I



Ilii iiiiMiii




argtiU coition

THE WRITINGS OF
IAN HAY

VOLUME IV




"WE'LL LEAVE IT TO MR. DAWKS," SHE SAID. 'DAWKS, OLD
BOY, SHALL WE DO IT?" {Page 114)



A SAFETY MATCH



BY
IAN HAY




BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COjMPANY

®be Riberitfibe piti^ CambriDge
1921



COPYRIGHT, 191 1, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED



fublished October iqii



TO
H. M. S.



PR

GO <D."^

Jr^s^^^ 7

CONTENTS

BOOA' ONE

THE STRIKING OF THE MATCH

I. Happy Families 3

II. Wanted, A Man 23

ni. The Wheels of Juggernaut 36

IV. The Devil a Monk would be 55

V. A Sabbath Day's Journey . 76

VI. Daphne as Matchmaker . . o 94

VII. The Match is struck 105

VIII. Moritura te Salutat 115

BOOK TWO

FLICKERINGS

IX. A Horse to the Water 129

X. A Day in the Life of a Social Success . . . 145

XI. Dies Irae 165

XII. Cilly; or the World well lost 183



429909



viii CONTENTS

BOOK THREE

THE LIGHTING OF THE CANDLE

XIII. The Counterstroke 199

XIV. Intervention 221

XV. Jim Carthew 234

XVI. Some One to confide in 243

XVn. The Lighting of the Candle 250

XVIII. Athanasius contra Mundum 263

XIX. Laborare est orare . 276

XX. BiACK Sunday 284

XXI. ViEILLESSE sait 289

XXII. Hold the Fort! 296

XXIII. The Last to leave 808

XXIV. Another Auas 317



AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION

Two years elapsed between A Man's Man and A
Safety Match. I had had my lesson against
overproduction. This time the work proceeded
with comparative deliberation through the whole
of 1910, and was finished during a flying visit
which I paid to the United States at the end of
the year for the purpose of becoming personally
acquainted with my publishers. The last chapter
was written at a sitting one stormy January
afternoon in my cabin on the Megantic, home-
ward bound. Having run its course serially in
Blackwood's Magazine, A Safety Match was
published simultaneously in Britain and the
United States, in September, 1911, — a welcome
innovation, both for sentimental and business
reasons.

A Safety Match was written comfortably,
published comfortably, and sold comfortably.
In fact, those were comfortable days. The War
was still three years off. Still, this eminently
peaceful story "did its bit." In the Battle of
the Somme, in July, 1916, a copy of the book,
buttoned into the tunic of a certain British
sergeant of my acquaintance, intercepted and



X AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION

absorbed two German machine-gun bullets.
They failed to get through the book — which to
me was not altogether surprising — and a man's
life was saved.

Ian Hay



BOOK ONE
THE STRIKING OF THE MATCH



A SAFETY MATCH



CHAPTER I

HAPPY FAMILIES

"Nicky, please have you got Mr. Pots the
Painter? "

*'No, Stiffy, but I'll trouble you for Mrs.
Bones the Butcher's Wife. Thank you. And
Daph, have you got Master Bones the Butcher's
Son.f^ Thank you. Family! One to me!"

And Nicky, triumphantly plucking from her
hand four pink-backed cards, slaps them down
upon the table face upwards. They are appar-
ently family portraits. The first — that of Bones
pere — depicts a smug gentleman, with appropri-
ate mutton-chop whiskers, mutilating a fearsome
joint upon a block; the second, Mrs. Bones, an
ample matron in apple-green, proffering to an
unseen customer a haunch of what looks like an-
semic cab-horse; the third. Miss Bones, engaged
in extracting nourishment from a colossal bone
shaped like a dumb-bell; the fourth. Master
Bones (bearing a strong family likeness to his
papa), creeping unwillingly upon an errand, clad



4 THE STRIKING OF THE MATCH

in canary trousers and a blue jacket, with a sir-
loin of beef nestling against bis right ear.

It was Saturday night at the Rectory, and the
Vereker family — " those absurdly handsome
Rectory children," as old Lady Curlew, of Hain-
ings, invariably called them — sat round the
dining-room table playing Happy Families. The
rules which govern this absorbing pastime are
simple. The families are indeed "Happy." They
contain no widows and no orphans, and each pair
of parents possesses one son and one daughter —
perhaps the perfect number, for the sides of the
house are equally balanced both for purposes of
companionship and in the event of sex-warfare.
As for procedure, cards are dealt round, and each
player endeavours, by requests based upon ob-
servation and deduction, to reunite within his
own hand the members of an entire family, an
enterprise which, while it fosters in those who un-
dertake it a reverence for the unities of home life,
offers a more material and immediate reward in
the shape of one point for each family collected.
We will look over the shoulders of the players as
they sit, and a brief consideration of each hand
and of the tactics of its owner will possibly give
us the key to the respective dispositions of the
Vereker family, as well as a useful lesson in the
art of acquiring that priceless possession, *' A
Happy Family."



HAPPY. FAMILIES 5

Before starting on our tour of the table we may
note that one member of the company is other-
wise engaged. This is Master Anthony Cuthbert
Vereker, aged ten years — usually known as
Tony. He is the youngest member of the family,
and is one of those fortunate people who are never
bored, and who rarely require either company or
assistance in their amusements. He lives in a
world of his own, peopled by folk of his own cre-
ation; and with the help of this unseen host,
which he can multiply to an indefinite extent and
transform into anything he pleases, he organises
and carries out schemes of recreation beside
which all the Happy Families in the world be-
come humdrum and suburban in tone. He has
just taken his seat upon a chair opposite to an-
other chair, across the arms of which he has laid
the lid of his big box of bricks, and is feeling in
his pocket for an imaginary key; for he is about
to give an organ recital in the Albert Hall (which
he has never seen) in a style modelled upon that
of the village organist, whom he studies through
a chink in a curtain every Sunday.

Presently the lid is turned back, and the key-
board — a three-manual affair ingeniously com-
posed of tiers of wooden bricks — is exposed to
view. The organist arranges unseen music and
pulls out invisible stops. Then, having risen to
set up on the mantelpiece hard by a square of



6 THE STRIKING OF THE MATCH

cardbocird bearing the figure [1], lie resumes his
seat and embarks upon a rendering of Handel's
Largo in G which its composer, to be just, would
have experienced no difficulty in recognising,
though he might have expressed some surprise
that so large an instrument as the Albert Hall
organ should produce so small a volume of sound.
But then Handel never played his own Largo in a
room full of elder brothers and sisters, immersed
in the acquisition of Happy Families and impa-
tient of distracting noises.

The Largo completed, its executant rises to his
feet and bows again and again in the direction of
the sideboard ; and then (the applause having ap-
parently subsided) solemnly turns round the
cardboard square on the mantelpiece so as to
display the figure [2], and sets to work upon The
Lost Chord.

Meanwhile the Happy Families are being rap-
idly united. The houses of Pots the Painter, Bun
the Baker, and Dose the Doctor lie neatly piled
at Nicky's right hand, and that Machiavellian
damosel is now engaged in a businesslike quest
for the only outstanding member of the family
of Grits the Grocer.

Nicky — or Veronica Elizabeth Vereker, —
was in many respects the most remarkable of the
Rectory children. She was thirteen years old,
was the only dark-haired member of the family,



HAPPY FAMILIES 7

and (as she was fond of explaining) was possessed
of a devil. This remarkable circumstance was
sometimes adduced as a distinction and some-
times as an excuse, the former when impression-
able and nervous children came to tea, the latter
when all other palliatives of crime had failed.
Certainly she could lay claim to the brooding
spirit, the entire absence of fear, the unlimited
low cunning, and the love of sin for its own sake
which go to make the master-criminal. At pre-
sent she was enjoying herself in characteristic
fashion. Her brother Stephen, — known as
"Stiffy" — Nicky's senior by one year, a trans-
parently honest but somewhat limited youth, had
for the greater part of the game been applying
a slow-moving intellect to the acquisition of
one complete Family. Higher he did not look.
Nicky's habit was to allow Stiffy, with infinite
labour, to collect the majority of the members of
a Family in which she herself was interested, and
then, at the eleventh hour, to swoop down and
strip her unconscious collaborator of his hardly
earned collection.

Stiffy, sighing patiently, had just surrendered
Mr., Mrs., and Miss Block (Hairdressers and
dealers in Toilet Requisites) to the depredatory
hands of Nicky, and was debating in his mind
whether he should endeavour, when his next
chance came, to complete the genealogical tree



8 THE STRIKING OF THE MATCH

of Mr. Soot the Sweep, or make a corner in the
clan of Bung the Brewer. Possessing two Bungs
to one Soot he decided on the latter alternative.

Presently he was asked by his elder sister Cilly
(Monica Cecilia) for a card which he did not pos-
sess, and this gave him the desired opening.

**I say, Nicky," he began deferentially, *'have
you got Master Bung.'^'*

Nicky surveyed her hand for a moment, and
then raised a pair of liquid blue eyes and smiled
seraphically.

"No, Stiffy dear," she replied; "but I'll have
Mr. Bung and Mrs. Bung."

Stiffy, resigned as ever, handed over the cards.
Suddenly Sebastian Aloysius Vereker, the eldest
son of the family (usually addressed as "Ally"),
put down his cards and remarked, slowly and
without heat : —

"Cheating again! My word, Nicky, you are
the absolute edgeT^

"Who is cheating.^" enquired Veronica in a
shocked voice.

"You. Either you must have Master Bung, or
else you are asking for Stiffy 's cards without hav-
ing any Bungs at all; because I've got Miss my-
self."

He laid the corybantic young lady in question
upon the table to substantiate his statement.

Nicky remained entirely unruffled.



HAPPY FAMILIES 9

"Oh — Bung!'' she exclaimed. *' Sorry! I
thought you said 'Bun,' Stiffy. You should spit
out your G's a bit more, my lad. Bung-gah —
like that ! I really must speak to Dad about your
articulation."

In polite card-playing circles a lady's word is
usually accepted as sufficient; but the ordinary
courtesies of everyday life do not prevail in a
family of six.

*'Rot!" said Ally.

"Cheat!" said Cilly.

" Never mind ! " said loyal and peaceable Stiffy.
"I don't care, really. Let's go on."

"It's not fair," cried Cilly. "Poor Stiffy
has n't got a single Family yet. Give it to him,
Nicky, you little beast! Daph, make her!"

Daph was the eldest of the flock, and for want
of a mother dispensed justice and equity to the
rest of the family from the heights of nineteen.
For the moment she was assisting the organist,
who had inadvertently capsized a portion of his
keyboard. Now she returned to the table.

"What is it, rabble.^ " she enquired maternally.

A full-throated chorus informed her, and the
arbitress detached the threads of the dispute
with effortless dexterity.

"You said you thought he was asking for Miss
Bun and not Bung.'^" she remarked to the ac-
cused.



10 THE STRIKING OF THE MATCH

"Yes — that was all," began Nicky. "You
see,'* she continued pathetically, "they 're all so
beastly unjust to me, and — "

Daphne picked up her small sister's pile of
completed Families and turned them over.

"You couldn't have thought Stiffy wanted
Buns,'^ she said in measured tones, "because
they're all here. You collected them yourself.
You've cheated again. Upstairs, and no jam till
Wednesday!"

It is a tribute to Miss Vereker's disciplinary
methods that the turbulent Nicky rose at once
to her feet and, with a half -tearful, half -defiant
reference to her satanic inhabitant, left the room
and departed upstairs, there to meditate on a
Bun-strewn past and a jamless future.

Daphne Vereker was perhaps the most beauti-
ful of an extraordinarily attractive family. Her
full name was Daphne Margaret. Her parents,
whether from inherent piety or on the lucus a non
lucendo principle, had endowed their offspring
with the names of early saints and martyrs. The
pagan derivative Daphne was an exception. It
had been the name of Brian Vereker's young
bride, and had been bestowed, uncanonically
linked with that of a saint of blameless anteced-
ents, upon the first baby which had arrived at
the Rectory. Mrs. Vereker had died ten years
later, two hours after the birth of that fertile



HAPPY FAMILIES 11

genius Anthony Cuthbert, and Brian Vereker,
left to wrestle with the upbringing of six children
on an insufficient stipend in a remote country
parish, had come to lean more and more, in the
instinctive but exacting fashion of lonely man,
upon the slim shoulders of his eldest daughter.

There are certain attributes of woman before
which the male sex, whose sole knowledge of the
ways of life is derived from that stern instructor
Experience, can only stand and gape in reverend
awe. When her mother died. Daphne Vereker
was a tow-headed, long-legged, irresponsible
marauder of eleven. In six months she looked
like a rather prim little nursery governess ; in two
years she could have taken the chair at a mo-
thers' meeting. Circumstance is a great forcing-
house, especially where women are concerned.
Her dreamy, unpractical, affectionate father, ob-
livious of the expectant presence in the offing of
num.erous female relatives-in-law, had remarked
in sober earnest to his little daughter, walking
erect by his side in her short black frock on the
way home from the funeral: — "You and I will
have to bring up the children between us now.
Daphne"; and the child, with an odd thrill of
pride at being thus promoted to woman's highest
office at the age of eleven, had responded with
the utmost gravity : —

"You had better stick to the parish. Dad, and
I'll manage the kids."



n THE STRIKING OF THE MATCH

And she had done it. As she presides at the
table this Saturday evening, with her round chin
resting on her hands, surveying the picturesque
crew of ragamuffins before her, we cannot but
congratulate her on the success of her methods,
whatever those may be. On her right lolls the
apple of her eye, the eldest son, Ally. He is a
handsome boy, with a ready smile and a rather
weak mouth. He is being educated — God
knows by what anxious economies in other direc-
tions — at a great public school. When he leaves,
which will be shortly, the money will go to edu-
cate Stiffy, who is rising fourteen.

Next to Ally sprawls Cilly, an amorphous
schoolgirl with long rippling hair and great grey
eyes that are alternately full of shy enquiry and
hoydenish exuberance. Then comes the chair
recently vacated by the Madonna-like Nicky;
then the ruddy countenance and cheerful pre-
sence of the sunny-tempered Stiffy, completing
the circle. In the corner Master Anthony Cuth-
bert, cherubic and rapturous, is engaged, with
every finger and toe in action, upon the final
fugue of the Hallelujah Chorus. The number [6]
stands upon the mantelpiece, for the recital is
drawing to a close.

To describe Daphne herself is not easy. One
fact is obvious, and that is that she possesses an
instinct for dress not as yet acquired by any of



HAPPY FAMILIES 13

her brothers and sisters. Her hair is of a pecul-
iarly radiant gold, reflecting high lights at every
turn of her head. Her eyes are brown, of the hue
of a Highland burn on a sunny afternoon, and
her eyebrows are very level and serene. Her col-
ouring is perfect, and when she smiles we under-
stand why it is that her unregenerate brothers
and sisters occasionally address her as "Odol."
When her face is in repose — which, to be frank,
is not often — there is a pathetic droop at the
corners of her mouth, which is perhaps accounted
for by the cares of premature responsibility. She
is dressed in brown velvet, with a lace collar, —
evening dress does not prevail in a household
which affects high tea, but Daphne always puts
on her Sunday frock on Saturday evenings, —
and, having discovered that certain colours suit
her better than others, she has threaded a pale
blue ribbon through her hair.

Altogether she is a rather astonishing young
person to find sitting contentedly resting her el-
bows upon a dingy tablecloth in an untidy dining-
room which smells of American leather and fried
eggs. It is as if one had discovered the Venus de
Milo presiding at a Dorcas Society, or Helen of
Troy serving crumpets in an A. B. C. shop.

The Hallelujah Chorus has just stopped dead
at that paralysing hiatus of two bars which im-
mediately precedes the final crash, when the door



14 THE STRIKING OF THE MATCH

opens and the Reverend Brian Vereker appears.
A glance at his clear-cut aristocratic features
goes a long way towards deciding the question of
the origin of the good looks of "those Rectory
children."

He is a tall man, — six feet two, — and al-
though he is barely fifty his hair is specklessly
white. He looks more like a great prelate or
statesman than a country parson. Perhaps he
might have been, had he been born the eldest son
of the eldest son of a peer, instead of the youngest
son of the youngest. And again, perhaps not.
The lines of his face indicate brain rather than
character, and after all it is character that brings
us out on top in this world. There are furrows
about his forehead that tell of much study; but
about the corners of the mouth, where prompti-
tude and decision usually set their seal, there is
nothing — nothing but a smile of rare sweetness.
His gentle blue eyes have the dreamy gaze that
marks the saints and poets of this world: the
steely glitter of the man of action is lacking. Al-
together you would say that Brian Vereker would
make a noble figurehead to any high enterprise,
but you would add that if that enterprise was to
succeed the figurehead would require a good deal of
driving power behind it. And you would be right.

The Rector paused in the doorway and sur-
veyed the lamplit room.



HAPPY FAMILIES 15

**Hath spo-o-o-ohen it!" vociferated the Al-
bert Hall Organ with an air of triumphant
finaHty.

Brian Vereker turned to his youngest son with
the ready sympathy of one child for another
child's games.

"That's right, Tony! That's the stuff ! Good
old George Frederick! He knew the meaning of
the word music — eh?"

"Yes — George Fwederick!" echoed the organ-
ist, "yln^ Arthur Seymour, Daddy! You've just
missed The Lost Chord.''

"Ah," said the Rector in a tone of genuine re-
gret; "that's a pity. But we had the Seventy-
eighth Psalm to-night, and I 'm later than usual."

"Quadruple chant.?" enquired Tony profes-
sionally.

"Rather ! But is your recital quite over, boyo.'^ "

"Yes — bedtime!" replied the organist, with a
reproachful glance in the direction of his eldest
sister.

"Run along, dear!" was all the comfort he re-
ceived from that inflexible despot.

"All right! I must lock up, though."

Master Tony removed the last number from
the mantelpiece, disintegrated his keyboard and
packed it up with the other bricks, and drawing
aside the window curtain, remarked solemnly
into the dark recess behind it: —



16 THE STRIKING OF THE MATCH

"That will be all to-night, organ-blower. You
can go home now."

To which a husky and ventriloquial voice re-
plied : —

"Thank you kindly, Mr. Handel, sir. Good-
night!"

"Now," concluded Mr. Handel, turning to his
elders with the air of a martyr addressing a group
of arena lions, "I'm ready!"

"Take him up, Cilly dear," said Daphne. "I
must look after Dad's supper."

"Come on, Tony," said Cilly, uncoiling her
long legs from under her and rising from the
hearthrug.

"Righto!" said Tony. "You be a cart-horse
and I'll be a broken-down motor."

Monica Cecilia Vereker meekly complied, and
departed upstairs, towing the inanimate mechan-
ism of the inventive Anthony behind her bump
by bump, utilising her sash, which she had re-
moved for the purpose, as a tow-rope.

"Ally and Stiffy," commanded Daphne, turn-
ing to the two remaining members of the family,
"you'd better go and pump the cistern full. Sat-
urday night, you know, and the kids' baths have
just been filled: so look sharp before the boiler
bursts."

Stiffy, obliging as ever, rose at once; Ally, cum-
bered by that majesty which doth hedge a sixth-



HAPPY FAMILIES 17

form boy and a member of the School Fifteen
^especially when ordered about by a female), was
more deliberate in his acquiescence. However,
presently both the boys were gone, and five min-
utes later Daphne, with the assistance of the one
little maid whom the establishment supported,
had laid the Rector's supper. She established her
father in his seat on one side of the table and took
her own on the other, assisting the progress of the
meal from time to time, but for the most part sit-
ting with her chin resting upon her two fists and
contemplating the tired man before her with seri-
ous brown eyes. Twice she had to leave her seat,
once to remove the butter from the vicinity of her
parent's elbow, and once to frustrate an attempt
on the part of that excellent but absent-minded
man to sprinkle sugar over a lettuce.

"Well, my daughter," remarked the Rector
presently, "what of the weekly report?"

Saturday night at the Rectory was reserved
for a sort of domestic budget.

"Here are the books," said Daphne. " They 're
much as usual, except that I had to pay two bob
on Wednesday for a bottle of embrocation for
Ally. He is in training for the Mile in the Sports
at the beginning of next term, and it does his
muscles so much good."

"When I won the Mile at Fenner's, Daphne,"
began the Reverend Brian with a sudden glow of



18 THE STRIKING OF THE MATCH

reminiscence in his dreamy eyes, *'I did without
embrocation or any other new-fashioned — "

"Yes, dear, but they have to run so much
faster now than they did,*' explained Daphne
soothingly. "Then, about the kitchen chim-
ney-"

" But I only took four minutes, twenty -eight — "
"Yes, old man; and I'm proud of you!" said
Daphne swiftly. — "Well, the sweep is coming in
on Wednesday, when you '11 be away at Wilf ord,
so that '5 all right." She was anxious to get away
from the question of the embrocation. It had been
a rank extravagance, and she knew it : but Ally was
ever her weak spot. "Then, I've got three-and-
nine in hand out of current expenses just now,
and if I take two half-crowns out of the Emer-
gency Bag and we go without a second joint this
week, I can get Nicky a new pair of boots, if you
don 't mind. (Don 't cut the cheese with a spoon,
dear: take this knife.) Of course we ought not to
have to go to the Emergency Bag for boots at all.
It's rather upsetting. To-day I find that a per-
fectly ducky pair of Sunday shoes which I out-
grew just before I stopped growing, and was
keeping especially for that child, are too small for
her by yards. (I had tried them on Cilly a year
ago, but she simply could n't get her toe in.) And
now they'll be wasted, because there are no more
of us girls. My feet are most irritating."



HAPPY FAMILIES 19



«'



'Your mother had tiny feet," said the Rector,
half to himself.

He pushed away his plate and gazed absently
before him into that land where his son Tony still
spent so much of his time, and whither Tony's
young and pretty mother had been borne away
ten years before. Daphne permitted him a rev-
erie of five minutes, while she puckered her brow
over the account books. Then she rose and took
down a pipe from a rack on the mantelpiece. This
she filled from a cracked jar thirty years old,
adorned with the coat-of-arms of one of the three
Royal colleges of Cambridge, and laid it by her
father's left hand.

"Then there's another thing," she continued,
lighting a spill at the fire. "Is n't it time to enter
Stiffy for school.'^ Mr. Allnutt asked us to say
definitely by April whether he was coming to fill
Ally's place after summer or not; otherwise he
would be obliged to give the vacancy to some one
else. It's the end of March now."

The Rector lit his pipe — his one luxury — in a
meditative fashion, and then leaned back to con-
template his daughter, with her glinting hair and