No Defense

Chapter 11

WHITHER NOW?

England was in a state of unrest. She had, as yet, been none too

successful in the war with France. From the king's castle to the poorest

slum in Seven Dials there was a temper bordering on despair. Ministries

came and went; statesmen rose and fell. The army was indifferently

recruited and badly paid. England's battles were fought by men of whom

many were only mercenaries, with no stake in England's rise or fall.

In the army and navy there were protests, many and powerful, against the

smallness of the pay, while the cost of living had vastly increased. In

more than one engagement on land England had had setbacks of a serious

kind, and there were those who saw in the blind-eyed naval policy, in the

general disregard of the seamen's position, in the means used for

recruiting, the omens of disaster. The police courts furnished the navy

with the worst citizens of the country. Quota men, the output of the

Irish prisons--seditious, conspiring, dangerous--were drafted for the

king's service.

The admiralty pursued its course of seizing men of the mercantile marine,

taking them aboard ships, keeping them away for months from the harbours

of the kingdom, and then, when their ships returned, denying them the

right of visiting their homes. The press-gangs did not confine their

activities to the men of the mercantile marine. From the streets after

dusk they caught and brought in, often after ill-treatment, torn from

their wives and sweethearts, knocked on the head for resisting, tradesmen

with businesses, young men studying for the professions, idlers, debtors,

out-of-work men. The marvel is that the British fleets fought as well as

they did.

Poverty and sorrow, loss and bereavement, were in every street, peeped

mournfully out of every window, lurked at street corners. From all parts

of the world adventurers came to renew their fortunes in the turmoil of

London, and every street was a kaleidoscope of faces and clothes and

colours, not British, not patriot, not national.

Among these outlanders were Dyck Calhoun and Michael Clones. They had

left Ireland together in the late autumn, leaving behind them the

stirrings of the coming revolution, and plunging into another revolt

which was to prove the test and trial of English character.

Dyck had left Ireland with ninety pounds in his pocket and many tons'

weight of misery in his heart. In his bones he felt tragedies on foot in

Ireland which concession and good government could not prevent. He had

fled from it all. When he set his face to Holyhead, he felt that he would

never live in Ireland again. Yet his courage was firm as he made his way

to London, with Michael Clones--faithful, devoted, a friend and yet a

servant, treated like a comrade, yet always with a little dominance.

The journey to London had been without event, yet as the coach rolled

through country where frost silvered the trees; where, in the early

morning, the grass was shining with dew; where the everlasting green

hedges and the red roofs of villages made a picture which pleased the eye

and stirred the soul, Dyck Calhoun kept wondering what would be his

future. He had no profession, no trade, no skill except with his sword;

and as he neared London Town--when they left Hendon--he saw the smoke

rising in the early winter morning and the business of life spread out

before him, brave and buoyant.

As from the heights of Hampstead he looked down on the multitudinous area

called London, something throbbed at his heart which seemed like hope;

for what he saw was indeed inspiring. When at last, in the Edgware Road,

he drew near to living London, he turned to Michael Clones and said:

"Michael, my lad, I think perhaps we'll find a footing here."

So they reached London, and quartered themselves in simple lodgings in

Soho. Dyck walked the streets, and now and then he paid a visit to the

barracks where soldiers were, to satisfy the thought that perhaps in the

life of the common soldier he might, after all, find his future. It was,

however, borne in upon him by a chance remark of Michael one day--"I'm

not young enough to be a recruit, and you wouldn't go alone without me,

would you?"--that this way to a livelihood was not open to him.

His faithful companion's remark had fixed Dyck's mind against entering

the army, and then, towards the end of the winter, a fateful thing

happened. His purse containing what was left of the ninety

pounds--two-fifths of it--disappeared. It had been stolen, and in all the

bitter days to come, when poverty and misery ground them down, no hint of

the thief, no sign of the robber, was ever revealed.

Then, at last, a day when a letter came from Ireland. It was from the

firm in which Bryan Llyn of Virginia had been interested, for the letter

had been sent to their care, and Dyck had given them his address in

London on this very chance. It reached Dyck's hands on the day after the

last penny had been paid out for their lodgings, and they faced the

streets, penniless, foodless--one was going to say friendless. The

handwriting was that of Sheila Llyn.

At a street corner, by a chemist's shop where a red light burned, Dyck

opened and read the letter. This is what Sheila had written to him.

"Michael," said he, "that letter is from a lady. It comes from her new

home in Virginia."

Michael nodded.

"Aye, aye, sir, I understand you," he said. "Then she doesn't know the

truth about her father?" Dyck sighed heavily. "No, Michael, she doesn't

know the truth."

"I don't believe it would make any difference to her if she did know."

"It would make all the difference to me, Michael. She says she wishes to

help me. She tells me that money's been sent to the big firm in

Dublin-money to take me across the sea to Virginia."

Michael's face clouded.

"Yes, sir. To Virginia--and what then?"

"Michael, we haven't a penny in the world, you and I, but if I took one

farthing of that money I should hope you would kill me. I'm hungry; we've

had nothing to eat since yesterday; but if I could put my hands upon that

money here and now I wouldn't touch it. Michael, it looks as if we shall

have to take to the trade of the footpad."