“We would be free under Socialism?” asked Ned.

“What could stop us, even under State Socialism.  The basis of all slavery and all slavish thought is necessarily the monopoly of the means of working, that is of living.  If the State monopolises them, not the State ruled by the propertied classes but the State ruled by the whole people, to work would become every man’s right.  Nineteen laws out of twenty could then be dropped, for they would become useless.  We should be free as men have never been before, because the ideal of the State would be toleration and kindness.”

“Let’s go and hear the speaking,” he added, jumping up.  “I’ve talked quite enough for once.”

“You couldn’t talk too much for me,” answered Ned.  “You ought to come up to a shed and have a pitch with the chaps.  They’d sit up all night listening.  I’ve to meet Nellie between five and six at the top of the steps in the garden,” he added, a little bashfully.  “Have we time?”

“Plenty of time,” said Geisner, smiling.  “You won’t miss her.”

CHAPTER XII.

LOVE AND LUST.

The picnic party had moved on while they talked, but a multitude of sitters and walkers were now everywhere, particularly as they climbed the slope to the level.  There the Sunday afternoon meetings were in full swing.

On platforms of varying construction, mostly humble, the champions of multitudinous creeds and opinions were holding forth to audiences which did not always greet their utterances approvingly.  They stood for a while near a vigorous iconoclast, who from the top of a kitchen chair laid down the Law of the Universe as revealed by one Clifford, overwhelming with contumely a Solitary opponent in the crowd who was foolish enough to attempt to raise an argument on the subject of “atoms.”  Near at hand, a wild-eyed religionary was trying to persuade a limited and drifting audience that a special dispensation had enabled him to foretell exactly the date of the Second Coming of Christ.  Then came the Single Tax platform, a camp-stool with a board on it, wherefrom a slender lad, dark-eyed and good-looking, held forth, with a flow of language and a power of expression that was remarkable, upon the effectiveness of a land tax as a remedy for all social ills.

Ned had never seen such a mass of men with such variegated shades of thought assembled together before.  There was a well-dressed bald-headed individual laying down the axioms of that very Socialism of which Geisner and he had been talking.  There was an ascetic looking man just delivering a popular hymn, which he sang with the assistance of a few gathered round, as the conclusion of open-air church.  There was the Anarchist he had seen at Paddy’s Market, fervidly declaring that all government is wrong and that men are slaves and curs for enduring it and tyrants for taking part in it.  There was the inevitable temperance orator, the rival touters for free trade and protection, and half-a-dozen others with an opinion to air.  They harangued and shouted there amid the trees, on the grass, in the brilliant afternoon sunshine that already threw long shadows over the swaying, moving thousands.