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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN IMPACT FINANCE

Sustainability Rating Agencies

vs Credit Rating Agencies
The Battle to Serve the Mainstream Investor
Daniel Cash
 Palgrave Studies in Impact Finance

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 Daniel Cash

Sustainability Rating
Agencies vs Credit
Rating Agencies
The Battle to Serve the Mainstream Investor
Daniel Cash
Aston University
Birmingham, UK

ISSN 2662-5105 ISSN 2662-5113 (electronic)

Palgrave Studies in Impact Finance
ISBN 978-3-030-71692-9 ISBN 978-3-030-71693-6 (eBook)
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 Contents

1 Introduction 1
2 The ‘Mainstreaming’ of Responsible Investment 5
2.1 Definitional Complexity and the Origins
of the Movement 6
2.2 ‘Mainstreamisation’ and ESG Integration 15
2.3 Constraints on a Concept 21
2.4 The Reality of an Ideal 25
3 The Sustainability Rating Industry 33
3.1 The Development of the Corporate Sustainability
System Industry: A ‘Chaotic Universe’ 35
3.1.1 CDP Climate, Water, and Forest Scores 38
3.1.2 RobecoSAM 39
3.1.3 Sustainalytics 39
3.1.4 MSCI ESG Ratings 39
3.1.5 Bloomberg (ESG Scores) 40
3.1.6 ISS-Oekom 40
3.1.7 FTSE Russell ESG Ratings 41
3.1.8 EcoVadis 41
3.1.9 Thomson Reuters ESG Scores 42
3.1.10 Vigeo-Eiris 42
3.1.11 Standard Ethics 43
3.2 Methodologies in Focus 43

v
vi CONTENTS

3.2.1 Sustainalytics 44
3.2.2 MSCI ESG Scores 46
3.3 Problems Affecting the CSS Universe 50
4 The Credit Rating Agencies 59
4.1 The Credit Rating Picture 60
4.1.1 The Trajectory of a Binding Relationship 61
4.2 The Credit Rating Agencies and ESG 69
4.2.1 The Principles for Responsible Investment 71
4.2.2 S&P’s Reaction to the Investor Base 77
4.2.3 Moody’s Reaction to the Investor Base 79
4.2.4 Fitch Ratings’ Reaction to the Investor Base 81
4.3 The Credit Rating Agencies Continue to Move Forward 83
5 ‘An Undercurrent of Need’: Understanding
the Dynamics of the Responsible Rating Relationship 89
5.1 Institutional Investor Supremacy 90
5.2 The Need for Standardisationn 95
5.3 Signalling 97
5.4 The Relevance of the Natural Oligopoly 103
6 Who Will Triumph? 111
6.1 Standard Setting at the Global Level 112
6.2 The U.S. Experience 116
6.3 The European Experience 122
6.4 ‘To the Victor Go the Spoils’ 130
6.4.1 One Last Attempt at Standardisation? 130
6.4.2 What the Sustainability Environment Means
for the CSS and Credit Rating Industries 134
7 Conclusion 143

Index 147
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

In reading the title of this book, you would be forgiven for thinking
‘what battle?’ The ESG rating agencies, and the credit rating agencies,
are two different industries. Though colloquially adjoined by the concept
of rating, they serve two different purposes. The credit rating agencies
serve to assess the creditworthiness of an entity and if ESG issues are of
material relevance, then they should be considering those issues as well
as financial issues. The ESG rating agencies exist to consider the sustain-
ability of an entity, and then rate/rank it accordingly. In the light of
the potential ‘mainstreamisation’ of the sustainable investor movement,
there is increasing business being sent the way of the ESG rating agen-
cies. However, there have since been a number of research endeavours
that have identified key flaws in the delivery of those ESG-related ratings,
which is calling into question the suitability of those agencies to meet this
new demand.
The notion of a ‘battle’ between these two industries to serve this new
mainstream investor base is not widely considered, but it has been identi-
fied. An interesting article in the Financial Times in 2019, entitled ‘credit
rating agencies join battle for ESG supremacy’ suggested that:

A flurry of dealmaking has begun among firms that provide companies with
environmental, social and governance ratings, fed by increasing demand for
the data among investors and regulators. The sector has traditionally been
dominated by index providers such as MSCI and a handful of specialist

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2021
D. Cash, Sustainability Rating Agencies vs Credit Rating Agencies,
Palgrave Studies in Impact Finance,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71693-6_1
2 D. CASH

firms, such as Sustainalytics. Now Moody’s and S&P Global, two of the
big three credit rating agencies, are elbowing their way in, offering separate
ESG scores on companies in addition to their traditional assessments of
creditworthiness.1

The article continued by discussing how the market for ESG information
is growing all the time, and that the credit rating agencies are well aware
of this. Whilst a number of aspects would need to be added to the credit
rating agencies’ offerings, it was very much suggested that the two indus-
tries would come into contact at some point for the lucrative rewards that
awaited them for adjoining to the movement of sustainable investment.
It is always wise to write a book like this, as if the reader is uninitiated
with the world of credit ratings, because it is a somewhat niche element
of the financial sector even though its impact came to light massively in
the Financial Crisis. Nevertheless, this article in the FT made me wonder
of what may affect that battle, and how it would play out—that is what
this book is built on. In order to examine these questions further, we
shall embark upon a journey that considers the development of the ‘main-
streamisation’ of the concept of sustainable investment, the histories and
trajectories of the two industries, the underlying dynamics of the rating
relationship, and then after reviewing the regulatory developments in the
area of non-financial informational disclosure, we shall conclude with an
assessment of who is likely to win this ‘battle’ that has been predicted.
The mainstreamisation of the concept of investing in a responsible
and sustainable way is well under way. It is a direct response to the
Financial Crisis and the actions of market participants who prioritised
short-termism and an apparently blind faith in third-party verifiers of
credit risk. The movement aims to force investors to consider elements
of ESG—Environmental, Social, and Governance factors—into their deci-
sion making, which has the hope of forcing issuers to rise to the challenge
also attached to it. The movement has been progressing, but is hitting
snags along the way not that the leading investors are starting to turn
their attention to it. On significant snag is the flow of information. From
the issuers, investors want higher quality information. From the third-
parties like ESG rating agencies and credit rating agencies, the investors
want that higher quality information to be as standardised as possible,
so that performance over industries and regions can be compared. As we
shall see, there have been a number of initiatives developed that want
to bring these requests to fruition, but they are also finding significant
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

problems along the way. Now, with the E.U. and the U.S. taking very
different approaches, there is even more divergence on the global scene
and divergence is precisely what the investors do not want.
To assist with these issues, the ESG rating agencies and credit rating
agencies are being challenged by a variety of initiatives to step up and
provide solutions. Global initiatives like the Principles for Responsible
Investment (PRI) have aligned themselves with the credit rating agen-
cies to encourage them to a. increase their dialogue with investors and
then b. provide more of what the investors require. This is underway and
as we shall see in Chapter 3, the credit rating agencies are purposively
and decisively turning their attention towards this nascent but potentially
lucrative market. For the ESG rating agencies, their relatively younger
market is attempting to cope with the pressures that come with serving
the mainstream, and it is running into difficulties. How they handle the
pressure that is building in the market for them will fundamentally deter-
mine the future of their industry, because the presence of much bigger
market players suggests that if they do not get it right, their industry will
not survive to tell the story. Therefore, in Chapter 2, we shall look at
the industry, clear up some terminological problems in the literature, and
then seek to understand better the chances of the industry overcoming
the difficulties that have been identified.
In Chapter 4, we shall embark upon a really deep excavation of the
‘rating dynamic’ as I call it. Whether in relation to the ESG rating agency
dynamic or the credit rating dynamic, there are fundamental truths that
affect the balance between the parties and to have a hope of predicting
who may prevail out of this prophesied battle it is important to know
how that dynamic works. There are key elements, such as the need to
‘signal’, reduce competitive pressures, and extract the benefits from an
oligopolistic model that need to be considered, and we shall do that.
This leads us to the final chapter which will first present the regula-
tory and cultural developments in both the U.S. and the E.U. These
two entities have been chosen because one is the home of the majority
of these rating entities, and the other is attempting to lead the world
in issues of sustainability and also disclosure. Other entities are worth
mentioning of course, like China, but their relationships with the credit
rating entities are much newer, less developed, and impacted by a whole
host of different issues (like political models, etc.) Once that is estab-
lished, we shall consider some private initiatives before then concluding
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4 D. CASH

with analysing some potential scenarios that may take effect, and then
decide which is the more likely to come to pass.
The ESG rating agencies are under pressure, and the credit rating agen-
cies are joyfully adding to it. The rewards for aligning oneself to this
market could be momentous, and the market knows it. The trajectory
of the two industries has been stark recently, with the ESG rating agen-
cies needing to defend their practices and the potential of forthcoming
regulatory frameworks for the first time in their history, whilst the credit
rating agencies have consolidated since the Crisis and are going ‘full steam
ahead’ towards this new and exciting marketplace for them. However,
they themselves are constrained, and these constraints are constantly on
the mind of the rating agencies, i.e. liability. The credit rating agencies
are acutely aware of any potential liability that they are exposed to, and
that fear is real in this new market given that they will have to espouse
their opinion more than they usually do. But, for the ESG rating agen-
cies, the prospect of the market or a region cracking the code on either
a. increasing the informational flow in the market, or better still b. stan-
dardising the disclosure of that information, provide it with a glimmer of
hope that they can develop their own credit rating industry-like trajec-
tory and become powerhouses themselves. The next few years will really
bring these two contrasting developments into focus and, potentially, into
conflict. What we need to do is consider how that may look, why it will
be, and what the outcome may be.

Note
1. Billy Nauman, ‘Credit Rating Agencies Join Battle for ESG Supremacy’
(2019) Financial Times (Sept 17). https://www.ft.com/content/59f
60306-d671-11e9-8367-807ebd53ab77 (accessed 04/01/2021).
 CHAPTER 2

The ‘Mainstreaming’ of Responsible

Investment

The Financial Crisis, an event which defined the lives of so many, is righty
seen as an incredibly negative moment in recent history. Livelihoods were
ruined, economies crashed, and large swathes of society have been living
with the financial repercussions ever since. Furthermore, the era was to
become a seedbed for a political revolution that saw Donald Trump
elected to the Office of President of the U.S., whilst on the other side of
the Atlantic Ocean the British electorate decided to leave the European
Union. Infighting within the E.U. sprouted in the wake of the upheaval,
with populist governments springing up in places like Hungary. Now, the
E.U. is pursuing a less-is-more approach as the bloc enters unchartered
territory with its authority on the line. In the East, China continues to flex
its political muscles in the region, backed by an ever-growing economy
and an expansive foreign policy that has seen the Belt-and-Road initia-
tive continue to grow. Political hot potatoes like the governance of Hong
Kong have been handled in an authoritarian manner, all amidst a global
trade war with the U.S. In the U.S., the country has been gripped by
social upheaval in the wake of a number of high-profile killings of black
men and women at the hands of police. Then, almost a century after the
outbreak of the so-called Spanish Flu, the world has been engulfed by
the COVID-19 ‘Coronavirus’. This virus has led to the world, essentially,
being ‘locked down’ with the consequence being that economic, political,
and overarching social divisions and problems have become heightened

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 5

Switzerland AG 2021
D. Cash, Sustainability Rating Agencies vs Credit Rating Agencies,
Palgrave Studies in Impact Finance,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71693-6_2
6 D. CASH

for all to see. However, the Financial Crisis did initiate a movement that
has continued at a rapid pace and is beginning to impact upon the ‘main-
stream’ financial arena; that movement was to make modern finance more
‘responsible’.
Making modern finance more ‘responsible’ arguably makes sense in the
wake of what I have described above. Seeking to make modern finance
consider more than just the potential financial return from their actions,
or seeking to expand the time horizons that are considered in financial
circles, simply makes a lot of sense when we consider what caused the
Financial Crisis. However, and unsurprisingly, things are not that simple.
When I say ‘financial arena’, what do I mean? Are there particular targets
for this movement, or is the aim to change the wider culture? When I
say that an aim is to increase the time horizons which are considered,
then how long should one aim for? How long is material for effec-
tive decisions to be made for financial entities? If the aim is to make
modern finance consider more than just the potential return, then what
should they consider? Should said considerations be externally mandated,
or should financial entities be allowed to develop their own understanding
of what should be considered? Would allowing financial entities to choose,
be the most efficient approach, and would those entities even want that
freedom? As you can clearly see, this issue is extraordinarily complex. Even
more so, what if the aim was not even agreed upon! What if we did not
even have a standardised definition for the movement we want to develop?
Unfortunately, this is absolutely the case. As it is not my intention to
contribute to that complexity, I would like to digress for a moment and
look at the importance of clarifying, definitionally, what we are looking at
in this book.

2.1 Definitional Complexity

and the Origins of the Movement
The history of investing for a reason other than purely for financial gain
is a long and storied one. We will look more at this history in the next
subsection, but there are a few definitions that get used in the liter-
ature and wider financial arena that may confuse. For example, there
appears to be a consistent and common interconnecting usage of the
terms ‘Socially Responsible Investment’ and ‘Responsible Investment’.
Furthermore, there are many occasions were ‘sustainable finance’ is used,
 2 THE ‘MAINSTREAMING’ OF RESPONSIBLE INVESTMENT 7

and then occasions were ‘responsible finance’ is used to describe the move-
ment we are concerned with in this book. There are a variety of reasons
for this and, for better or worse, this issue is probably emblematic of the
anchor that is holding the movement back (relatively speaking). Krosinsky
and Robins explain this neatly when they say that:

…it’s necessary to provide some guidance on the terminology used in

this book. Over the past 30 years, a range of terms, notably “social”,
“ethical”, “green”, “responsible”, “socially responsible” and “sustainable”,
have been used to describe the merging practice of incorporating extra-
financial factors within investment decision-making. One woman’s “ethical
investing” is another man’s “socially responsible investing”, and one firm’s
“responsible investing” is another manager’s “sustainable investing”. On
reflection, this embarrassment of semantic richness is perhaps understand-
able for a rapidly evolving approach, where the final form has yet to be
settled. In such a fluid field, we are all well aware of the dangers of false
precision.1

Ballestero et al. discuss how ‘SRI, also known as ethical investing, respon-
sible investing, green investing, impact investing or sustainable investing,
shares with conventional investing the top priority given to financial prof-
itability, while considering in additional social, ethical or environmental
parameters’.2 Yet, Hebb tells us that ‘responsible investing has always
had a broad mandate. Put simply, it is a long-term sustainable investment
strategy that values environmental, social, and governance factors in the
public equities portfolios of investors concerned with the long term risks
that ESG considerations may pose’.3 One includes the ‘S’ of ‘socially’,
whilst one drops it; but is this important? Cullis et al. state that:

The terms ethical and socially responsible (and, more commonly nowadays,
sustainable) are labels regularly attached to a range of enterprises; it is
important to ask what these terms mean (besides indicating that the activity
is generally a good thing). Social Responsibility is the favoured term… there
more troublesome label of ethical having been dropped. But could this
legitimisation of SRI as part of “third way” politics lead to a watering down
of the ethical brew? CSR has formed a broad agenda where businesses are
asked to improve their social, environmental, and local economic impact
and consider how businesses affect society at large in terms of human
rights, social cohesion, fair trade, and corruption. If anything, the notion
of sustainability is even more vague and ell-embracing.4
8 D. CASH

The authors continue by stating that ‘it seems that the popularity of what
we might now best refer to as SRI (the internationally most favoured
label) is set to continue to rise, given its increased visibility to institu-
tional investors and because around 70 percent of individual investors
feel they ought to be investing ethically even if they are not doing so at
present’.5 It is tempting to agree with them, that SRI is the most favoured
label, but there is no definitive evidence for this. Actually, I would argue
that Responsible Investment is the most agreed-upon term, solely because
of the popularity and the acceptance of the PRI, otherwise known as
the Principles for Responsible Investment, which is a UN-backed global
initiative that has over 1000 of the world’s leading investors and finan-
cial entities as partners (we shall be introduced to the PRI in much more
detail shortly). Yet, as ever, there are major issues with these definitions
so far. One is that the PRI, in spite of their primacy, have been criticised
for being a ‘misleading indicator’ because ‘the reality is that PRI signa-
tories commit only to behaving in accordance with a set of principles for
responsible investment, a commitment that falls well short of integrating
ESG considerations into all of their investment decisions’.6 The second
issue is an issue I have with the focus of the definitions of socially respon-
sible investment, or responsible investment, is that it is merely focused
on the actions of the investor. Whilst it is absolutely understandable that
the investor has been identified as being the lynchpin in the develop-
ment of the movement (which I agree with), the definition does not take
into account, directly, the role of those investors invest in. Perhaps I am
splitting hairs and that, in reality, the act of the investor taking a ‘respon-
sible approach’ to their investing, i.e. considering more than just financial
performance, and/or a longer time-horizon, has the effect of forcing the
issuer to alter their processes as well. I digress. Potentially, on that basis, it
may be more appropriate to talk of ‘sustainable finance’ because, as Miles
describes:

Although there is no comprehensive definition, the concept of sustainable

finance encompasses the lending and investment activities of private equity
financiers and institutional investors, as well as entities from the public
sector such as the World Bank and multilateral development banks. At its
broadest, sustainable finance refers to the “mainstreaming of environmental
and socio-economic criteria into lending, investment and other financial
services”. The NGO community tends to interpret it as requiring more
 2 THE ‘MAINSTREAMING’ OF RESPONSIBLE INVESTMENT 9

innate changes in approach, such as deep-rooted commitment to social and

environmental responsibility, transparency, accountability, and precaution.7

Rather than complicate the issue any further, it may be best to focus on
the broader objective of the movement, whether funnelled through the
investor or not, and Robins gives us a clear definition upon which we can
build when he says that ‘part of the essence of contemporary sustainable
investing is the realisation that investors need to understand, measure,
and promote superior financial and non-financial performance’.8
Just a moment ago, we saw the criticism of the PRI in that it does
not force its signatories to integrate a concept known as ‘ESG’ more into
their financial processes, but what does that all mean? ‘ESG’ stands for
environment, social, and governance and relates to aspects that should
be considered when decided on, say, investment opportunities. Examples
may include the impact a business has upon the climate (for the ‘E’),
the business’ position with regard to modern slavery, or its record on
employee-related issues (for the ‘S’), or the strength and consistency of
its Board and internal management structure (for the ‘G’). However, we
can see an issue in my describing of ‘ESG’, because for the ‘S’ I mentioned
the imagined business’ approach to modern slavery; what if there are
(and there predominantly are in the developed world) strict regulations
governing the exploitation of people? Abiding by those rules, and making
sure the company proactively and efficiently declares such adherence, may
fall under the ‘G’overnance aspect too. The variety and multiplicity of the
world and everything in it mean that ESG, as a concept, is a really good
starting point but, in reality, it needs to be contextualised and understood
on a variety of levels, all the time.
Nevertheless, even if that definitional complexity is somehow resolved,
how the concept of ESG came to be, and how it is applied, simply
continues the complexity. Let us start with a simple question. So far, we
have seen many explanations and definitions of the movement of encour-
aging financial players to think about and, moreover, start to act upon
the premise that one can participate in the market and think of some-
thing else other than financial return. We have also seen that the emphasis
has been placed upon the ‘investor’. However, who is this investor? What
is their position? Understanding this means we may be able to ascertain
what they want from the interaction and, perhaps more crucially, what
they can do. To deviate for one moment, in the wake of the Wall Street
Crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression, the focus was on
10 D. CASH

protecting the so-called retail investor—the woman or man who partic-

ipated in the marketplace—because they were deemed to require such
protection in the face of a corporate curtain that they quite often fell
victim to. Modern corporate law across the world has been built on that
premise. However, as Coffee insightfully describes ‘…that is the past. The
era in which retail investors “owned” companies or moved the trading
markets is long gone and “deader than disco”. Today, retail investors
account for only a modest minority of the ownership of large, publicly
traded companies and probably only between 2 and 4% of the trading
in NYSE-listed companies. Stock ownership is now dominated by insti-
tutional investors, who are increasingly diversified and often indexed’.9
Whilst there may be cultural stimuli that alter that ratio between jurisdic-
tions, it is likely to be representative of the modern western world. We will
look at this fascinating development in much more detail in Chapter 4,
but there are so many questions that this understanding rightly raises,
like what does that diversified approach mean to the act of considering
something other than financial return (?), are institutional investors legally
allowed to consider something else other than financial return (?), and
what does that mean for the interaction between investor and company?
The last question is particularly relevant when we understand that there
are now three major institutional investors—the so-called Big Three of
BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard—who between them, by them-
selves, and with the help of smaller players (who will often just follow
the market leaders), have the capability to force a company to take partic-
ular actions, if not apply the heaviest of pressure to a Board of a public
company. Whilst these questions are fascinatingly important, for us at this
stage of the chapter, the main question to ask is what does this concentra-
tion and market position mean for the investing options available to the
larger investment players?
There are a variety of investing options within the world of ‘responsible
investment’. Our focus in this book is on the ‘mainstreaming’ of the move-
ment and, in that sense, there is a preferred approach and for a particular
reason. However, to understand why that approach is favoured, we must
understand the other approaches and the development of them. The
concept of investing and partaking in financial action for anything other
than financial gain, and in whatever ratio, i.e. how much one does in rela-
tion to how much they gain, is unsurprisingly rooted in religious history.
The Catholic Church forbade loans with interest attached in the Middle
Ages,10 which was an approach that had been appropriated from the
 2 THE ‘MAINSTREAMING’ OF RESPONSIBLE INVESTMENT 11

Islamic world.11 Ballestero et al. rightly discuss how the Catholic Church,
in forbidding the attachment of interest (with Emperor Charlemagne, for
example, declaring in the eighth century that the practice was illegal), ‘not
only financed social investment with their income, but also canalised a
significant flow of rents to hospitals, nursing homes and schools’.12 What
the authors do not mention is that this process was about societal control,
and directly led to the development of Protestantism led by Martin
Luther—the Church became, in essence, the only corporation in the
market—13 but I digress. In other examples of religiously-inspired invest-
ment practices, the Quakers were well known to advise their members to
invest with a social criteria in mind, particularly based around concepts of
peace, brotherhood, and solidarity; this is known to have inspired similar
ideals across Italy, Spain, and other European countries in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries. Moving forward, the Quakers were a
component of ‘ethical investors’ that inhabited the British investing scene
(collectively known as ‘Church Investors’), with the ‘Church’ developing
investment portfolios that had specific ethical constraints on what could
be invested in, and what could not. Their approach then (and which
continues to be the case) was one of exclusion or, as we would say today,
the application of a ‘negative screen’, i.e. certain stocks could not be
invested in, usually the so-called sin stocks like alcohol, tobacco, defence,
and gambling-related stocks. Whilst the UK has been a pioneer in certain
areas—such as the development of the ethical research service EIRIS in
1983 (more on them in the next chapter)—the so-called quiet period
between the Second World War and the 1980s represents the seedbed
for what has subsequently developed. For example, the first ethical fund
developed in Europe was the Asnvar Aktiefond Sverige fund in Sweden in
1965, created by the Swedish Church, but the Vietnam War really became
the catalyst of what was to come. In response to a massive groundswell of
negative sentiment towards both the war itself, but particularly how it was
conducted, American students began to push for change and focused on
the companies that supported the war—divestment in associated compa-
nies became commonplace. The same approach was taken against South
Africa for its implementation of the Apartheid system. In the modern era,
now private enterprises started to have more of an impact too, with enti-
ties such as Triodos in the Netherlands, or Banca Etica in Italy, taking an
active role on the commitment to social and financial returns.
However, the 1980s and the decades that followed saw the first glob-
alised efforts to take action within the ‘responsible finance’ diaspora. A
12 D. CASH

number of UN Conferences were put together to focus on multina-

tional responses to issues stemming from human impact upon the climate,
starting with the UN Conference on the Human Environment in 1972,
held in Stockholm. In 1992, the UN Conference on Environment and
Development was held in Rio de Janeiro, with the World Summit on
Sustainable Development being held in Johannesburg in 2002. Ten years
later, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development was held in Rio
de Janeiro, again, in 2012 with the most recent being held in New York,
labelled the UN Sustainable Development Summit in 2015. You can see
from the above that, at a certain point, the concept of ‘sustainable devel-
opment’ becomes central to the mission of the globalised entity. That
concept was popularised and defined by the so-called Brundtland Report,
which was a report developed by the World Commission on Environment
and Development in 1987, led by former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro
Harlem Brundtland. The Commission declared that sustainable finance
‘is finance that meets the social, environmental, and livelihood needs of
the present generation without compromising the ability of future gener-
ations to meet their own needs and that creates a fair balance between
societies in the north and the south’.14 What the Commission did was
to place the responsibility squarely at the feet of ‘finance’ as an industry.
However, as Weber notes, ‘a general strategy as to how the financial sector
might contribute to sustainable development is missing’.15
The consequences of not having a defined and agreed-upon strategy
in place were brutally witnessed during the Financial Crisis of 2007/08.
With developed economies grinding to a halt, all on the basis of short-
termism, increased financialisation, and ultimately the development of the
concept of financial entities being ‘too-big-to-fail’, the potential of that
era being a turning point emerged. Hebb talks of the Financial Crisis
revealing:

the critical need for greater oversight of today’s financial markets. In the
aftermath of the Financial Crisis institutional investors are increasingly real-
ising that while much of this oversight will occur through government
regulation, increasingly large institutional investors are being called upon
to provide this type of active engagement and ownership in our capital
markets. The result is not the institutional investor “socialism” envisioned
by Peter Drucker, but rather a reconfigured capitalism crafted by these
enormous financial pools. Many institutional investors are using their influ-
ence to engage and in some cases aggressively challenge the management
 2 THE ‘MAINSTREAMING’ OF RESPONSIBLE INVESTMENT 13

of corporations in order to improve the environmental, social and gover-

nance (ESG) standards of the firms in which they invest. Such activity,
known as responsible investment (RI), seeks long-term shareholder value
for future beneficiaries.16

Thus, the Financial Crisis became a ‘trigger’17 that initiated a sea-change

in direction within the financial markets. Now, the focus was on how
to make the financial arena are more longer-termed and more contrib-
utory affair. To that end, the market had, and still has, a number of
options available to them. Krosinsky and Purdom helpfully categorise
these options into what they label as the ‘seven tribes’ of responsible
investment.18 In no particular order, they are:

• ‘Values First’—this approach is the one based upon religious values,

traditionally. The common approach within this ‘tribe’ is to apply
negative screens to exclude investment opportunities that do not fit
into one’s ‘value-driven’ mandate, like ‘sin’ stocks.
• ‘Value First’—this approach involved ‘using ESG as among primary
considerations’ when investing, although it is different to ‘ESG inte-
gration’ as we shall see below. The sentiment here is that investors
will invest for financial return, but use methods which can have an
additional societal effect.
• Community/Impact—the focus for this approach is on intention-
ality. ‘Impact Investing’ is a phrase coined by the Rockefeller
Foundation and this explains the sentiment, in that it is often
a Foundation/charitable endeavour designed to improve a given
community or people.
• Thematic Investing—this approach involves focusing on a particular
sector within which one will invest, with something like renewable
energy or electric vehicle production being an example amongst
many.
• Engagement/Advocacy—this approach involved shareholders
actively engaging with both companies and policymakers on an array
of issues that can have ‘positive externalities’, like compensation,
tax, regulation, and so on. The authors note how such engagement
is rarely publicised, so as to encourage further engagement with the
target.
• Norms-based Screening—this approach entails using an external,
and often global standard as a minimum for investment. This has
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never beaten before.
The force of his grasp pressed the sharply cut cameo into his
flesh. The image of that wicked little god, the son of Aphrodite, was
stamped upon him. It seemed as if some of his blood would mingle
with the blood that sparkled and beat within the heart of the rubies.
He had forgotten the object of his mission to her. Still holding her
hand with the ring, he put his arm under the sealskin coat that
reached to her feet, and held her close to him while he kissed her as
he had never before kissed her.
Suddenly he seemed to recollect why he was with her. He had not
hastened down from London for the sake of the kiss.
“My beloved, my beloved!” he murmured—each word sounded like
a sob—“I should like to remain with you for ever.”
She did not say a word. She did not need to say a word. He could
feel the tumult of her heart, and she knew it.
“For God’s sake, Beatrice, let me speak to you,” he said.
It was a strange entreaty. His arm was about her, his hand was
holding one of hers, she was simply passive by his side; and yet he
implored of her to let him speak to her.
It was some moments before she could laugh, however; which
was also strange, for the humour of the matter which called for that
laugh, was surely capable of being appreciated by her immediately.
She gave a laugh and then a sigh.
The carriage was dark, but a stray gleam of light from a side
platform now and again came upon her face, and her features were
brought into relief with the clearness and the whiteness of a lily in a
jungle.
As she gave that laugh—or was it a sigh?—he started, perceiving
that the expression of her features was precisely that which the
artist in the antique had imparted to the features of the little
chrysoprase Eros in the centre of that blood-red circle of the ring.
“Why do you laugh, Beatrice?8 said he.
 “Did I laugh, Harold?” said she. “No—no—I think—yes, I think it
was a sigh—or was it you who sighed, my love?”
“God knows,” said he. “Oh, the ring—the ring!”
“It feels like a band of burning metal,” she said.
“It is almost a pain for me to wear it. Have you not heard of the
curious charms possessed by rings, Harold—the strange spells which
they carry with them? The ring is a mystery—a mystic symbol. It
means what has neither beginning nor ending—it means perfection
—completeness—it means love—love’s completeness.”
“That is what your ring must mean to us, my beloved,” said he.
“Whether you take it from your finger or let it remain there, it will
still mean the completeness of such love as is ours.”
“And I am to take it off, Harold?”
“Only so long as you stay at Abbeylands, Beatrice. What does it
matter for one week? You will see, dearest, how my plans—my
hopes—must certainly he destroyed if that ring is seen on your
finger by my father or my sister. It is not for the sake of my plans
only that I wish you to refrain from wearing it for a week; it is for
your sake as well.”
“Would they fancy that I had stolen it, dear?” she asked, looking
up to his face with a smile.
“They might fancy worse things than that, Beatrice,” said he. “Do
not ask me. You may be sure that I am advising you aright—that the
consequences of that ring being recognized on your finger would be
more serious than you could understand.”
“Did I not say something to you a few days ago about the
completeness of my trust in you, Harold?” she whispered. “Well, the
ring is the symbol of this completeness also. I trust you implicitly in
everything. I have given myself up to you. I will do whatever you
may tell me. I will not take the ring off until I reach Abbeylands, but
I shall take it off then, and only replace it on my finger every night.”
“My darling, my darling! Such love as you have given to me is
God’s best gift to the world.”
 He had committed himself to an opinion practically to the same
effect upon more than one previous occasion.
And now, as then, the expression of that opinion was followed by
a long silence, as their faces came together.
“Beatrice,” he said, in a tremulous voice.
“Harold.”
“I shall go on with you to Abbeylands. Come what may, we shall
not now be separated.”
But they were separated that very instant. The carriage was
flooded with light—the chastened flood that comes from an oil lamp
inserted in a hollow in the roof—and they were no longer in each
others arms. They heard the sound of the porter’s feet on the roof of
the next carriage.
“It is so good of you to come,” said she.
There was now perhaps three inches of a space separating them.
“Good?” said he. “I’m afraid that’s not the word. We shall be under
one roof.”
“Yes,” she said slowly, “under one roof.”
“Tickets for Ashmead,” intoned a voice at the carriage window.
“We are for Abbeylands Station,” said Harold.
“Abb’l’ns,” said the guard. “Why, sir, you know the Abb’l’ns train
started six minutes ago.”
 CHAPTER XLIV.—ON THE
SHORTCOMINGS OF A SYSTEM.

H
AROLD was out of the compartment in a moment. Did the
guard mean that the train had actually left for Abbeylands? It
had left six minutes before, the guard explained, and the
station-master added his guarantee to the statement.
Harold looked around—from platform to platform—as if he fancied
that there was a conspiracy between the officials to conceal the
train.
How could the train leave without taking all its carriages with it?
It did nothing of the kind, the station-master said, firmly but
respectfully.
The guard went on with his business of cutting neat triangles out
of the tickets of the passengers in the carriages that were alongside
the platform—passengers bound for Ashmead.
“But I—we—my—my wife and I got into one of the carriages of
the Abbeylands train,” said Harold, becoming indignant, after the
fashion of his countrymen, when they have made a mistake either
on a home or foreign railway. “What sort of management is it that
allows one portion of a train to go in one direction and another part
in another direction?”
“It’s our system, sir,” said the official. “You see, sir, there’re never
many passengers for either the Abbeyl’n’s”—being a station-master
he did not do an unreasonable amount of clipping in regard to the
names—“or the Ashm’d branch, so the Staplehurst train is divided—
only we don’t light the lamps in the Ashm’d portion until we’re ready
to start it. Did you get into a carriage that had a lamp, sir?”
“I’ve seen some bungling at railway stations before now,” said
Harold, “but bang me if I ever met the equal of this.”
 “This isn’t properly speaking a station, sir, it’s a junction,” said the
official, mildly, but with the force of a man who has said the last
word.
“That simply means that greater bungling may be found at a
junction than at a station,” said Harold. “Is it not customary to give
some notice of the departure of a train at a junction as well as a
station, my good man?”
The official became reasonably irritated at being called a good
man.
“The train left for Abbeyl’n’s according to reg’lation, sir,” said he.
“If you got into a compartment that had no lamp——”
“Oh, I’ve no time for trifling,” said Harold. “When does the next
train leave for Abbey-lands?”
“At eight-sixteen in the morning,” said the official.
“Great heavens! You mean to say that there’s no train to-night?”
“You see, if a carriage isn’t lighted, sir, we——”
The man perceived the weakness of Harold’s case—from the
standpoint of a railway official—and seemed determined not to lose
sight of it. “Contributory negligence” he knew to be the most
valuable phrase that a railway official could have at hand upon any
occasion.
“And how do you expect us to go on to Abbeylands to-night?”
asked Harold.
“There’s a very respectable hotel a mile from the junction, sir,”
said the man. “Ruins of the Priory, sir—dates back to King John,
page 84 Tourist’s Guide to Brackenshire.”
“Oh,” said Harold, “this is quite preposterous.” He went to where
Beatrice was seated watching, with only a moderate amount of
interest, the departure of five passengers for Ashmead.
“Well, dear?” said she, as Harold came up.
“For straightforward, pig-headed stupidity I’ll back a railway
company against any institution in the world,” said he. “The last train
has left for Abbeylands. Did you ever know of such stupidity? And
yet the shareholders look for six per cent, out of such a system.”
“Perhaps,” said she timidly—“perhaps we were in some degree to
blame.”
He laughed. It was so like a woman to suggest the possibility of
some blame attaching to the passengers when a railway company
could be indicted. To the average man such an idea is as absurd as
beginning to argue with a person at whom one is at liberty to swear.
“It seems that there is a sort of hotel a mile away,” said he. “We
cannot be starved, at any rate.”
“And I—you—we shall have to stay there?” said she.
He gave a sort of shrug—an Englishman’s shrug—about as like the
real thing as an Englishman’s bow, or a Chinaman’s cheer.
“What can we do?” said he. “When a railway company such as this
—oh, come along, Beatrice. I am hungry—hungry—hungry!”
He caught her by the arm.
“Yes, Harold—husband,” said she.
He started.
“Husband! Husband!” he said. “I never thought of that. Oh, my
beloved—my beloved!”
He stood irresolute for a moment.
Then he gave a curious laugh, and she felt his hand tighten upon
her arm for a moment.
“Yes,” he whispered. “You heard the words that—that man said
while our hands were together? ‘Whom God hath joined’—God—that
is Love. Love is the bond that binds us together. Every union
founded on Love is sacred—and none other is sacred—in the sight of
heaven.”
“And you do not doubt my love,” she said.
“Doubt it? oh, my Beatrice, I never knew what it was before now.”
They left the station together, after he had written and despatched
in her name a telegram to her maid, directing her to explain to Mrs.
Lampson that her mistress had unfortunately missed the train, but
meant to go by the first one in the morning.
By chance a conveyance was found outside, and in it they drove to
the Priory Hotel which, they were amazed to find, promised comfort
as well as picturesqueness.
It was a long ivy-covered house, and bore every token of being a
portion of the ancient Priory among the ruins of which it was
standing. Great elms were in front of the house, and on one side
there were apple trees, and at the other there was a garden
reaching almost to where a ruined arch was held together by its own
ivy.
As they were in the act of entering the porch, a ray of moonlight
gleamed upon the ruins, and showed the trimmed grass plots and
neat gravel walks among the cloisters.
Harold pointed out the picturesque effect to Beatrice, and they
stood for some moments before entering the house.
The old waiter, whose moderately white shirt front constituted a
very distinctive element of the hall with its polished panels of old
oak, did not bustle forward when he saw them admiring the ruins.
“Upon my word,” said Harold, entering, “this is a place worth
seeing. That touch of moonlight was very effective.”
“Yes, sir,” said the waiter; “I’m glad you’re pleased with it. We try
to do our best in this way for our patrons. Mrs. Mark will be glad to
know that you thought highly of our moonlight, sir.”
The man was only a waiter, but he was as solemn as a butler, as
he opened the door of a room that seemed ready to do duty as a
coffee-room. It had a low groined ceiling, and long narrow windows.
An elderly maid was lighting candles in sconces round the walls.
“Really,” said Harold, “we may be glad that the bungling at the
junction brought us here.”
“Yes, sir,” said the man with waiter-like acquiescence; “they do
bungle things sometimes at that junction.”
 “We were on our way to Abbeylands,” said Harold, “but those
idiots on the platform allowed us to get into the wrong carriages—
the carriages that were going to Ashmead. We shall stay here for the
night. The station-master recommended us to go here, and I’m
much obliged to him. It’s the only sensible—”
“Yes, sir: he’s a brother to Mrs. Mark—Mrs. Mark is our proprietor,”
said the waiter.
“Mrs. Mark,” said Harold.
“Yes, sir: she’s our proprietor.”
Harold thought that, perhaps, when the owner of an hotel was a
woman, she might reasonably be called the proprietor.
“Oh, well, perhaps a maid might show my—my wife to a room,
while I see what we can get for dinner—supper, I suppose we should
call it.”
The middle-aged woman who was lighting the candles came
forward smiling, as she adroitly extinguished the wax taper by the
application of her finger and thumb. With her Beatrice disappeared.
Harold quite expected that he was about to come upon the weak
element in the management of this picturesque inn. But when he
found that a cold pheasant as well as some hot fish was available for
supper, he admitted that the place was perfect. There was no wine
card, but the old waiter promised a Champagne for which, he said,
Mr. Lampson, of Abbeylands, had once made an offer.
“That will do for us very well,” said Harold. “Mr. Lampson would
not make an offer for anything—wine least of all—of which he was
uncertain.”
The waiter went off in the leisurely style that was only consistent
with the management of an establishment that dated back to King
John; and in a few minutes Beatrice appeared, having laid aside her
sealskin coat, and her hat.
How exquisite she seemed as she stood for an instant in the
subdued light at the door!
And she was his.
 CHAPTER XLV.—ON MOONLIGHT
AND MORALS.

S
HE was his.
He felt the joy of it as she stood at the door in her
beautifully fitting travelling dress.
The thought sent an exultant glow through his veins, as he looked
at her from where he was standing at the hearth. (There was no
“cosy corner” abomination.)
She was his.
He went forward to meet her, and put out both his hands to her.
She placed a hand in each of his.
“How delightfully warm you are,” she said. “You were standing at
the fire.”
“Yes,” he said. “I was at the fire; in addition, I was also thinking
that you are mine.”
“Altogether yours now,” she said looking at him with that trustful
smile which should have sent him down on his knees before her, but
which did not do more than cause his eyes to look at her throat
instead of gazing straight into her eyes.
They seated themselves on one of the old window-seats, and
talked face to face, listlessly watching the old waiter lay a white cloth
on a portion of the black oak table.
When they had eaten their fish and pheasant—Harold wondered if
the latter had come from the Abbeylands’ preserves, and if Archie
Brown had shot it—they returned to the window-seat, and there
they remained for an hour.
He had thrown all reserve to the winds. He had thrown all
forethought to the winds. He had thrown all fear of God and man to
the winds.
She was his.
The old waiter re-entered the room and laid on the table a flat
bedroom candlestick with a box of matches.
“Can I get you anything before I go to bed, sir?” he inquired.
“I require nothing, thank you,” said Harold.
“Very good, sir,” said the waiter. “The candles in the sconces will
burn for another hour. If that will not be long enough—”
“It will be quite long enough. You have made us extremely
comfortable, and I wish you goodnight,” said Harold.
“Good-night, sir. Good-night, madam.”
This model servitor disappeared. They heard the sound of his
shoes upon the stairs.
“At last—at last!” whispered Harold, as he put an arm on the deep
embrasure of the window behind her.
She let her shapely head fall back until it rested on his shoulder.
Then she looked up to his face.
“Who could have thought it?” she cried. “Who could have
predicted that evening when I stood on the cliffs and sent my voice
out in that wild way across the lough, that we should be sitting here
to-night?”
“I knew it when I got down to the boat and drew your hands into
mine by that fishing-line,” said he. “When the moon showed me your
face, I knew that I had seen the face for which I had been searching
all my life. I had caught glimpses of that face many times in my life.
I remember seeing it for a moment when a great musician was
performing an incomparable work—a work the pure beauty of which
made all who listened to it weep. I can hear that music now when I
look upon your face. It conveys to me all that was conveyed to me
by the music. I saw it again when, one exquisite dawn, I went into a
garden while the dew was glistening over everything. There came to
me the faint scent of violets. I thought that nothing could be
lovelier; but in another moment, the glorious perfume of roses came
upon me like a torrent. The odour of the roses and the scent of the
violets mingled, and before my eyes floated your face. When the
moonlight showed me your face on that night beside the Irish lough
I felt myself wondering if it would vanish.”
“It has come to stay,” she whispered, in a way that gave the
sweetest significance to the phrase that has become vulgarized.
“It came to stay with me for ever,” he said. “I knew it, and I felt
myself saying, ‘Here by God’s grace is the one maid for me.’”
He did not falter as he looked down upon her face—he said the
words “God’s grace” without the least hesitancy.
The moonlight that had been glistening on the ivy of the broken
arches of the ancient Priory, was now shining through the diamond
panes of the window at which they were sitting. As her head lay
back it was illuminated by the moon. Her hair seemed delicate
threads of spun glass through which the light was shining.
One of the candles flared up for a moment in its socket, then
dwindled away to a single spark and then expired.
“You remember?” she whispered.
“The seal-cave,” he said. “I have often wondered how I dared to
tell you that I loved you.”
“But you told me the truth.”
“The truth. No, no; I did not love you then as I regard loving now.
Oh, my Beatrice, you have taught me what ‘tis to love. There is
nothing in the world but love, it is life—it is life!”
“And there are none in the world who love as you and I do.”
His face shut out the moonlight from hers. There was a long
silence before she said, “It was only when you had parted from me
every day that I knew what you were to me, Harold. Ah, those bitter
moments! Those sad Good-byes—sad Good-nights out of the
moonlight from hers. There was a long silence before she said, “It
was only when you had parted from me every day that I knew what
you were to me, Harold. Ah, those bitter moments! Those sad Good-
byes—sad Good-nights!”
 “They are over, they are over!” he cried. The lover’s triumph rang
through his words. “They are over. We have come to the night when
no more Good-nights shall be spoken. What do I say? No more
Good-nights? You know what a poet’s heart sang—a poet over
whose head the waters of passion had closed? I know the song that
came from his heart—beloved, the pulses of his heart beat in every
line:"=
“‘Good-night! ah, no, the hour is ill
That severs those it should unite:
Let us remain together still,
Then it will be good night.=
”’ How can I call the lone night good,
Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?
Be it not said—thought—understood;
Then it will be good night.=
“‘To hearts that near each other move
From evening close to morning light,
The night is good because, oh, Love,
They never say Good-night.’”=
His whispering of the last lines was very tremulous. Her eyes were
closed and her lips were parted with the passing of a sigh—a sigh
that had something of a sob about it. Then both her arms were
flung round his neck, and he felt her face against his. Then.... he
was alone.
How had she gone?
Whither had she gone?
How long had he been alone?
He got upon his feet, and looked in a dazed way around the room.
Had it all been a dream? Was it only in fancy that she had been in
his arms? Had he been repeating Shelley’s poem in the hearing of no
one?
 He opened a glass door by which access was had to the grounds
of the old Priory, and stood, surpliced by the moonlight, beside the
ruined arch where an oriel window had once been. He turned and
looked at the house. It was black against the clear sky that
overflowed with light, but one window above the room where he had
been sitting was illuminated.
It had no drapery—he could see through it half way into the room
beyond.
Just above where a silver sconce with three lighted candles hung
from the wall, he could see that the black panel bore in high relief a
carved Head of the Virgin, surrounded with lilies.
He kept his eyes fixed upon that carving until—until....
There came before his eyes in that room the Temptation of Saint
Anthony.
His eyes became dim looking at her loveliness, shining with
dazzling whiteness beneath the light of the candles.
He put his hands before his eyes and staggered to the door
through which he had passed. There he stood, his breath coming in
sobs, with his hand on the handle of the door.
There was not a sound in the night. Heaven and earth were
breathlessly watching the struggle.
It was the struggle between Heaven and Hell for a human soul.
The man’s fingers fell from the handle of the door. He clasped his
hands across the ivy of the wall and bowed his head upon them.
Only for a few moments, however. Then, with a cry of agony, he
started up, and with his clasped hands over his eyes, fled—madly—
blindly—away from the house.
Before he had gone far, he tripped and fell over a stone—he only
fell upon his knees, but his hands were clutching at the ground.
When he recovered himself, he found that he was on his knees at
the foot of an ancient prostrate Cross.
He stared at it, and some time had passed before there came
from his parched lips the cry, “Christ have mercy upon me!”
 He bowed his head to the Cross, and his lips touched the cold,
damp stone.
This was not the kiss to which he had been looking forward.
He sprang to his feet and fled into the distance.
She was saved!
And he—he had saved his soul alive!
 CHAPTER XLVI.—ON A BED OF
LOGS.

O
NWARD he fled, he knew not whither; he only knew that he
was flying for the safety of his soul.
He passed far beyond the limits of the Priory grounds, but
he did not reach the high road. He crossed a meadow and came
upon a trout stream. He walked beside it for an hour. At the end of
that time there was no moonlight to glitter upon its surface. Clouds
had come over the sky and drops of rain were beginning to fall.
He crossed the stream by a little bridge, and reached the border
of a wood. It was now long past midnight. He had been walking for
two hours, but he had no consciousness of weariness. It was not
until the rain was streaming off his hair that he recollected that he
had no hat. But on still he went through the darkness and the rain,
as though he were being pursued, and that every step he took was a
step toward safety.
He came upon a track that seemed to lead through the wood, and
upon this track he went for several miles. The ground was soft, and
at some places the rain had turned it into a morass. The autumn
leaves lay in drifts, sodden and rotting. Into more than one of these
he stumbled, and when he got upon his feet again, the damp leaves
and the mire were clinging to him.
For three more hours he went on by the winding track through the
wood. In the darkness he strayed from it frequently, but invariably
found it again and struggled on, until he had passed right through
the wood and reached a high road that ran beside it.
As though he had been all the night wandering in search for this
road, so soon as he saw it he cried, “Thank God, thank God!”
 But something else may have been in his mind beyond the
satisfaction of coming upon the road.
At the border of the wood where the track broadened out, there
was a woodcutter’s rough shed. It was piled up with logs of various
sizes, and with trimmed boughs awaiting the carts to come along the
road to carry them away. He entered the shed, and, overpowered
with weariness, sank down upon a heap of boughs; his head found a
resting place in a forked branch and in a moment he was sound
asleep.
His head was resting upon the damp bark of the trimmed branch,
when it might have been close to that whiteness which he had seen
through the window.
True; but his soul was saved.
He awoke, hearing the sound of voices around him.
The cold light of a gray, damp day was struggling with the light
that came from a fire of faggots just outside, and the shed was filled
with the smoke of the burning wood. The sound of the crackling of
the small branches came to his ears with the sound of the voices.
He raised his head, and looked around him in a dazed way. He did
not realize for some time the strange position in which he found
himself. Suddenly he seemed to recall all that had occurred, and
once more he said, “Thank God, thank God!”
Three men were standing in the shed before him. Two of them
held bill-hooks in a responsible way; the third had the truncheon of a
constable. He also wore the helmet of a constable.
The men with the bill-hooks seemed preparing to repel a charge.
They stood shoulder to shoulder with their implements breast high.
The man with the truncheon seemed willing to trust a great deal
to them, whether in regard to attack or defence.
“Well, you’re awake, my gentleman,” said the man with the
truncheon.
The speech seemed a poor enough accompaniment to such a
show of strength, aggressive or defensive, as was the result of the
muster in the shed.
“Yes, I believe I’m awake,” said Harold. “Is the morning far
advanced?”
“That’s as may be,” said the truncheon-holder, shrewdly, and after
a pause of considerable duration.
“You’re not the man to compromise yourself by a hasty
statement,” said Harold.
“No,” said the man, after another pause.
“May I ask what is the meaning of this rather imposing
demonstration?” said Harold.
“Ay, you may, maybe,” replied the man. “But it’s my business to
tell you that—” here he paused and inflated his lungs and person
generally— “that all you say now will be used as evidence against
you.”
“That’s very official,” said Harold. “Does it mean that you’re a
constable?”
“That it do; and that you’re in my charge now. Close up, bill-
hooks, and stand firm,” the man added to his companions.
“Don’t trumle for we,” said one of the billhook-holders.
“You see there’s no use broadening vi’lent-like,” said the
truncheon-holder.
“That’s clear enough,” said Harold. “Would it be imprudent for me
to inquire what’s the charge against me?”
“You know,” said the policeman.
“Come, my man,” said Harold; “I’m not disposed to stand this
farce any longer. Can’t you see that I’m no vagrant—that I haven’t
any of your logs concealed about me. What part of the country is
this? Where’s the nearest telegraph office?”
“No matter what’s the part,” said the constable; “I’ve arrested you
before witnesses of full age, and I’ve cautioned you according to the
Ack o’ Parliament.”
“And the charge?”
 “The charge is the murder.”
“Murder—what murder?”
“You know—the murder of the Right Honourable Lord
Fotheringay.”
“What!” shouted Harold. “Lord—oh, you’re mad! Lord Fotheringay
is my father, and he’s staying at Abbeylands. What do you mean,
you idiot, by coming to me with such a story?” The policeman
winked in by no means a subtle way at the two men with the bill-
hooks; he then looked at Harold from head to foot, and gave a
guffaw.
“The son of his lordship—the murdered man—you heard that,
friends, after I gave the caution according to the Ack o’ Parliament?”
he said.
“Ay, ay, we heard—leastways to that effeck,” replied one of the
men.
“Then down it goes again him,” said the constable. “He’s a
gentleman-Jack tramp—and that’s the worst sort—without hat or
head gear, and down it goes that he said he was his lordship’s son.”
“For God’s sake tell me what you mean by talking of the murder of
Lord Fotheringay,” said Harold. “There can be no truth in what you
said. Oh, why do I wait here talking to this idiot?” He took a few
steps toward one end of the shed. The men raised their bill-hooks,
and the constable made an aggressive demonstration with his
truncheon.
Against Stupidity the gods fight in vain, but now and again a man
with good muscles can prevail against it. Harold simply dealt a kick
upon the heavy handle of the bill-hook nearest to him, and it swung
round and caught in the stomach the second man, who immediately
dropped his implement. He needed both hands to press against his
injured person.
The constable ran to the other end of the shed and blew his
whistle.
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