t she?</p> - -<p>Almost before she is aware of what she is doing she has run upstairs, -changed into her chapel clothes, and is crossing the avenue towards the -gate of the Third Compound.</p> - -<p>The camp chapel (half church, half theatre) is a large wooden barn -with a stage at one end, no seats on the floor. On the stage, behind a -small deal table, the Lutheran pastor, in a black gown, is reading the -lesson from his big Bible. On the floor in front of him are five or six -hundred men, all standing in lines. They make a pitiful spectacle—some -young (almost boys), some elderly (almost old), some wearing good -clothes, some in rags, some well shod, some with their naked feet -showing through the holes in their worn-out shoes, some with fine -clear-cut features, and some with faces degraded by drink and debased -by crime. Every eye is on the pastor, and there is no sound in the bare -place but the sound of his voice.</p> - -<p>The silence is broken by the lifting of the latch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> of a door near to -the stage. At the next moment a woman enters. Everybody knows her—it -is “the Woman of Knockaloe.” She stands for a moment as if dazed by the -eyes that are on her, and then somebody by her side (she knows who it -is, although she does not look at him) touches her arm and leads her -to a chair, which has been hurriedly brought in from an ante-room and -placed in the middle of the front row.</p> - -<p>When the lesson is finished the pastor gives out a hymn. It is the -same hymn as she heard last night, but after the man from the door has -stepped forward and played the overture on the harmonium, she finds -herself on her feet in the midst of the prisoners.</p> - -<p>In full, clear, resonant voices the men are singing in their German, -when suddenly they become aware that a woman is singing with them in -English—the same hymn to the same tune.</p> - -<p>“<i>Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott....</i>”</p> - -<p>“<i>A sure stronghold our God is still....</i>”</p> - -<p>The voices of the men sink for a moment, as if they are listening, and -then, as by one spontaneous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> impulse, they rise and swell until the -place seems to throb with them.</p> - -<p>When the hymn comes to an end Mona sits and the pastor begins his -sermon. She can understand only a word of it now and again, and her -eyes wander to the door. Oskar is there. His head is up and his eyes -are shining.</p> - -<p>“O Lord, stop the war, stop it, stop it!”</p> - -<p class="space-above">Summer has come again; the sun rises and sets, the birds sing and nest, -the landscape preserves its solemn peace, but still the war goes on. -The last kick of the enemy, which the Swiss doctors had foreseen, has -been made and it is over. After a devastating advance, there has been a -still more devastating retreat.</p> - -<p>The prisoners in the camp know all about it. Their spirits had risen -and fallen according to the fortunes of their armies at the front. At -first they were truculent. They talked braggingly about vast German -forces marching upon London, blowing up Buckingham Palace, putting -an end to the British Empire, and then turning their attention to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> -America. Afterwards they were sceptical. If the English newspapers -reported German defeats they knew better, having received their German -newspapers which reported German victories. Now they are sullen. What -is the war about, anyway? Nothing at all! In ten years’ time nobody -will know what was the cause of it!</p> - -<p>Mona is in a fever of excitement. Is the war coming to an end at last? -What does Oskar think? Why doesn’t he come to her? Is he still thinking -he has brought trouble enough on her already?</p> - -<p>At length he comes. It is late at night. She hears his voice calling to -her in a tremulous tone from the other side of the open door.</p> - -<p>“Mona!”</p> - -<p>He has never called her by that name before.</p> - -<p>“Yes?”</p> - -<p>She is standing on the threshold, trembling from head to foot, never -before having been face to face with him since the night of her -father’s seizure.</p> - -<p>“It’s all over, Mona.”</p> - -<p>“What is, Oskar?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Germany is beaten. The Hindenburg line is broken, and revolution has -begun in Berlin.”</p> - -<p>“Does that mean that the war will soon be at an end?”</p> - -<p>“It must be.”</p> - -<p>She hesitates for a moment, then she says, with a quivering at her -heart:</p> - -<p>“But surely you are glad of that, Oskar—that the war will soon be at -an end?”</p> - -<p>He looks into her face and then turns away his own.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. I can’t say,” he answers.</p> - -<p>She looks after him as he goes off. Her eyes gleam and her heart throbs.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>TENTH CHAPTER</i></h2> - -<p>The tenth of November, nineteen hundred and eighteen. All day long -there has been great commotion in the officers’ quarters. The telephone -with Government Office has been going constantly since early morning, -and there has been much hurrying to and fro.</p> - -<p>An internment camp is like a desert in one thing—rumour passes over -it on the wings of the wind. Before midday every prisoner knows -everything. The Kaiser has been hurled from his throne by his own -people; the German command have asked for an armistice, and the Allied -Commander-in-Chief has given them until nine o’clock to-morrow to sign -the terms of peace he has prepared for them.</p> - -<p>If they do not sign within that time the war will go on to -extermination. If they do, the news will be flashed over the world -immediately. At eleven o’clock they will have it at Knockaloe. The -guns<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> will be fired in the fort at Douglas, the sirens will be sounded -from the steamers in the bay, and the church bells will be rung all -over the island.</p> - -<p>Mona is in raptures. The war is near to an end, and all she has prayed -for is about to come to pass. Yet even at that moment she is conscious -of conflicting feelings. When she thinks of Robbie, she wants to shout -with joy that the war has come to a right ending, and the cruel enemy -who made it, with all its barbarities and horrors, is humbled to the -dust. But when she thinks of Oskar, she feels ... she does not know -what she feels.</p> - -<p>Where <i>is</i> Oskar?</p> - -<p class="space-above">She awakes next morning before the day has dawned and while the -arc-lamps are still burning. The first thing she is aware of is a deep -murmur, like that of the sea on a quiet but sullen day, which seems to -come from all parts of the camp. It was the last thing she had been -conscious of when she fell asleep the night before. The prisoners were -then walking to and fro in their compounds, in and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> out of the sinister -shadows, and talking, talking, talking. Could it be possible that they -had walked and talked all night long?</p> - -<p>What wonder? The day that was about to dawn might be the day of doom -for them. When night came again their Fatherland might have fallen; -they might be men without a country—mere outcasts thrown on to an -overburdened world.</p> - -<p>When the day breaks and the arc-lamps are put out, Mona sees the men -moving about like wraiths in the grey light. But silence has now fallen -on them. The ordinary regulations of the camp have been relaxed for the -day, and they are not required to go to their workshops. When the bell -rings for breakfast some of them forget they are hungry and remain in -the open.</p> - -<p>It is a November day like many another, fine and clear and cold -and with occasional gleams of sunshine on the sea. The cows in the -cow-house are lowing, the sheep on the hill are bleating. Nature is -going on as usual.</p> - -<p>Mona goes to her work in the dairy. When the men come for the milk, -she can hardly bear to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> look into their drawn faces. The prisoners in -the First Compound are standing in groups, and if they are talking at -all it can only be in whispers. The sailors in the Second Compound are -standing together in crowds, but the old riotous spirit is gone; there -is no more shouting or swearing.</p> - -<p>The hours drag on. Looking beyond the barbed wire boundary of the -encampment, Mona sees country carts rattling down the high road at a -fast trot as if going to a fair. Somebody is on the church tower of -Kirk Patrick doing something with the flagstaff.</p> - -<p>At half-past ten the world seems to be standing still. The camp is on -tiptoe. All over it men are looking towards Douglas. Their faces are -grim, almost ghastly. They seem to be rooted to the ground. Sometimes -one of them digs his foot into the earth like a restless horse tired of -waiting, but that is the only movement.</p> - -<p>Where is Oskar? What is he doing?</p> - -<p>At length, at long length, there is a certain activity in the officers’ -quarters. Mona distinctly hears the ringing of the telephone bell in -the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>Commandant’s tent, which is not far from the farm-house. In the -quiet air and the dead silence she believes she hears the Commandant’s -voice.</p> - -<p>“Hello! Who’s there? Government office?... Well?... Signed, is it? -Good!”</p> - -<p>At the same moment she hears the striking of the clock at Peel. And -before the clock has finished striking there comes the deep boom of a -gun.</p> - -<p>There can be no mistaking that. It rolls down the valley from the -direction of Douglas, strikes the hills on either side, and then sweeps -over the black camp towards the sea.</p> - -<p>A moment later comes the screaming of sirens, deadened by distance, -then the ringing of church bells, now far, now near, and then the dull -sound of wild cheering at Peel, where the people, who have been waiting -from early morning in the market place, are going frantic in their joy, -clasping each other’s hands and kissing.</p> - -<p>The twenty-five thousand prisoners in the camp stand silent and -breathless for a moment. The worst has happened to them—their -Fatherland has fallen. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> - -<p>The strain is broken by a ridiculous incident. A terrier bitch -belonging to a German baron in the “millionaires’” quarters leaps up to -the roof of his tent and begins to bark furiously at the tumult in the -air. The little creature’s anger becomes amusing. The men look at the -dog and then burst into peals of laughter.</p> - -<p>A few minutes afterwards the prisoners of the First Compound have -recovered themselves and are shaking hands and congratulating each -other. After all the war is over and they will soon be free! Free to -leave this place and go back home—home to their houses and their wives -and children.</p> - -<p>The sailors in the Second Compound are going crazy with delight, and -behaving like demented creatures. They are laughing and singing at the -top of their lungs, punching each other and boxing, playing leap-frog -and turning cart-wheels. What does it matter about country? Who cares -about the Fatherland, anyway? All the world is their country—all the -world and the sea.</p> - -<p>Mona is standing at the door of her dairy, quivering with emotion. She -is like a woman <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>possessed. What she has hoped for and prayed for has -come to pass at last. Peace! Peace! Peace over all the earth! Never has -the world had such a chance before. Never will it have such a chance -again. The cruelties and barbarities of war will be no more heard of, -and the senseless jealousies and hatreds of races will be wiped out for -ever. And then ... and then....</p> - -<p>All at once she becomes aware of somebody behind her. She knows who -it is, but she does not turn. There is a moment of silence between -them, and then, in a voice which she can scarcely control, she says, -half-crying, half laughing:</p> - -<p>“You, too, will be free to go home soon, Oskar. Aren’t you glad?”</p> - -<p>There is another moment of silence between them, and then in a low, -tremulous voice Oskar answers:</p> - -<p>“No, you know I’m not, Mona.”</p> - -<p>Mona drops her hand to her side, partly behind her, and at the next -moment she feels it tightened in a quivering grasp.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>ELEVENTH CHAPTER</i></h2> - -<p>A month has passed, yet the camp looks much the same as before. Mona -had expected that the prisoners would be liberated by this time, but -they are here still. The Commandant is said to be waiting for orders.</p> - -<p>Meantime regulations have been relaxed. The men are no longer -restricted to the various compounds. There is no limit to their liberty -of moving about, except the big gates, guarded by soldiers, and the -three lines of barbed wire by which the camp is surrounded. Why not? -Nobody is likely to attempt to escape. Within a few weeks everybody -will be free.</p> - -<p>Mona has all the help she can do with now. The prisoners are constantly -about the farm-house, doing anything they can for her. They show her -photographs of their wives and children and get her to count up the -savings that are coming to them. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p> - -<p>At length comes word that the Peace Congress has begun and that the -Commandant has received his orders. Two hundred and fifty of the -prisoners are to be sent over the water every day until the camp is -empty.</p> - -<p>But there is a condition attaching to the liberation. Mona hears of -it first from three prisoners belonging to distant compounds, who are -talking outside the house. To her surprise they are speaking not only -in English, but in British dialects.</p> - -<p>“They ca’ me a Jarmin,” says one, “but what am I? I were browt to -Owdham when I were five year owd and now ’am fifty, so ’am five year -Jarmin and forty-five English. Yet they’re sending me back to Jarmany.”</p> - -<p>“I’m no so sure but my case isna war’ nor that, though,” says the -other. “I came to Glasgie when I was a bairn in my mither’s arms, -and I’ve lived there all my life. I married there and my two sons -were born there. And now that I’ve lost both of them fighting in the -British army, and my wife’s dead of a broken heart and I’ve nobody left -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>belonging to me, they’re for sending me back to a foreign country.”</p> - -<p>“Aw well,” says the third man, speaking with a snatch of the -Anglo-Manx, “I wouldn’t trust but my case is worse nor either of yours. -I’m German born, that’s truth enough, but I’ve lived in this very -island since I was a lump of a lad, and maybe I’m as Manx myself as -some ones they make magistrates and judges of. More than that, my only -son was born here, and when he grew up to be a fine young fellow, and -they said his King and country needed him, he was one of the first to -join up and go off to the war. Well, what d’ye think? Twelve month ago -he was wounded and invalided home, and then, being no use for foreign -service, they sent him to Knockaloe as one of the guard—to guard, -among others, his own father. Think of that now! My son outside the -barbed wire and me inside! And one of these days he’ll have to march me -down to Douglas and ship me off to Germany, where I’ve neither chick -nor child, no kith nor kin.... Yes, <i>my</i> lad, that I used to carry on -my back and rock in his cradle!” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mona is aghast. Something seems to creep between her skin and flesh. -Never before, in all the long agony of the war, with its blood and -tears and terror, has she heard of anything so cruel. What a mockery -of the Almighty! Race, race, race! Mother and author of half the wars -of the world—when, oh when would the Father of all living wipe the -blasphemous word out of the mouths of Christian men?</p> - -<p>But the conversation Mona has overheard cuts deeper and closer than -that even. If all German-born prisoners are to be sent back to Germany, -Oskar will have to go, and what <i>then?</i></p> - -<p>That night a knock comes to her door. It is Oskar himself. His eyes are -wild and his lips are trembling.</p> - -<p>“You’ve heard of the new order?” he asks.</p> - -<p>“Yes. Will you have to go back also?”</p> - -<p>“I must. I suppose I must.”</p> - -<p class="space-above">The first batch to go are from the “millionaires’” quarters. Being rich -they have reconciled themselves to the conditions. Park Lane or the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> -Thiergarten—what matter which? In their black clothes, their spats -and fur-lined coats, and with their suit-cases packed in a truck, they -march off merrily.</p> - -<p>The next to go are from the Second Compound, and they make a different -picture—ill-clad, ill-shod, without an overcoat among them, with -nothing in their pockets except the little money they have drawn at the -last moment from the camp bank, and nothing in their hands except the -canvas bags which contain all their belongings.</p> - -<p>It is a miserable January morning, with drizzling rain and a thick mist -over the mountains. At a sharp word of command the men go tramping -towards the gate, a silent and melancholy lot, totally unlike the -singing and swaggering gang who came up the avenue four years ago.</p> - -<p>Later in the day the captain of the guard (the new captain) who has -seen the men off by the steamer tells Mona a wretched story. The -prisoners had passed through Douglas with heads down like men going to -execution; they had been drawn up like sheep on the pier, while the -ordinary <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>passengers went aboard to their cabins, and then they had -been hurried down the gangway to the steerage quarters. And as the -steamer moved away they had looked back with longing eyes at the island -they were leaving behind them.</p> - -<p>“Poor devils! They used to talk about the camp as a hell, but inside -six months they’ll be ready to crawl on their stomachs to get back to -it.”</p> - -<p>“But why ... why are they all to be sent to Germany?” asks Mona.</p> - -<p>“It’s the order of the congress, miss. No country wants to harbour its -enemies—not a second time—unless they have something to make them -friends.”</p> - -<p>“But if they have?”</p> - -<p>“Well, if a German has an English wife and an English business....”</p> - -<p>“They let him remain—do they?”</p> - -<p>“I believe they do, miss.”</p> - -<p>Mona’s heart leaps, and a new thought comes to her. If Oskar does -not wish to go back to Germany, why shouldn’t he stay here and farm -Knockaloe? </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p> - -<p>Next morning, after the third gang has gone, she is on her way to her -landlord’s. Her last half-year’s rent is due, and then there’s the -question of the lease, which runs out in November.</p> - -<p>It is a beautiful morning with blue sky and bright sunshine. The -snowdrops are beginning to peep and the yellow eyes of the gorse are -showing. As she goes down the road with a high step she is thinking of -her landlord’s answer to her father when, four years ago, he asked what -was to happen to the farm after the war was over: “Don’t trouble about -that. You are here for life, Robert—you and your children.”</p> - -<p>She meets her landlord at the gate of his house. He is in his -church-going clothes, having just returned from Peel, where he has been -sitting on the bench as a magistrate.</p> - -<p>“The rent, I suppose?” he says, and he leads her into the sitting-room.</p> - -<p>She counts it out to him in Treasury notes, and he gives her a receipt -for it. Then he rises and makes for the door, as if wishing to be rid -of her. She keeps her seat and says: </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> - -<p>“What about the lease, sir?”</p> - -<p>“We’ll not talk about that to-day,” says the landlord.</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid we must. I have to make important arrangements.”</p> - -<p>The landlord looks embarrassed.</p> - -<p>“But if you say it will be all right when the time comes, we can leave -it for the present, sir,” says Mona.</p> - -<p>The landlord, who has reached the door and is holding it open, puts on -a bold front and says:</p> - -<p>“Well, to tell you the truth, I’ve had to make other arrangements.”</p> - -<p>Mona is thunderstruck, and she rises rigidly.</p> - -<p>“You don’t mean to say, sir, that you are ... letting the farm over my -head?”</p> - -<p>“And if I am, why shouldn’t I? It’s mine, I suppose, and I can do what -I like with it.”</p> - -<p>“But you promised my father—faithfully promised him when the farm was -turned into a camp....”</p> - -<p>“Circumstances alter cases. Your father is dead and so is his son....” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> - -<p>“But his daughter is alive, and what has she done....”</p> - -<p>“Don’t ask me what she’s done, miss.”</p> - -<p>“But I do, sir, I do.”</p> - -<p>“Then if you must have it, you must. I want a good man of my own race -to farm my land, not an enemy alien.”</p> - -<p>Mona is speechless for one moment, choking with anger; at the next she -is back on the road, weeping bitterly.</p> - -<p>Oskar is in the avenue when she returns to it, and seeing she is in -trouble he speaks to her.</p> - -<p>She tells him what has happened, omitting what was said about himself.</p> - -<p>“Your family have lived in Knockaloe for generations, haven’t they?” he -says.</p> - -<p>“Four generations.”</p> - -<p>“And you were born there, weren’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“It’s a shame—a damned shame.”</p> - -<p>Mona is crushed. Knockaloe is lost to her. And this is the peace she -has prayed and prayed for! </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p> - -<p>One day passes, then another. Every morning Mona sees a fresh batch of -prisoners leaving the camp, and her heart sinks at the sight of them. -Oskar’s turn will come some day. It tears her to pieces to think of -it—Oskar going off at that melancholy pace, down the avenue and round -by Kirk Patrick.</p> - -<p>At length a spirit of defiance takes possession of her. Knockaloe is -dear to her by a thousand memories, but it is not the only place on -the island. She has heard of a farm in the north that is to be let in -November. It is large, therefore it is not everybody who can stock -it, but <i>she</i> can, because she has always thought it her duty to put -everything she has earned during the war into cattle to meet the -requirements of the camp.</p> - -<p>She is upstairs in her bedroom, making ready for a visit to the -northern landlord, when she hears the loud clatter of hoofs in the -avenue. Long John Corlett, who used to come courting her for the sake -of the stock, is riding a heavy cart-horse up to the house. He sees -her and, without troubling to dismount, he calls to her to come down.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> -Resenting his impudence, she makes him wait, but at length she goes out -to him.</p> - -<p>“Well, what is it, John Corlett?”</p> - -<p>“You’ll have heard, my girl, that I’m the new tenant of Knockaloe?”</p> - -<p>“I haven’t; but if you are, what of it?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve come to ask you how long you want to stay.”</p> - -<p>“Until the lease runs out—what else do you expect, sir?”</p> - -<p>“But why should you? The camp will be empty before that time comes, and -what can you do with your milk when the men are gone?”</p> - -<p>“I can do what I did before they came, if you want to know.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, you can’t. You’ve lost your milk run, and you can never get it -back again.”</p> - -<p>“Who says I can’t?”</p> - -<p>“I say so. Everybody says so. Ask anybody you like, woman—any of your -old customers.”</p> - -<p>Mona is colouring up to the eyes.</p> - -<p>“Then tell them I don’t care if I never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> can,” she says, and turns back -to the house.</p> - -<p>“Wait! There’s something else, though. What about the dilapidations?”</p> - -<p>“Dilapidations?”</p> - -<p>“According to the agreement with the Government the landlord has to -make good the damage to the houses and the tenant the injury to the -land.”</p> - -<p>It is true—she had forgotten all about it.</p> - -<p>“Twenty-five thousand men here for four years—it will take something -to put the land into cultivation.”</p> - -<p>In a halting voice she asks Corlett what he thinks it will cost, and he -mentions a monstrous figure.</p> - -<p>“Three years’ rent of the farm—that’s the best I can make it.”</p> - -<p>Mona gasps and her face becomes white.</p> - -<p>“But that would leave me without a shilling,” she says.</p> - -<p>“Tut, woman! With the big rent you’ve had from the Government you must -have a nice little nest-egg somewhere.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> - -<p>“But I haven’t. I’ve put everything into stock.”</p> - -<p>The hulking fellow slaps his leg with his riding whip and makes a long -whistle.</p> - -<p>“Well, so much the better if it’s all on the land.”</p> - -<p>Then he drops from his saddle to the ground, and comes close to Mona as -if to coax her.</p> - -<p>“Look here, Mona woman, no one shall say John Corlett is a hard man. -Leave everything on the farm as it stands, and we’ll cry quits this -very minute.”</p> - -<p>Mona looks at him in silence for a moment. Then she says, breathing -rapidly:</p> - -<p>“John Corlett, do you want to turn me out of my father’s farm a beggar -and a pauper?”</p> - -<p>“Chut, girl, what’s the odds? There’s somebody will be wanting you to -follow him to foreign parts when he goes himself—though you might have -done better at home, I’m thinking.”</p> - -<p>Mona’s breath comes hot and fast and her face grows crimson. Then she -falls on the man like a fury. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Out of this, you robber, you thief, you dirt!”</p> - -<p>The big bully leaps back into his saddle. Snatching at his reins, he -shouts that if she won’t listen to reason he will “put the law on her,” -and not a beast shall she take off the land until his dues as incoming -tenant are paid to him.</p> - -<p>“Out of it!” cries Mona, and she lifts up a stick that lies near to her.</p> - -<p>Seeing it swinging in the air and likely to fall on him, the man tugs -at his reins to swirl out of reach of the blow, and the stick falls on -his horse’s flank. The horse throws up her hind legs, leaps forward, -and goes down the avenue at a gallop.</p> - -<p>The rider has as much as he can do to keep his seat, and the last that -is seen of him (shouting something about “you and your Boche”) is of -his hindmost parts bobbing up and down as his horse dashes through the -gate and up the road towards home.</p> - -<p>Some of the guard who have been looking on and listening burst into -roars of laughter. Mona bursts into tears and goes indoors. If her -stock<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> is to be taken, the island, as well as Knockaloe, is lost to her!</p> - -<p class="space-above">Late that night Oskar comes again. His eyes are fierce and his face is -twitching.</p> - -<p>“I’ve heard what happened,” he says, “and if I were a free man I should -break every bone in the blackguard’s skin. But I can’t let you go on -suffering like this for me. You must give me up, Mona.”</p> - -<p>It is the first time an open acknowledgment of their love has passed -between them. Mona is confused for a moment. Then she says,</p> - -<p>“Do you <i>want</i> me to give you up, Oskar?”</p> - -<p>He does not answer.</p> - -<p>“To see you go away with the rest, and to think no more about you?”</p> - -<p>Still he does not answer.</p> - -<p>“Do you?”</p> - -<p>“God knows I don’t,” he says, and at the next moment he is gone.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>TWELFTH CHAPTER</i></h2> - -<p>Three nights later Oskar comes again. As usual he will not enter the -house, so she has to stand at the door to speak to him. His eyes are -bright and he is eager and excited.</p> - -<p>“Mona, I have something to suggest to you.”</p> - -<p>“Yes?”</p> - -<p>“It’s not to be wondered at that people brought up in a little island -like this should have these hard feelings and narrow ideas. But the -English are not like that. They are a great, great people, and if you -are willing to go with me to England....”</p> - -<p>“What are you thinking of, Oskar?”</p> - -<p>He tells her more about himself than she has ever yet heard. He is an -electrical engineer, and before being brought to Knockaloe he had been -chief engineer to a big English company on the Mersey, at a salary of a -thousand a year. When the war broke out his sympathies had been dead<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> -against his own country, chiefly because of “that quack, the Kaiser.”</p> - -<p>“Oskar!”</p> - -<p>“It’s true. I can’t account for it. I was secretly ashamed of it in -those days, but I would have joined up in the British Army if they -would have had me. They wouldn’t!”</p> - -<p>On the contrary, the authorities had called him up for internment. Then -his firm, which had been loathe to lose him, had tried to obtain his -exemption. They had failed, and when the time came for him to go the -chairman of the company had said: “Heine, we’re sorry you have to leave -us, but if you want to come back when the war is over, your place will -be waiting for you.”</p> - -<p>“But could he ... do you think it possible....”</p> - -<p>“Certain! Oh, he’s a great old man, Mona, and if he were to break his -word to me I should lose faith in human nature. So I ... I....”</p> - -<p>“Well?”</p> - -<p>“I intend to write to him, telling him I shall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> soon be at liberty, and -if you will only agree to go with me....”</p> - -<p>He stops, seeing tears in her eyes. Then, in a husky voice, he says:</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry to ask you to leave your island.”</p> - -<p>“It is turning me out, Oskar; that’s the bitterest part of it.”</p> - -<p>“Then you <i>will</i> go to England with me?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she says, and he hurries off in high spirits to write his letter.</p> - -<p>During the next week Mona tries hard to feel happy, but little by -little vague doubts oppress her. One day she overhears scraps of a -conversation between the Commandant and the Governor, who are arranging -for the breaking up of the camp and the disposal of its portable -property. As they stand in the avenue they are talking about the Peace -Conference.</p> - -<p>“It’s a pity,” the Commandant is saying, “but it has always been my -experience that the first years of a peace are worse than the last -years of a war.”</p> - -<p>And the Governor is answering: “All the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> same, we should be fools to -trust those traitors again. We have beaten the German brutes, and what -we have got to do now is to keep them beaten.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not like that, your Excellency,” says the Commandant. “I’ll fight -my enemy with the best, but when the fighting is over I want to forget -and, if I can, forgive. I was at the front in the early days, and after -a bad bit of an engagement I came upon a German officer in a shell -hole. He was in a terrible state, poor fellow, and we couldn’t take him -in, so I decided to stay with him. His mind was perfectly clear, and he -said, ‘Colonel’ (I was colonel in those days), ‘don’t you think this is -strange?’ ‘What’s strange?’ I asked. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘if you and I had -met in the trenches I suppose you would have tried to kill me for the -sake of Motherland, and I should have tried to kill you for the sake -of Fatherland, yet here you are trying to save me for the sake of ... -Brotherland.’ More of the same kind he said in those last hours, and -when the end came he was in my arms and his head was on my breast, and -I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> don’t mind telling you I ... kissed him.”</p> - -<p>Mona felt a thrill going through and through her. Brotherland! That was -what all the world would be soon. And then Oskar and she, living in -Liverpool, in their great love would be happy and unashamed.</p> - -<p>That night Oskar comes back. His face is pale and his lips are -quivering. He tries to speak, but finding it hard to do so he hands her -a letter. It is from the engineering firm on the Mersey.</p> - -<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—We have received your letter of the 10th inst. -addressed to our late chairman, who died during the war, and -regret to say in reply to your request that you should be taken -back in your former position, that it is now filled to our -satisfaction by another engineer, and that even if it were vacant -we should find it impossible to re-engage you for the reason that -feeling against the Germans is so strong among British workmen -that none of them would be willing to serve under you, and the -fact that you had married an English wife, as you say, would -increase, not lessen, their hostility.</p> - -<p class="right">Yours, etc.</p></blockquote> - -<p>“I wouldn’t have believed it,” says Oskar. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p> - -<p>“It’s the war,” says Mona. “Will it never, never end?”</p> - -<p>“Never,” says Oskar, and he turns away with clenched teeth.</p> - -<p>Mona goes to bed that night with a heavy heart. If English workmen will -not work with Oskar, England, also, is closed to them, and Brotherland -is a cruel dream.</p> - -<p class="space-above">Another week passes. The disbanding of the camp goes on as usual, with -its toll of two hundred and fifty men daily. The Fourth and Second -Compounds are now beginning to be called upon. The men of the Third -are being kept to the last, because many of them, like Oskar, are -engineers, and therefore useful in removing the electric plant, which -is to be sold separately. But their turn will come soon and then ... -what <i>then?</i></p> - -<p>A week later Oskar comes again. His face is thin and pinched and his -eyes are bleared as from want of sleep, but his spirits are high, -almost hysterical.</p> - -<p>“Mona,” he says, “I know what we have to do.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“The English may be hard and unforgiving, but the Germans are not like -that.”</p> - -<p>“The Germans?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know my people. They may fight like fiends and demons—they do, -I know they do—but when the fighting is over they are willing to be -friends with their enemies.”</p> - -<p>“What are you thinking of now, Oskar?” says Mona, but she sees what is -coming.</p> - -<p>“If you were willing ... if you could only find it possible to go with -me to Germany....”</p> - -<p>“Germany?”</p> - -<p>Mona feels dizzy.</p> - -<p>“It’s a sin and a shame to ask you to leave your native country, Mona, -but since it is turning you out, as you say....”</p> - -<p>Mona is covering her ears.</p> - -<p>“Don’t speak of it, Oskar. I can’t listen to you! It’s impossible.”</p> - -<p>Oskar is silent for a moment, then he says in a tremulous voice:</p> - -<p>“I would make it up to you, Mona. Yes, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> swear to God I should make it -up to you. I should dedicate every day and hour of my life to make it -up to you. You should never regret it—never for one single moment.”</p> - -<p>“But how could I go....”</p> - -<p>“Just as other women are going. Lots of the men are taking their German -wives back with them. Why shouldn’t I take my English wife?”</p> - -<p>“Wife?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly. The chaplain would marry us.”</p> - -<p>“The chaplain?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, in the camp chapel, late at night or early in the morning, with -two of my comrades as witnesses.”</p> - -<p>“Have you spoken to him, then?”</p> - -<p>“I have, and he says that being made in a Lutheran church by a Lutheran -clergyman, it would be a good marriage according to German law, so -Germany would receive you.”</p> - -<p>“But where ... where should we go to?”</p> - -<p>“My mother’s first.”</p> - -<p>“Your mother’s?”</p> - -<p>“Where else? Oh, she’d love it! She’s the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> best mother a man ever had. -Do you know, she has written to me every single week since I came here. -And now she’s only living to welcome me home.”</p> - -<p>“But, Oskar, are you sure she will....”</p> - -<p>“Welcome you? Of course she will. She’s growing old, poor soul, and has -been lonely since my sister’s death. After we’re married I’ll write to -say I’m bringing another daughter home to love and comfort her....”</p> - -<p>“Write first, Oskar.”</p> - -<p>“As you please. It isn’t necessary, though. I know quite well what -she’ll say. But even if she couldn’t welcome you for yourself—and why -shouldn’t she?—she would for my sake, anyway.”</p> - -<p>“All the same, write first, Oskar.”</p> - -<p>“Very well, I will. And if her answer is all right, you’ll go?”</p> - -<p>“Ye-s.”</p> - -<p>“Heavens, how happy I am! What have I done to deserve to be so happy?”</p> - -<p>Mona watches him as he goes off, with his quick<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> step, until he is lost -in the sinister shadows cast by the big arc-lamps that cut through the -night. Then she goes indoors and tries to compose herself. It takes -her a long time to do so, but at length, being in bed, she remembers -a beautiful thing she had read to her father in the days when he lay -upstairs:</p> - -<p>“<i>Whither thou goest, I will go. Thy people shall be my people, and thy -God my God.</i>”</p> - -<p>For days after that Mona finds herself singing as she goes about her -work. And at night, when she is alone, she is always thinking of her -forthcoming life in Oskar’s home. She can scarcely remember her own -mother, except that she was an invalid for years, but she sees herself -nursing Oskar’s mother, now that she is old and has lost her daughter.</p> - -<p>“I mustn’t go empty-handed, though,” she thinks.</p> - -<p>That brings back the memory of Long John Corlett and his threat of -“putting the law” on her.</p> - -<p>It must have been stuff and nonsense about the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> dilapidations eating -up the stock, but she will see an advocate and have things settled up -immediately.</p> - -<p class="space-above">“I’m afraid the man is right, miss.”</p> - -<p>It is the advocate whom Mona is consulting.</p> - -<p>“It was a bad bargain your poor father made with the Government, -and the only people likely to profit by it are the landlord and the -incoming tenant.”</p> - -<p>“Then what do you advise me to do, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Sell up your stock, have the dilapidations valued, pay the money due, -and start afresh on whatever is left.”</p> - -<p>“Do it for me at once, please,” says Mona, and she sets off home with -an easy, if not a happy, mind.</p> - -<p>But hardly has she got there and changed into her dairy clothes, -and begun on her evening milking in the cow-house, with the watery -winter sun coming in on her through the open door, when she sees Oskar -approaching with a look that strikes to her heart. His face is white, -almost ghastly, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> he is walking like an old man, bent and feeble.</p> - -<p>“What has happened?”</p> - -<p>“There! What do you think of that?” he says, and with a grating laugh -he gives her a letter.</p> - -<p>“Is it from your mother?”</p> - -<p>“Look at it.”</p> - -<p>“Is she refusing to receive me?”</p> - -<p>“Read it. It’s written in English—for your benefit, apparently.”</p> - -<p>Mona reads:</p> - -<blockquote><p>“<span class="smcap">Oskar</span>,—The contents of your letter have distressed me -beyond measure. That a son of mine should think of marrying an -Englishwoman—one of the vile and wicked race that killed his -sister—is the most shocking thing that has ever happened to me in -my life.”</p></blockquote> - -<p>There is more of the same kind—that if Oskar attempts to bring his -Englishwoman to Germany his mother will refuse to receive her; that if -she did receive her every self-respecting German woman would cry shame -on her and shun her house for ever; that the feeling in Germany against -the abominable English is so bitter, because of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> brutal methods -of warfare and their barbarous ideas of peace (starving hundreds of -German children by their infamous blockade, drowning German sailors -under the sea in their submarines, burning German airmen alive in the -air, and now ruining everybody by crushing demands for reparations -which will leave Germany a nation of beggars), that no decent house -would shelter any of them.</p> - -<blockquote><p>“Tell your Englishwoman from me that if she marries you and comes -to this country she will be as a leper whom nobody will touch. -Never shall she cross this threshold! Oskar, my son, I love you, -and I have waited all this time for you; I am old, too, and have -not much longer to live, but rather than hear you had married an -Englishwoman I would see you dead and buried.”</p></blockquote> - -<p>When Mona looks up from the letter, Oskar is gazing into her face with -a ghastly smile.</p> - -<p>“That’s a nice thing to send a fellow after four years’ imprisonment, -isn’t it?” he says, and then he breaks into heart-breaking laughter. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I was so sure of her, too. I thought she would do anything for -me—anything.”</p> - -<p>Again he laughs—wildly, fiercely.</p> - -<p>“What has happened to the woman? Has the accursed war taken all the -heart out of her? The German people, too—have they all gone mad? -Starving German children, drowning German sailors, burning German -airmen! Good Lord, has the whole nation gone crazy?”</p> - -<p>Mona feels as if she were choking.</p> - -<p>“She is old and hasn’t much longer to live, and just because I’m going -to marry the best girl in the world and take her home with me....”</p> - -<p>But his laughter breaks into sobs and he can say no more. Mona feels -the tears in her throat as well as in her eyes, but at length she says:</p> - -<p>“Oskar, it’s all my fault. I’ve come between you. You must go home -without me—to your country and your mother.”</p> - -<p>Oskar lifts his broken face and cries:</p> - -<p>“Country? Mother? I’ve got no country and no mother either. Go home to -them? Never! Never in this world!” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p> - -<p>At the next moment he has gone off, with long strides, before Mona can -reach out her hand to stop him.</p> - -<p>Being alone, she has to go on with her work as usual—the “creatures” -have to be milked and foddered. But after the men from the compounds -have been served (only three of them now) she has time to think out her -situation.</p> - -<p>Since Oskar’s mother refuses to receive her, Germany also is closed -to them. Because she loves Oskar, and Oskar loves her, and they are -of different races and their nations have been at war, they are to be -hunted through the world as outcasts, and no place is to be left for -them.</p> - -<p>“Poor Oskar! It’s hardest for him, though,” she thinks.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>THIRTEENTH CHAPTER</i></h2> - -<p>The men of the Fourth and Fifth Compounds, three-quarters of the guard -and many of the officers have gone, when a stranger comes to the camp -to make a bid for the purchase of the booths and huts.</p> - -<p>After a tour of the wooden buildings he arrives at the farm-yard, and -steps on to the mounting-block to take a general view, and at the same -moment Mona comes to the door of her dairy.</p> - -<p>He is an American, a cheerful and rather free-spoken person, and -he says, with a smile on his lips, by way of excuse for opening a -conversation:</p> - -<p>“I guess the farm-house is not for sale, is it?”</p> - -<p>“You must ask the landlord about that, sir,” says Mona.</p> - -<p>“Not you also? You’re the tenant of the farm, aren’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, but I’m leaving it presently.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, I remember! I’ve heard something about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> you. And where are you -going to when you leave here?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know yet, sir.”</p> - -<p>He looks at her as if measuring her from head to foot, and then says, -with another smile:</p> - -<p>“Come to my country, girlie. We have some strapping young women out -west, but we can do with a few more of the same sort, I guess.”</p> - -<p>Mona is startled. Obvious as the word is, it comes like an inspiration. -America! “The melting-pot of the nations!” All the races of the world -are there. They must live in peace together or life could not go on.</p> - -<p>When Oskar comes that night she tells him what the stranger has said, -and his big, heavy, sleepless eyes become bright and excited.</p> - -<p>“Why not? Why shouldn’t we? That great free country! What a relief to -leave all the d——d mess of this life in Europe behind us!”</p> - -<p>There is a difficulty, though. He has heard that America refuses to -admit people who have been in prison. He has been four years in an -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>internment camp—will America allow him to land? He must ask the -chaplain.</p> - -<p>The following night Oskar comes back with a still brighter face.</p> - -<p>“It’s all right, Mona. Internment is not imprisonment in the eyes of -American law.”</p> - -<p>But there is one other difficulty. America requires that every -immigrant shall have something in his pocket to prevent him from -becoming a burden on the new country.</p> - -<p>“It’s not much, but I have too little. If I had been a free man I -should have earned four thousand pounds in the time I’ve been here, but -when I leave the camp I shall only have fifty.”</p> - -<p>Mona is overjoyed—at length <i>she</i> can do something.</p> - -<p>“That’s no difficulty at all, Oskar. The auction is to come off soon, -and after I’ve paid what I owe I shall have enough for both of us.”</p> - -<p class="space-above">It is the day before the auction, and Mona is gathering up the stock -and bringing them down to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> the houses—the beasts she had put out on -the grass, the “dry” cows that are stretched on their bellies chewing -the cud, the sheep that are bleating, and the early lambs that are -baa-ing.</p> - -<p>She is going up the mountain to fetch the young bull to which she has -taken a bowl of wheat twice a week throughout the winter. A new wave of -hope has come to her, a golden radiance is shining in the future, and -she is singing to herself as she climbs through the heather.</p> - -<p>Suddenly, when she reaches the top of the hill, by the tower called -“Corrin’s Folly,” she hears fierce animals snorting, and at the next -moment sees that three bulls are fighting. One of them is her own young -bull, small and lithe, the two others are old and large and black and -have iron rings in their nostrils. She remembers the old ones. They -belong to John Corlett, and must have leapt over the boundary to get at -the young one, and are now goring it fearfully.</p> - -<p>The fight is frightful. The young bull is bleeding horribly and trying -to escape. It leaps over the wall of the little cemetery around the -tower<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> and makes for the land on the other side of it which goes down -by a steep descent to precipitous cliffs, with the broad sea lying -below at a terrible depth. But the old bulls, making hoarse noises from -their nostrils, are following it up on either side and intercepting it. -As often as the hunted animal runs to the right they gore it back to -the left, and when it flies to the left they gore it back to the right.</p> - -<p>At length the young bull stands for a moment, with its wild eyes -flashing fire and its face towards the cliffs. And then, with a loud -snort as of despair and defiance, it bounds forward, gallops straight -ahead, and leaps clear over the cliff-head into the sea. The old bulls -look after it for a moment with heaving nostrils and dilated eyes, and -then begin to graze as if nothing had happened.</p> - -<p>Mona has stood helpless and trembling while the fight has lasted, and -when it is over and she comes to herself she finds Oskar standing -behind her. He has been working on the roof of the tower, to remove the -electric wires which have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> been attached to it, and from there he has -seen everything.</p> - -<p>“It was horrible, wasn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“Horrible!”</p> - -<p>“So cruel and cowardly.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he says, from between his clenched teeth, “and so damnably -human.”</p> - -<p>Mona looks at him. They go down the hill together without saying any -more.</p> - -<p class="space-above">At last it has come, the day of the sale. The Commandant has permitted -it to be held at the farm, although the camp is not yet entirely -cleared. It is his last act before leaving, for he is going away -that morning. Mona sees him driving off in his motor car, hardly -recognizable in his civilian clothes. As he passes the farm-house he -raises his hat to her—an English gentleman, every inch of him.</p> - -<p>Towards eleven o’clock there is much commotion about the farmstead. -The guards (they have had orders to help) are bringing the big beasts -out of the houses into the “haggard” and driving<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> the sheep and lambs -into pens. There is a great deal of bleating and lowing. Mona, who is -compelled to hear, but cannot bring herself to see what is going on, is -indoors, trying not to look or listen.</p> - -<p>At length there is the sound of voices. The Advocate, with the -auctioneer and his clerk, are coming up the avenue, and behind them are -many farmers. Long John Corlett, in his chapel clothes, is prominent -among the latter, talking and laughing and hobnobbing with everybody. -Mona sees the look of impudent certainty in the man’s empty face. She -also sees Oskar, who is behind the barbed wire of the Third Compound, -with a face that is white and fierce.</p> - -<p>After a short period for inspection the auction begins. The Advocate -reads the conditions of sale (the whole of the stock on the farm is -to be sold without reserve), and then the auctioneer steps up to the -top of the mounting-block, while the clerk takes his place at the foot -of it, and the farmers form a circle around them. There are the usual -facetiæ.</p> - -<p>“Now, gentlemen, you’ve got the chance of your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> lives this morning. -John Corlett, I know you’ve come to buy up everything, so get your -purse-strings loosened. Mr. Lace, thou knows a good beast if anybody on -the island does, and there are lashings of them here, I can tell thee.”</p> - -<p>The first animal to be led out by the guard into the circle of the -spectators is a fine milch cow, five years old. Mona remembers that she -gave forty pounds for it in the middle of the war. It is knocked down -for twenty.</p> - -<p>“What name?”</p> - -<p>“John Corlett.”</p> - -<p>For a long half-hour there are scenes of the same kind. Every fresh -beast put up is knocked down at half its value, and always, after the -crack of the auctioneer’s hammer, there comes the same name—“John -Corlett.”</p> - -<p>At length Mona’s anger becomes ungovernable. It is conspiracy, -collusion! John Corlett has bought up all competitors! She rises from -her seat by the fire with the intention of throwing up the window and -shouting her protest. But while her hand is on the sash she sees Oskar -at the other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> side of the barbed wire, striding hastily away, and she -returns to her seat.</p> - -<p>The auction goes on for an hour longer. Mona does not look out again, -but she hears everything that is said outside, every word, almost every -whisper.</p> - -<p>The farmers are beginning to laugh at the monotony of the proceedings. -At length there is a murmur of conversation between the auctioneer and -the Advocate, and the auctioneer says, “Very well, if you wish, sir,” -whereupon the Advocate raises his voice and cries:</p> - -<p>“Gentlemen, this is going too far. If I hadn’t announced that the sale -would be without reserve I should stop it on my own responsibility. -Come now, be Manxmen. What’s doing on you anyway? Is it the war—or -what? Men, we all knew old Robert Craine. He is dead. Let us be fair to -his only daughter.”</p> - -<p>After that there is no more laughter, but there is less bidding and -the results are the same. The sale, which was expected to last until -evening, is over by lunch-time. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Gentlemen,” says the auctioneer, “I thank you for your attendance. -It’s just as I expected—John Corlett has bought in all the stock on -the farm.”</p> - -<p>“And much good may it do him,” says the Advocate.</p> - -<p>“I might have given her more for it without the auction, sir,” says -John Corlett.</p> - -<p>“And so you might, or you should have been d—— well ashamed of -yourself.”</p> - -<p>Then Mona hears the sound of trapesing feet on the avenue and the -various voices of people passing under her window.</p> - -<p>“Serve her right, though! We want no Huns settling here on the island.”</p> - -<p>“No, nor no good Manx money going over to Germany neither.”</p> - -<p>A moment later the Advocate comes into the house.</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry the sale has not been as good as we expected, miss. The -total receipts will scarcely cover the valuation.” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Then there’s nothing left for me—nothing whatever?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing! I’m sorry, very sorry.”</p> - -<p>Mona, who had risen, sinks back into her seat as if stunned. After a -while, the Advocate having gone, she hears the barking of dogs, the -shouting of men, the bleating of sheep and the lowing of cattle. The -stock are being driven back to the hill by the servants of their new -owner.</p> - -<p>At length there is silence. It is not at first that Mona is able to -realize the full meaning of what has happened, but at last it falls -on her. America is closed to her now. And that means that there is no -place left to her in the world!</p> - -<p class="space-above">Oskar comes towards bed-time. He is biting his lips and his eyes are -bloodshot. She looks up at him helplessly—all the strength of her soul -has gone out of her.</p> - -<p>“You’ve heard the result?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I have heard,” he says, speaking between his teeth. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I can’t think how people could be so unkind.”</p> - -<p>“Unkind!”</p> - -<p>He is laughing bitterly, fiercely.</p> - -<p>“One’s nearest neighbours—the people one has known all one’s life.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, your people are no worse than any other—not an atom. People are -the same everywhere. It’s the war, Mona. It has drained every drop of -humanity out of them.”</p> - -<p>He is laughing again, still more bitterly and fiercely.</p> - -<p>“War! What a damned stupid, idiotic thing it is—and the people who -make it! Patriots? Criminals, I call them! Crowned criminals and their -mountebank crew conspiring against God and Nature.”</p> - -<p>He smites the doorpost with his fist and says:</p> - -<p>“But the war is not the worst by a long way.”</p> - -<p>“What is, Oskar?”</p> - -<p>“This damnable peace that has followed it. People thought when the -peace came they could go to sleep and forget. What fools! Think of -it! Miserable old men spouting about a table,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> gambling in the fate -of the young and the unborn; forgetting their loss in precious human -lives, but wrangling about their reparations, about land, about money, -which the little mother rocking her baby’s cradle will have to pay the -interest of in blood and tears some day; setting nation against nation; -brewing a cauldron of hate which is hardening the hearts and poisoning -the souls of men and women all the world over.”</p> - -<p>Mona, who has hardly heard what he has said, is still looking up at him -helplessly.</p> - -<p>“We couldn’t help it, could we, Oskar?”</p> - -<p>Oskar, recovering his self-command, pity-struck and ashamed, lifts up -her work-stained hands and puts them to his lips.</p> - -<p>“Forgive me, Mona.”</p> - -<p>“We struggled hard, didn’t we?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“But since God had put it into our hearts we couldn’t resist it, could -we?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“And now He doesn’t seem to care, does He?”</p> - -<p>“No! He doesn’t seem to care,” says Oskar. And then he goes off with -head down.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>FOURTEENTH CHAPTER</i></h2> - -<p>It is the Saturday before Easter.</p> - -<p>Looking out of her bedroom window in the morning, Mona sees nothing -but a desolate black waste where the crowded compounds have been. -Four unborn springs and summers buried in the bosom of the blackened -fields—when, oh when will they grow green again?</p> - -<p>Only in the Third Compound is there any activity. Few men are left even -there. Oskar has told her he is to leave with the last batch, but the -time for him to go is coming on inexorably.</p> - -<p>The “houses” are empty, the “creatures” no longer call, and the -unnatural silence of the farmyard oppresses her. As long as she had the -work of three farm hands to do her strength never failed her, but now -that she has only to attend to herself she is always tired and weary.</p> - -<p>The spring is beginning to appear, and through the open door she sees -that the daffodils are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> blooming in the little patch of garden in -front of the house. This reminds her of what she did on the day of her -father’s burial, and she plucks some of the flowers, intending to lay -them on his grave.</p> - -<p>There is nobody in the avenue when she walks through—between the lines -of barbed-wire fences that have no faces behind them now—and past the -empty guards’ houses near to the gate. There is nobody on the road -either, as far as to the lych-gate of Kirk Patrick.</p> - -<p>There he lies, her father, his upright head-stone, inscribed to “Robert -Craine of Knockaloe,” cheek by jowl with the sloping marbles that -mark the graves of the Germans who had died during the four years of -internment—all his race-hatred quenched in the peace of death.</p> - -<p>Only a few yards away, on the grass of a mound that had no stone -over it, is the glass dome of artificial flowers which she herself -had placed on the grave of Ludwig, the boy with the cough. The glass -is cracked, no doubt by the snow and frost of winter, and the white -flowers have perished. Poor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> father! Who knows but in a little while -his dust may mingle with that of the German boy in the mother-bosom -that bore them both! Oh God, how wicked is war, how cruel, how -senseless!</p> - -<p>Mona is coming out of the churchyard when she hears the tapping of a -mason’s chisel and then sees the mason himself behind a canvas screen, -which shelters him from the winnowing of a light breeze that is blowing -up from the sea. He is at work on a large block of granite, lettering a -long list of names.</p> - -<p>After a moment she speaks to him, and he tells her what the block -is—the base of a cross to the men of the district who fell in the war. -It is to be set up outside the gate of the parish church at Peel. The -ceremony of unveiling it is to be on Easter Monday—that is to say, the -day after to-morrow. The time is to be nine in the morning, because -that is the hour when the boys of Peel and Patrick who have survived -the war are expected to return home by the steamer that is to leave -Liverpool on Sunday night. The Lord Bishop of the Island is to unveil -the memorial, and all the clergy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> and Town Commissioners and big people -of the two parishes are to be present. All the men, too, and their -mothers and wives and children.</p> - -<p>“It will be a grand sight, girl. I suppose you won’t be going, though?”</p> - -<p>Mona catches her breath and answers:</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>After another moment she begins to look over the names. All four sides -of the base are full of them, and the mason seems to be lettering the -last. She tries to find her brother’s name and cannot do so. At length, -not without an effort, she says:</p> - -<p>“But where is Robbie’s name?”</p> - -<p>The mason pauses in his work, and then answers:</p> - -<p>“Robbie Craine’s? Well, to tell you the truth, it is not on the list -they made out for me.”</p> - -<p>“They—who are they?”</p> - -<p>“Well, the Bishop and the clergy and the Town Commissioners and so on.”</p> - -<p>“But my brother died in the war, and won the Victoria Cross, didn’t he?”</p> - -<p>“Maybe he did.”</p> - -<p>“You know he did. Then what has he done<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> that his name is not in the -list with the rest?”</p> - -<p>The mason, preparing to resume his work, replies:</p> - -<p>“Maybe it’s what somebody else has done that has kept him out of it.”</p> - -<p>The word falls on her like a blow on the brain, and she goes off -hurriedly. As she turns the corner of the road she hears the thin ring -of the mason’s chisel, and it sounds like the thud of doom. Is she, -and everybody who has ever belonged to her, to be wiped out of living -memory? What has she done to deserve it? But after a moment of fierce -anger her former helplessness comes back on her and she begins to cry.</p> - -<p>“I can’t tell in the world why good people should be so unkind.”</p> - -<p class="space-above">Later in the day a new strength, the strength of defiance, comes over -her. Oskar may say it is the war, and even the peace, that has poisoned -people’s souls, but if it was God who put it into her heart to love -Oskar, and into Oskar’s heart<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> to love her, it is for God to see them -through. He will, too—certainly He will. If she has to become a -servant girl herself and scrub her fingers to the bone, why shouldn’t -she? God will open people’s eyes some day, and then the Bishop and the -clergy and the Town Commissioners will have to be ashamed of themselves.</p> - -<p>“I’m a good woman—why shouldn’t they?”</p> - -<p>Being without stock of her own now she has to go into town that evening -to buy provisions for housekeeping. The shop-keepers show her scant -courtesy, but she puts up with no neglect and no disrespect. It is -almost dark when she has finished her shopping, and then, for a near -cut back to Knockaloe, she passes, with her string bag in her hand, -through a by-street which has an ale-house at one corner.</p> - -<p>There she comes upon a tumultuous scene. In front of a small house, -with the door standing open, a crowd of women and children have -gathered to listen to a wild quarrel that is going on within. There is -a man’s voice swearing, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> girl’s voice screaming and an old woman’s -pleading.</p> - -<p>“So this is what my maintenance from the army has been spent -on—keeping you and your ... German bastard.”</p> - -<p>“It’s not my fault, Harry; I tried to get another place and nobody -would have me.”</p> - -<p>“Neither will I have you, so get out of this house quick.”</p> - -<p>“Leave me alone! Leave me alone, I tell you! If you touch my child I’ll -scratch your eyes out.”</p> - -<p>“Out you go, you harlot, and to ... with you.”</p> - -<p>“Harry! Liza! Harry! Harry! Children!” cries the old woman.</p> - -<p>Mona asks the women of the crowd what is going on.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you know, miss? It’s Liza Kinnish, the girl with the German -baby. Her brother has come home from the war, and he is turning her -out—and no wonder.”</p> - -<p>A number of men, half-intoxicated, come from the ale-house, but they -make no attempt to intervene, and at the next moment a bare-headed -soldier,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> also in drink, with the upper buttons of his tunic torn open, -comes from the house, dragging after him a girl with a baby in her arms -and her disordered hair streaming on to her shoulders.</p> - -<p>“Out you go—you and your d—— German offal!”</p> - -<p>Flinging the girl into the street, the man returns to the house and -clashes the door behind him.</p> - -<p>“Let me in!” screams the girl, hammering at the door with her spare -hand.</p> - -<p>The door opens and the soldier comes to the threshold.</p> - -<p>“Look here, you ... I’m not going to have the fellows sneering at me -when they come home on Monday morning, so if you are not gone to ... -out of this inside two minutes....”</p> - -<p>“Why did <i>you</i> come home?” cries the girl. “You beast! You brute! Why -didn’t the Germans kill you?”</p> - -<p>At that the soldier, foaming at the mouth, is lifting his clenched fist -to the girl when Mona, crushing through the crowd of women and throwing -down her string bag, lifts her own hand and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> strikes the man full in -the jaw, and he falls like a log.</p> - -<p>Then, while he squirms on the ground, stunned and winded, she turns on -the men from the ale-house, who have previously been drinking with him -and taunting him and egging him on.</p> - -<p>“And you!” she cries. “What <i>are</i> you? Are you <i>men?</i> You white-livered -mongrels! Your mothers were <i>women</i>, and they’d be ashamed of you.”</p> - -<p>By this time the soldier has scrambled to his feet and, with blood in -his mouth, he is trying to laugh.</p> - -<p>“Ha, ha, ha! So this is another of them, is it? She’s in the same case -herself, they’re telling me. Oh, I’ve heard of you, my lady. You used -to think great things of yourself, but when the parson marries you -there’ll be three of you before him at the altar, as the saying is. Ha, -ha, ha!”</p> - -<p>The men laugh and some of the women begin to titter. A harder blow -than she had dealt the soldier had fallen upon Mona. She stands for a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> -moment as if turned to stone, then picks up her bag, sweeps through the -crowd and hastens away.</p> - -<p>So this is what people think of her! After all the struggling of her -heart and the travailing of her soul, this is what people think! Oh, -God! Oh, God!</p> - -<p>She had been sleeping badly of late, but that night she hardly sleeps -at all. Towards the grey dawning she has a sense of Robbie being in -the room with her. He is wearing his officer’s uniform, just as in her -mind’s eye, when she felt so proud, she had often seen him. She knows -he is dead, and she thinks this is his spirit, and it has come to -reproach her.</p> - -<p>“Mona, if anybody had told me three years ago that such a thing would -happen I should have killed him. Yes, by God, I should have killed him.”</p> - -<p>Mona tries to speak, but cannot.</p> - -<p>“Rob....”</p> - -<p>“Lord, how proud I was of you! When they told me I had won the Victoria -Cross I laughed and said, ‘My sister would have won it long ago<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> if she -had been here.’ Nobody hated the Germans as you used to do, but now -that you’ve given yourself to one of them....”</p> - -<p>“Rob ... Rob....”</p> - -<p>“What else could you have done it for? Everybody believes it, too. -Father believed it, and it was that that killed him.”</p> - -<p>Again Mona tries to cry out and cannot.</p> - -<p>“Hide yourself away, Mona. Hide your sin and shame in some miserable -corner of the earth where nobody will know you. You’ve broken my heart, -and now....”</p> - -<p>“Robbie! Robbie!”</p> - -<p>Her own voice awakens her. The rising sun shines on her as she sits up -in bed in her wretchedness.</p> - -<p>Only a dream! Yet it has told her everything. This is the end. Here -has her road finally led her. Her love is doomed. Life, as well as the -world, is now closed to her. But to stand in the pillory as long as she -lives for a sin she has not committed—it is too much! Better die—a -thousand times better! </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> - -<p>When she asks herself how, it seems so simple. And when she thinks -of the consequences they seem so slight. There will be nobody to -care—nobody except Oskar. He will be better without her, and can go -home when his time comes. Either of them could get on alone. It is only -together that they are not allowed to live, and since only one of them -can live, it is so much better it should be Oskar.</p> - -<p>There is a pang in the thought that Oskar will suffer. Yes, he will be -sorry. But he will get over it. And when he is at home and the first -pang of losing her is past and he wants to be happy, being so young and -such a <i>man</i>, perhaps ... who knows....</p> - -<p>But no, she cannot think of that.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>FIFTEENTH CHAPTER</i></h2> - -<p>Easter Day—one of the God-blest mornings in the sweet of the year when -it is happiness enough to be alive.</p> - -<p>Mona is setting her house in order and feeling as if she were doing -everything for the last time. When she thinks she has finished she -suddenly remembers that she has not had breakfast. But that does not -matter now. How thirsty she is, though! So she brews herself a pot of -tea and drinks two strong cups of it.</p> - -<p>The church bells begin to ring, and she determines to go to -church—also for the last time. Why not? It is true she intends to do -something which good people would condemn, but it is no use thinking of -that now.</p> - -<p>How sweet the air outside is, with the odour of the violets and the -gorse and with that tang of salt that comes up from the sea! The young -birds, too, how merrily they are singing! It is a pity! A great pity! </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> - -<p>She is late. The bells have ceased to ring, and there is nobody on the -road. It had taken her long to dress—she had felt so tired and had had -to sit down so often.</p> - -<p>The service has begun when she reaches the church. Through the inner -door, which is half open, she can see the congregation on their knees -and hear the vicar reading the General Confession, with the people -repeating it after him. She cannot go in just now, so she stands by the -porch and waits.</p> - -<p>The Sunday-school children, kneeling together on the right of the -pulpit, are bobbing their heads up and down at intervals—they are so -happy and proud in their new Easter clothes. She, too, used to be proud -and happy in her Easter clothes. It is almost heartbreaking. Life looks -sweet now, death being at the door.</p> - -<p>When the voices cease and she is about to enter, some of the -congregation look round at her. She feels as if they are thinking of -her as the kind of woman-penitent who in the old days used to stand at -the door of the church in her shame. That<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> stops her, and she remains -where she is standing.</p> - -<p>The service goes on—the psalms and lessons and hymns appropriate to -the day. At length comes the last hymn before the sermon:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>“<i>Jesu, lover of my soul,</i></div> -<div><i>Let me to thy bosom fly....</i>”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Mona has known it all her life, yet it seems as if she had never -understood it until now.</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>“<i>While the gathering waters roll,</i></div> -<div><i>While the tempest still is high.</i>”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>She is in tears before she is aware of it. The sermon begins, and the -vicar’s voice comes out to her in the open air and mingles with the -twittering of the birds in the trees and the bleating of the lambs in -the fields.</p> - -<p>It is about the last days of Jesus—His death and resurrection, the -hatred of His enemies and the desertion of His friends—all the -dreadful yet beautiful story. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> - -<p>“He might have avoided His death, but He did not do so. He died of His -own free will. Why? Because He was confirmed in the belief that His -death would save the world.”</p> - -<p>Jesus died to show that nothing mattered to man but the welfare of -his soul. Riches did not matter, rank did not matter, poverty did not -matter. It was nothing to Jesus that He was hated and despised and -friendless and homeless and alone and cast out of the family of men. -Nothing mattered to Him but love, and because He loved the world He -died for it.</p> - -<p>“And that is why all suffering souls come to Him—have been coming -to Him through all the two thousand years since His pilgrimage here -below—will continue to come to Him as long as the world lasts! ‘<i>Let -me to thy bosom fly.</i>’”</p> - -<p>Before the vicar’s voice has ceased, and while he is pronouncing the -blessing, Mona is hurrying home. There are no tears in her eyes now, -and in her heart there is only a great exaltation.</p> - -<p>Hitherto she has been thinking of what she intends to do as something -that God would have to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> forgive her for. Not so now. If Jesus died of -His own free will, if He died for love, why shouldn’t she? And if by -dying He saved the world, would it not be the same with her also?</p> - -<p>In the dizzy whirl of her brain she can see no difference. What she -intends to do ceases to be a sin and becomes a sacrifice. If the world -is full of hatred, as the consequence of the war, her death may save -it. She is only a poor girl, and nobody on earth may ever know what she -has done and why she has done it, yet God will know.</p> - -<p>But Oskar? She had not intended to tell Oskar. He loved her so much -that he might have tried to dissuade her. Just to slip away when the -time came for him to go back to his own country—that had been her -plan. But she could not reconcile herself to this now—not now, after -this great new thought. Oskar must know everything.</p> - -<p>Hours pass. She is sure Oskar will come to-day—quite sure. While -waiting for him she drinks many cups of tea, forgetting that she has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> -not eaten since yesterday. At last he comes. As usual, it is late at -night, and she is so weak from emotion and want of food that she can -scarcely reach the door to open it.</p> - -<p>“May I come in?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, indeed, come.”</p> - -<p>He steps into the house, never having done so since the night of her -father’s seizure, and sits by her side before the fire. His face is -lividly white, his lips are twitching, and his voice is hoarse.</p> - -<p>“What’s to do with you, Oskar?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing. Don’t be afraid. I have come to tell you something.”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve just had my orders. I am to go away in the morning.”</p> - -<p>“In the morning?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, with the last batch. The last of the officers and guard are going -too, so the camp will be empty after to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>Mona’s heart is beating hard, and she tries to ease it by asking an -irrelevant question. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> - -<p>“What are the men saying?”</p> - -<p>He laughs bitterly, and his words spurt out of his mouth.</p> - -<p>“The men? Oh, they’re saying they’ll soon be here again. They want -to stay in England, and if they are to be sent back to their own -overburdened country, to suffer and to starve, they will return some -day with hatred in their hearts.”</p> - -<p>“That means another war some day, doesn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“It does, and when that day comes God help the poor old world and -everything in it.”</p> - -<p>In her excited mood Mona thinks she knows better, but she cannot speak -of that yet; and Oskar, too, as if trying to gain time, goes on talking.</p> - -<p>“The world had its great chance at the end of the war, Mona, but then -came those damnable old men with their conferences making a peace -that was worse than the war itself. And now the churches—look at -the churches who have been told to teach that there’s no peace under -the soldier’s sword, standing by while the world is rushing on to -destruction! What snares! What hypocrisy!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> What spiritual harlotry! -Why don’t they burn down their altars and shut their doors and be -honest?... But that is not what I came to say—to tell you.”</p> - -<p>“What is, Oskar?”</p> - -<p>He hesitates for a moment, and then in a flood of words he says:</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to frighten you, Mona. You must not let me frighten you. -I should never forgive myself if.... But you are all I have now, and -... I can’t go away and leave you behind me.... I simply can’t.... It’s -impossible, quite impossible.”</p> - -<p>“But if they force you, Oskar?”</p> - -<p>Oskar laughs again—it is wild laughter.</p> - -<p>“Force me? Nobody can be forced if only he has courage.”</p> - -<p>“Courage?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, courage.... Don’t you see what I’ve come to tell you, Mona? Come, -don’t you? When the idea came to me first I thought you might be afraid -and perhaps faint and even try to turn me from my purpose, so I made -up my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> mind to say nothing. But when the order came to-night I said to -myself, ‘No, she’s not like some women. She’s brave; she’ll see there’s -nothing else for it.’”</p> - -<p>Mona sees what is coming, and her heart is throbbing hard, but she says:</p> - -<p>“Tell me. It’s better that I should know, Oskar.”</p> - -<p>With that he gets closer to her and speaks in a whisper, as if afraid -the very walls may hear:</p> - -<p>“When they look for me in the morning I shall be gone.... Don’t you -understand me now?—gone! So I’ve come to-night to say farewell. We are -meeting for the last time, Mona.”</p> - -<p>He looks at her, thinking she will cry out, perhaps scream, but her -eyes are shining. All the pain in the thought of their parting has -passed away with a mighty rushing.</p> - -<p>“Oskar,” she says, “don’t you think it would be just as hard for me ... -to stay here after you were ... gone?”</p> - -<p>The tears are in Oskar’s eyes now, for flesh is weak and his wild heart -is softening. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> - -<p>“What would become of me without you, Oskar?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t say that, Mona.”</p> - -<p>“But if ... if it’s inevitable that you should go, if there is nothing -else for it, can’t we ... can’t we go <i>together</i>?”</p> - -<p>“Together?” He is looking searchingly into her shining face. “Do you -mean ...?”</p> - -<p>She takes his hand. It is trembling. Her own is trembling also.</p> - -<p>“Oskar, do you remember the fight of the bulls on the cliff-head?”</p> - -<p>“When the old ones wouldn’t let the young one live, and he had to....”</p> - -<p>She bows her head. He is breathing rapidly. She lifts her eyes and -looks at him. They are silent for a moment, then he says:</p> - -<p>“My God, Mona! Do you mean <i>that</i>?... Really mean it?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>And then she tells him everything—all her great, divine, delirious -project. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> - -<p>He gasps, and then his face also shines, as little by little her dream -rises before them.</p> - -<p>“Do you think that vain and foolish, Oskar ... that we should do as He -did, of our own free will, to save the world from all this hatred and -bitterness?”</p> - -<p>Oskar throws up his head; his eyes are streaming.</p> - -<p>“No! No! For God’s in His heaven, Mona.”</p> - -<p>And then, these two poor creatures whom the world has cast out, -clasped hand in hand, and seeing no difference in the wild confusion -and delirium of their whirling thoughts, talk together in whispers of -how they are going to save the world from war, and the bitter results -of war, by doing as He did who was the great Vanquisher of death -and Redeemer of the soul from sin—give up their lives in love and -sacrifice.</p> - -<p>“So even if the churches are all you say, there’s Jesus still....”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes, there’s Jesus still, Mona.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p> - -<h2><i>SIXTEENTH CHAPTER</i></h2> - -<p>At five o’clock next morning a young man and a young woman are climbing -the hill that stands between the camp and the sea.</p> - -<p>There is only a pale grey light in the sky; the last stars are dying -out; the morning is very quiet. Sometimes a cock crows in the closed-up -hen houses of the neighbouring farms; sometimes a dog barks through the -half-darkness. Save for these there is no sound except that of the soft -breeze which passes over the earth before daybreak.</p> - -<p>The two walk side by side. They can hardly see each other’s faces, and -are holding hands to keep together. Partly because of the darkness and -partly for reasons obscure even to themselves, they are walking slowly, -and pausing at every few steps to take breath. They are trying to make -their journey as long as possible. It is to be their last. </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Forgive me, Oskar,” says Mona.</p> - -<p>“There is nothing to forgive, Mona. It had to be.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, it had to be. There was no other way, was there?”</p> - -<p>“No, there was no other way, Mona.”</p> - -<p>What remained of the internment camp had not been stirring when they -passed through the lane that led from the farm to the grazing land, -but by the time they are half-way up the hill there are sounds from -the black ground below them. Looking back, they see groups of vague -figures moving about in the Third Compound. A little later they hear -the call of a bugle—the last batch of prisoners is being gathered up. -Still later, when the light is better, there is the sharp ringing of a -bell—the roll has been called and Oskar is missing.</p> - -<p>“It’s for me,” he says, and they stop.</p> - -<p>By this time they are near to the wall of the little cemetery that -surrounds the tower, and to avoid being seen they wait under its dark -shelter.</p> - -<p>There is a period of suspense in which neither<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> speaks, but after a -while they see the black-coated prisoners form into file, with their -yellow-clothed guard on either side, and march out of their compound.</p> - -<p>“They’ve given me up,” says Oskar, and they both breathe freely.</p> - -<p>They hear the word of command, deadened by distance. Then they see the -procession of men pass down the avenue and through the big outer gates -into the high road. At first there is only the dull thud of many feet -on the hard ground, but as the guards close the gates behind them, and -the sharp clang of the iron hasps comes up through the still air, the -prisoners break into a cheer.</p> - -<p>It is wild, broken, irregular cheering, as of fierce disdain, and it is -followed by defiant singing—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>“<i>Glo-ry to the brave men of old,</i></div> -<div><i>Their sons will copy their virtues bold,</i></div> -<div><i>Courage in heart and a sword in hand....</i>”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>A few minutes later the dark figures are hidden by trees, and as they -turn the corner of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> road by Kirk Patrick their voices die away.</p> - -<p>They are gone—back to their own country, which wants them not. The -camp that has been their prison for four years is empty. It lies, in -the quickening daylight, like a vast black scar on the green face of -the mountain.</p> - -<p>Suddenly a new thought comes to Mona. They may still avoid death. Life -may yet be open to them.</p> - -<p>“Oskar,” she says, speaking in a rapid whisper, “now that the officers -and the guard have gone, isn’t it possible that we could escape to -somewhere ... where we should be unknown....”</p> - -<p>“Impossible! Quite impossible, Mona.”</p> - -<p>“Ah yes, I suppose it is,” she says, and they rise to resume their -journey.</p> - -<p>But just then, in the first rays of morning, from a cottage that is -between them and the sea, she hears the voice of a woman singing. She -knows who the woman is—one of her former maids, who has lately been -married to a farm labourer. Perhaps her husband has gone to his work in -the fields, and she is out in their little garden, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>gathering up the -eggs of the hens that are clucking. How happy she must be!</p> - -<p>For a moment Mona’s heart fails her. She forgets the great thoughts of -yesterday, and regrets the loss of the simple joys that are reserved -for other women.</p> - -<p>“It seems a pity, though, doesn’t it?” she says.</p> - -<p>“Do you regret it, Mona?” says Oskar, looking round at her. But at the -next moment her soul has regained its strength.</p> - -<p>“No! Oh, no! It had to be.... And then there is our great hope, our -wonderful idea!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, our great hope, our wonderful idea.”</p> - -<p>They continue their climbing, still holding each other’s hands, but -rarely speaking. Sometimes she stumbles, but he holds her up. The -larks are singing now, and the young lambs on John Corlett’s farm are -bleating. Far down, on the seaward side, sheltering in the arms of its -red cliffs, is the little white town of Peel. It is beginning to smoke -for breakfast.</p> - -<p>“Oskar, do you still think that when all this is over, and the hatred -and bitterness have died out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> of people’s hearts, they will make war on -each other no longer?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, in the years to come, perhaps—or they must wipe themselves off -the earth, Mona.”</p> - -<p>“And do you think that God will accept our sacrifice?”</p> - -<p>“I’m sure He will—because we shall have died for love and given up -all.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, we shall have died for love and given up all,” says Mona, and -after that she liberates her hand and walks on firmly.</p> - -<p>As they approach the crest of the hill the deep murmur of the sea comes -over to them, and when they reach the top its salt breath smites their -faces. There it lies in a broad half-circle, stretching from east to -west, cold and grey and cruel.</p> - -<p>Mona trembles, and the revulsion which comes to the strongest souls -at the first sight of death seizes her for an instant. In a faltering -voice she says:</p> - -<p>“It won’t be long, will it, Oskar?”</p> - -<p>“No, it won’t be long, Mona.”</p> - -<p>“Only a few moments?” </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yes, only a few moments.”</p> - -<p>“And then we shall be together again for ever?”</p> - -<p>“For ever.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I shan’t care if at the cost of a few moments of suffering I can -be happy with you for ever.”</p> - -<p>She is not afraid now. In front of them are the heather-clad slopes -that go down to the precipitous cliffs. They clasp hands again and walk -forward. Tears are in their eyes, but the light of heaven is there also.</p> - -<p>In a few minutes more they are on the cliff head. It overhangs the sea, -which is heaving and singing in its many voices, seventy feet below. -The sun is rising, and the sky to the east is flecked with crimson. -There is nothing else in sight anywhere, and no other sound except the -cry of the sea fowl on the rocks beneath.</p> - -<p>“This is the place, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“This is the place, Mona.”</p> - -<p>“Shall we do as we intended?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, let us do as we intended.”</p> - -<p>And then these two children of the universal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> Father, cast out of the -company of men, separated in life and about to be united in death, go -through the burial service which they have appointed for themselves.</p> - -<p>First, they kneel on the cliff edge, as close as they can get to it, -and repeat their prayer:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>“<i>Our Father, who art in Heaven ...</i></div> -<div><i>Geheiligt wird dein name ...</i></div> -<div><i>Forgive us our trespasses ...</i></div> -<div><i>As we forgive them that trespass against us....</i>”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Then they rise, and, standing hand in hand, with their heads up and -their faces to the sea, they sing their hymn:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>“<i>Jesu, lover of my soul ...</i></div> -<div><i>Lass mir an dein brust liegen....</i>”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Then Oskar unfastens his coat, and taking off the long belt he is -wearing he straps it about both<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> of them. They are now eye to eye, -breast to breast, heart to heart.</p> - -<p>“The time has come, hasn’t it, Oskar?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, the time has come, Mona.”</p> - -<p>“I can kiss you now, can’t I?”</p> - -<p>He puts his arms tenderly about her and kisses her on the lips. She -kisses him. It is their first kiss and their last.</p> - -<p>“God bless you for loving me, Oskar.”</p> - -<p>“And God bless you, too, Mona. And now good-bye!”</p> - -<p>“No, not good-bye. Only—until then.”</p> - -<p>“Until then.”</p> - -<p class="space-above">The sun rises above the horizon in a blaze of glory. The broad sea -sings her everlasting song. The cliff head is empty.</p> - -<p class="space-above">After a while, when the sky is blue and the morning sunlight is dancing -on the waters, a steamer, decked with flags from stem to stern, comes -round the headland on the south. It is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> crowded with soldiers, who are -crushing to starboard to catch their first sight of the town which lies -behind the headland to the north.</p> - -<p>There is the sharp crack of a rocket from the lifeboat house at Peel, -and then a band on the steamer begins to play, and the soldiers to sing -in rapturous chorus:</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>“<i>Keep the home-fires burning...</i></div> -<div><i>Till the boys come home....</i>”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>A little later the church bells begin to ring. They ring louder and -louder and faster and faster every moment, as if pealing their joyous -message up to the cloudless sky:</p> - -<p class="center">“<span class="smcap">Peace! Peace! Peace!</span>”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CONCLUSION</h2> - -<p>Queenstown, <i>April</i>, 1919.—<i>Rather more than a week ago the bodies -of a young man and a young woman, tightly strapped together, closely -clasped in each other’s arms, and floating out towards the ocean, were -picked up by Kinsdale fishermen as they were returning to harbour in -the early hours of morning. Inquiries into identity appear to show that -the young man was a German of good family and superior education, who, -until recently, was a prisoner at Knockaloe, the well-known internment -camp for alien civilians in the Isle of Man, and that the young woman -was a native of the island, a girl of fine character, the owner of a -farm which is connected with the camp and called by the same name.</i></p> - -<p><i>It is known that, in spite of the difference of race and -notwithstanding the difficulties of their position, they became -strongly attached, and that when, shortly after the Armistice, the -order was given that prisoners of war should be returned</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> <i>to the -countries of their origin, the young German tried, first, to remain in -England with the girl, whom he wished to marry, and afterwards to be -allowed to take her back with him to Germany. Failing in both efforts, -he fell into a deep melancholy, which seems to have communicated itself -to the young woman, and to have resulted in a death-pact.</i></p> - -<p><i>When the time came for the camp to be closed the young man had -disappeared, and later it was discovered that the young woman was also -missing. How they escaped is unknown, but it is assumed that they threw -themselves into the sea from the cliffs of Contrary, the most westerly -headland in Man, and, being caught in the Gulf stream, which flows -close to the island at that point, were carried down to the waters in -which they were found.</i></p> - -<p><i>The mackerel fishers of Kinsdale (simple, but imaginative and often -religious men, belonging to many nationalities—Irish, Scotch, -French, and even German) have been deeply touched by the fate of the -young lovers who, finding their love doomed by the hatred between -their races, and</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> <i>nothing left to them in life, preferred death to -separation. A few days ago they asked permission to bury the bodies, -and yesterday they did so, choosing as the place of rest the summit of -Cape Clear, which looks out on the Atlantic. To-day they have built -over the spot a broad and lofty cairn, which will henceforth be the -first thing seen by the passengers on the great liners who are coming -in from the New World to the Old, and the last by those who are going -out from the Old World to the New.</i>—The Times.</p> - -<p class="space-above">“<i>Love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave.... Many -waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.</i>”</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOMAN OF KNOCKALOE: A PARABLE ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ -concept and trademark. 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