Sunrise by William Black (online e book reader TXT) 📖

men whose character you cannot read."

Natalie glanced up quickly; and her father noticed that surprised look.

"Well," said he, with a smile, "what now is your opinion of Mr. Brand?"

Instantly the soft eyes were cast down again, and a faint tinge of color appeared in her face.

"Oh, my opinion, papa?" said she, as if to gain time to choose her words. "Well, I should call him manly, straightforward--and--and very kind--and--and very English--"

"I understand you perfectly, Natalie," her father said, with a laugh. "You and Lord Evelyn are quite in accord. Yes, and you are both thoroughly mistaken. You mean, by his being so English, that he is cold, critical, unsympathetic: is it not so? You resent his being cautious about joining us. You think he will be but a lukewarm associate--suspecting everything--fearful about going too far--a half-and-half ally. My dear Natalie, that is because neither Lord Evelyn nor you know anything at all about that man."

The faint color in the girl's cheeks had deepened; and she remained silent, with her face downcast.

"The pliable ones," her father continued, "the people who are moved by fine talking, who are full of amiable sentiments, and who take to work like ours as an additional sentiment--you may initiate a thousand of them, and not gain an atom of strength. It is a hard head that I want, and a strong will; a man determined to have no illusions at the outset; a man who, once pledged, will not despair or give up in the face of failure, difficulty, or disappointment, or anything else. Brand is such a man. If I were to be disabled to-morrow, I would rather leave my work in his hands than in the hands of any man I have seen in this country."

Was it to hide the deepening color in her face that the girl went round to her father, and stood rather behind him, and put her hand on his shoulder, and stooped down to his ear.

"Papa," said she, "I--I hope you don't think I have been saying anything against Mr. Brand. Oh no. How could I do that--when he has been so kind to us--and--and just now especially, when he is about to become one of us? You must forget what I said about his being English, papa; after all, it is not for us to say that being English is anything else than being kind, and generous, and hospitable. And I am exceedingly pleased that you have got another associate, and that we have got another good friend, in England."

"Alors, as Calabressa would say, you can show that you are pleased, Natalie," her father said, lightly, "by going and writing a pretty little note, asking your new friend, Mr. Brand, to dine with us to-night, after the initiation is over, and I will ask Evelyn, if I see him."

But this proposal in no wise seemed to lessen the girl's embarrassment. She still clung about the back of her father's chair.

"I would rather not do that, papa," said she, after a second.

"Why? why?" said he.

"Would it not look less formal for you to ask him, papa? You see, it is once or twice that we have asked him to dine with us without giving him proper notice--"

"Oh, that is nothing--nothing at all. A bachelor with an evening disengaged is glad enough to fill it up anyhow. Well, if you would rather not write, Natalie, I will ask him myself."

"Thank you, papa," said she, apparently much relieved, and therewith she went back to her seat, and her father turned to his newspaper.

The day passed, and the evening came. As six o'clock was striking, George Brand presented himself at the little door in Lisle street, Soho, and was admitted. Lind had already assured him that, as far as England was concerned, no idle mummeries were associated with the ceremony of initiation; to which Brand had calmly replied, that if mummeries were considered necessary, he was as ready as any one to do his part of the business. Only he added that he thought the unknown powers had acted wisely--so far as England was concerned--in discarding such things.

When he entered the room, his first glance round was reassuring. There were six persons present besides Lind, and they did not at all suggest the typical Leicester Square foreigner. On the contrary, he guessed that four out of the six were either English or Irish; and two of them he recognized, though they were unknown to him personally. The one was a Home Rule M.P., ferocious enough in the House of Commons, but celebrated as the most brilliant, and amiable, and fascinating of diners-out; the other was an Oxford don, of large fortune and wildly Radical views, who wrote a good deal in the papers. There was a murmur of conversation going on, which ceased as Lind briefly introduced the new-comer.

The ceremony, if ceremony it could be called, was simple enough. The candidate for admission was required to sign a printed document, solemnly pledging himself to devote his life, and the labor of his hands and brain, to the work of the association; to implicitly obey any command reaching him from the Council, or communicated through an officer of the first degree; and to preserve inviolable secrecy. Brand read this paper through twice, and signed it. It was then signed by the seven witnesses. He was further required to inscribe his signature in a large volume, which contained a list of members of a particular section. That done, the six strangers present shook him by the hand, and left.

He looked round surprised. Had he been dreaming during these brief five minutes? Yet he could hear the noise of their going down-stairs.

"Well," said Mr. Lind, with a smile, "it is not a very terrible ceremony, is it? Did you expect prostrations at the altar; and blindfold gropings, and the blessing of the dagger? When you come to know a little more of our organization, of its extent and its power, you will understand how we can afford to dispense with all those theatrical ways of frightening people into obedience and secrecy."

"I expected to find Evelyn here," said George Brand. He was in truth, just a little bit bewildered as yet. He had been assured that there would be no foolish mummeries or fantastic rites of initiation; but all the same he had been much occupied with this step he was about to take; he had been thinking of it much; he had been looking forward to something unknown; and he had been nerving himself to encounter whatever might come before him. But that five minutes of silence; the quick reading and signing of a paper; the sudden dispersion of the small assemblage: he could scarcely believe it was all real.

"No," Lind said, "Lord Evelyn is not yet an officer. He is only a Companion in the third degree, like yourself."

"A what?"

"A Companion in the third degree. Surely you read the document that you signed?"

It was still lying on the table before him. He took it up; yes, he certainly was so designated there. Yet he could not remember seeing the phrase, though he had, before signing, read every word twice over.

"And now, Mr. Brand," his companion said, seating himself at the other side of the table, "when you have got over your surprise that there should be no ceremony, it will become my duty to give you some idea--some rough idea--of the mechanism and aims of our association, and to show you in what measure we are allied with other societies. The details you will become acquainted with by-and-by; that will be a labor of time. And you know, of course, or you have guessed, that there are no mysteries to be revealed to you, no profound religious truths to be communicated, no dogmas to be accepted. I am afraid we are very degenerate descendants of the Mystics, and the Illuminati, and all the rest of them; we have become prosaic; our wants are sadly material. And yet we have our dreams and aspirations, too; and the virtues that we exact--obedience, temperance, faith, self-sacrifice--are not ignoble. Meanwhile, to begin. I think you may prepare yourself to be astonished."

But astonishment was no word for the emotion experienced by the newly admitted member when Ferdinand Lind proceeded to give him, with careful facts and sober computations, some rough outline of the extent and power of this intricate and far-reaching organization. Hitherto the word "International" had with him been associated with the ridiculous fiasco at Geneva; but here was something, not calling itself international, which aimed at nothing less than knitting together the multitudes of the nations, not only in Europe, but in the English and French and German speaking territories beyond the seas, in a solemn league--a league for self-protection and mutual understanding, for the preservation of international peace, the spread of knowledge, the outbraving of tyranny, the defiance of religious intolerance, the relief of the oppressed, the help of the poor, and the sick, and the weak. This was no cutthroat conspiracy or wild scheme of confiscation and plunder; but a design for the establishment of wide and beneficent law--a law which should protect, not the ambition of kings, not the pride of armies, not the revenues of priests, but the rights and the liberties of those who were "darkening in labor and pain." And this message, that could go forth alike to the Camorristi and the Nihilists; to the Free Masons and the Good Templars; to the Trades-unionists and the Knights of Labor--to all those masses of men moved by the spirit of co-operation--"See, brothers, what we have to show you. Some of you are aiming at chaos and perdition; others putting wages as their god and sovereign; others content with a vague philanthropy almost barren of results. This is all the help we want of you--to pledge yourselves to associate with us, to accept our modest programme of actual needs, to give help to those who are in want or trouble, to promise that you will stand by us in the time to come. And when the time does come; when we are combined; when knowledge is abroad, and mutual trust, who will say 'yes' if the voice of the people in every nation murmurs 'No?' What priest will reimpose the Inquisition on us; what king drive us to shed blood that his robes may have the richer dye; what policeman in high places endeavor to stamp out our God-given right of free speech? It is so little for you to grant; it is so much for you, and for us, to gain!"

These were not the words he uttered--for Lind spoke English slowly and carefully--but they were the spirit of his words. And as he went on describing to this new member what had already been done, what was being done, and the great possibilities of the future, Brand began to wonder whether all this gigantic scheme, with its simple, bold, and practical outlines, were the work of this one man. He ventured by-and-by to hint at some such question.

"Mine?" Lind said, frankly, "Ah no! not the inspiration of it. I am only the mechanic putting brick and brick together; the design is not mine, nor that of any one man. It is an aggregate project--a speculation occupying many a long hour of imprisonment--a scheme to be handed from one to the other, with alterations and suggestions."

"But even your share of it--how can one man control so much?" Brand said; for he easily perceived what a mass of detail had to pass through this man's hands.

"I will tell you," said