Changing Winds / A Novel

by St. John G. Ervine

He remembered very vividly how his father had led him to this very window once and, pointing towards the fields, had said, "That's land, Henry! My land!..."

And because he had been proud of his land, had been part of it, as it had been part of him, he had been willing to spend himself on it. There seemed to Henry to be in that, all that there was in patriotism. Irrationally, impulsively, unaccountably one loved one's country. The air of it and the earth of it, the winds that blew over it and the seas that encircled it, all these had been mingled to make men, so that when there was danger and threat to a man's country, some native thing in him stirred and compelled him to say, "This is my body! This is my blood!" and sent him out, irrationally, impulsively, unaccountably, to die in its defence. There was here no question of birth or possessions: the slum-man felt this stirring in his nature as strongly as the landlord. In that sudden, swift rising of young men when war was declared, each man instinctively hurrying to the place of enlistment, there were men from slums and men from mansions, all of them, in an instant, made corporate, given unity, brought to communion, partaking of a sacrament, becoming at that moment a sacrament themselves....

4

But if this stirring in one's nature made a man both a sacrament and a partaker of a sacrament, was there not yet something horrible in this spilling of blood, this breaking of bodies? Was this sacrament only to be consummated by the butcher? Was there no healing sacrament which, when a man partook of it, gave him life and more life! Was there not an honourable rivalry among nations, each to be better than the other, to replace this brawling about boundaries, this pettifogging with frontiers? Was there to be no end to this killing and preparing for killing? Would men, from now on, set themselves to the devisal of murderous and more murderous weapons of war until at last an indignant, disgusted God, sick of the smell of blood, threw the earth from Him, caring nothing what happened to it, so that it was out of His consciousness?...

While he looked out of the window, the dusk settled down, and he could see the mists rising from the fields. He drew the curtains, and went and sat down by the fire. There was a faint odour of burning turf in the room, and as he watched the blue spirals of smoke curling up the chimney, he remembered how he had trudged across Dartmoor once, and, suddenly, unexpectedly had turned a corner of the road, and looked down on a village in a hollow, and for a moment or two had imagined he was in Ireland because of the smell of burning turf that came from the cottage chimneys.

"We and they are one," he murmured to himself. "Our differences are but two aspects of the same thing. Our blood and their blood, our earth and their earth, mingled and made sacramental, shall be to the glory of God!"

The door opened, and Hannah came in, carrying a lighted lamp.

"I just thought I'd bring it myself," she said. "I'd be afeard of my life to let Minnie handle it. Dear knows, but she'd set herself on fire, or mebbe the house, an' that'd be a nice thing, an' a new mistress comin' to it. Will I put it down here by your elbow?"

"Anywhere, Hannah!" he answered.

"I'll just rest it here then, where it'll not be too strong for your eyes. Yon ought to have the electric light put in the house. Major Cairnduff has it in his house, an' it's not half the size of this one.... Will I get you something?"