Lady Bountiful

by George A. Birmingham

At nine o’clock a farmer’s cart, laden with manure, crossed the bridge and began to climb the street. Willie Thornton came to the door of the Court House with a cigarette in his mouth and watched the cart. It was hoped by the people of Dunedin, especially by the small boys, that something would happen. Foot passengers might be allowed to pass, but a wheeled vehicle would surely be stopped. But the soldiers loosed the rope and let the cart go through without a question. Ten minutes later a governess cart, drawn by a pony, appeared at the top of the street. It, too, was passed through the barricade without difficulty. There was a general feeling of disappointment in the village, and most of the people went back to their houses. It was raining heavily, and it is foolish to get wet through when there is no prospect of any kind of excitement. The soldiers, such was the general opinion, were merely practising some unusual and quite incomprehensible military manouvre.

The opinion was a mistaken one. The few who braved the rain and stood their ground watching the soldiers, had their reward later on. At ten o’clock, Mr. Davoren, the auctioneer, drove into the village in his motor-car. Mr. Davoren lives in Ballymurry, a town of some size, six miles from Dunedin. His business requires him to move about the country a good deal, and he is quite wealthy enough to keep a Ford car. His appearance roused the soldiers to activity. Willie Thornton, without a cigarette this time, stood beside the barricade. A sentry, taking his place in the middle of the street, called to Mr. Davoren to halt. Mr. Davoren, who was coming along at a good pace, was greatly surprised, but he managed to stop his car and his engine a few feet from the muzzle of the sentry’s rifle.

Willie Thornton, speaking politely but firmly, told Mr. Davoren to get out of the car. He did not know the auctioneer, and had no way of telling whether he was one of “these fellows” or not. The fact that Mr. Davoren looked most respectable and fat was suspicious. A cute fox might pretend to be respectable and fat when bent on playing tricks. Mr. Davoren, still surprised but quite good-humoured, got out of his car. Willie Thornton and his sergeant searched it thoroughly. They found nothing in the way of a weapon more deadly than a set of tyre levers. Mr. Davoren was told he might go on. In the end he did go on, but not until he, the sergeant, Willie Thornton, and one of the sentries had worked themselves hot at the starting-crank. Ford engines are queer-tempered things, with a strong sense of self-respect. When stopped accidentally and suddenly, they often stand on their dignity and refuse to go on again. All this was pleasant and exciting for the people of Dunedin, who felt that they were not wasting their day or getting wet in vain. And still better things were in store for them. At eleven o’clock a large and handsome car appeared at the end of the street. It moved noiselessly and swiftly towards the barricade. The chauffeur, leaning back behind his glass screen, drove as if the village and the street belonged to him. Dunedin is, in fact, the property of his master, the Earl of Ramelton; so the chauffeur had some right to be stately and arrogant. Every man, woman, and child in Dunedin knew the car, and there was tiptoe excitement. Would the soldiers venture to stop and search this car? The excitement became intense when it was seen that the Earl himself was in the car. He lay back very comfortably smoking a cigar in the covered tonneau of the limousine. Lord Ramelton is a wealthy man and Deputy Lieutenant for the county. He sits and sometimes speaks in the House of Lords. He is well known as an uncompromising Unionist, whose loyalty to the king and empire is so firm as to be almost aggressive.

There was a gasp of amazement when the sentry, standing with his rifle in his hands, called “Halt!” He gave the order to the earl’s chauffeur quite as abruptly and disrespectfully as he had given it to Mr. Davoren. The chauffeur stopped the car and leaned back in his seat with an air of detachment and slight boredom. It was his business to stop or start the car and to drive where he was told. Why it was stopped or started or where it went were matters of entire indifference to him. Lord Ramelton let down the window beside him and put out his head.

“What the devil is the matter?” he said.

He spoke to the chauffeur, but it was Willie Thornton who answered him.

“I’m afraid I must trouble you to get out of the car, sir; you and the chauffeur.”

He had spoken quite as civilly to Mr. Davoren half an hour before. He added “sir” this time because Lord Ramelton is an oldish man, and Willie Thornton had been well brought up and taught by his mother that some respect is due to age. He did not know that he was speaking to an earl and a very great man. Lord Ramelton was not in the least soothed by the civility.

“Drive on, Simpkins,” he said to the chauffeur.

Simpkins would have driven on if the sentry had not been standing, with a rifle in his hands, exactly in front of the car. He did the next best thing to driving on. He blew three sharp blasts of warning on his horn. The sentry took no notice of the horn. The men of the Wessex Fusiliers are determined and well-disciplined fellows. Willie Thornton’s orders mattered to that sentry. Lord Ramelton’s did not. Nor did the chauffeur’s horn.