Traffics and Discoveries

And all the clouds are gone —
The Proper Sort shall flourish now,
Good times are coming on" —
The evil that was threatened late
To all of our degree,
Hath passed in discord and debate,
And, Hey then up go we!

A common people strove in vain
To shame us unto toil,
But they are spent and we remain,
And we shall share the spoil
According to our several needs
As Beauty shall decree,
As Age ordains or Birth concedes,
And, Hey then up go we!

And they that with accursed zeal
Our Service would amend,
Shall own the odds and come to heel
Ere worse befall their end
For though no naked word be wrote
Yet plainly shall they see
What pinneth Orders to their coat,
And, Hey then up go we!

Our doorways that, in time of fear,
We opened overwide
Shall softly close from year to year
Till all be purified;
For though no fluttering fan be heard
Nor chaff be seen to flee —
The Lord shall winnow the Lord's Preferred —
And, Hey then up go we!

Our altars which the heathen brake
Shall rankly smoke anew,
And anise, mint, and cummin take
Their dread and sovereign due,
Whereby the buttons of our trade
Shall all restored be
With curious work in gilt and braid,
And, Hey then up go we!

Then come, my brethren, and prepare
The candlesticks and bells,
The scarlet, brass, and badger's hair
Wherein our Honour dwells,
And straitly fence and strictly keep
The Ark's integrity
Till Armageddon break our sleep …
And, Hey then up go we!

THE ARMY OF A DREAM

PART I

I sat down in the club smoking-room to fill a pipe.

* * * * *

It was entirely natural that I should be talking to "Boy" Bayley. We had met first, twenty odd years ago, at the Indian mess of the Tyneside Tail-twisters. Our last meeting, I remembered, had been at the Mount Nelson Hotel, which was by no means India, and there we had talked half the night. Boy Bayley had gone up that week to the front, where I think he stayed a long, long time.

But now he had come back.

"Are you still a Tynesider?" I asked.

"I command the Imperial Guard Battalion of the old regiment, my son," he replied.

"Guard which? They've been Fusiliers since Fontenoy. Don't pull my leg, Boy."

"I said Guard, not Guard-s. The I. G. Battalion of the Tail-twisters.

Does that make it any clearer?"

"Not in the least."

"Then come over to the mess and see for yourself. We aren't a step from barracks. Keep on my right side. I'm – I'm a bit deaf on the near."

We left the club together and crossed the street to a vast four-storied pile, which more resembled a Rowton lodging-house than a barrack. I could see no sentry at the gates.

"There ain't any," said the Boy lightly. He led me into a many-tabled restaurant full of civilians and grey-green uniforms. At one end of the room, on a slightly raised dais, stood a big table.

"Here we are! We usually lunch here and dine in mess by ourselves. These are our chaps – but what am I thinking of? You must know most of 'em.

Devine's my second in command now. There's old Luttrell – remember him at Cherat? – Burgard, Verschoyle (you were at school with him), Harrison, Pigeon, and Kyd."

With the exception of this last I knew them all, but I could not remember that they had all been Tynesiders.

"I've never seen this sort of place," I said, looking round. "Half the men here are in plain clothes, and what are those women and children doing?"

"Eating, I hope," Boy Bayley answered. "Our canteens would never pay if it wasn't for the Line and Militia trade. When they were first started people looked on 'em rather as catsmeat-shops; but we got a duchess or two to lunch in 'em, and they've been grossly fashionable since."

"So I see," I answered. A woman of the type that shops at the Stores came up the room looking about her. A man in the dull-grey uniform of the corps rose up to meet her, piloted her to a place between three other uniforms, and there began a very merry little meal.

"I give it up," I said. "This is guilty splendour that I don't understand."

"Quite simple," said Burgard across the table. "The barrack supplies breakfast, dinner, and tea on the Army scale to the Imperial Guard (which we call I. G.) when it's in barracks as well as to the Line and Militia. They can all invite their friends if they choose to pay for them. That's where we make our profits. Look!"

Near one of the doors were four or five tables crowded with workmen in the raiment of their callings. They ate steadily, but found time to jest with the uniforms about them; and when one o'clock clanged from a big half-built block of flats across the street, filed out.