A Lost Leader | Page 2

You understand me,
Borrowdean, I am sure!"
Borrowdean closely eyed this man who once had been his friend.
"The old sore still rankles, then, Mannering," he said. "Has time done
nothing to heal it?"
Mannering laughed easily.
"How can you think me such a child?" he exclaimed. "If Rochester
himself were to come to see me he would be as welcome as you are. In
fact," he continued, more seriously, "if you could only realize, my
friend, how peaceful and happy life here may be, amongst the quiet
places, you would believe me at once when I assure you that I can feel
nothing but gratitude towards those people and those circumstances
which impelled me to seek it."
"What should you think, then," Borrowdean asked, watching his friend
through half-closed eyes, "of those who sought to drag you from it?"

Mannering's laugh was as free and natural as the wind itself. He had
bared his head, and had turned directly seawards.
"Hatred, my dear Borrowdean," he declared, "if I thought that they had
a single chance of success. As it is--indifference."
Borrowdean's eyebrows were raised. He held his cigarette between his
fingers, and looked at it for several moments.
"Yet I am here," he said slowly, "for no other purpose."
Mannering turned and faced his friend.
"All I can say is that I am sorry to hear it," he declared. "I know the sort
of man you are, Borrowdean, and I know very well that if you have
come down here with something to say to me you will say it. Therefore
go on. Let us have it over."
Borrowdean stood up. His tone acquired a new earnestness. He became
at once more of a man. The cynical curve of his lips had vanished.
"We are on the eve of great opportunities, Mannering," he said. "Six
months ago the result of the next General Election seemed assured. We
appeared to be as far off any chance of office as a political party could
be. To-day the whole thing is changed. We are on the eve of a general
reconstruction. It is our one great chance of this generation. I come to
you as a patriot. Rochester asks you to forget."
Mannering held up his hand.
"Stop one moment, Borrowdean," he said. "I want you to understand
this once and for all. I have no grievance against Rochester. The old
wound, if it ever amounted to that, is healed. If Rochester were here at
this moment I would take his hand cheerfully. But--"
"Ah! There is a but, then," Borrowdean interrupted.
"There is a but," Mannering assented. "You may find it hard to
understand, but here is the truth. I have lost all taste for public life. The

whole thing is rotten, Borrowdean, rotten from beginning to end. I have
had enough of it to last me all my days. Party policy must come before
principle. A man's individuality, his whole character, is assailed and
suborned on every side. There is but one life, one measure of days, that
you or I know anything of. It doesn't last very long. The months and
years have a knack of slipping away emptily enough unless we are
always standing to attention. Therefore I think that it becomes our duty
to consider very carefully, almost religiously, how best to use them.
Come here for a moment, Borrowdean. I want to show you something."
The two men stood side by side upon the grassy bank, Mannering
broad-shouldered and vigorous, his clean, hard-cut features tanned with
wind and sun, his eyes bright and vigorous with health; Leslie
Borrowdean, once his greatest friend, a man of almost similar physique,
but with the bent frame and listless pallor of a dweller in the crowded
places of life. Without enthusiasm his tired eyes followed the sweep of
Mannering's arm.
"You see those yellow sandhills beyond the marshes there? Behind
them is the sea. Do you catch that breath of wind? Take off your hat,
man, and get it into your lungs. It comes from the North Sea, salt and
fresh and sweet. I think that it is the purest thing on earth. You can
walk here for miles and miles in the open, and the wind is like God's
own music. Borrowdean, I am going to say things to you which one
says but once or twice in his life. I came to this country a soured man,
cynical, a pessimist, a materialist by training and environment. To-day
I speak of a God with bowed head, for I believe that somewhere behind
all these beautiful things their prototype must exist. Don't think I've
turned ranter. I've never spoken like this to any one else before, and I
don't suppose I ever shall again. Here is Nature, man, the greatest force
on