Jeremy replied that he did, and thought that he was beginning to understand a great deal besides.
“Well, then,” the Speaker went on, growing a little calmer, “I told you when first we met that we were standing on the edge of a precipice. Now these are the people that want to throw us over. The chief of them, the Chairman of Bradford, has sent me a message. I won’t explain the details to you. It comes to this, that in future he proposes to collect the taxes in his district, not for me, but for himself. I must say he very kindly offers to send me a contribution for the upkeep of the railways. But he wants a plain yes or no at once; and if we say no, then it means WAR!” In the last sentence his voice had begun to run upwards: he pronounced the final word in a sudden startling shout, and then stood silent for a moment, his eyes burning fiercely. When he continued, it was in a quieter and more reasonable tone. “There has been no fighting in this country since the end of the Troubles, a hundred years or so ago. A brawl here and there, a fight with criminals or discontented laborers—I don’t say; but no more than enough to make our people dislike it. Of all of us here in this room, only you and Thomas Wells know what war is. Now”—and here he became persuasive and put a curious smooth emphasis on each word—“now, knowing all that you do know, what advice would you give me?”
Jeremy stood irresolute. Henry Watkins and John Hammond seemed to throw up their hands in perplexed despair, and the Canadian’s thin, supercilious smile grew a trifle wider and thinner. The Speaker waited, rocking hugely to and fro on his feet with a gentle motion.
“I think,” Jeremy began, and was disconcerted to find himself so hoarse that the words came muffled and inaudible. He cleared his throat. “I think I hardly know enough about it for my advice to be of any use. I don’t even know what troops you have.”
The Speaker made a deep booming sound in his chest, clasped his hands sharply together, and looked as though he were about to burst out again in anger. Then he abruptly regained his self-command and said: “Then you shall speak later. Henry Watkins, what do you say? Remember, we must make up our minds forever while we are talking now. It will not do to argue with them, or temporize or make them any other offer.”
Henry Watkins got up from his seat and went to the Speaker’s side as though he wished to address him confidentially. Jeremy had an impression of a long dark face, unnaturally lengthened by deep gloom, and two prominent eyes that not even the strongest emotion could make more than dully earnest.
“I beg of you, sir,” he implored, low and hurried, holding out his hands, “to attempt to argue with them, to offer them some compromise. You know very well that they are forcing this quarrel on us, because they are sure that they are the stronger, as I believe them to be. And anything, anything would be better than to begin the Troubles again!”
The Speaker surveyed him as if from an immense height. “And do you think that we can avoid the Troubles again, and worse things even than that, in any way except by defeating these people? Am I to surrender all that my grandfather and my great-grandfather won? Do you not see that they have sent us just these two men, stupider and stubborner even than the rest, so that we shall not be able to argue with them? They have been told to carry back either our yes or our no. If we do not give them a yes, they will take no by default. There is no other choice for us. What do you think, John Hammond?”
“I agree with Henry Watkins,” said the big man hastily. He had not spoken before, and seemed to do so now only with great reluctance.
“Then we need not hear your reasons. And you, Thomas Wells?”