Antic Hay

flourish properly; if you will tell mothers how to bring up their children, instead of allowing nature to kill them off in her natural way; if you will import unlimited supplies of corn and meat: what can you expect? Of course the numbers go up.” The old gentleman waved all this away. “I don’t care what the causes are,” he said. “That’s all one to me. What I do object to, sir, is the effects. Why sir, I am old enough to remember walking through the delicious meadows beyond Swiss Cottage, I remember seeing the cows milked in West Hampstead, sir. And now, what do I see now, when I go there? Hideous red cities pullulating with Jews, sir. Pullulating with prosperous Jews. Am I right in being indignant, sir? Do I do well, like the prophet Jonah, to be angry?” “You do, sir,” said Gumbril, with growing enthusiasm, “and the more so since this frightful increase in population is the world’s most formidable danger at the present time. With populations that in Europe alone expand by millions every year, no political foresight is possible. A few years of this mere bestial propagation will suffice to make nonsense of the wisest schemes of to-day—or would suffice,” he hastened to correct himself, “if any wise schemes were being matured at the present.” “Very possibly, sir,” said the old gentleman, “but what I object to is seeing good cornland being turned into streets, and meadows, where cows used to graze, covered with houses full of useless and disgusting human beings. I resent seeing the country parcelled out into back gardens.” “And is there any prospect,” Gumbril earnestly asked, “of our ever being able in the future to support the whole of our population? Will unemployment ever decrease?” “I don’t know, sir,” the old gentleman replied. “But the families of the unemployed will certainly increase.” “You are right, sir,” said Gumbril, “they will. And the families of the employed and the prosperous will as steadily grow smaller. It is regrettable that birth control should have begun at the wrong end of the scale. There seems to be a level of poverty below which it doesn’t seem worth while practising birth control, and a level of education below which birth control is regarded as morally wrong. Strange, how long it has taken for the ideas of love and procreation to dissociate themselves in the human mind. In the majority of minds they are still, even in this so-called twentieth century, indivisibly wedded. Still,” he continued hopefully, “progress is being made, progress is certainly, though slowly, being made. It is gratifying to find, for example, in the latest statistics, that the clergy, as a class, are now remarkable for the smallness of their families. The old jest is out of date. Is it too much to hope that these gentlemen may bring themselves in time to preach what they already practise?” “It _is_ too much to hope, sir,” the old gentleman answered with decision. “You are probably right,” said Gumbril. “If we were all to preach all the things we all practise,” continued the old gentleman, “the world would soon be a pretty sort of bear-garden, I can tell you. Yes, and a monkey-house. And a wart-hoggery. As it is, sir, it is merely a place where there are too many human beings. Vice must pay its tribute to virtue, or else we are all undone.” “I admire your wisdom, sir,” said Gumbril. The old gentleman was delighted. “And I have been much impressed by your philosophical reflections,” he said. “Tell me, are you at all interested in old brandy?” “Well, not philosophically,” said Gumbril. “As a mere empiric only.” “As a mere empiric!” The old gentleman laughed. “Then let me beg you to accept a case. I have a cellar which I shall never drink dry, alas! before I die. My only wish is that what remains of it shall be distributed among those who can really appreciate it. In you, sir, I see a fitting recipient of a case of brandy.” “You overwhelm me,” said Gumbril. “You are too kind, and, I may add, too flattering.” The train, which was a mortally slow one, came grinding for what seemed the hundredth time to a halt. “Not at all,” said the old gentleman. “If you have a card, sir.” Gumbril searched his pockets. “I have come without one.” “Never mind,” said the old gentleman. “I think I have a pencil. If you will give me your name and address, I will have the case sent to you at once.” Leisurely, he hunted for the pencil, he took out a notebook. The train gave a jerk forward. “Now, sir,” he said. Gumbril began dictating. “Theodore,” he said slowly. “The—o—dore,” the old gentleman repeated, syllable by syllable. The train crept on, with slowly gathering momentum, through the station. Happening to look out of the window at this moment, Gumbril saw the name of the place painted across a lamp. It was Robertsbridge. He made a loud, inarticulate noise, flung open the door of the compartment, stepped out on to the footboard and jumped. He landed safely on the platform, staggered forward a few paces with his acquired momentum and came at last to a halt. A hand reached out and closed the swinging door of his compartment and, an instant afterwards, through the window, a face that, at a distance, looked more than ever like the face of the Emperor Francis Joseph, looked back towards the receding platform. The mouth opened and shut; no words were audible. Standing on the platform, Gumbril made a complicated pantomime, signifying his regret by shrugging his shoulders and placing his hand on his heart; urging in excuse for his abrupt departure the necessity under which he laboured of alighting at this particular station—which he did by pointing at the name on the boards and lamps, then at himself, then at the village across the fields. The old gentleman waved his hand, which still held, Gumbril noticed, the notebook in which he had been writing. Then the train carried him out of sight. There went the only case of old brandy he was ever likely to possess, thought Gumbril sadly, as he turned away. Suddenly, he remembered Emily again; for a long time he had quite forgotten her. The cottage, when at last he found it, proved to be fully as picturesque as he had imagined. And Emily, of course, had gone, leaving, as might have been expected, no address. He took the evening train back to London. The aridity was now complete, and even the hope of a mirage had vanished. There was no old gentleman to make a diversion. The size of clergymen’s families, even the fate of Europe, seemed unimportant now, were indeed perfectly indifferent to him.