“For better or for worse the revolution has begun. Now, Horace, you are but sixteen, but you are a sensible lad, and I have stood so much apart from other men from my boyhood that I am what you might call unpractical; while I take it that you from your temperament, and from being at a great public school, are eminently practical, therefore, I shall be glad to hear your opinion as to how this thing had best be set about. I take it, of course, that you are as interested in the struggle as I am.”
“Well, not so interested perhaps, father. I feel, of course, that it is a horrible thing that a people like the Greeks, to whom we all owe so much, should be kept in slavery by the Turks, who have never done any good to mankind that I know of, and I should certainly be glad to do everything in my power to help; but of course it all comes so suddenly upon me that just at present I don’t see what had best be done.”
“I heard from my friends in London that many young men are already starting to assist the Greeks. What they will need most is not men, but arms and money, so at least my Greek friends write me.”
“Well, father,” Horace said bluntly; “I should say you had much better give them arms than money. I have been reading the thing up as much as I could since it began, and as far as I can see the upper class Greeks, the men who, I suppose, will be the leaders, are a pretty bad lot—quite as bad, I should say, as the Turkish pashas.”
“Yes, I quite agree with you there, Horace. You see in a country that is enslaved, political and other careers are closed, and the young men devote themselves to making money. You see that in the history of the Jews. All through the middle ages they were everywhere persecuted, every avenue to honourable employment was closed to them, consequently they devoted themselves to making money, and have been the bankers of kings for hundreds of years. No doubt it is the same thing with the Greeks; but the mass of the people are uncorrupted, and with the deeds of their great forefathers always before them they will, I am sure, show themselves worthy of their name.”
“No doubt, father; I think so too.”
“You don’t mind my spending this money on the Cause, Horace,” his father asked anxiously, “because, though it is my savings, it would in the natural course of things come to you some day.”
“Not at all, father; it is, as you say, your savings, and having at heart, as you have, the independence of Greece, I think it cannot be better laid out than assisting it. But I should certainly like it to be laid out for that, and not to go into the pockets of a lot of fellows who think more of feathering their own nests than of the freedom of Greece. So I should say the best thing would be to send out a cargo of arms and ammunition, as a beginning; other cargoes can go out as they are required. And you might, of course, take a certain amount of money to distribute yourself as you see it is required. I hope you mean to take me with you.”
“I think so, Horace. You are young to do any fighting at present, but you will be a great support and comfort to me.”