“If he used such expressions, yes.”
“If! Do you suppose a magistrate would send a deposition which was never made to the Home Office? I repeat that what gave weight and credence to this wretched agitator’s accusations of you were the very—very—advanced opinions acknowledged and disseminated by you in the Age to Come. Re-read for yourself these passages,” continues Stanhope, taking out his note-book. “Page iv. par. vi. No. 52; page iii. par. xi. No. 23; page xix. par. ii. No. 9; page viii. par. xv. No. 45—what is the meaning of such phrases as these? ‘The poor have always been robbed by capital since the creation of currency and the invention of trade. All excesses are to be excused to them in taking back their own.’ Or this: ‘The rich man, however estimable in private character, is in position a thief, and in conscience a scoundrel.’ Or this: ‘Poor-rates and workhouses are the insult which is added to injury by the rich in their relations with the poor.’ Or this: ‘Nitric acid destroys more readily but not more cruelly than taxation.’”
“Do you consider these statements unjustified by the state of society?” asks Bertram.
“I consider them most dangerous when put before illiterate persons,” replies Stanhope. “The half-truths, or the quarter-truths, which they contain, are as poisonous as nux vomica.”
“Pray, then, let me go and pick oakum with the unfortunate man whom you consider I have contaminated.”
Stanhope with difficulty keeps down his rising anger.
“My dear Bertram, I regret that you appreciate my intentions so little. I received the communication I speak of from Mr. Adeane concerning you; and if I had done what I ought I should perhaps have given you some trouble. But I know you; and I know that it is an exaggerated altruism which runs away with you into dangerous places; and that you are the last man in the world to inculcate or to approve of crime.”
“But what is crime?” murmurs Bertram. “Have not regicides many apologists? Is Carlyle alone in admiring Cromwell? As boys are we not adorers of Harmodius and Aristogiton?”
“Fortunately,” continues Sir Henry, waving aside these historical precedents, “the magistrate took a lenient view of the case, considered it excused by drink (we are always so immorally lenient to drink in this country!), and so I was enabled, by using unacknowledged influence (a thing I loathe to do), to get the affair hushed up. But I cannot prevent your being marked by the police and considered a dangerous person. You will probably be ‘shadowed’ for some time, and if anything of this sort occurs again it will be out of my power to save you from exceedingly disagreeable consequences.”
Bertram is silent.