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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:16:46 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:16:46 -0700 |
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diff --git a/1264-h/1264-h.htm b/1264-h/1264-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1126e8a --- /dev/null +++ b/1264-h/1264-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8628 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Wheels of Chance; a Bicycling Idyll | Project Gutenberg</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1264 ***</div> + +<h1>THE WHEELS OF CHANCE;<br/>A BICYCLING IDYLL</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">By H.G. Wells</h2> + +<h3>1896</h3> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3>To<br/> +MY DEAR MOTHER</h3> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter01"> CHAPTER I. THE PRINCIPAL CHARACTER IN THE STORY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter02"> CHAPTER II</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter03"> CHAPTER III</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter04"> CHAPTER IV. THE RIDING FORTH OF MR. HOOPDRIVER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter05"> CHAPTER V. THE SHAMEFUL EPISODE OF THE YOUNG LADY IN GREY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter06"> CHAPTER VI. ON THE ROAD TO RIPLEY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter07"> CHAPTER VII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter08"> CHAPTER VIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter09"> CHAPTER IX. HOW MR. HOOPDRIVER WAS HAUNTED</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter10"> CHAPTER X. THE IMAGININGS OF MR. HOOPDRIVER’S HEART</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter11"> CHAPTER XI. OMISSIONS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter12"> CHAPTER XII. THE DREAMS OF MR. HOOPDRIVER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter13"> CHAPTER XIII. HOW MR. HOOPDRIVER WENT TO HASLEMERE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter14"> CHAPTER XIV. HOW MR. HOOPDRIVER REACHED MIDHURST</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter15"> CHAPTER XV. AN INTERLUDE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter16"> CHAPTER XVI. OF THE ARTIFICIAL IN MAN, AND OF THE ZEITGEIST</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter17"> CHAPTER XVII. THE ENCOUNTER AT MIDHURST</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter18"> CHAPTER XVIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter19"> CHAPTER XIX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter20"> CHAPTER XX. THE PURSUIT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter21"> CHAPTER XXI. AT BOGNOR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter22"> CHAPTER XXII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter23"> CHAPTER XXIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter24"> CHAPTER XXIV. THE MOONLIGHT RIDE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter25"> CHAPTER XXV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter26"> CHAPTER XXVI. THE SURBITON INTERLUDE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter27"> CHAPTER XXVII. THE AWAKENING OF MR. HOOPDRIVER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter28"> CHAPTER XXVIII. THE DEPARTURE FROM CHICHESTER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter29"> CHAPTER XXIX. THE UNEXPECTED ANECDOTE OF THE LION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter30"> CHAPTER XXX. THE RESCUE EXPEDITION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter31"> CHAPTER XXXI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter32"> CHAPTER XXXII. MR. HOOPDRIVER, KNIGHT ERRANT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter33"> CHAPTER XXXIII. THE ABASEMENT OF MR. HOOPDRIVER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter34"> CHAPTER XXXIV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter35"> CHAPTER XXXV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter36"> CHAPTER XXXVI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter37"> CHAPTER XXXVII. IN THE NEW FOREST</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter38"> CHAPTER XXXVIII. AT THE RUFUS STONE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter39"> CHAPTER XXXIX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter40"> CHAPTER XL.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chapter41"> CHAPTER XLI. THE ENVOY</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<hr /> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter01"></a>I.<br/> +THE PRINCIPAL CHARACTER IN THE STORY</h2> + +<p> +If you (presuming you are of the sex that does such things)—if you had gone +into the Drapery Emporium—which is really only magnificent for shop—of Messrs. +Antrobus & Co.—a perfectly fictitious “Co.,” by the bye—of Putney, on the +14th of August, 1895, had turned to the right-hand side, where the blocks of +white linen and piles of blankets rise up to the rail from which the pink and +blue prints depend, you might have been served by the central figure of this +story that is now beginning. He would have come forward, bowing and swaying, he +would have extended two hands with largish knuckles and enormous cuffs over the +counter, and he would have asked you, protruding a pointed chin and without the +slightest anticipation of pleasure in his manner, what he might have the +pleasure of showing you. Under certain circumstances—as, for instance, hats, +baby linen, gloves, silks, lace, or curtains—he would simply have bowed +politely, and with a drooping expression, and making a kind of circular sweep, +invited you to “step this way,” and so led you beyond his ken; but under other +and happier conditions,—huckaback, blankets, dimity, cretonne, linen, calico, +are cases in point,—he would have requested you to take a seat, emphasising the +hospitality by leaning over the counter and gripping a chair back in a +spasmodic manner, and so proceeded to obtain, unfold, and exhibit his goods for +your consideration. Under which happier circumstances you might—if of an +observing turn of mind and not too much of a housewife to be inhuman—have given +the central figure of this story less cursory attention. +</p> + +<p> +Now if you had noticed anything about him, it would have been chiefly to notice +how little he was noticeable. He wore the black morning coat, the black tie, +and the speckled grey nether parts (descending into shadow and mystery below +the counter) of his craft. He was of a pallid complexion, hair of a kind of +dirty fairness, greyish eyes, and a skimpy, immature moustache under his peaked +indeterminate nose. His features were all small, but none ill-shaped. A rosette +of pins decorated the lappel of his coat. His remarks, you would observe, were +entirely what people used to call <i>cliché</i>, formulae not organic to the +occasion, but stereotyped ages ago and learnt years since by heart. “This, +madam,” he would say, “is selling very well.” “We are doing a very good article +at four three a yard.” “We could show you something better, of course.” “No +trouble, madam, I assure you.” Such were the simple counters of his +intercourse. So, I say, he would have presented himself to your superficial +observation. He would have danced about behind the counter, have neatly +refolded the goods he had shown you, have put on one side those you selected, +extracted a little book with a carbon leaf and a tinfoil sheet from a fixture, +made you out a little bill in that weak flourishing hand peculiar to drapers, +and have bawled “Sayn!” Then a puffy little shop-walker would have come into +view, looked at the bill for a second, very hard (showing you a parting down +the middle of his head meanwhile), have scribbled a still more flourishing J. +M. all over the document, have asked you if there was nothing more, have stood +by you—supposing that you were paying cash—until the central figure of this +story reappeared with the change. One glance more at him, and the puffy little +shop-walker would have been bowing you out, with fountains of civilities at +work all about you. And so the interview would have terminated. +</p> + +<p> +But real literature, as distinguished from anecdote, does not concern itself +with superficial appearances alone. Literature is revelation. Modern literature +is indecorous revelation. It is the duty of the earnest author to tell you what +you would not have seen—even at the cost of some blushes. And the thing that +you would not have seen about this young man, and the thing of the greatest +moment to this story, the thing that must be told if the book is to be written, +was—let us face it bravely—the Remarkable Condition of this Young Man’s Legs. +</p> + +<p> +Let us approach the business with dispassionate explicitness. Let us assume +something of the scientific spirit, the hard, almost professorial tone of the +conscientious realist. Let us treat this young man’s legs as a mere diagram, +and indicate the points of interest with the unemotional precision of a +lecturer’s pointer. And so to our revelation. On the internal aspect of the +right ankle of this young man you would have observed, ladies and gentlemen, a +contusion and an abrasion; on the internal aspect of the left ankle a contusion +also; on its external aspect a large yellowish bruise. On his left shin there +were two bruises, one a leaden yellow graduating here and there into purple, +and another, obviously of more recent date, of a blotchy red—tumid and +threatening. Proceeding up the left leg in a spiral manner, an unnatural +hardness and redness would have been discovered on the upper aspect of the +calf, and above the knee and on the inner side, an extraordinary expanse of +bruised surface, a kind of closely stippled shading of contused points. The +right leg would be found to be bruised in a marvellous manner all about and +under the knee, and particularly on the interior aspect of the knee. So far we +may proceed with our details. Fired by these discoveries, an investigator might +perhaps have pursued his inquiries further—to bruises on the shoulders, elbows, +and even the finger joints, of the central figure of our story. He had indeed +been bumped and battered at an extraordinary number of points. But enough of +realistic description is as good as a feast, and we have exhibited enough for +our purpose. Even in literature one must know where to draw the line. +</p> + +<p> +Now the reader may be inclined to wonder how a respectable young shopman should +have got his legs, and indeed himself generally, into such a dreadful +condition. One might fancy that he had been sitting with his nether extremities +in some complicated machinery, a threshing-machine, say, or one of those +hay-making furies. But Sherlock Holmes (now happily dead) would have fancied +nothing of the kind. He would have recognised at once that the bruises on the +internal aspect of the left leg, considered in the light of the distribution of +the other abrasions and contusions, pointed unmistakably to the violent impact +of the Mounting Beginner upon the bicycling saddle, and that the ruinous state +of the right knee was equally eloquent of the concussions attendant on that +person’s hasty, frequently causeless, and invariably ill-conceived descents. +One large bruise on the shin is even more characteristic of the ’prentice +cyclist, for upon every one of them waits the jest of the unexpected treadle. +You try at least to walk your machine in an easy manner, and whack!—you are +rubbing your shin. So out of innocence we ripen. <i>Two</i> bruises on that +place mark a certain want of aptitude in learning, such as one might expect in +a person unused to muscular exercise. Blisters on the hands are eloquent of the +nervous clutch of the wavering rider. And so forth, until Sherlock is presently +explaining, by the help of the minor injuries, that the machine ridden is an +old-fashioned affair with a fork instead of the diamond frame, a cushioned +tire, well worn on the hind wheel, and a gross weight all on of perhaps +three-and-forty pounds. +</p> + +<p> +The revelation is made. Behind the decorous figure of the attentive shopman +that I had the honour of showing you at first, rises a vision of a nightly +struggle, of two dark figures and a machine in a dark road,—the road, to be +explicit, from Roehampton to Putney Hill,—and with this vision is the sound of +a heel spurning the gravel, a gasping and grunting, a shouting of “Steer, man, +steer!” a wavering unsteady flight, a spasmodic turning of the missile edifice +of man and machine, and a collapse. Then you descry dimly through the dusk the +central figure of this story sitting by the roadside and rubbing his leg at +some new place, and his friend, sympathetic (but by no means depressed), +repairing the displacement of the handle-bar. +</p> + +<p> +Thus even in a shop assistant does the warmth of manhood assert itself, and +drive him against all the conditions of his calling, against the counsels of +prudence and the restrictions of his means, to seek the wholesome delights of +exertion and danger and pain. And our first examination of the draper reveals +beneath his draperies—the man! To which initial fact (among others) we shall +come again in the end. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter02"></a>II</h2> + +<p> +But enough of these revelations. The central figure of our story is now going +along behind the counter, a draper indeed, with your purchases in his arms, to +the warehouse, where the various articles you have selected will presently be +packed by the senior porter and sent to you. Returning thence to his particular +place, he lays hands on a folded piece of gingham, and gripping the corners of +the folds in his hands, begins to straighten them punctiliously. Near him is an +apprentice, apprenticed to the same high calling of draper’s assistant, a +ruddy, red-haired lad in a very short tailless black coat and a very high +collar, who is deliberately unfolding and refolding some patterns of cretonne. +By twenty-one he too may hope to be a full-blown assistant, even as Mr. +Hoopdriver. Prints depend from the brass rails above them, behind are fixtures +full of white packages containing, as inscriptions testify, <i>Lino, Hd Bk</i>, +and <i>Mull</i>. You might imagine to see them that the two were both intent +upon nothing but smoothness of textile and rectitude of fold. But to tell the +truth, neither is thinking of the mechanical duties in hand. The assistant is +dreaming of the delicious time—only four hours off now—when he will resume the +tale of his bruises and abrasions. The apprentice is nearer the long long +thoughts of boyhood, and his imagination rides <i>cap-à-pie</i> through the +chambers of his brain, seeking some knightly quest in honour of that Fair Lady, +the last but one of the girl apprentices to the dress-making upstairs. He +inclines rather to street fighting against revolutionaries—because then she +could see him from the window. +</p> + +<p> +Jerking them back to the present comes the puffy little shop-walker, with a +paper in his hand. The apprentice becomes extremely active. The shopwalker eyes +the goods in hand. “Hoopdriver,” he says, “how’s that line of g-sez-x +ginghams?” +</p> + +<p> +Hoopdriver returns from an imaginary triumph over the uncertainties of +dismounting. “They’re going fairly well, sir. But the larger checks seem +hanging.” +</p> + +<p> +The shop-walker brings up parallel to the counter. “Any particular time when +you want your holidays?” he asks. +</p> + +<p> +Hoopdriver pulls at his skimpy moustache. “No—Don’t want them too late, sir, of +course.” +</p> + +<p> +“How about this day week?” +</p> + +<p> +Hoopdriver becomes rigidly meditative, gripping the corners of the gingham +folds in his hands. His face is eloquent of conflicting considerations. Can he +learn it in a week? That’s the question. Otherwise Briggs will get next week, +and he will have to wait until September—when the weather is often uncertain. +He is naturally of a sanguine disposition. All drapers have to be, or else they +could never have the faith they show in the beauty, washability, and unfading +excellence of the goods they sell you. The decision comes at last. “That’ll do +me very well,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, terminating the pause. +</p> + +<p> +The die is cast. +</p> + +<p> +The shop-walker makes a note of it and goes on to Briggs in the “dresses,” the +next in the strict scale of precedence of the Drapery Emporium. Mr. Hoopdriver +in alternating spasms anon straightens his gingham and anon becomes meditative, +with his tongue in the hollow of his decaying wisdom tooth. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter03"></a>III</h2> + +<p> +At supper that night, holiday talk held undisputed sway. Mr. Pritchard spoke of +“Scotland,” Miss Isaacs clamoured of Bettws-y-Coed, Mr. Judson displayed a +proprietary interest in the Norfolk Broads. “<i>I?</i>” said Hoopdriver when +the question came to him. “Why, cycling, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re never going to ride that dreadful machine of yours, day after day?” +said Miss Howe of the Costume Department. +</p> + +<p> +“I am,” said Hoopdriver as calmly as possible, pulling at the insufficient +moustache. “I’m going for a Cycling Tour. Along the South Coast.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, all I hope, Mr. Hoopdriver, is that you’ll get fine weather,” said Miss +Howe. “And not come any nasty croppers.” +</p> + +<p> +“And done forget some tinscher of arnica in yer bag,” said the junior +apprentice in the very high collar. (He had witnessed one of the lessons at the +top of Putney Hill.) +</p> + +<p> +“You stow it,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, looking hard and threateningly at the +junior apprentice, and suddenly adding in a tone of bitter contempt,—“Jampot.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m getting fairly safe upon it now,” he told Miss Howe. +</p> + +<p> +At other times Hoopdriver might have further resented the satirical efforts of +the apprentice, but his mind was too full of the projected Tour to admit any +petty delicacies of dignity. He left the supper table early, so that he might +put in a good hour at the desperate gymnastics up the Roehampton Road before it +would be time to come back for locking up. When the gas was turned off for the +night he was sitting on the edge of his bed, rubbing arnica into his knee—a new +and very big place—and studying a Road Map of the South of England. Briggs of +the “dresses,” who shared the room with him, was sitting up in bed and trying +to smoke in the dark. Briggs had never been on a cycle in his life, but he felt +Hoopdriver’s inexperience and offered such advice as occurred to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Have the machine thoroughly well oiled,” said Briggs, “carry one or two lemons +with you, don’t tear yourself to death the first day, and sit upright. Never +lose control of the machine, and always sound the bell on every possible +opportunity. You mind those things, and nothing very much can’t happen to you, +Hoopdriver—you take my word.” +</p> + +<p> +He would lapse into silence for a minute, save perhaps for a curse or so at his +pipe, and then break out with an entirely different set of tips. +</p> + +<p> +“Avoid running over dogs, Hoopdriver, whatever you do. It’s one of the worst +things you can do to run over a dog. Never let the machine buckle—there was a +man killed only the other day through his wheel buckling—don’t scorch, don’t +ride on the foot-path, keep your own side of the road, and if you see a +tramline, go round the corner at once, and hurry off into the next county—and +always light up before dark. You mind just a few little things like that, +Hoopdriver, and nothing much can’t happen to you—you take my word.” +</p> + +<p> +“Right you are!” said Hoopdriver. “Good-night, old man.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night,” said Briggs, and there was silence for a space, save for the +succulent respiration of the pipe. Hoopdriver rode off into Dreamland on his +machine, and was scarcely there before he was pitched back into the world of +sense again.—Something—what was it? +</p> + +<p> +“Never oil the steering. It’s fatal,” a voice that came from round a fitful +glow of light, was saying. “And clean the chain daily with black-lead. You mind +just a few little things like that—” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord <i>love</i> us!” said Hoopdriver, and pulled the bedclothes over his +ears. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter04"></a>IV.<br/> +THE RIDING FORTH OF MR. HOOPDRIVER</h2> + +<p> +Only those who toil six long days out of the seven, and all the year round, +save for one brief glorious fortnight or ten days in the summer time, know the +exquisite sensations of the First Holiday Morning. All the dreary, +uninteresting routine drops from you suddenly, your chains fall about your +feet. All at once you are Lord of yourself, Lord of every hour in the long, +vacant day; you may go where you please, call none Sir or Madame, have a lappel +free of pins, doff your black morning coat, and wear the colour of your heart, +and be a Man. You grudge sleep, you grudge eating, and drinking even, their +intrusion on those exquisite moments. There will be no more rising before +breakfast in casual old clothing, to go dusting and getting ready in a +cheerless, shutter-darkened, wrappered-up shop, no more imperious cries of, +“Forward, Hoopdriver,” no more hasty meals, and weary attendance on fitful old +women, for ten blessed days. The first morning is by far the most glorious, for +you hold your whole fortune in your hands. Thereafter, every night, comes a +pang, a spectre, that will not be exorcised—the premonition of the return. The +shadow of going back, of being put in the cage again for another twelve months, +lies blacker and blacker across the sunlight. But on the first morning of the +ten the holiday has no past, and ten days seems as good as infinity. +</p> + +<p> +And it was fine, full of a promise of glorious days, a deep blue sky with +dazzling piles of white cloud here and there, as though celestial haymakers had +been piling the swathes of last night’s clouds into cocks for a coming cartage. +There were thrushes in the Richmond Road, and a lark on Putney Heath. The +freshness of dew was in the air; dew or the relics of an overnight shower +glittered on the leaves and grass. Hoopdriver had breakfasted early by Mrs. +Gunn’s complaisance. He wheeled his machine up Putney Hill, and his heart sang +within him. Halfway up, a dissipated-looking black cat rushed home across the +road and vanished under a gate. All the big red-brick houses behind the +variegated shrubs and trees had their blinds down still, and he would not have +changed places with a soul in any one of them for a hundred pounds. +</p> + +<p> +He had on his new brown cycling suit—a handsome Norfolk jacket thing for +30/(sp.)—and his legs—those martyr legs—were more than consoled by thick +chequered stockings, “thin in the foot, thick in the leg,” for all they had +endured. A neat packet of American cloth behind the saddle contained his change +of raiment, and the bell and the handle-bar and the hubs and lamp, albeit a +trifle freckled by wear, glittered blindingly in the rising sunlight. And at +the top of the hill, after only one unsuccessful attempt, which, somehow, +terminated on the green, Hoopdriver mounted, and with a stately and cautious +restraint in his pace, and a dignified curvature of path, began his great +Cycling Tour along the Southern Coast. +</p> + +<p> +There is only one phrase to describe his course at this stage, and that +is—voluptuous curves. He did not ride fast, he did not ride straight, an +exacting critic might say he did not ride well—but he rode generously, +opulently, using the whole road and even nibbling at the footpath. The +excitement never flagged. So far he had never passed or been passed by +anything, but as yet the day was young and the road was clear. He doubted his +steering so much that, for the present, he had resolved to dismount at the +approach of anything else upon wheels. The shadows of the trees lay very long +and blue across the road, the morning sunlight was like amber fire. +</p> + +<p> +At the cross-roads at the top of West Hill, where the cattle trough stands, he +turned towards Kingston and set himself to scale the little bit of ascent. An +early heath-keeper, in his velveteen jacket, marvelled at his efforts. And +while he yet struggled, the head of a carter rose over the brow. +</p> + +<p> +At the sight of him Mr. Hoopdriver, according to his previous determination, +resolved to dismount. He tightened the brake, and the machine stopped dead. He +was trying to think what he did with his right leg whilst getting off. He +gripped the handles and released the brake, standing on the left pedal and +waving his right foot in the air. Then—these things take so long in the +telling—he found the machine was falling over to the right. While he was +deciding upon a plan of action, gravitation appears to have been busy. He was +still irresolute when he found the machine on the ground, himself kneeling upon +it, and a vague feeling in his mind that again Providence had dealt harshly +with his shin. This happened when he was just level with the heath-keeper. The +man in the approaching cart stood up to see the ruins better. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>That</i> ain’t the way to get off,” said the heath-keeper. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver picked up the machine. The handle was twisted askew again. He +said something under his breath. He would have to unscrew the beastly thing. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>That</i> ain’t the way to get off,” repeated the heath-keeper, after a +silence. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> know that,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, testily, determined to overlook the +new specimen on his shin at any cost. He unbuckled the wallet behind the +saddle, to get out a screw hammer. +</p> + +<p> +“If you know it ain’t the way to get off—whaddyer do it for?” said the +heath-keeper, in a tone of friendly controversy. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver got out his screw hammer and went to the handle. He was annoyed. +“That’s my business, I suppose,” he said, fumbling with the screw. The unusual +exertion had made his hands shake frightfully. +</p> + +<p> +The heath-keeper became meditative, and twisted his stick in his hands behind +his back. “You’ve broken yer ’andle, ain’t yer?” he said presently. Just then +the screw hammer slipped off the nut. Mr. Hoopdriver used a nasty, low word. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re trying things, them bicycles,” said the heath-keeper, charitably. +“Very trying.” Mr. Hoopdriver gave the nut a vicious turn and suddenly stood +up—he was holding the front wheel between his knees. “I wish,” said he, with a +catch in his voice, “I wish you’d leave off staring at me.” +</p> + +<p> +Then with the air of one who has delivered an ultimatum, he began replacing the +screw hammer in the wallet. +</p> + +<p> +The heath-keeper never moved. Possibly he raised his eyebrows, and certainly he +stared harder than he did before. “You’re pretty unsociable,” he said slowly, +as Mr. Hoopdriver seized the handles and stood ready to mount as soon as the +cart had passed. +</p> + +<p> +The indignation gathered slowly but surely. “Why don’t you ride on a private +road of your own if no one ain’t to speak to you?” asked the heath-keeper, +perceiving more and more clearly the bearing of the matter. “Can’t no one make +a passin’ remark to you, Touchy? Ain’t I good enough to speak to you? Been +struck wooden all of a sudden?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver stared into the Immensity of the Future. He was rigid with +emotion. It was like abusing the Lions in Trafalgar Square. But the +heath-keeper felt his honour was at stake. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you make no remarks to ’<i>im</i>,” said the keeper as the carter came +up broadside to them. “’E’s a bloomin’ dook, ’e is. ’E don’t converse with no +one under a earl. ’E’s off to Windsor, ’e is; that’s why ’e’s stickin’ his +be’ind out so haughty. Pride! Why, ’e’s got so much of it, ’e has to carry some +of it in that there bundle there, for fear ’e’d bust if ’e didn’t ease hisself +a bit—’<i>E</i>—” +</p> + +<p> +But Mr. Hoopdriver heard no more. He was hopping vigorously along the road, in +a spasmodic attempt to remount. He missed the treadle once and swore viciously, +to the keeper’s immense delight. “Nar! Nar!” said the heath-keeper. +</p> + +<p> +In another moment Mr. Hoopdriver was up, and after one terrific lurch of the +machine, the heath-keeper dropped out of earshot. Mr. Hoopdriver would have +liked to look back at his enemy, but he usually twisted round and upset if he +tried that. He had to imagine the indignant heath-keeper telling the carter all +about it. He tried to infuse as much disdain as possible into his retreating +aspect. +</p> + +<p> +He drove on his sinuous way down the dip by the new mere and up the little rise +to the crest of the hill that drops into Kingston Vale; and so remarkable is +the psychology of cycling, that he rode all the straighter and easier because +the emotions the heath-keeper had aroused relieved his mind of the constant +expectation of collapse that had previously unnerved him. To ride a bicycle +properly is very like a love affair—chiefly it is a matter of faith. Believe +you do it, and the thing is done; doubt, and, for the life of you, you cannot. +</p> + +<p> +Now you may perhaps imagine that as he rode on, his feelings towards the +heath-keeper were either vindictive or remorseful,—vindictive for the +aggravation or remorseful for his own injudicious display of ill temper. As a +matter of fact, they were nothing of the sort. A sudden, a wonderful gratitude, +possessed him. The Glory of the Holidays had resumed its sway with a sudden +accession of splendour. At the crest of the hill he put his feet upon the +footrests, and now riding moderately straight, went, with a palpitating brake, +down that excellent descent. A new delight was in his eyes, quite over and +above the pleasure of rushing through the keen, sweet, morning air. He reached +out his thumb and twanged his bell out of sheer happiness. +</p> + +<p> +“‘He’s a bloomin’ Dook—he is!’” said Mr. Hoopdriver to himself, in a soft +undertone, as he went soaring down the hill, and again, “‘He’s a bloomin’ +Dook!”’ He opened his mouth in a silent laugh. It was having a decent cut did +it. His social superiority had been so evident that even a man like that +noticed it. No more Manchester Department for ten days! Out of Manchester, a +Man. The draper Hoopdriver, the Hand, had vanished from existence. Instead was +a gentleman, a man of pleasure, with a five-pound note, two sovereigns, and +some silver at various convenient points of his person. At any rate as good as +a Dook, if not precisely in the peerage. Involuntarily at the thought of his +funds Hoopdriver’s right hand left the handle and sought his breast pocket, to +be immediately recalled by a violent swoop of the machine towards the cemetery. +Whirroo! Just missed that half-brick! Mischievous brutes there were in the +world to put such a thing in the road. Some blooming ’Arry or other! Ought to +prosecute a few of these roughs, and the rest would know better. That must be +the buckle of the wallet was rattling on the mud-guard. How cheerfully the +wheels buzzed! +</p> + +<p> +The cemetery was very silent and peaceful, but the Vale was waking, and windows +rattled and squeaked up, and a white dog came out of one of the houses and +yelped at him. He got off, rather breathless, at the foot of Kingston Hill, and +pushed up. Halfway up, an early milk chariot rattled by him; two dirty men with +bundles came hurrying down. Hoopdriver felt sure they were burglars, carrying +home the swag. +</p> + +<p> +It was up Kingston Hill that he first noticed a peculiar feeling, a slight +tightness at his knees; but he noticed, too, at the top that he rode straighter +than he did before. The pleasure of riding straight blotted out these first +intimations of fatigue. A man on horseback appeared; Hoopdriver, in a tumult of +soul at his own temerity, passed him. Then down the hill into Kingston, with +the screw hammer, behind in the wallet, rattling against the oil can. He +passed, without misadventure, a fruiterer’s van and a sluggish cartload of +bricks. And in Kingston Hoopdriver, with the most exquisite sensations, saw the +shutters half removed from a draper’s shop, and two yawning youths, in dusty +old black jackets and with dirty white comforters about their necks, clearing +up the planks and boxes and wrappers in the window, preparatory to dressing it +out. Even so had Hoopdriver been on the previous day. But now, was he not a +bloomin’ Dook, palpably in the sight of common men? Then round the corner to +the right—bell banged furiously—and so along the road to Surbiton. +</p> + +<p> +Whoop for Freedom and Adventure! Every now and then a house with an expression +of sleepy surprise would open its eye as he passed, and to the right of him for +a mile or so the weltering Thames flashed and glittered. Talk of your <i>joie +de vivre!</i> Albeit with a certain cramping sensation about the knees and +calves slowly forcing itself upon his attention. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter05"></a>V.<br/> +THE SHAMEFUL EPISODE OF THE YOUNG LADY IN GREY</h2> + +<p> +Now you must understand that Mr. Hoopdriver was not one of your fast young men. +If he had been King Lemuel, he could not have profited more by his mother’s +instructions. He regarded the feminine sex as something to bow to and smirk at +from a safe distance. Years of the intimate remoteness of a counter leave their +mark upon a man. It was an adventure for him to take one of the Young Ladies of +the establishment to church on a Sunday. Few modern young men could have +merited less the epithet “Dorg.” But I have thought at times that his machine +may have had something of the blade in its metal. Decidedly it was a machine +with a past. Mr. Hoopdriver had bought it second-hand from Hare’s in Putney, +and Hare said it had had several owners. Second-hand was scarcely the word for +it, and Hare was mildly puzzled that he should be selling such an antiquity. He +said it was perfectly sound, if a little old-fashioned, but he was absolutely +silent about its moral character. It may even have begun its career with a +poet, say, in his glorious youth. It may have been the bicycle of a Really Bad +Man. No one who has ever ridden a cycle of any kind but will witness that the +things are unaccountably prone to pick up bad habits—and keep them. +</p> + +<p> +It is undeniable that it became convulsed with the most violent emotions +directly the Young Lady in Grey appeared. It began an absolutely unprecedented +Wabble—unprecedented so far as Hoopdriver’s experience went. It “showed +off”—the most decadent sinuosity. It left a track like one of Beardsley’s +feathers. He suddenly realised, too, that his cap was loose on his head and his +breath a mere remnant. +</p> + +<p> +The Young Lady in Grey was also riding a bicycle. She was dressed in a +beautiful bluish-gray, and the sun behind her drew her outline in gold and left +the rest in shadow. Hoopdriver was dimly aware that she was young, rather +slender, dark, and with a bright colour and bright eyes. Strange doubts +possessed him as to the nature of her nether costume. He had heard of such +things of course. French, perhaps. Her handles glittered; a jet of sunlight +splashed off her bell blindingly. She was approaching the high road along an +affluent from the villas of Surbiton. The roads converged slantingly. She was +travelling at about the same pace as Mr. Hoopdriver. The appearances pointed to +a meeting at the fork of the roads. +</p> + +<p> +Hoopdriver was seized with a horrible conflict of doubts. By contrast with her +he rode disgracefully. Had he not better get off at once and pretend something +was wrong with his treadle? Yet even the end of getting off was an uncertainty. +That last occasion on Putney Heath! On the other hand, what would happen if he +kept on? To go very slow seemed the abnegation of his manhood. To crawl after a +mere schoolgirl! Besides, she was not riding very fast. On the other hand, to +thrust himself in front of her, consuming the road in his tendril-like advance, +seemed an incivility—greed. He would leave her such a very little. His business +training made him prone to bow and step aside. If only one could take one’s +hands off the handles, one might pass with a silent elevation of the hat, of +course. But even that was a little suggestive of a funeral. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile the roads converged. She was looking at him. She was flushed, a +little thin, and had very bright eyes. Her red lips fell apart. She may have +been riding hard, but it looked uncommonly like a faint smile. And the things +were—yes!—<i>rationals!</i> Suddenly an impulse to bolt from the situation +became clamorous. Mr. Hoopdriver pedalled convulsively, intending to pass her. +He jerked against some tin thing on the road, and it flew up between front +wheel and mud-guard. He twisted round towards her. Had the machine a devil? +</p> + +<p> +At that supreme moment it came across him that he would have done wiser to +dismount. He gave a frantic ‘whoop’ and tried to get round, then, as he seemed +falling over, he pulled the handles straight again and to the left by an +instinctive motion, and shot behind her hind wheel, missing her by a hair’s +breadth. The pavement kerb awaited him. He tried to recover, and found himself +jumped up on the pavement and riding squarely at a neat wooden paling. He +struck this with a terrific impact and shot forward off his saddle into a +clumsy entanglement. Then he began to tumble over sideways, and completed the +entire figure in a sitting position on the gravel, with his feet between the +fork and the stay of the machine. The concussion on the gravel shook his entire +being. He remained in that position, wishing that he had broken his neck, +wishing even more heartily that he had never been born. The glory of life had +departed. Bloomin’ Dook, indeed! These unwomanly women! +</p> + +<p> +There was a soft whirr, the click of a brake, two footfalls, and the Young Lady +in Grey stood holding her machine. She had turned round and come back to him. +The warm sunlight now was in her face. “Are you hurt?” she said. She had a +pretty, clear, girlish voice. She was really very young—quite a girl, in fact. +And rode so well! It was a bitter draught. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver stood up at once. “Not a bit,” he said, a little ruefully. He +became painfully aware that large patches of gravel scarcely improve the +appearance of a Norfolk suit. “I’m very sorry indeed—” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s my fault,” she said, interrupting and so saving him on the very verge of +calling her ‘Miss.’ (He knew ‘Miss’ was wrong, but it was deep-seated habit +with him.) “I tried to pass you on the wrong side.” Her face and eyes seemed +all alive. “It’s my place to be sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it was my steering—” +</p> + +<p> +“I ought to have seen you were a Novice”—with a touch of superiority. “But you +rode so straight coming along there!” +</p> + +<p> +She really was—dashed pretty. Mr. Hoopdriver’s feelings passed the nadir. When +he spoke again there was the faintest flavour of the aristocratic in his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s my first ride, as a matter of fact. But that’s no excuse for my ah! +blundering—” +</p> + +<p> +“Your finger’s bleeding,” she said, abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +He saw his knuckle was barked. “I didn’t feel it,” he said, feeling manly. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t at first. Have you any sticking-plaster? If not—” She balanced her +machine against herself. She had a little side pocket, and she whipped out a +small packet of sticking-plaster with a pair of scissors in a sheath at the +side, and cut off a generous portion. He had a wild impulse to ask her to stick +it on for him. Controlled. “Thank you,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Machine all right?” she asked, looking past him at the prostrate vehicle, her +hands on her handle-bar. For the first time Hoopdriver did not feel proud of +his machine. +</p> + +<p> +He turned and began to pick up the fallen fabric. He looked over his shoulder, +and she was gone, turned his head over the other shoulder down the road, and +she was riding off. “<i>Orf!</i>” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “Well, I’m blowed!—Talk +about Slap Up!” (His aristocratic refinement rarely adorned his speech in his +private soliloquies.) His mind was whirling. One fact was clear. A most +delightful and novel human being had flashed across his horizon and was going +out of his life again. The Holiday madness was in his blood. She looked round! +</p> + +<p> +At that he rushed his machine into the road, and began a hasty ascent. +Unsuccessful. Try again. Confound it, will he <i>never</i> be able to get up on +the thing again? She will be round the corner in a minute. Once more. Ah! +Pedal! Wabble! No! Right this time! He gripped the handles and put his head +down. He would overtake her. +</p> + +<p> +The situation was primordial. The Man beneath prevailed for a moment over the +civilised superstructure, the Draper. He pushed at the pedals with archaic +violence. So Palaeolithic man may have ridden his simple bicycle of chipped +flint in pursuit of his exogamous affinity. She vanished round the corner. His +effort was Titanic. What should he say when he overtook her? That scarcely +disturbed him at first. How fine she had looked, flushed with the exertion of +riding, breathing a little fast, but elastic and active! Talk about your +ladylike, homekeeping girls with complexions like cold veal! But what should he +say to her? That was a bother. And he could not lift his cap without risking a +repetition of his previous ignominy. She was a real Young Lady. No mistake +about that! None of your blooming shop girls. (There is no greater contempt in +the world than that of shop men for shop girls, unless it be that of shop girls +for shop men.) Phew! This was work. A certain numbness came and went at his +knees. +</p> + +<p> +“May I ask to whom I am indebted?” he panted to himself, trying it over. That +might do. Lucky he had a card case! A hundred a shilling—while you wait. He was +getting winded. The road was certainly a bit uphill. He turned the corner and +saw a long stretch of road, and a grey dress vanishing. He set his teeth. Had +he gained on her at all? “Monkey on a gridiron!” yelped a small boy. Hoopdriver +redoubled his efforts. His breath became audible, his steering unsteady, his +pedalling positively ferocious. A drop of perspiration ran into his eye, +irritant as acid. The road really was uphill beyond dispute. All his physiology +began to cry out at him. A last tremendous effort brought him to the corner and +showed yet another extent of shady roadway, empty save for a baker’s van. His +front wheel suddenly shrieked aloud. “Oh Lord!” said Hoopdriver, relaxing. +</p> + +<p> +Anyhow she was not in sight. He got off unsteadily, and for a moment his legs +felt like wisps of cotton. He balanced his machine against the grassy edge of +the path and sat down panting. His hands were gnarled with swollen veins and +shaking palpably, his breath came viscid. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m hardly in training yet,” he remarked. His legs had gone leaden. “I don’t +feel as though I’d had a mouthful of breakfast.” Presently he slapped his side +pocket and produced therefrom a brand-new cigarette case and a packet of +Vansittart’s Red Herring cigarettes. He filled the case. Then his eye fell with +a sudden approval on the ornamental chequering of his new stockings. The +expression in his eyes faded slowly to abstract meditation. +</p> + +<p> +“She <i>was</i> a stunning girl,” he said. “I wonder if I shall ever set eyes +on her again. And she knew how to ride, too! Wonder what she thought of me.” +</p> + +<p> +The phrase ‘bloomin’ Dook’ floated into his mind with a certain flavour of +comfort. +</p> + +<p> +He lit a cigarette, and sat smoking and meditating. He did not even look up +when vehicles passed. It was perhaps ten minutes before he roused himself. +“What rot it is! What’s the good of thinking such things,” he said. “I’m only a +blessed draper’s assistant.” (To be exact, he did not say blessed. The service +of a shop may polish a man’s exterior ways, but the ’prentices’ dormitory is an +indifferent school for either manners or morals.) He stood up and began +wheeling his machine towards Esher. It was going to be a beautiful day, and the +hedges and trees and the open country were all glorious to his town-tired eyes. +But it was a little different from the elation of his start. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at the gentleman wizzer bicitle,” said a nursemaid on the path to a +personage in a perambulator. That healed him a little. “‘Gentleman wizzer +bicitle,’—‘bloomin’ Dook’—I can’t look so very seedy,” he said to himself. +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>wonder</i>—I should just like to know—” +</p> + +<p> +There was something very comforting in the track of <i>her</i> pneumatic +running straight and steady along the road before him. It must be hers. No +other pneumatic had been along the road that morning. It was just possible, of +course, that he might see her once more—coming back. Should he try and say +something smart? He speculated what manner of girl she might be. Probably she +was one of these here New Women. He had a persuasion the cult had been +maligned. Anyhow she was a Lady. And rich people, too! Her machine couldn’t +have cost much under twenty pounds. His mind came round and dwelt some time on +her visible self. Rational dress didn’t look a bit unwomanly. However, he +disdained to be one of your fortune-hunters. Then his thoughts drove off at a +tangent. He would certainly have to get something to eat at the next public +house. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter06"></a>VI.<br/> +ON THE ROAD TO RIPLEY</h2> + +<p> +In the fulness of time, Mr. Hoopdriver drew near the Marquis of Granby at +Esher, and as he came under the railway arch and saw the inn in front of him, +he mounted his machine again and rode bravely up to the doorway. Burton and +biscuit and cheese he had, which, indeed, is Burton in its proper company; and +as he was eating there came a middleaged man in a drab cycling suit, very red +and moist and angry in the face, and asked bitterly for a lemon squash. And he +sat down upon the seat in the bar and mopped his face. But scarcely had he sat +down before he got up again and stared out of the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +“Damn!” said he. Then, “Damned Fool!” +</p> + +<p> +“Eigh?” said Mr. Hoopdriver, looking round suddenly with a piece of cheese in +his cheek. +</p> + +<p> +The man in drab faced him. “I called myself a Damned Fool, sir. Have you any +objections?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!—None. None,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “I thought you spoke to me. I didn’t +hear what you said.” +</p> + +<p> +“To have a contemplative disposition and an energetic temperament, sir, is +hell. Hell, I tell you. A contemplative disposition and a phlegmatic +temperament, all very well. But energy and philosophy—!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver looked as intelligent as he could, but said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no hurry, sir, none whatever. I came out for exercise, gentle +exercise, and to notice the scenery and to botanise. And no sooner do I get on +the accursed machine, than off I go hammer and tongs; I never look to right or +left, never notice a flower, never see a view, get hot, juicy, red,—like a +grilled chop. Here I am, sir. Come from Guildford in something under the hour. +<i>why</i>, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Because I’m a damned fool, sir. Because I’ve reservoirs and reservoirs of +muscular energy, and one or other of them is always leaking. It’s a most +interesting road, birds and trees, I’ve no doubt, and wayside flowers, and +there’s nothing I should enjoy more than watching them. But I can’t. Get me on +that machine, and I have to go. Get me on anything, and I have to go. And I +don’t want to go a bit. <i>Why</i> should a man rush about like a rocket, all +pace and fizzle? Why? It makes me furious. I can assure you, sir, I go +scorching along the road, and cursing aloud at myself for doing it. A quiet, +dignified, philosophical man, that’s what I am—at bottom; and here I am dancing +with rage and swearing like a drunken tinker at a perfect stranger— +</p> + +<p> +“But my day’s wasted. I’ve lost all that country road, and now I’m on the +fringe of London. And I might have loitered all the morning! Ugh! Thank Heaven, +sir, you have not the irritable temperament, that you are not goaded to madness +by your endogenous sneers, by the eternal wrangling of an uncomfortable soul +and body. I tell you, I lead a cat and dog life—But what <i>is</i> the use of +talking?—It’s all of a piece!” +</p> + +<p> +He tossed his head with unspeakable self-disgust, pitched the lemon squash into +his mouth, paid for it, and without any further remark strode to the door. Mr. +Hoopdriver was still wondering what to say when his interlocutor vanished. +There was a noise of a foot spurning the gravel, and when Mr. Hoopdriver +reached the doorway, the man in drab was a score of yards Londonward. He had +already gathered pace. He pedalled with ill-suppressed anger, and his head was +going down. In another moment he flew swiftly out of sight under the railway +arch, and Mr. Hoopdriver saw him no more. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter07"></a>VII.</h2> + +<p> +After this whirlwind Mr. Hoopdriver paid his reckoning and—being now a little +rested about the muscles of the knees—resumed his saddle and rode on in the +direction of Ripley, along an excellent but undulating road. He was pleased to +find his command over his machine already sensibly increased. He set himself +little exercises as he went along and performed them with variable success. +There was, for instance, steering in between a couple of stones, say a foot +apart, a deed of little difficulty as far as the front wheel is concerned. But +the back wheel, not being under the sway of the human eye, is apt to take a +vicious jump over the obstacle, which sends a violent concussion all along the +spine to the skull, and will even jerk a loosely fastened hat over the eyes, +and so lead to much confusion. And again, there was taking the hand or hands +off the handlebar, a thing simple in itself, but complex in its consequences. +This particularly was a feat Mr. Hoopdriver desired to do, for several +divergent reasons; but at present it simply led to convulsive balancings and +novel and inelegant modes of dismounting. +</p> + +<p> +The human nose is, at its best, a needless excrescence. There are those who +consider it ornamental, and would regard a face deprived of its assistance with +pity or derision; but it is doubtful whether our esteem is dictated so much by +a sense of its absolute beauty as by the vitiating effect of a universally +prevalent fashion. In the case of bicycle students, as in the young of both +sexes, its inutility is aggravated by its persistent annoyance—it requires +constant attention. Until one can ride with one hand, and search for, secure, +and use a pocket handkerchief with the other, cycling is necessarily a constant +series of descents. Nothing can be further from the author’s ambition than a +wanton realism, but Mr. Hoopdriver’s nose is a plain and salient fact, and face +it we must. And, in addition to this inconvenience, there are flies. Until the +cyclist can steer with one hand, his face is given over to Beelzebub. +Contemplative flies stroll over it, and trifle absently with its most sensitive +surfaces. The only way to dislodge them is to shake the head forcibly and to +writhe one’s features violently. This is not only a lengthy and frequently +ineffectual method, but one exceedingly terrifying to foot passengers. And +again, sometimes the beginner rides for a space with one eye closed by +perspiration, giving him a waggish air foreign to his mood and ill calculated +to overawe the impertinent. However, you will appreciate now the motive of Mr. +Hoopdriver’s experiments. He presently attained sufficient dexterity to slap +himself smartly and violently in the face with his right hand, without +certainly overturning the machine; but his pocket handkerchief might have been +in California for any good it was to him while he was in the saddle. +</p> + +<p> +Yet you must not think that because Mr. Hoopdriver was a little uncomfortable, +he was unhappy in the slightest degree. In the background of his consciousness +was the sense that about this time Briggs would be half-way through his window +dressing, and Gosling, the apprentice, busy, with a chair turned down over the +counter and his ears very red, trying to roll a piece of huckaback—only those +who have rolled pieces of huckaback know quite how detestable huckaback is to +roll—and the shop would be dusty and, perhaps, the governor about and snappy. +And here was quiet and greenery, and one mucked about as the desire took one, +without a soul to see, and here was no wailing of “Sayn,” no folding of +remnants, no voice to shout, “Hoopdriver, forward!” And once he almost ran over +something wonderful, a little, low, red beast with a yellowish tail, that went +rushing across the road before him. It was the first weasel he had ever seen in +his cockney life. There were miles of this, scores of miles of this before him, +pinewood and oak forest, purple, heathery moorland and grassy down, lush +meadows, where shining rivers wound their lazy way, villages with +square-towered, flint churches, and rambling, cheap, and hearty inns, clean, +white, country towns, long downhill stretches, where one might ride at one’s +ease (overlooking a jolt or so), and far away, at the end of it all,—the sea. +</p> + +<p> +What mattered a fly or so in the dawn of these delights? Perhaps he had been +dashed a minute by the shameful episode of the Young Lady in Grey, and perhaps +the memory of it was making itself a little lair in a corner of his brain from +which it could distress him in the retrospect by suggesting that he looked like +a fool; but for the present that trouble was altogether in abeyance. The man in +drab—evidently a swell—had spoken to him as his equal, and the knees of his +brown suit and the chequered stockings were ever before his eyes. (Or, rather, +you could see the stockings by carrying the head a little to one side.) And to +feel, little by little, his mastery over this delightful, treacherous machine, +growing and growing! Every half-mile or so his knees reasserted themselves, and +he dismounted and sat awhile by the roadside. +</p> + +<p> +It was at a charming little place between Esher and Cobham, where a bridge +crosses a stream, that Mr. Hoopdriver came across the other cyclist in brown. +It is well to notice the fact here, although the interview was of the +slightest, because it happened that subsequently Hoopdriver saw a great deal +more of this other man in brown. The other cyclist in brown had a machine of +dazzling newness, and a punctured pneumatic lay across his knees. He was a man +of thirty or more, with a whitish face, an aquiline nose, a lank, flaxen +moustache, and very fair hair, and he scowled at the job before him. At the +sight of him Mr. Hoopdriver pulled himself together, and rode by with the air +of one born to the wheel. “A splendid morning,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, “and a +fine surface.” +</p> + +<p> +“The morning and you and the surface be everlastingly damned!” said the other +man in brown as Hoopdriver receded. Hoopdriver heard the mumble and did not +distinguish the words, and he felt a pleasing sense of having duly asserted the +wide sympathy that binds all cyclists together, of having behaved himself as +becomes one of the brotherhood of the wheel. The other man in brown watched his +receding aspect. “Greasy proletarian,” said the other man in brown, feeling a +prophetic dislike. “Got a suit of brown, the very picture of this. One would +think his sole aim in life had been to caricature me. It’s Fortune’s way with +me. Look at his insteps on the treadles! Why does Heaven make such men?” +</p> + +<p> +And having lit a cigarette, the other man in brown returned to the business in +hand. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver worked up the hill towards Cobham to a point that he felt sure +was out of sight of the other man in brown, and then he dismounted and pushed +his machine; until the proximity of the village and a proper pride drove him +into the saddle again. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter08"></a>VIII.</h2> + +<p> +Beyond Cobham came a delightful incident, delightful, that is, in its beginning +if a trifle indeterminate in the retrospect. It was perhaps half-way between +Cobham and Ripley. Mr. Hoopdriver dropped down a little hill, where, unfenced +from the road, fine mossy trees and bracken lay on either side; and looking up +he saw an open country before him, covered with heather and set with pines, and +a yellow road running across it, and half a mile away perhaps, a little grey +figure by the wayside waving something white. “Never!” said Mr. Hoopdriver with +his hands tightening on the handles. +</p> + +<p> +He resumed the treadles, staring away before him, jolted over a stone, wabbled, +recovered, and began riding faster at once, with his eyes ahead. “It can’t be,” +said Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +He rode his straightest, and kept his pedals spinning, albeit a limp numbness +had resumed possession of his legs. “It <i>can’t</i> be,” he repeated, feeling +every moment more assured that it <i>was</i>. “Lord! I don’t know even now,” +said Mr. Hoopdriver (legs awhirling), and then, “Blow my legs!” +</p> + +<p> +But he kept on and drew nearer and nearer, breathing hard and gathering flies +like a flypaper. In the valley he was hidden. Then the road began to rise, and +the resistance of the pedals grew. As he crested the hill he saw her, not a +hundred yards away from him. “It’s her!” he said. “It’s her—right enough. It’s +the suit’s done it,”—which was truer even than Mr. Hoopdriver thought. But now +she was not waving her handkerchief, she was not even looking at him. She was +wheeling her machine slowly along the road towards him, and admiring the pretty +wooded hills towards Weybridge. She might have been unaware of his existence +for all the recognition he got. +</p> + +<p> +For a moment horrible doubts troubled Mr. Hoopdriver. Had that handkerchief +been a dream? Besides which he was deliquescent and scarlet, and felt so. It +must be her coquetry—the handkerchief was indisputable. Should he ride up to +her and get off, or get off and ride up to her? It was as well she didn’t look, +because he would certainly capsize if he lifted his cap. Perhaps that was her +consideration. Even as he hesitated he was upon her. She must have heard his +breathing. He gripped the brake. Steady! His right leg waved in the air, and he +came down heavily and staggering, but erect. She turned her eyes upon him with +admirable surprise. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver tried to smile pleasantly, hold up his machine, raise his cap, +and bow gracefully. Indeed, he felt that he did as much. He was a man +singularly devoid of the minutiæ of self-consciousness, and he was quite +unaware of a tail of damp hair lying across his forehead, and just clearing his +eyes, and of the general disorder of his coiffure. There was an interrogative +pause. +</p> + +<p> +“What can I have the pleasure—” began Mr. Hoopdriver, insinuatingly. “I mean” +(remembering his emancipation and abruptly assuming his most aristocratic +intonation), “can I be of any assistance to you?” +</p> + +<p> +The Young Lady in Grey bit her lower lip and said very prettily, “None, thank +you.” She glanced away from him and made as if she would proceed. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said Mr. Hoopdriver, taken aback and suddenly crestfallen again. It was +so unexpected. He tried to grasp the situation. Was she coquetting? Or had he—? +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me, one minute,” he said, as she began to wheel her machine again. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” she said, stopping and staring a little, with the colour in her cheeks +deepening. +</p> + +<p> +“I should not have alighted if I had not—imagined that you—er, waved something +white—” He paused. +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him doubtfully. He <i>had</i> seen it! She decided that he was +not an unredeemed rough taking advantage of a mistake, but an innocent soul +meaning well while seeking happiness. “I <i>did</i> wave my handkerchief,” she +said. “I’m very sorry. I am expecting—a friend, a gentleman,”—she seemed to +flush pink for a minute. “He is riding a bicycle and dressed in—in brown; and +at a distance, you know—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, quite!” said Mr. Hoopdriver, bearing up in manly fashion against his +bitter disappointment. “Certainly.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awfully sorry, you know. Troubling you to dismount, and all that.” +</p> + +<p> +“No trouble. ’Ssure you,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, mechanically and bowing over his +saddle as if it was a counter. Somehow he could not find it in his heart to +tell her that the man was beyond there with a punctured pneumatic. He looked +back along the road and tried to think of something else to say. But the gulf +in the conversation widened rapidly and hopelessly. “There’s nothing further,” +began Mr. Hoopdriver desperately, recurring to his stock of <i>clichés</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, thank you,” she said decisively. And immediately, “This <i>is</i> the +Ripley road?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “Ripley is about two miles from here. +According to the mile-stones.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” she said warmly. “Thank you so much. I felt sure there was no +mistake. And I really am awfully sorry—” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t mention it,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “Don’t mention it.” He hesitated and +gripped his handles to mount. “It’s me,” he said, “ought to be sorry.” Should +he say it? Was it an impertinence? Anyhow!—“Not being the other gentleman, you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +He tried a quietly insinuating smile that he knew for a grin even as he smiled +it; felt she disapproved—that she despised him, was overcome with shame at her +expression, turned his back upon her, and began (very clumsily) to mount. He +did so with a horrible swerve, and went pedalling off, riding very badly, as he +was only too painfully aware. Nevertheless, thank Heaven for the mounting! He +could not see her because it was so dangerous for him to look round, but he +could imagine her indignant and pitiless. He felt an unspeakable idiot. One had +to be so careful what one said to Young Ladies, and he’d gone and treated her +just as though she was only a Larky Girl. It was unforgivable. He always +<i>was</i> a fool. You could tell from her manner she didn’t think him a +gentleman. One glance, and she seemed to look clear through him and all his +presence. What rot it was venturing to speak to a girl like that! With her +education she was bound to see through him at once. +</p> + +<p> +How nicely she spoke too! nice clear-cut words! She made him feel what slush +his own accent was. And that last silly remark. What was it? ‘Not being the +other gentleman, you know!’ No point in it. And ‘<i>gentleman!</i>’ What +<i>could</i> she be thinking of him? +</p> + +<p> +But really the Young Lady in Grey had dismissed Hoopdriver from her thoughts +almost before he had vanished round the corner. She had thought no ill of him. +His manifest awe and admiration of her had given her not an atom of offence. +But for her just now there were weightier things to think about, things that +would affect all the rest of her life. She continued slowly walking her machine +Londonward. Presently she stopped. “Oh! Why <i>doesn’t</i> he come?” she said, +and stamped her foot petulantly. Then, as if in answer, coming down the hill +among the trees, appeared the other man in brown, dismounted and wheeling his +machine. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter09"></a>IX.<br/> +HOW MR. HOOPDRIVER WAS HAUNTED</h2> + +<p> +As Mr. Hoopdriver rode swaggering along the Ripley road, it came to him, with +an unwarrantable sense of comfort, that he had seen the last of the Young Lady +in Grey. But the ill-concealed bladery of the machine, the present machinery of +Fate, the <i>deus ex machina</i>, so to speak, was against him. The bicycle, +torn from this attractive young woman, grew heavier and heavier, and +continually more unsteady. It seemed a choice between stopping at Ripley or +dying in the flower of his days. He went into the Unicorn, after propping his +machine outside the door, and, as he cooled down and smoked his Red Herring +cigarette while the cold meat was getting ready, he saw from the window the +Young Lady in Grey and the other man in brown, entering Ripley. +</p> + +<p> +They filled him with apprehension by looking at the house which sheltered him, +but the sight of his bicycle, propped in a drunk and incapable attitude against +the doorway, humping its rackety mud-guard and leering at them with its +darkened lantern eye, drove them away—so it seemed to Mr. Hoopdriver—to the +spacious swallow of the Golden Dragon. The young lady was riding very slowly, +but the other man in brown had a bad puncture and was wheeling his machine. Mr. +Hoopdriver noted his flaxen moustache, his aquiline nose, his rather bent +shoulders, with a sudden, vivid dislike. +</p> + +<p> +The maid at the Unicorn is naturally a pleasant girl, but she is jaded by the +incessant incidence of cyclists, and Hoopdriver’s mind, even as he conversed +with her in that cultivated voice of his—of the weather, of the distance from +London, and of the excellence of the Ripley road—wandered to the incomparable +freshness and brilliance of the Young Lady in Grey. As he sat at meat he kept +turning his head to the window to see what signs there were of that person, but +the face of the Golden Dragon displayed no appreciation of the delightful +morsel it had swallowed. As an incidental consequence of this distraction, Mr. +Hoopdriver was for a minute greatly inconvenienced by a mouthful of mustard. +After he had called for his reckoning he went, his courage being high with meat +and mustard, to the door, intending to stand, with his legs wide apart and his +hands deep in his pockets, and stare boldly across the road. But just then the +other man in brown appeared in the gateway of the Golden Dragon yard—it is one +of those delightful inns that date from the coaching days—wheeling his +punctured machine. He was taking it to Flambeau’s, the repairer’s. He looked up +and saw Hoopdriver, stared for a minute, and then scowled darkly. +</p> + +<p> +But Hoopdriver remained stoutly in the doorway until the other man in brown had +disappeared into Flambeau’s. Then he glanced momentarily at the Golden Dragon, +puckered his mouth into a whistle of unconcern, and proceeded to wheel his +machine into the road until a sufficient margin for mounting was secured. +</p> + +<p> +Now, at that time, I say, Hoopdriver was rather desirous than not of seeing no +more of the Young Lady in Grey. The other man in brown he guessed was her +brother, albeit that person was of a pallid fairness, differing essentially +from her rich colouring; and, besides, he felt he had made a hopeless fool of +himself. But the afternoon was against him, intolerably hot, especially on the +top of his head, and the virtue had gone out of his legs to digest his cold +meat, and altogether his ride to Guildford was exceedingly intermittent. At +times he would walk, at times lounge by the wayside, and every public house, in +spite of Briggs and a sentiment of economy, meant a lemonade and a dash of +bitter. (For that is the experience of all those who go on wheels, that +drinking begets thirst, even more than thirst begets drinking, until at last +the man who yields becomes a hell unto himself, a hell in which the fire dieth +not, and the thirst is not quenched.) Until a pennyworth of acrid green apples +turned the current that threatened to carry him away. Ever and again a cycle, +or a party of cyclists, would go by, with glittering wheels and softly running +chains, and on each occasion, to save his self-respect, Mr. Hoopdriver +descended and feigned some trouble with his saddle. Each time he descended with +less trepidation. +</p> + +<p> +He did not reach Guildford until nearly four o’clock, and then he was so much +exhausted that he decided to put up there for the night, at the Yellow Hammer +Coffee Tavern. And after he had cooled a space and refreshed himself with tea +and bread and butter and jam,—the tea he drank noisily out of the saucer,—he +went out to loiter away the rest of the afternoon. Guildford is an altogether +charming old town, famous, so he learnt from a Guide Book, as the scene of +Master Tupper’s great historical novel of Stephen Langton, and it has a +delightful castle, all set about with geraniums and brass plates commemorating +the gentlemen who put them up, and its Guildhall is a Tudor building, very +pleasant to see, and in the afternoon the shops are busy and the people going +to and fro make the pavements look bright and prosperous. It was nice to peep +in the windows and see the heads of the men and girls in the drapers’ shops, +busy as busy, serving away. The High Street runs down at an angle of seventy +degrees to the horizon (so it seemed to Mr. Hoopdriver, whose feeling for +gradients was unnaturally exalted), and it brought his heart into his mouth to +see a cyclist ride down it, like a fly crawling down a window pane. The man +hadn’t even a brake. He visited the castle early in the evening and paid his +twopence to ascend the Keep. +</p> + +<p> +At the top, from the cage, he looked down over the clustering red roofs of the +town and the tower of the church, and then going to the southern side sat down +and lit a Red Herring cigarette, and stared away south over the old +bramble-bearing, fern-beset ruin, at the waves of blue upland that rose, one +behind another, across the Weald, to the lazy altitudes of Hindhead and Butser. +His pale grey eyes were full of complacency and pleasurable anticipation. +Tomorrow he would go riding across that wide valley. +</p> + +<p> +He did not notice any one else had come up the Keep after him until he heard a +soft voice behind him saying: “Well, <i>Miss Beaumont</i>, here’s the view.” +Something in the accent pointed to a jest in the name. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a dear old town, brother George,” answered another voice that sounded +familiar enough, and turning his head, Mr. Hoopdriver saw the other man in +brown and the Young Lady in Grey, with their backs towards him. She turned her +smiling profile towards Hoopdriver. “Only, you know, brothers don’t call their +sisters—” +</p> + +<p> +She glanced over her shoulder and saw Hoopdriver. “Damn!” said the other man in +brown, quite audibly, starting as he followed her glance. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver, with a fine air of indifference, resumed the Weald. “Beautiful +old town, isn’t it?” said the other man in brown, after a quite perceptible +pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t it?” said the Young Lady in Grey. +</p> + +<p> +Another pause began. +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t get alone anywhere,” said the other man in brown, looking round. +</p> + +<p> +Then Mr. Hoopdriver perceived clearly that he was in the way, and decided to +retreat. It was just his luck of course that he should stumble at the head of +the steps and vanish with indignity. This was the third time that he’d seen +<i>him</i>, and the fourth time <i>her</i>. And of course he was too big a +fat-head to raise his cap to her! He thought of that at the foot of the Keep. +Apparently they aimed at the South Coast just as he did. He’d get up betimes +the next day and hurry off to avoid her—them, that is. It never occurred to Mr. +Hoopdriver that Miss Beaumont and her brother might do exactly the same thing, +and that evening, at least, the peculiarity of a brother calling his sister +“Miss Beaumont” did not recur to him. He was much too preoccupied with an +analysis of his own share of these encounters. He found it hard to be +altogether satisfied about the figure he had cut, revise his memories as he +would. +</p> + +<p> +Once more quite unintentionally he stumbled upon these two people. It was about +seven o’clock. He stopped outside a linen draper’s and peered over the goods in +the window at the assistants in torment. He could have spent a whole day +happily at that. He told himself that he was trying to see how they dressed out +the brass lines over their counters, in a purely professional spirit, but down +at the very bottom of his heart he knew better. The customers were a secondary +consideration, and it was only after the lapse of perhaps a minute that he +perceived that among them was—the Young Lady in Grey! He turned away from the +window at once, and saw the other man in brown standing at the edge of the +pavement and regarding him with a very curious expression of face. +</p> + +<p> +There came into Mr. Hoopdriver’s head the curious problem whether he was to be +regarded as a nuisance haunting these people, or whether they were to be +regarded as a nuisance haunting him. He abandoned the solution at last in +despair, quite unable to decide upon the course he should take at the next +encounter, whether he should scowl savagely at the couple or assume an attitude +eloquent of apology and propitiation. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter10"></a>X.<br/> +THE IMAGININGS OF MR. HOOPDRIVER’S HEART</h2> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver was (in the days of this story) a poet, though he had never +written a line of verse. Or perhaps romancer will describe him better. Like I +know not how many of those who do the fetching and carrying of life,—a great +number of them certainly,—his real life was absolutely uninteresting, and if he +had faced it as realistically as such people do in Mr. Gissing’s novels, he +would probably have come by way of drink to suicide in the course of a year. +But that was just what he had the natural wisdom not to do. On the contrary, he +was always decorating his existence with imaginative tags, hopes, and poses, +deliberate and yet quite effectual self-deceptions; his experiences were mere +material for a romantic superstructure. If some power had given Hoopdriver the +‘giftie’ Burns invoked, ‘to see oursels as ithers see us,’ he would probably +have given it away to some one else at the very earliest opportunity. His +entire life, you must understand, was not a continuous romance, but a series of +short stories linked only by the general resemblance of their hero, a +brown-haired young fellow commonly, with blue eyes and a fair moustache, +graceful rather than strong, sharp and resolute rather than clever (cp., as the +scientific books say, p. 2). Invariably this person possessed an iron will. The +stories fluctuated indefinitely. The smoking of a cigarette converted +Hoopdriver’s hero into something entirely worldly, subtly rakish, with a +humorous twinkle in the eye and some gallant sinning in the background. You +should have seen Mr. Hoopdriver promenading the brilliant gardens at Earl’s +Court on an early-closing night. His meaning glances! (I dare not give the +meaning.) Such an influence as the eloquence of a revivalist preacher would +suffice to divert the story into absolutely different channels, make him a +white-soured hero, a man still pure, walking untainted and brave and helpful +through miry ways. The appearance of some daintily gloved frockcoated gentleman +with buttonhole and eyeglass complete, gallantly attendant in the rear of +customers, served again to start visions of a simplicity essentially +Cromwell-like, of sturdy plainness, of a strong, silent man going righteously +through the world. This day there had predominated a fine leisurely person +immaculately clothed, and riding on an unexceptional machine, a mysterious +person—quite unostentatious, but with accidental self-revelation of something +over the common, even a “bloomin’ Dook,” it might be incognito, on the tour of +the South Coast. +</p> + +<p> +You must not think that there was any <i>telling</i> of these stories of this +life-long series by Mr. Hoopdriver. He never dreamt that they were known to a +soul. If it were not for the trouble, I would, I think, go back and rewrite +this section from the beginning, expunging the statements that Hoopdriver was a +poet and a romancer, and saying instead that he was a playwright and acted his +own plays. He was not only the sole performer, but the entire audience, and the +entertainment kept him almost continuously happy. Yet even that playwright +comparison scarcely expresses all the facts of the case. After all, very many +of his dreams never got acted at all, possibly indeed, most of them, the dreams +of a solitary walk for instance, or of a tramcar ride, the dreams dreamt behind +the counter while trade was slack and mechanical foldings and rollings occupied +his muscles. Most of them were little dramatic situations, crucial dialogues, +the return of Mr. Hoopdriver to his native village, for instance, in a well-cut +holiday suit and natty gloves, the unheard asides of the rival neighbours, the +delight of the old ‘mater,’ the intelligence—“A ten-pound rise all at once from +Antrobus, mater. Whad d’yer think of that?” or again, the first whispering of +love, dainty and witty and tender, to the girl he served a few days ago with +sateen, or a gallant rescue of generalised beauty in distress from truculent +insult or ravening dog. +</p> + +<p> +So many people do this—and you never suspect it. You see a tattered lad selling +matches in the street, and you think there is nothing between him and the +bleakness of immensity, between him and utter abasement, but a few tattered +rags and a feeble musculature. And all unseen by you a host of heaven-sent +fatuities swathes him about, even, maybe, as they swathe you about. Many men +have never seen their own profiles or the backs of their heads, and for the +back of your own mind no mirror has been invented. They swathe him about so +thickly that the pricks of fate scarce penetrate to him, or become but a +pleasant titillation. And so, indeed, it is with all of us who go on living. +Self-deception is the anaesthetic of life, while God is carving out our beings. +</p> + +<p> +But to return from this general vivisection to Mr. Hoopdriver’s imaginings. You +see now how external our view has been; we have had but the slightest +transitory glimpses of the drama within, of how the things looked in the magic +mirror of Mr. Hoopdriver’s mind. On the road to Guildford and during his +encounters with his haunting fellow-cyclists the drama had presented chiefly +the quiet gentleman to whom we have alluded, but at Guildford, under more +varied stimuli, he burgeoned out more variously. There was the house agent’s +window, for instance, set him upon a charming little comedy. He would go in, +make inquires about that thirty-pound house, get the key possibly and go over +it—the thing would stimulate the clerk’s curiosity immensely. He searched his +mind for a reason for this proceeding and discovered that he was a dynamiter +needing privacy. Upon that theory he procured the key, explored the house +carefully, said darkly that it might suit his special needs, but that there +were <i>others</i> to consult. The clerk, however, did not understand the +allusion, and merely pitied him as one who had married young and paired himself +to a stronger mind than his own. +</p> + +<p> +This proceeding in some occult way led to the purchase of a note-book and +pencil, and that started the conception of an artist taking notes. That was a +little game Mr. Hoopdriver had, in congenial company, played in his still +younger days—to the infinite annoyance of quite a number of respectable +excursionists at Hastings. In early days Mr. Hoopdriver had been, as his mother +proudly boasted, a ‘bit of a drawer,’ but a conscientious and normally stupid +schoolmaster perceived the incipient talent and had nipped it in the bud by a +series of lessons in art. However, our principal character figured about quite +happily in old corners of Guildford, and once the other man in brown, looking +out of the bay window of the Earl of Kent, saw him standing in a corner by a +gateway, note-book in hand, busily sketching the Earl’s imposing features. At +which sight the other man in brown started back from the centre of the window, +so as to be hidden from him, and crouching slightly, watched him intently +through the interstices of the lace curtains. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter11"></a>XI.<br/> +OMISSIONS</h2> + +<p> +Now the rest of the acts of Mr. Hoopdriver in Guildford, on the great opening +day of his holidays, are not to be detailed here. How he wandered about the old +town in the dusk, and up to the Hogsback to see the little lamps below and the +little stars above come out one after another; how he returned through the +yellow-lit streets to the Yellow Hammer Coffee Tavern and supped bravely in the +commercial room—a Man among Men; how he joined in the talk about +flying-machines and the possibilities of electricity, witnessing that +flying-machines were “dead certain to come,” and that electricity was +“wonderful, wonderful”; how he went and watched the billiard playing and said, +“Left ’em” several times with an oracular air; how he fell a-yawning; and how +he got out his cycling map and studied it intently,—are things that find no +mention here. Nor will I enlarge upon his going into the writing-room, and +marking the road from London to Guildford with a fine, bright line of the +reddest of red ink. In his little cyclist hand-book there is a diary, and in +the diary there is an entry of these things—it is there to this day, and I +cannot do better than reproduce it here to witness that this book is indeed a +true one, and no lying fable written to while away an hour. +</p> + +<p> +At last he fell a-yawning so much that very reluctantly indeed he set about +finishing this great and splendid day. (Alas! that all days must end at last! ) +He got his candle in the hall from a friendly waiting-maid, and passed +upward—whither a modest novelist, who writes for the family circle, dare not +follow. Yet I may tell you that he knelt down at his bedside, happy and drowsy, +and said, “Our Father ‘chartin’ heaven,” even as he had learnt it by rote from +his mother nearly twenty years ago. And anon when his breathing had become deep +and regular, we may creep into his bedroom and catch him at his dreams. He is +lying upon his left side, with his arm under the pillow. It is dark, and he is +hidden; but if you could have seen his face, sleeping there in the darkness, I +think you would have perceived, in spite of that treasured, thin, and +straggling moustache, in spite of your memory of the coarse words he had used +that day, that the man before you was, after all, only a little child asleep. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter12"></a>XII.<br/> +THE DREAMS OF MR. HOOPDRIVER</h2> + +<p> +In spite of the drawn blinds and the darkness, you have just seen Mr. +Hoopdriver’s face peaceful in its beauty sleep in the little, plain bedroom at +the very top of the Yellow Hammer Coffee Tavern at Guildford. That was before +midnight. As the night progressed he was disturbed by dreams. +</p> + +<p> +After your first day of cycling one dream is inevitable. A memory of motion +lingers in the muscles of your legs, and round and round they seem to go. You +ride through Dreamland on wonderful dream bicycles that change and grow; you +ride down steeples and staircases and over precipices; you hover in horrible +suspense over inhabited towns, vainly seeking for a brake your hand cannot +find, to save you from a headlong fall; you plunge into weltering rivers, and +rush helplessly at monstrous obstacles. Anon Mr. Hoopdriver found himself +riding out of the darkness of non-existence, pedalling Ezekiel’s Wheels across +the Weald of Surrey, jolting over the hills and smashing villages in his +course, while the other man in brown cursed and swore at him and shouted to +stop his career. There was the Putney heath-keeper, too, and the man in drab +raging at him. He felt an awful fool, a—what was it?—a juggins, ah!—a +Juggernaut. The villages went off one after another with a soft, squashing +noise. He did not see the Young Lady in Grey, but he knew she was looking at +his back. He dared not look round. Where the devil was the brake? It must have +fallen off. And the bell? Right in front of him was Guildford. He tried to +shout and warn the town to get out of the way, but his voice was gone as well. +Nearer, nearer! it was fearful! and in another moment the houses were cracking +like nuts and the blood of the inhabitants squirting this way and that. The +streets were black with people running. Right under his wheels he saw the Young +Lady in Grey. A feeling of horror came upon Mr. Hoopdriver; he flung himself +sideways to descend, forgetting how high he was, and forthwith he began +falling; falling, falling. +</p> + +<p> +He woke up, turned over, saw the new moon on the window, wondered a little, and +went to sleep again. +</p> + +<p> +This second dream went back into the first somehow, and the other man in brown +came threatening and shouting towards him. He grew uglier and uglier as he +approached, and his expression was intolerably evil. He came and looked close +into Mr. Hoopdriver’s eyes and then receded to an incredible distance. His face +seemed to be luminous. “<i>Miss Beaumont</i>,” he said, and splashed up a spray +of suspicion. Some one began letting off fireworks, chiefly Catherine wheels, +down the shop, though Mr. Hoopdriver knew it was against the rules. For it +seemed that the place they were in was a vast shop, and then Mr. Hoopdriver +perceived that the other man in brown was the shop-walker, differing from most +shop-walkers in the fact that he was lit from within as a Chinese lantern might +be. And the customer Mr. Hoopdriver was going to serve was the Young Lady in +Grey. Curious he hadn’t noticed it before. She was in grey as +usual,—rationals,—and she had her bicycle leaning against the counter. She +smiled quite frankly at him, just as she had done when she had apologised for +stopping him. And her form, as she leant towards him, was full of a sinuous +grace he had never noticed before. “What can I have the pleasure?” said Mr. +Hoopdriver at once, and she said, “The Ripley road.” So he got out the Ripley +road and unrolled it and showed it to her, and she said that would do very +nicely, and kept on looking at him and smiling, and he began measuring off +eight miles by means of the yard measure on the counter, eight miles being a +dress length, a rational dress length, that is; and then the other man in brown +came up and wanted to interfere, and said Mr. Hoopdriver was a cad, besides +measuring it off too slowly. And as Mr. Hoopdriver began to measure faster, the +other man in brown said the Young Lady in Grey had been there long enough, and +that he WAS her brother, or else she would not be travelling with him, and he +suddenly whipped his arm about her waist and made off with her. It occurred to +Mr. Hoopdriver even at the moment that this was scarcely brotherly behaviour. +Of course it wasn’t! The sight of the other man gripping her so familiarly +enraged him frightfully; he leapt over the counter forthwith and gave chase. +They ran round the shop and up an iron staircase into the Keep, and so out upon +the Ripley road. For some time they kept dodging in and out of a wayside hotel +with two front doors and an inn yard. The other man could not run very fast +because he had hold of the Young Lady in Grey, but Mr. Hoopdriver was hampered +by the absurd behaviour of his legs. They would not stretch out; they would +keep going round and round as if they were on the treadles of a wheel, so that +he made the smallest steps conceivable. This dream came to no crisis. The chase +seemed to last an interminable time, and all kinds of people, heath-keepers, +shopmen, policemen, the old man in the Keep, the angry man in drab, the barmaid +at the Unicorn, men with flying-machines, people playing billiards in the +doorways, silly, headless figures, stupid cocks and hens encumbered with +parcels and umbrellas and waterproofs, people carrying bedroom candles, and +such-like riffraff, kept getting in his way and annoying him, although he +sounded his electric bell, and said, “Wonderful, wonderful!” at every +corner.... +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter13"></a>XIII.<br/> +HOW MR. HOOPDRIVER WENT TO HASLEMERE</h2> + +<p> +There was some little delay in getting Mr. Hoopdriver’s breakfast, so that +after all he was not free to start out of Guildford until just upon the stroke +of nine. He wheeled his machine from the High Street in some perplexity. He did +not know whether this young lady, who had seized hold of his imagination so +strongly, and her unfriendly and possibly menacing brother, were ahead of him +or even now breakfasting somewhere in Guildford. In the former case he might +loiter as he chose; in the latter he must hurry, and possibly take refuge in +branch roads. +</p> + +<p> +It occurred to him as being in some obscure way strategic, that he would leave +Guildford not by the obvious Portsmouth road, but by the road running through +Shalford. Along this pleasant shady way he felt sufficiently secure to resume +his exercises in riding with one hand off the handles, and in staring over his +shoulder. He came over once or twice, but fell on his foot each time, and +perceived that he was improving. Before he got to Bramley a specious byway +snapped him up, ran with him for half a mile or more, and dropped him as a +terrier drops a walkingstick, upon the Portsmouth again, a couple of miles from +Godalming. He entered Godalming on his feet, for the road through that +delightful town is beyond dispute the vilest in the world, a mere tumult of +road metal, a way of peaks and precipices, and, after a successful experiment +with cider at the Woolpack, he pushed on to Milford. +</p> + +<p> +All this time he was acutely aware of the existence of the Young Lady in Grey +and her companion in brown, as a child in the dark is of Bogies. Sometimes he +could hear their pneumatics stealing upon him from behind, and looking round +saw a long stretch of vacant road. Once he saw far ahead of him a glittering +wheel, but it proved to be a workingman riding to destruction on a very tall +ordinary. And he felt a curious, vague uneasiness about that Young Lady in +Grey, for which he was altogether unable to account. Now that he was awake he +had forgotten that accentuated Miss Beaumont that had been quite clear in his +dream. But the curious dream conviction, that the girl was not really the man’s +sister, would not let itself be forgotten. Why, for instance, should a man want +to be alone with his sister on the top of a tower? At Milford his bicycle made, +so to speak, an ass of itself. A finger-post suddenly jumped out at him, vainly +indicating an abrupt turn to the right, and Mr. Hoopdriver would have slowed up +and read the inscription, but no!—the bicycle would not let him. The road +dropped a little into Milford, and the thing shied, put down its head and +bolted, and Mr. Hoopdriver only thought of the brake when the fingerpost was +passed. Then to have recovered the point of intersection would have meant +dismounting. For as yet there was no road wide enough for Mr. Hoopdriver to +turn in. So he went on his way—or to be precise, he did exactly the opposite +thing. The road to the right was the Portsmouth road, and this he was on went +to Haslemere and Midhurst. By that error it came about that he once more came +upon his fellow travellers of yesterday, coming on them suddenly, without the +slightest preliminary announcement and when they least expected it, under the +Southwestern Railway arch. “It’s horrible,” said a girlish voice; “it’s +brutal—cowardly—” And stopped. +</p> + +<p> +His expression, as he shot out from the archway at them, may have been +something between a grin of recognition and a scowl of annoyance at himself for +the unintentional intrusion. But disconcerted as he was, he was yet able to +appreciate something of the peculiarity of their mutual attitudes. The bicycles +were lying by the roadside, and the two riders stood face to face. The other +man in brown’s attitude, as it flashed upon Hoopdriver, was a deliberate pose; +he twirled his moustache and smiled faintly, and he was conscientiously looking +amused. And the girl stood rigid, her arms straight by her side, her +handkerchief clenched in her hand, and her face was flushed, with the faintest +touch of red upon her eyelids. She seemed to Mr. Hoopdriver’s sense to be +indignant. But that was the impression of a second. A mask of surprised +recognition fell across this revelation of emotion as she turned her head +towards him, and the pose of the other man in brown vanished too in a momentary +astonishment. And then he had passed them, and was riding on towards Haslemere +to make what he could of the swift picture that had photographed itself on his +brain. +</p> + +<p> +“Rum,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “It’s <i>dashed</i> rum!” +</p> + +<p> +“They were having a row.” +</p> + +<p> +“Smirking—” What he called the other man in brown need not trouble us. +</p> + +<p> +“Annoying her!” That any human being should do that! +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Why?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +The impulse to interfere leapt suddenly into Mr. Hoopdriver’s mind. He grasped +his brake, descended, and stood looking hesitatingly back. They still stood by +the railway bridge, and it seemed to Mr. Hoopdriver’s fancy that she was +stamping her foot. He hesitated, then turned his bicycle round, mounted, and +rode back towards them, gripping his courage firmly lest it should slip away +and leave him ridiculous. “I’ll offer ’im a screw ’ammer,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +Then, with a wave of fierce emotion, he saw that the girl was crying. In +another moment they heard him and turned in surprise. Certainly she had been +crying; her eyes were swimming in tears, and the other man in brown looked +exceedingly disconcerted. Mr. Hoopdriver descended and stood over his machine. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing wrong, I hope?” he said, looking the other man in brown squarely in +the face. “No accident?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing,” said the other man in brown shortly. “Nothing at all, thanks.” +</p> + +<p> +“But,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, with a great effort, “the young lady is crying. I +thought perhaps—” +</p> + +<p> +The Young Lady in Grey started, gave Hoopdriver one swift glance, and covered +one eye with her handkerchief. “It’s this speck,” she said. “This speck of dust +in my eye.” +</p> + +<p> +“This lady,” said the other man in brown, explaining, “has a gnat in her eye.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause. The young lady busied herself with her eye. “I believe it’s +out,” she said. The other man in brown made movements indicating commiserating +curiosity concerning the alleged fly. Mr. Hoopdriver—the word is his own—stood +flabber-gastered. He had all the intuition of the simple-minded. He knew there +was no fly. But the ground was suddenly cut from his feet. There is a limit to +knighterrantry—dragons and false knights are all very well, but flies! +Fictitious flies! Whatever the trouble was, it was evidently not his affair. He +felt he had made a fool of himself again. He would have mumbled some sort of +apology; but the other man in brown gave him no time, turned on him abruptly, +even fiercely. “I hope,” he said, “that your curiosity is satisfied?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“Then we won’t detain you.” +</p> + +<p> +And, ignominiously, Mr. Hoopdriver turned his machine about, struggled upon it, +and resumed the road southward. And when he learnt that he was not on the +Portsmouth road, it was impossible to turn and go back, for that would be to +face his shame again, and so he had to ride on by Brook Street up the hill to +Haslemere. And away to the right the Portsmouth road mocked at him and made off +to its fastnesses amid the sunlit green and purple masses of Hindhead, where +Mr. Grant Allen writes his Hill Top Novels day by day. +</p> + +<p> +The sun shone, and the wide blue hill views and pleasant valleys one saw on +either hand from the sandscarred roadway, even the sides of the road itself set +about with grey heather scrub and prickly masses of gorse, and pine trees with +their year’s growth still bright green, against the darkened needles of the +previous years, were fresh and delightful to Mr. Hoopdriver’s eyes But the +brightness of the day and the day-old sense of freedom fought an uphill fight +against his intolerable vexation at that abominable encounter, and had still to +win it when he reached Haslemere. A great brown shadow, a monstrous hatred of +the other man in brown, possessed him. He had conceived the brilliant idea of +abandoning Portsmouth, or at least giving up the straight way to his +fellow-wayfarers, and of striking out boldly to the left, eastward. He did not +dare to stop at any of the inviting public-houses in the main street of +Haslemere, but turned up a side way and found a little beer-shop, the Good +Hope, wherein to refresh himself. And there he ate and gossipped +condescendingly with an aged labourer, assuming the while for his own private +enjoyment the attributes of a Lost Heir, and afterwards mounted and rode on +towards Northchapel, a place which a number of finger-posts conspired to boom, +but which some insidious turning prevented him from attaining. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter14"></a>XIV.<br/> +HOW MR. HOOPDRIVER REACHED MIDHURST</h2> + +<p> +It was one of my uncle’s profoundest remarks that human beings are the only +unreasonable creatures. This observation was so far justified by Mr. Hoopdriver +that, after spending the morning tortuously avoiding the other man in brown and +the Young Lady in Grey, he spent a considerable part of the afternoon in +thinking about the Young Lady in Grey, and contemplating in an optimistic +spirit the possibilities of seeing her again. Memory and imagination played +round her, so that his course was largely determined by the windings of the +road he traversed. Of one general proposition he was absolutely convinced. +“There’s something Juicy wrong with ’em,” said he—once even aloud. But what it +was he could not imagine. He recapitulated the facts. “Miss Beaumont—brother +and sister—and the stoppage to quarrel and weep—” it was perplexing material +for a young man of small experience. There was no exertion he hated so much as +inference, and after a time he gave up any attempt to get at the realities of +the case, and let his imagination go free. Should he ever see her again? +Suppose he did—with that other chap not about. The vision he found pleasantest +was an encounter with her, an unexpected encounter at the annual Dancing Class +‘Do’ at the Putney Assembly Rooms. Somehow they would drift together, and he +would dance with her again and again. It was a pleasant vision, for you must +understand that Mr. Hoopdriver danced uncommonly well. Or again, in the shop, a +sudden radiance in the doorway, and she is bowed towards the Manchester +counter. And then to lean over that counter and murmur, seemingly +<i>àpropos</i> of the goods under discussion, “I have not forgotten that +morning on the Portsmouth road,” and lower, “I never shall forget.” +</p> + +<p> +At Northchapel Mr. Hoopdriver consulted his map and took counsel and weighed +his course of action. Petworth seemed a possible resting-place, or Pullborough; +Midhurst seemed too near, and any place over the Downs beyond, too far, and so +he meandered towards Petworth, posing himself perpetually and loitering, +gathering wild flowers and wondering why they had no names—for he had never +heard of any—dropping them furtively at the sight of a stranger, and generally +‘mucking about.’ There were purple vetches in the hedges, meadowsweet, +honeysuckle, belated brambles—but the dog-roses had already gone; there were +green and red blackberries, stellarias, and dandelions, and in another place +white dead nettles, traveller’s-joy, clinging bedstraw, grasses flowering, +white campions, and ragged robins. One cornfield was glorious with poppies, +bright scarlet and purple white, and the blue corn-flowers were beginning. In +the lanes the trees met overhead, and the wisps of hay still hung to the +straggling hedges. In one of the main roads he steered a perilous passage +through a dozen surly dun oxen. Here and there were little cottages, and +picturesque beer-houses with the vivid brewers’ boards of blue and scarlet, and +once a broad green and a church, and an expanse of some hundred houses or so. +Then he came to a pebbly rivulet that emerged between clumps of sedge +loosestrife and forget-me-nots under an arch of trees, and rippled across the +road, and there he dismounted, longing to take off shoes and stockings—those +stylish chequered stockings were now all dimmed with dust—and paddle his lean +legs in the chuckling cheerful water. But instead he sat in a manly attitude, +smoking a cigarette, for fear lest the Young Lady in Grey should come +glittering round the corner. For the flavour of the Young Lady in Grey was +present through it all, mixing with the flowers and all the delight of it, a +touch that made this second day quite different from the first, an undertone of +expectation, anxiety, and something like regret that would not be ignored. +</p> + +<p> +It was only late in the long evening that, quite abruptly, he began to repent, +vividly and decidedly, having fled these two people. He was getting hungry, and +that has a curious effect upon the emotional colouring of our minds. The man +was a sinister brute, Hoopdriver saw in a flash of inspiration, and the +girl—she was in some serious trouble. And he who might have helped her had +taken his first impulse as decisive—and bolted. This new view of it depressed +him dreadfully. What might not be happening to her now? He thought again of her +tears. Surely it was merely his duty, seeing the trouble afoot, to keep his eye +upon it. +</p> + +<p> +He began riding fast to get quit of such selfreproaches. He found himself in a +tortuous tangle of roads, and as the dusk was coming on, emerged, not at +Petworth but at Easebourne, a mile from Midhurst. “I’m getting hungry,” said +Mr. Hoopdriver, inquiring of a gamekeeper in Easebourne village. “Midhurst a +mile, and Petworth five!—Thenks, I’ll take Midhurst.” +</p> + +<p> +He came into Midhurst by the bridge at the watermill, and up the North Street, +and a little shop flourishing cheerfully, the cheerful sign of a teapot, and +exhibiting a brilliant array of tobaccos, sweets, and children’s toys in the +window, struck his fancy. A neat, bright-eyed little old lady made him welcome, +and he was presently supping sumptuously on sausages and tea, with a visitors’ +book full of the most humorous and flattering remarks about the little old +lady, in verse and prose, propped up against his teapot as he ate. Regular good +some of the jokes were, and rhymes that read well—even with your mouth full of +sausage. Mr. Hoopdriver formed a vague idea of drawing “something”—for his +judgment on the little old lady was already formed. He pictured the little old +lady discovering it afterwards—“My gracious! One of them <i>Punch</i> men,” she +would say. The room had a curtained recess and a chest of drawers, for +presently it was to be his bedroom, and the day part of it was decorated with +framed Oddfellows’ certificates and giltbacked books and portraits, and +kettle-holders, and all kinds of beautiful things made out of wool; very +comfortable it was indeed. The window was lead framed and diamond paned, and +through it one saw the corner of the vicarage and a pleasant hill crest, in +dusky silhouette against the twilight sky. And after the sausages had ceased to +be, he lit a Red Herring cigarette and went swaggering out into the twilight +street. All shadowy blue between its dark brick houses, was the street, with a +bright yellow window here and there and splashes of green and red where the +chemist’s illumination fell across the road. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter15"></a>XV.<br/> +AN INTERLUDE</h2> + +<p> +And now let us for a space leave Mr. Hoopdriver in the dusky Midhurst North +Street, and return to the two folks beside the railway bridge between Milford +and Haslemere. She was a girl of eighteen, dark, fine featured, with bright +eyes, and a rich, swift colour under her warm-tinted skin. Her eyes were all +the brighter for the tears that swam in them. The man was thirty three or four, +fair, with a longish nose overhanging his sandy flaxen moustache, pale blue +eyes, and a head that struck out above and behind. He stood with his feet wide +apart, his hand on his hip, in an attitude that was equally suggestive of +defiance and aggression. They had watched Hoopdriver out of sight. The +unexpected interruption had stopped the flood of her tears. He tugged his +abundant moustache and regarded her calmly. She stood with face averted, +obstinately resolved not to speak first. “Your behaviour,” he said at last, +“makes you conspicuous.” +</p> + +<p> +She turned upon him, her eyes and cheeks glowing, her hands clenched. “You +unspeakable <i>cad</i>,” she said, and choked, stamped her little foot, and +stood panting. +</p> + +<p> +“Unspeakable cad! My dear girl! Possible I <i>am</i> an unspeakable cad. Who +wouldn’t be—for you?” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Dear girl!’ How <i>dare</i> you speak to me like that? <i>You</i>—” +</p> + +<p> +“I would do anything—” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Oh!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +There was a moment’s pause. She looked squarely into his face, her eyes alight +with anger and contempt, and perhaps he flushed a little. He stroked his +moustache, and by an effort maintained his cynical calm. “Let us be +reasonable,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Reasonable! That means all that is mean and cowardly and sensual in the +world.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have always had it so—in your generalising way. But let us look at the +facts of the case—if that pleases you better.” +</p> + +<p> +With an impatient gesture she motioned him to go on. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he said,—“you’ve eloped.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve left my home,” she corrected, with dignity. “I left my home because it +was unendurable. Because that woman—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes. But the point is, you have eloped with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You came with me. You pretended to be my friend. Promised to help me to earn a +living by writing. It was you who said, why shouldn’t a man and woman be +friends? And now you dare—you dare—” +</p> + +<p> +“Really, Jessie, this pose of yours, this injured innocence—” +</p> + +<p> +“I will go back. I forbid you—I forbid you to stand in the way—” +</p> + +<p> +“One moment. I have always thought that my little pupil was at least +clear-headed. You don’t know everything yet, you know. Listen to me for a +moment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t I been listening? And you have only insulted me. You who dared only to +talk of friendship, who scarcely dared hint at anything beyond.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you took the hints, nevertheless. You knew. You <i>knew</i>. And you did +not mind. <i>Mind!</i> You liked it. It was the fun of the whole thing for you. +That I loved you, and could not speak to you. You played with it—” +</p> + +<p> +“You have said all that before. Do you think that justifies you?” +</p> + +<p> +“That isn’t all. I made up my mind—Well, to make the game more even. And so I +suggested to you and joined with you in this expedition of yours, invented a +sister at Midhurst—I tell you, I <i>haven’t</i> a sister! For one object—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“To compromise you.” +</p> + +<p> +She started. That was a new way of putting it. For half a minute neither spoke. +Then she began half defiantly: “Much I am compromised. Of course—I have made a +fool of myself—” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear girl, you are still on the sunny side of eighteen, and you know very +little of this world. Less than you think. But you will learn. Before you write +all those novels we have talked about, you will have to learn. And that’s one +point—” He hesitated. “You started and blushed when the man at breakfast called +you Ma’am. You thought it a funny mistake, but you did not say anything because +he was young and nervous—and besides, the thought of being my wife offended +your modesty. You didn’t care to notice it. But—you see; I gave your name as +<i>Mrs</i>. Beaumont.” He looked almost apologetic, in spite of his cynical +pose. “<i>Mrs</i>. Beaumont,” he repeated, pulling his flaxen moustache and +watching the effect. +</p> + +<p> +She looked into his eyes speechless. “I am learning fast,” she said slowly, at +last. +</p> + +<p> +He thought the time had come for an emotional attack. “Jessie,” he said, with a +sudden change of voice, “I know all this is mean, is villanous. But do you +think that I have done all this scheming, all this subterfuge, for any other +object—” +</p> + +<p> +She did not seem to listen to his words. “I shall ride home,” she said +abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +“To her?” +</p> + +<p> +She winced. +</p> + +<p> +“Just think,” said he, “what she could say to you after this.” +</p> + +<p> +“Anyhow, I shall leave you now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes? And go—” +</p> + +<p> +“Go somewhere to earn my living, to be a free woman, to live without +conventionality—” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear girl, do let us be cynical. You haven’t money and you haven’t credit. +No one would take you in. It’s one of two things: go back to your stepmother, +or—trust to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“How <i>can</i> I?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you must go back to her.” He paused momentarily, to let this +consideration have its proper weight. “Jessie, I did not mean to say the things +I did. Upon my honour, I lost my head when I spoke so. If you will, forgive me. +I am a man. I could not help myself. Forgive me, and I promise you—” +</p> + +<p> +“How can I trust you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Try me. I can assure you—” +</p> + +<p> +She regarded him distrustfully. +</p> + +<p> +“At any rate, ride on with me now. Surely we have been in the shadow of this +horrible bridge long enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! let me think,” she said, half turning from him and pressing her hand to +her brow. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Think!</i> Look here, Jessie. It is ten o’clock. Shall we call a truce +until one?” +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated, demanded a definition of the truce, and at last agreed. +</p> + +<p> +They mounted, and rode on in silence, through the sunlight and the heather. +Both were extremely uncomfortable and disappointed. She was pale, divided +between fear and anger. She perceived she was in a scrape, and tried in vain to +think of a way of escape. Only one tangible thing would keep in her mind, try +as she would to ignore it. That was the quite irrelevant fact that his head was +singularly like an albino cocoanut. He, too, felt thwarted. He felt that this +romantic business of seduction was, after all, unexpectedly tame. But this was +only the beginning. At any rate, every day she spent with him was a day gained. +Perhaps things looked worse than they were; that was some consolation. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter16"></a>XVI.<br/> +OF THE ARTIFICIAL IN MAN, AND OF THE ZEITGEIST</h2> + +<p> +You have seen these two young people—Bechamel, by-the-bye, is the man’s name, +and the girl’s is Jessie Milton—from the outside; you have heard them talking; +they ride now side by side (but not too close together, and in an uneasy +silence) towards Haslemere; and this chapter will concern itself with those +curious little council chambers inside their skulls, where their motives are in +session and their acts are considered and passed. +</p> + +<p> +But first a word concerning wigs and false teeth. Some jester, enlarging upon +the increase of bald heads and purblind people, has deduced a wonderful future +for the children of men. Man, he said, was nowadays a hairless creature by +forty or fifty, and for hair we gave him a wig; shrivelled, and we padded him; +toothless, and lo! false teeth set in gold. Did he lose a limb, and a fine, +new, artificial one was at his disposal; get indigestion, and to hand was +artificial digestive fluid or bile or pancreatine, as the case might be. +Complexions, too, were replaceable, spectacles superseded an inefficient +eye-lens, and imperceptible false diaphragms were thrust into the failing ear. +So he went over our anatomies, until, at last, he had conjured up a weird thing +of shreds and patches, a simulacrum, an artificial body of a man, with but a +doubtful germ of living flesh lurking somewhere in his recesses. To that, he +held, we were coming. +</p> + +<p> +How far such odd substitution for the body is possible need not concern us now. +But the devil, speaking by the lips of Mr. Rudyard Kipling, hath it that in the +case of one Tomlinson, the thing, so far as the soul is concerned, has already +been accomplished. Time was when men had simple souls, desires as natural as +their eyes, a little reasonable philanthropy, a little reasonable +philoprogenitiveness, hunger, and a taste for good living, a decent, personal +vanity, a healthy, satisfying pugnacity, and so forth. But now we are taught +and disciplined for years and years, and thereafter we read and read for all +the time some strenuous, nerve-destroying business permits. Pedagogic +hypnotists, pulpit and platform hypnotists, book-writing hypnotists, +newspaper-writing hypnotists, are at us all. This sugar you are eating, they +tell us, is ink, and forthwith we reject it with infinite disgust. This black +draught of unrequited toil is True Happiness, and down it goes with every +symptom of pleasure. This Ibsen, they say, is dull past believing, and we yawn +and stretch beyond endurance. Pardon! they interrupt, but this Ibsen is deep +and delightful, and we vie with one another in an excess of entertainment. And +when we open the heads of these two young people, we find, not a +straightforward motive on the surface anywhere; we find, indeed, not a soul so +much as an oversoul, a zeitgeist, a congestion of acquired ideas, a highway’s +feast of fine, confused thinking. The girl is resolute to Live Her Own Life, a +phrase you may have heard before, and the man has a pretty perverted ambition +to be a cynical artistic person of the very calmest description. He is hoping +for the awakening of Passion in her, among other things. He knows Passion ought +to awaken, from the text-books he has studied. He knows she admires his genius, +but he is unaware that she does not admire his head. He is quite a +distinguished art critic in London, and he met her at that celebrated lady +novelist’s, her stepmother, and here you have them well embarked upon the +Adventure. Both are in the first stage of repentance, which consists, as you +have probably found for yourself, in setting your teeth hard and saying’ “I +<i>will</i> go on.” +</p> + +<p> +Things, you see, have jarred a little, and they ride on their way together with +a certain aloofness of manner that promises ill for the orthodox development of +the Adventure. He perceives he was too precipitate. But he feels his honour is +involved, and meditates the development of a new attack. And the girl? She is +unawakened. Her motives are bookish, written by a haphazard syndicate of +authors, novelists, and biographers, on her white inexperience. An artificial +oversoul she is, that may presently break down and reveal a human being beneath +it. She is still in that schoolgirl phase when a talkative old man is more +interesting than a tongue-tied young one, and when to be an eminent +mathematician, say, or to edit a daily paper, seems as fine an ambition as any +girl need aspire to. Bechamel was to have helped her to attain that in the most +expeditious manner, and here he is beside her, talking enigmatical phrases +about passion, looking at her with the oddest expression, and once, and that +was his gravest offence, offering to kiss her. At any rate he has apologised. +She still scarcely realises, you see, the scrape she has got into. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter17"></a>XVII.<br/> +THE ENCOUNTER AT MIDHURST</h2> + +<p> +We left Mr. Hoopdriver at the door of the little tea, toy, and tobacco shop. +You must not think that a strain is put on coincidence when I tell you that +next door to Mrs. Wardor’s—that was the name of the bright-eyed, little old +lady with whom Mr. Hoopdriver had stopped—is the Angel Hotel, and in the Angel +Hotel, on the night that Mr. Hoopdriver reached Midhurst, were ‘Mr.’ and ‘Miss’ +Beaumont, our Bechamel and Jessie Milton. Indeed, it was a highly probable +thing; for if one goes through Guildford, the choice of southward roads is +limited; you may go by Petersfield to Portsmouth, or by Midhurst to Chichester, +in addition to which highways there is nothing for it but minor roadways to +Petworth or Pulborough, and cross-cuts Brightonward. And coming to Midhurst +from the north, the Angel’s entrance lies yawning to engulf your highly +respectable cyclists, while Mrs. Wardor’s genial teapot is equally attractive +to those who weigh their means in little scales. But to people unfamiliar with +the Sussex roads—and such were the three persons of this story—the convergence +did not appear to be so inevitable. +</p> + +<p> +Bechamel, tightening his chain in the Angel yard after dinner, was the first to +be aware of their reunion. He saw Hoopdriver walk slowly across the gateway, +his head enhaloed in cigarette smoke, and pass out of sight up the street. +Incontinently a mass of cloudy uneasiness, that had been partly dispelled +during the day, reappeared and concentrated rapidly into definite suspicion. He +put his screw hammer into his pocket and walked through the archway into the +street, to settle the business forthwith, for he prided himself on his +decision. Hoopdriver was merely promenading, and they met face to face. +</p> + +<p> +At the sight of his adversary, something between disgust and laughter seized +Mr. Hoopdriver and for a moment destroyed his animosity. “’Ere we are again!” +he said, laughing insincerely in a sudden outbreak at the perversity of chance. +</p> + +<p> +The other man in brown stopped short in Mr. Hoopdriver’s way, staring. Then his +face assumed an expression of dangerous civility. “Is it any information to +you,” he said, with immense politeness, “when I remark that you are following +us?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver, for some occult reason, resisted his characteristic impulse to +apologise. He wanted to annoy the other man in brown, and a sentence that had +come into his head in a previous rehearsal cropped up appropriately. “Since +when,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, catching his breath, yet bringing the question out +valiantly, nevertheless,—“since when ’ave you purchased the county of Sussex?” +</p> + +<p> +“May I point out,” said the other man in brown, “that I object—we object not +only to your proximity to us. To be frank—you appear to be following us—with an +object.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can always,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, “turn round if you don’t like it, and go +back the way you came.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh-o!” said the other man in brown. “<i>That’s</i> it! I thought as much.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you?” said Mr. Hoopdriver, quite at sea, but rising pluckily to the +unknown occasion. What was the man driving at? +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” said the other man. “I see. I half suspected—” His manner changed +abruptly to a quality suspiciously friendly. “Yes—a word with you. You will, I +hope, give me ten minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +Wonderful things were dawning on Mr. Hoopdriver. What did the other man take +him for? Here at last was reality! He hesitated. Then he thought of an +admirable phrase. “You ’ave some communication—” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll call it a communication,” said the other man. +</p> + +<p> +“I can spare you the ten minutes,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, with dignity. +</p> + +<p> +“This way, then,” said the other man in brown, and they walked slowly down the +North Street towards the Grammar School. There was, perhaps, thirty seconds’ +silence. The other man stroked his moustache nervously. Mr. Hoopdriver’s +dramatic instincts were now fully awake. He did not quite understand in what +<i>rôle</i> he was cast, but it was evidently something dark and mysterious. +Doctor Conan Doyle, Victor Hugo, and Alexander Dumas were well within Mr. +Hoopdriver’s range of reading, and he had not read them for nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“I will be perfectly frank with you,” said the other man in brown. +</p> + +<p> +“Frankness is always the best course,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then—who the devil set you on this business?” +</p> + +<p> +“Set me <i>on</i> this business?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t pretend to be stupid. Who’s your employer? Who engaged you for this +job?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, confused. “No—I can’t say.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite sure?” The other man in brown glanced meaningly down at his hand, and +Mr. Hoopdriver, following him mechanically, saw a yellow milled edge glittering +in the twilight. Now your shop assistant is just above the tip-receiving class, +and only just above it—so that he is acutely sensitive on the point. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver flushed hotly, and his eyes were angry as he met those of the +other man in brown. “Stow it!” said Mr. Hoopdriver, stopping and facing the +tempter. +</p> + +<p> +“What!” said the other man in brown, surprised. “Eigh?” And so saying he stowed +it in his breeches pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“D’yer think I’m to be bribed?” said Mr. Hoopdriver, whose imagination was +rapidly expanding the situation. “By Gosh! I’d follow you now—” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear sir,” said the other man in brown, “I beg your pardon. I misunderstood +you. I really beg your pardon. Let us walk on. In your profession—” +</p> + +<p> +“What have you got to say against my profession?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, really, you know. There are detectives of an inferior +description—watchers. The whole class. Private Inquiry—I did not realise—I +really trust you will overlook what was, after all—you must admit—a natural +indiscretion. Men of honour are not so common in the world—in any profession.” +</p> + +<p> +It was lucky for Mr. Hoopdriver that in Midhurst they do not light the lamps in +the summer time, or the one they were passing had betrayed him. As it was, he +had to snatch suddenly at his moustache and tug fiercely at it, to conceal the +furious tumult of exultation, the passion of laughter, that came boiling up. +Detective! Even in the shadow Bechamel saw that a laugh was stifled, but he put +it down to the fact that the phrase “men of honour” amused his interlocutor. +“He’ll come round yet,” said Bechamel to himself. “He’s simply holding out for +a fiver.” He coughed. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see that it hurts you to tell me who your employer is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you? I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Prompt,” said Bechamel, appreciatively. “Now here’s the thing I want to put to +you—the kernel of the whole business. You need not answer if you don’t want to. +There’s no harm done in my telling you what I want to know. Are you employed to +watch me—or Miss Milton?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not the leaky sort,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, keeping the secret he did not +know with immense enjoyment. Miss Milton! That was her name. Perhaps he’d tell +some more. “It’s no good pumping. Is that all you’re after?” said Mr. +Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +Bechamel respected himself for his diplomatic gifts. He tried to catch a remark +by throwing out a confidence. “I take it there are two people concerned in +watching this affair.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s the other?” said Mr. Hoopdriver, calmly, but controlling with enormous +internal tension his self-appreciation. “Who’s the other?” was really +brilliant, he thought. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s my wife and <i>her</i> stepmother.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you want to know which it is?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Bechamel. +</p> + +<p> +“Well—arst ’em!” said Mr. Hoopdriver, his exultation getting the better of him, +and with a pretty consciousness of repartee. “Arst ’em both.” +</p> + +<p> +Bechamel turned impatiently. Then he made a last effort. “I’d give a five-pound +note to know just the precise state of affairs,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I told you to stow that,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, in a threatening tone. And +added with perfect truth and a magnificent mystery, “You don’t quite understand +who you’re dealing with. But you will!” He spoke with such conviction that he +half believed that that defective office of his in London—Baker Street, in +fact—really existed. +</p> + +<p> +With that the interview terminated. Bechamel went back to the Angel, perturbed. +“Hang detectives!” It wasn’t the kind of thing he had anticipated at all. +Hoopdriver, with round eyes and a wondering smile, walked down to where the +mill waters glittered in the moonlight, and after meditating over the parapet +of the bridge for a space, with occasional murmurs of, “Private Inquiry” and +the like, returned, with mystery even in his paces, towards the town. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter18"></a>XVIII.</h2> + +<p> +That glee which finds expression in raised eyebrows and long, low whistling +noises was upon Mr. Hoopdriver. For a space he forgot the tears of the Young +Lady in Grey. Here was a new game!—and a real one. Mr. Hoopdriver as a Private +Inquiry Agent, a Sherlock Holmes in fact, keeping these two people ‘under +observation.’ He walked slowly back from the bridge until he was opposite the +Angel, and stood for ten minutes, perhaps, contemplating that establishment and +enjoying all the strange sensations of being this wonderful, this mysterious +and terrible thing. Everything fell into place in his scheme. He had, of +course, by a kind of instinct, assumed the disguise of a cyclist, picked up the +first old crock he came across as a means of pursuit. ‘No expense was to be +spared.’ +</p> + +<p> +Then he tried to understand what it was in particular that he was observing. +“My wife”—“<i>Her</i> stepmother!” Then he remembered her swimming eyes. +Abruptly came a wave of anger that surprised him, washed away the detective +superstructure, and left him plain Mr. Hoopdriver. This man in brown, with his +confident manner, and his proffered half sovereign (damn him!) was up to no +good, else why should he object to being watched? He was married! She was not +his sister. He began to understand. A horrible suspicion of the state of +affairs came into Mr. Hoopdriver’s head. Surely it had not come to <i>that</i>. +He was a detective!—he would find out. How was it to be done? He began to +submit sketches on approval to himself. It required an effort before he could +walk into the Angel bar. “A lemonade and bitter, please,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +He cleared his throat. “Are Mr. and Mrs. Bowlong stopping here?” +</p> + +<p> +“What, a gentleman and a young lady—on bicycles?” +</p> + +<p> +“Fairly young—a married couple.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said the barmaid, a talkative person of ample dimensions. “There’s no +married couples stopping here. But there’s a Mr. and Miss <i>Beaumont</i>.” She +spelt it for precision. “Sure you’ve got the name right, young man?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“Beaumont there is, but no one of the name of—What was the name you gave?” +</p> + +<p> +“Bowlong,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“No, there ain’t no Bowlong,” said the barmaid, taking up a glasscloth and a +drying tumbler and beginning to polish the latter. “First off, I thought you +might be asking for Beaumont—the names being similar. Were you expecting them +on bicycles?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—they said they <i>might</i> be in Midhurst tonight.” +</p> + +<p> +“P’raps they’ll come presently. Beaumont’s here, but no Bowlong. Sure that +Beaumont ain’t the name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certain,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s curious the names being so alike. I thought p’raps—” +</p> + +<p> +And so they conversed at some length, Mr. Hoopdriver delighted to find his +horrible suspicion disposed of. The barmaid having listened awhile at the +staircase volunteered some particulars of the young couple upstairs. Her +modesty was much impressed by the young lady’s costume, so she intimated, and +Mr. Hoopdriver whispered the badinage natural to the occasion, at which she was +coquettishly shocked. “There’ll be no knowing which is which, in a year or +two,” said the barmaid. “And her manner too! She got off her machine and give +it ’im to stick up against the kerb, and in she marched. ‘I and my brother,’ +says she, ‘want to stop here to-night. My brother doesn’t mind what kind of +room ’e ’as, but I want a room with a good view, if there’s one to be got,’ +says she. He comes hurrying in after and looks at her. ‘I’ve settled the +rooms,’ she says, and ’e says ‘damn!’ just like that. I can fancy my brother +letting me boss the show like that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I dessay you do,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, “if the truth was known.” +</p> + +<p> +The barmaid looked down, smiled and shook her head, put down the tumbler, +polished, and took up another that had been draining, and shook the drops of +water into her little zinc sink. +</p> + +<p> +“She’ll be a nice little lot to marry,” said the barmaid. “She’ll be wearing +the—well, b-dashes, as the sayin’ is. I can’t think what girls is comin’ to.” +</p> + +<p> +This depreciation of the Young Lady in Grey was hardly to Hoopdriver’s taste. +</p> + +<p> +“Fashion,” said he, taking up his change. “Fashion is all the go with you +ladies—and always was. You’ll be wearing ’em yourself before a couple of years +is out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nice they’d look on my figger,” said the barmaid, with a titter. “No—I ain’t +one of your fashionable sort. Gracious no! I shouldn’t feel as if I’d anything +on me, not more than if I’d forgot—Well, there! I’m talking.” She put down the +glass abruptly. “I dessay I’m old fashioned,” she said, and walked humming down +the bar. +</p> + +<p> +“Not you,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. He waited until he caught her eye, then with +his native courtesy smiled, raised his cap, and wished her good evening. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter19"></a>XIX.</h2> + +<p> +Then Mr. Hoopdriver returned to the little room with the lead-framed windows +where he had dined, and where the bed was now comfortably made, sat down on the +box under the window, stared at the moon rising on the shining vicarage roof, +and tried to collect his thoughts. How they whirled at first! It was past ten, +and most of Midhurst was tucked away in bed, some one up the street was +learning the violin, at rare intervals a belated inhabitant hurried home and +woke the echoes, and a corncrake kept up a busy churning in the vicarage +garden. The sky was deep blue, with a still luminous afterglow along the black +edge of the hill, and the white moon overhead, save for a couple of yellow +stars, had the sky to herself. +</p> + +<p> +At first his thoughts were kinetic, of deeds and not relationships. There was +this malefactor, and his victim, and it had fallen on Mr. Hoopdriver to take a +hand in the game. <i>He</i> was married. Did she know he was married? Never for +a moment did a thought of evil concerning her cross Hoopdriver’s mind. +Simple-minded people see questions of morals so much better than superior +persons—who have read and thought themselves complex to impotence. He had heard +her voice, seen the frank light in her eyes, and she had been weeping—that +sufficed. The rights of the case he hadn’t properly grasped. But he would. And +that smirking—well, swine was the mildest for him. He recalled the exceedingly +unpleasant incident of the railway bridge. “Thin we won’t detain yer, thenks,” +said Mr. Hoopdriver, aloud, in a strange, unnatural, contemptible voice, +supposed to represent that of Bechamel. “Oh, the <i>beggar!</i> I’ll be level +with him yet. He’s afraid of us detectives—that I’ll <i>swear</i>.” (If Mrs. +Wardor should chance to be on the other side of the door within earshot, well +and good.) +</p> + +<p> +For a space he meditated chastisements and revenges, physical impossibilities +for the most part,—Bechamel staggering headlong from the impact of Mr. +Hoopdriver’s large, but, to tell the truth, ill supported fist, Bechamel’s five +feet nine of height lifted from the ground and quivering under a vigorously +applied horsewhip. So pleasant was such dreaming, that Mr. Hoopdriver’s peaked +face under the moonlight was transfigured. One might have paired him with that +well-known and universally admired triumph, ‘The Soul’s Awakening,’ so sweet +was his ecstasy. And presently with his thirst for revenge glutted by six or +seven violent assaults, a duel and two vigorous murders, his mind came round to +the Young Lady in Grey again. +</p> + +<p> +She was a plucky one too. He went over the incident the barmaid at the Angel +had described to him. His thoughts ceased to be a torrent, smoothed down to a +mirror in which she was reflected with infinite clearness and detail. He’d +never met anything like her before. Fancy that bolster of a barmaid being +dressed in that way! He whuffed a contemptuous laugh. He compared her colour, +her vigour, her voice, with the Young Ladies in Business with whom his lot had +been cast. Even in tears she was beautiful, more beautiful indeed to him, for +it made her seem softer and weaker, more accessible. And such weeping as he had +seen before had been so much a matter of damp white faces, red noses, and hair +coming out of curl. Your draper’s assistant becomes something of a judge of +weeping, because weeping is the custom of all Young Ladies in Business, when +for any reason their services are dispensed with. She could weep—and (by Gosh!) +she could smile. <i>He</i> knew that, and reverting to acting abruptly, he +smiled confidentially at the puckered pallor of the moon. +</p> + +<p> +It is difficult to say how long Mr. Hoopdriver’s pensiveness lasted. It seemed +a long time before his thoughts of action returned. Then he remembered he was a +‘watcher’; that to-morrow he must be busy. It would be in character to make +notes, and he pulled out his little note-book. With that in hand he fell +a-thinking again. Would that chap tell her the ’tecks were after them? If so, +would she be as anxious to get away as <i>he</i> was? He must be on the alert. +If possible he must speak to her. Just a significant word, “Your friend—trust +me!”—It occurred to him that to-morrow these fugitives might rise early to +escape. At that he thought of the time and found it was half-past eleven. +“Lord!” said he, “I must see that I wake.” He yawned and rose. The blind was +up, and he pulled back the little chintz curtains to let the sunlight strike +across to the bed, hung his watch within good view of his pillow, on a nail +that supported a kettle-holder, and sat down on his bed to undress. He lay +awake for a little while thinking of the wonderful possibilities of the morrow, +and thence he passed gloriously into the wonderland of dreams. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter20"></a>XX.<br/> +THE PURSUIT</h2> + +<p> +And now to tell of Mr. Hoopdriver, rising with the sun, vigilant, active, +wonderful, the practicable half of the lead-framed window stuck open, ears +alert, an eye flickering incessantly in the corner panes, in oblique glances at +the Angel front. Mrs. Wardor wanted him to have his breakfast downstairs in her +kitchen, but that would have meant abandoning the watch, and he held out +strongly. The bicycle, <i>cap-à-pie</i>, occupied, under protest, a strategic +position in the shop. He was expectant by six in the morning. By nine horrible +fears oppressed him that his quest had escaped him, and he had to reconnoitre +the Angel yard in order to satisfy himself. There he found the ostler (How are +the mighty fallen in these decadent days!) brushing down the bicycles of the +chase, and he returned relieved to Mrs. Wardor’s premises. And about ten they +emerged, and rode quietly up the North Street. He watched them until they +turned the corner of the post office, and then out into the road and up after +them in fine style! They went by the engine-house where the old stocks and the +whipping posts are, and on to the Chichester road, and he followed gallantly. +So this great chase began. +</p> + +<p> +They did not look round, and he kept them just within sight, getting down if he +chanced to draw closely upon them round a corner. By riding vigorously he kept +quite conveniently near them, for they made but little hurry. He grew hot +indeed, and his knees were a little stiff to begin with, but that was all. +There was little danger of losing them, for a thin chalky dust lay upon the +road, and the track of her tire was milled like a shilling, and his was a +chequered ribbon along the way. So they rode by Cobden’s monument and through +the prettiest of villages, until at last the downs rose steeply ahead. There +they stopped awhile at the only inn in the place, and Mr. Hoopdriver took up a +position which commanded the inn door, and mopped his face and thirsted and +smoked a Red Herring cigarette. They remained in the inn for some time. A +number of chubby innocents returning home from school, stopped and formed a +line in front of him, and watched him quietly but firmly for the space of ten +minutes or so. “Go away,” said he, and they only seemed quietly interested. He +asked them all their names then, and they answered indistinct murmurs. He gave +it up at last and became passive on his gate, and so at length they tired of +him. +</p> + +<p> +The couple under observation occupied the inn so long that Mr. Hoopdriver at +the thought of their possible employment hungered as well as thirsted. Clearly, +they were lunching. It was a cloudless day, and the sun at the meridian beat +down upon the top of Mr. Hoopdriver’s head, a shower bath of sunshine, a huge +jet of hot light. It made his head swim. At last they emerged, and the other +man in brown looked back and saw him. They rode on to the foot of the down, and +dismounting began to push tediously up that long nearly vertical ascent of +blinding white road. Mr. Hoopdriver hesitated. It might take them twenty +minutes to mount that. Beyond was empty downland perhaps for miles. He decided +to return to the inn and snatch a hasty meal. +</p> + +<p> +At the inn they gave him biscuits and cheese and a misleading pewter measure of +sturdy ale, pleasant under the palate, cool in the throat, but leaden in the +legs, of a hot afternoon. He felt a man of substance as he emerged in the +blinding sunshine, but even by the foot of the down the sun was insisting again +that his skull was too small for his brains. The hill had gone steeper, the +chalky road blazed like a magnesium light, and his front wheel began an +apparently incurable squeaking. He felt as a man from Mars would feel if he +were suddenly transferred to this planet, about three times as heavy as he was +wont to feel. The two little black figures had vanished over the forehead of +the hill. “The tracks’ll be all right,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +That was a comforting reflection. It not only justified a slow progress up the +hill, but at the crest a sprawl on the turf beside the road, to contemplate the +Weald from the south. In a matter of two days he had crossed that spacious +valley, with its frozen surge of green hills, its little villages and townships +here and there, its copses and cornfields, its ponds and streams like jewelery +of diamonds and silver glittering in the sun. The North Downs were hidden, far +away beyond the Wealden Heights. Down below was the little village of Cocking, +and half-way up the hill, a mile perhaps to the right, hung a flock of sheep +grazing together. Overhead an anxious peewit circled against the blue, and +every now and then emitted its feeble cry. Up here the heat was tempered by a +pleasant breeze. Mr. Hoopdriver was possessed by unreasonable contentment; he +lit himself a cigarette and lounged more comfortably. Surely the Sussex ale is +made of the waters of Lethe, of poppies and pleasant dreams. Drowsiness coiled +insidiously about him. +</p> + +<p> +He awoke with a guilty start, to find himself sprawling prone on the turf with +his cap over one eye. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and realised that he had +slept. His head was still a trifle heavy. And the chase? He jumped to his feet +and stooped to pick up his overturned machine. He whipped out his watch and saw +that it was past two o’clock. “Lord love us, fancy that!—But the tracks’ll be +all right,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, wheeling his machine back to the chalky road. +“I must scorch till I overtake them.” +</p> + +<p> +He mounted and rode as rapidly as the heat and a lingering lassitude permitted. +Now and then he had to dismount to examine the surface where the road forked. +He enjoyed that rather. “Trackin’,” he said aloud, and decided in the privacy +of his own mind that he had a wonderful instinct for ‘spoor.’ So he came past +Goodwood station and Lavant, and approached Chichester towards four o’clock. +And then came a terrible thing. In places the road became hard, in places were +the crowded indentations of a recent flock of sheep, and at last in the throat +of the town cobbles and the stony streets branching east, west, north, and +south, at a stone cross under the shadow of the cathedral the tracks vanished. +“O Cricky!” said Mr. Hoopdriver, dismounting in dismay and standing agape. +“Dropped anything?” said an inhabitant at the kerb. “Yes,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, +“I’ve lost the spoor,” and walked upon his way, leaving the inhabitant +marvelling what part of a bicycle a spoor might be. Mr. Hoopdriver, abandoning +tracking, began asking people if they had seen a Young Lady in Grey on a +bicycle. Six casual people hadn’t, and he began to feel the inquiry was +conspicuous, and desisted. But what was to be done? +</p> + +<p> +Hoopdriver was hot, tired, and hungry, and full of the first gnawings of a +monstrous remorse. He decided to get himself some tea and meat, and in the +Royal George he meditated over the business in a melancholy frame enough. They +had passed out of his world—vanished, and all his wonderful dreams of some +vague, crucial interference collapsed like a castle of cards. What a fool he +had been not to stick to them like a leech! He might have thought! But +there!—what WAS the good of that sort of thing now? He thought of her tears, of +her helplessness, of the bearing of the other man in brown, and his wrath and +disappointment surged higher. “What CAN I do?” said Mr. Hoopdriver aloud, +bringing his fist down beside the teapot. +</p> + +<p> +What would Sherlock Holmes have done? Perhaps, after all, there might be such +things as clues in the world, albeit the age of miracles was past. But to look +for a clue in this intricate network of cobbled streets, to examine every muddy +interstice! There was a chance by looking about and inquiry at the various +inns. Upon that he began. But of course they might have ridden straight through +and scarcely a soul have marked them. And then came a positively brilliant +idea. “’Ow many ways are there out of Chichester?” said Mr. Hoopdriver. It was +really equal to Sherlock Holmes—that. “If they’ve made tracks, I shall find +those tracks. If not—they’re in the town.” He was then in East Street, and he +started at once to make the circuit of the place, discovering incidentally that +Chichester is a walled city. In passing, he made inquiries at the Black Swan, +the Crown, and the Red Lion Hotel. At six o’clock in the evening, he was +walking downcast, intent, as one who had dropped money, along the road towards +Bognor, kicking up the dust with his shoes and fretting with disappointed +pugnacity. A thwarted, crestfallen Hoopdriver it was, as you may well imagine. +And then suddenly there jumped upon his attention—a broad line ribbed like a +shilling, and close beside it one chequered, that ever and again split into +two. “Found!” said Mr. Hoopdriver and swung round on his heel at once, and back +to the Royal George, helter skelter, for the bicycle they were minding for him. +The ostler thought he was confoundedly imperious, considering his machine. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter21"></a>XXI.<br/> +AT BOGNOR</h2> + +<p> +That seductive gentleman, Bechamel, had been working up to a crisis. He had +started upon this elopement in a vein of fine romance, immensely proud of his +wickedness, and really as much in love as an artificial oversoul can be, with +Jessie. But either she was the profoundest of coquettes or she had not the +slightest element of Passion (with a large P) in her composition. It warred +with all his ideas of himself and the feminine mind to think that under their +flattering circumstances she really could be so vitally deficient. He found her +persistent coolness, her more or less evident contempt for himself, +exasperating in the highest degree. He put it to himself that she was enough to +provoke a saint, and tried to think that was piquant and enjoyable, but the +blisters on his vanity asserted themselves. The fact is, he was, under this +standing irritation, getting down to the natural man in himself for once, and +the natural man in himself, in spite of Oxford and the junior Reviewers’ Club, +was a Palaeolithic creature of simple tastes and violent methods. “I’ll be +level with you yet,” ran like a plough through the soil of his thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +Then there was this infernal detective. Bechamel had told his wife he was going +to Davos to see Carter. To that he had fancied she was reconciled, but how she +would take this exploit was entirely problematical. She was a woman of peculiar +moral views, and she measured marital infidelity largely by its proximity to +herself. Out of her sight, and more particularly out of the sight of the other +women of her set, vice of the recognised description was, perhaps, permissible +to those contemptible weaklings, men, but this was Evil on the High Roads. She +was bound to make a fuss, and these fusses invariably took the final form of a +tightness of money for Bechamel. Albeit, and he felt it was heroic of him to +resolve so, it was worth doing if it was to be done. His imagination worked on +a kind of matronly Valkyrie, and the noise of pursuit and vengeance was in the +air. The idyll still had the front of the stage. That accursed detective, it +seemed, had been thrown off the scent, and that, at any rate, gave a night’s +respite. But things must be brought to an issue forthwith. +</p> + +<p> +By eight o’clock in the evening, in a little dining-room in the Vicuna Hotel, +Bognor, the crisis had come, and Jessie, flushed and angry in the face and with +her heart sinking, faced him again for her last struggle with him. He had +tricked her this time, effectually, and luck had been on his side. She was +booked as Mrs. Beaumont. Save for her refusal to enter their room, and her +eccentricity of eating with unwashed hands, she had so far kept up the +appearances of things before the waiter. But the dinner was grim enough. Now in +turn she appealed to his better nature and made extravagant statements of her +plans to fool him. +</p> + +<p> +He was white and vicious by this time, and his anger quivered through his pose +of brilliant wickedness. +</p> + +<p> +“I will go to the station,” she said. “I will go back—” +</p> + +<p> +“The last train for anywhere leaves at 7.42.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will appeal to the police—” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t know them.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will tell these hotel people.” +</p> + +<p> +“They will turn you out of doors. You’re in such a thoroughly false position +now. They don’t understand unconventionality, down here.” +</p> + +<p> +She stamped her foot. “If I wander about the streets all night—” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“You who have never been out alone after dusk? Do you know what the streets of +a charming little holiday resort are like—” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care,” she said. “I can go to the clergyman here.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a charming man. Unmarried. And men are really more alike than you think. +And anyhow—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“How <i>can</i> you explain the last two nights to anyone now? The mischief is +done, Jessie.” +</p> + +<p> +“You <i>cur</i>,” she said, and suddenly put her hand to her breast. He thought +she meant to faint, but she stood, with the colour gone from her face. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said. “I love you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Love!” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—love.” +</p> + +<p> +“There are ways yet,” she said, after a pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Not for you. You are too full of life and hope yet for, what is it?—not the +dark arch nor the black flowing river. Don’t you think of it. You’ll only shirk +it when the moment comes, and turn it all into comedy.” +</p> + +<p> +She turned round abruptly from him and stood looking out across the parade at +the shining sea over which the afterglow of day fled before the rising moon. He +maintained his attitude. The blinds were still up, for she had told the waiter +not to draw them. There was silence for some moments. +</p> + +<p> +At last he spoke in as persuasive a voice as he could summon. “Take it +sensibly, Jessie. Why should we, who have so much in common, quarrel into +melodrama? I swear I love you. You are all that is bright and desirable to me. +I am stronger than you, older; man to your woman. To find <i>you</i> +too—conventional!” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him over her shoulder, and he noticed with a twinge of delight +how her little chin came out beneath the curve of her cheek. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Man!</i>” she said. “Man to <i>my</i> woman! Do <i>men</i> lie? Would a +<i>man</i> use his five and thirty years’ experience to outwit a girl of +seventeen? Man to my woman indeed! That surely is the last insult!” +</p> + +<p> +“Your repartee is admirable, Jessie. I should say they do, though—all that and +more also when their hearts were set on such a girl as yourself. For God’s sake +drop this shrewishness! Why should you be so—difficult to me? Here am I with +<i>my</i> reputation, <i>my</i> career, at your feet. Look here, Jessie—on my +honour, I will marry you—” +</p> + +<p> +“God forbid,” she said, so promptly that she never learnt he had a wife, even +then. It occurred to him then for the first time, in the flash of her retort, +that she did not know he was married. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis only a pre-nuptial settlement,” he said, following that hint. +</p> + +<p> +He paused. +</p> + +<p> +“You must be sensible. The thing’s your own doing. Come out on the beach +now—the beach here is splendid, and the moon will soon be high.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I won’t</i>” she said, stamping her foot. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! leave me alone. Let me think—” +</p> + +<p> +“Think,” he said, “if you want to. It’s your cry always. But you can’t save +yourself by thinking, my dear girl. You can’t save yourself in any way now. If +saving it is—this parsimony—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, go—go.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well. I will go. I will go and smoke a cigar. And think of you, dear.... +But do you think I should do all this if I did not care?” +</p> + +<p> +“Go,” she whispered, without glancing round. She continued to stare out of the +window. He stood looking at her for a moment, with a strange light in his eyes. +He made a step towards her. “I <i>have</i> you,” he said. “You are mine. +Netted—caught. But mine.” He would have gone up to her and laid his hand upon +her, but he did not dare to do that yet. “I have you in my hand,” he said, “in +my power. Do you hear—<i>Power!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +She remained impassive. He stared at her for half a minute, and then, with a +superb gesture that was lost upon her, went to the door. Surely the instinctive +abasement of her sex before Strength was upon his side. He told himself that +his battle was won. She heard the handle move and the catch click as the door +closed behind him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter22"></a>XXII.</h2> + +<p> +And now without in the twilight behold Mr. Hoopdriver, his cheeks hot, his eye +bright! His brain is in a tumult. The nervous, obsequious Hoopdriver, to whom I +introduced you some days since, has undergone a wonderful change. Ever since he +lost that ‘spoor’ in Chichester, he has been tormented by the most horrible +visions of the shameful insults that may be happening. The strangeness of new +surroundings has been working to strip off the habitual servile from him. Here +was moonlight rising over the memory of a red sunset, dark shadows and glowing +orange lamps, beauty somewhere mysteriously rapt away from him, tangible wrong +in a brown suit and an unpleasant face, flouting him. Mr. Hoopdriver for the +time, was in the world of Romance and Knight-errantry, divinely forgetful of +his social position or hers; forgetting, too, for the time any of the wretched +timidities that had tied him long since behind the counter in his proper place. +He was angry and adventurous. It was all about him, this vivid drama he had +fallen into, and it was eluding him. He was far too grimly in earnest to pick +up that lost thread and make a play of it now. The man was living. He did not +pose when he alighted at the coffee tavern even, nor when he made his hasty +meal. +</p> + +<p> +As Bechamel crossed from the Vicuna towards the esplanade, Hoopdriver, +disappointed and exasperated, came hurrying round the corner from the +Temperance Hotel. At the sight of Bechamel, his heart jumped, and the tension +of his angry suspense exploded into, rather than gave place to, an excited +activity of mind. They were at the Vicuna, and she was there now alone. It was +the occasion he sought. But he would give Chance no chance against him. He went +back round the corner, sat down on the seat, and watched Bechamel recede into +the dimness up the esplanade, before he got up and walked into the hotel +entrance. “A lady cyclist in grey,” he asked for, and followed boldly on the +waiter’s heels. The door of the dining-room was opening before he felt a qualm. +And then suddenly he was nearly minded to turn and run for it, and his features +seemed to him to be convulsed. +</p> + +<p> +She turned with a start, and looked at him with something between terror and +hope in her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Can I—have a few words—with you, alone?” said Mr. Hoopdriver, controlling his +breath with difficulty. She hesitated, and then motioned the waiter to +withdraw. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver watched the door shut. He had intended to step out into the +middle of the room, fold his arms and say, “You are in trouble. I am a Friend. +Trust me.” Instead of which he stood panting and then spoke with sudden +familiarity, hastily, guiltily: “Look here. I don’t know what the juice is up, +but I think there’s something wrong. Excuse my intruding—if it isn’t so. I’ll +do anything you like to help you out of the scrape—if you’re in one. That’s my +meaning, I believe. What can I do? I would do anything to help you.” +</p> + +<p> +Her brow puckered, as she watched him make, with infinite emotion, this +remarkable speech. “<i>You!</i>” she said. She was tumultuously weighing +possibilities in her mind, and he had scarcely ceased when she had made her +resolve. +</p> + +<p> +She stepped a pace forward. “You are a gentleman,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“Can I trust you?” +</p> + +<p> +She did not wait for his assurance. “I must leave this hotel at once. Come +here.” +</p> + +<p> +She took his arm and led him to the window. +</p> + +<p> +“You can just see the gate. It is still open. Through that are our bicycles. Go +down, get them out, and I will come down to you. Dare you? +</p> + +<p> +“Get your bicycle out in the road?” +</p> + +<p> +“Both. Mine alone is no good. At once. Dare you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Which way?” +</p> + +<p> +“Go out by the front door and round. I will follow in one minute.” +</p> + +<p> +“Right!” said Mr. Hoopdriver, and went. +</p> + +<p> +He had to get those bicycles. Had he been told to go out and kill Bechamel he +would have done it. His head was a maelstrom now. He walked out of the hotel, +along the front, and into the big, black-shadowed coach yard. He looked round. +There were no bicycles visible. Then a man emerged from the dark, a short man +in a short, black, shiny jacket. Hoopdriver was caught. He made no attempt to +turn and run for it. “I’ve been giving your machines a wipe over, sir,” said +the man, recognising the suit, and touching his cap. Hoopdriver’s intelligence +now was a soaring eagle; he swooped on the situation at once. “That’s right,” +he said, and added, before the pause became marked, “Where is mine? I want to +look at the chain.” +</p> + +<p> +The man led him into an open shed, and went fumbling for a lantern. Hoopdriver +moved the lady’s machine out of his way to the door, and then laid hands on the +man’s machine and wheeled it out of the shed into the yard. The gate stood open +and beyond was the pale road and a clump of trees black in the twilight. He +stooped and examined the chain with trembling fingers. How was it to be done? +Something behind the gate seemed to flutter. The man must be got rid of anyhow. +</p> + +<p> +“I say,” said Hoopdriver, with an inspiration, “can you get me a screwdriver?” +</p> + +<p> +The man simply walked across the shed, opened and shut a box, and came up to +the kneeling Hoopdriver with a screwdriver in his hand. Hoopdriver felt himself +a lost man. He took the screwdriver with a tepid “Thanks,” and incontinently +had another inspiration. +</p> + +<p> +“I say,” he said again. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“This is miles too big.” +</p> + +<p> +The man lit the lantern, brought it up to Hoopdriver and put it down on the +ground. “Want a smaller screwdriver?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Hoopdriver had his handkerchief out and sneezed a prompt <i>atichew</i>. It is +the orthodox thing when you wish to avoid recognition. “As small as you have,” +he said, out of his pocket handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +“I ain’t got none smaller than that,” said the ostler. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t do, really,” said Hoopdriver, still wallowing in his handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll see wot they got in the ’ouse, if you like, sir,” said the man. “If you +would,” said Hoopdriver. And as the man’s heavily nailed boots went clattering +down the yard, Hoopdriver stood up, took a noiseless step to the lady’s +machine, laid trembling hands on its handle and saddle, and prepared for a +rush. +</p> + +<p> +The scullery door opened momentarily and sent a beam of warm, yellow light up +the road, shut again behind the man, and forthwith Hoopdriver rushed the +machines towards the gate. A dark grey form came fluttering to meet him. “Give +me this,” she said, “and bring yours.” +</p> + +<p> +He passed the thing to her, touched her hand in the darkness, ran back, seized +Bechamel’s machine, and followed. +</p> + +<p> +The yellow light of the scullery door suddenly flashed upon the cobbles again. +It was too late now to do anything but escape. He heard the ostler shout behind +him, and came into the road. She was up and dim already. He got into the saddle +without a blunder. In a moment the ostler was in the gateway with a +full-throated “<i>Hi!</i>! sir! That ain’t allowed;” and Hoopdriver was +overtaking the Young Lady in Grey. For some moments the earth seemed alive with +shouts of, “Stop ’em!” and the shadows with ambuscades of police. The road +swept round, and they were riding out of sight of the hotel, and behind dark +hedges, side by side. +</p> + +<p> +She was weeping with excitement as he overtook her. “Brave,” she said, “brave!” +and he ceased to feel like a hunted thief. He looked over his shoulder and +about him, and saw that they were already out of Bognor—for the Vicuna stands +at the very westernmost extremity of the sea front—and riding on a fair wide +road. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter23"></a>XXIII.</h2> + +<p> +The ostler (being a fool) rushed violently down the road vociferating after +them. Then he returned panting to the Vicuna Hotel, and finding a group of men +outside the entrance, who wanted to know what was <i>up</i>, stopped to give +them the cream of the adventure. That gave the fugitives five minutes. Then +pushing breathlessly into the bar, he had to make it clear to the barmaid what +the matter was, and the ‘gov’nor’ being out, they spent some more precious time +wondering ‘what—<i>ever</i>’ was to be done! in which the two customers +returning from outside joined with animation. There were also moral remarks and +other irrelevant contributions. There were conflicting ideas of telling the +police and pursuing the flying couple on a horse. That made ten minutes. Then +Stephen, the waiter, who had shown Hoopdriver up, came down and lit wonderful +lights and started quite a fresh discussion by the simple question +“<i>Which?</i>?” That turned ten minutes into a quarter of an hour. And in the +midst of this discussion, making a sudden and awestricken silence, appeared +Bechamel in the hall beyond the bar, walked with a resolute air to the foot of +the staircase, and passed out of sight. You conceive the backward pitch of that +exceptionally shaped cranium? Incredulous eyes stared into one another’s in the +bar, as his paces, muffled by the stair carpet, went up to the landing, turned, +reached the passage and walked into the dining-room overhead. +</p> + +<p> +“It wasn’t that one at all, miss,” said the ostler, “I’d <i>swear</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, that’s Mr. Beaumont,” said the barmaid, “—anyhow.” +</p> + +<p> +Their conversation hung comatose in the air, switched up by Bechamel. They +listened together. His feet stopped. Turned. Went out of the diningroom. Down +the passage to the bedroom. Stopped again. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor chap!” said the barmaid. “She’s a wicked woman!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sssh!” said Stephen. +</p> + +<p> +After a pause Bechamel went back to the dining-room. They heard a chair creak +under him. Interlude of conversational eyebrows. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going up,” said Stephen, “to break the melancholy news to him.” +</p> + +<p> +Bechamel looked up from a week-old newspaper as, without knocking, Stephen +entered. Bechamel’s face suggested a different expectation. “Beg pardon, sir,” +said Stephen, with a diplomatic cough. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” said Bechamel, wondering suddenly if Jessie had kept some of her +threats. If so, he was in for an explanation. But he had it ready. She was a +monomaniac. “Leave me alone with her,” he would say; “I know how to calm her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Beaumont,” said Stephen. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Well?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Has gone.” +</p> + +<p> +He rose with a fine surprise. “Gone!” he said with a half laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Gone, sir. On her bicycle.” +</p> + +<p> +“On her bicycle! Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“She went, sir, with Another Gentleman.” +</p> + +<p> +This time Bechamel was really startled. “An—other Gentlemen! <i>Who?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Another gentleman in brown, sir. Went into the yard, sir, got out the two +bicycles, sir, and went off, sir—about twenty minutes ago.” +</p> + +<p> +Bechamel stood with his eyes round and his knuckle on his hips. Stephen, +watching him with immense enjoyment, speculated whether this abandoned husband +would weep or curse, or rush off at once in furious pursuit. But as yet he +seemed merely stunned. +</p> + +<p> +“Brown clothes?” he said. “And fairish?” +</p> + +<p> +“A little like yourself, sir—in the dark. The ostler, sir, Jim Duke—” +</p> + +<p> +Bechamel laughed awry. Then, with infinite fervour, he said—But let us put in +blank cartridge—he said, “———!” +</p> + +<p> +“I might have thought!” +</p> + +<p> +He flung himself into the armchair. +</p> + +<p> +“Damn her,” said Bechamel, for all the world like a common man. “I’ll chuck +this infernal business! They’ve gone, eigh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yessir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, let ’em GO,” said Bechamel, making a memorable saying. “Let ’em GO. Who +cares? And I wish him luck. And bring me some Bourbon as fast as you can, +there’s a good chap. I’ll take that, and then I’ll have another look round +Bognor before I turn in.” +</p> + +<p> +Stephen was too surprised to say anything but “Bourbon, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Go on,” said Bechamel. “Damn you!” +</p> + +<p> +Stephen’s sympathies changed at once. “Yessir,” he murmured, fumbling for the +door handle, and left the room, marvelling. Bechamel, having in this way +satisfied his sense of appearances, and comported himself as a Pagan should, so +soon as the waiter’s footsteps had passed, vented the cream of his feelings in +a stream of blasphemous indecency. Whether his wife or <i>her</i> stepmother +had sent the detective, <i>she</i> had evidently gone off with him, and that +little business was over. And he was here, stranded and sold, an ass, and as it +were, the son of many generations of asses. And his only ray of hope was that +it seemed more probable, after all, that the girl had escaped through her +stepmother. In which case the business might be hushed up yet, and the evil +hour of explanation with his wife indefinitely postponed. Then abruptly the +image of that lithe figure in grey knickerbockers went frisking across his mind +again, and he reverted to his blasphemies. He started up in a gusty frenzy with +a vague idea of pursuit, and incontinently sat down again with a concussion +that stirred the bar below to its depths. He banged the arms of the chair with +his fist, and swore again. “Of all the accursed fools that were ever spawned,” +he was chanting, “I, Bechamel—” when with an abrupt tap and prompt opening of +the door, Stephen entered with the Bourbon. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter24"></a>XXIV.<br/> +THE MOONLIGHT RIDE</h2> + +<p> +And so the twenty minutes’ law passed into an infinity. We leave the wicked +Bechamel clothing himself with cursing as with a garment,—the wretched creature +has already sufficiently sullied our modest but truthful pages,—we leave the +eager little group in the bar of the Vicuna Hotel, we leave all Bognor as we +have left all Chichester and Midhurst and Haslemere and Guildford and Ripley +and Putney, and follow this dear fool of a Hoopdriver of ours and his Young +Lady in Grey out upon the moonlight road. How they rode! How their hearts beat +together and their breath came fast, and how every shadow was anticipation and +every noise pursuit! For all that flight Mr. Hoopdriver was in the world of +Romance. Had a policeman intervened because their lamps were not lit, +Hoopdriver had cut him down and ridden on, after the fashion of a hero born. +Had Bechamel arisen in the way with rapiers for a duel, Hoopdriver had fought +as one to whom Agincourt was a reality and drapery a dream. It was Rescue, +Elopement, Glory! And she by the side of him! He had seen her face in shadow, +with the morning sunlight tangled in her hair, he had seen her sympathetic with +that warm light in her face, he had seen her troubled and her eyes bright with +tears. But what light is there lighting a face like hers, to compare with the +soft glamour of the midsummer moon? +</p> + +<p> +The road turned northward, going round through the outskirts of Bognor, in one +place dark and heavy under a thick growth of trees, then amidst villas again, +some warm and lamplit, some white and sleeping in the moonlight; then between +hedges, over which they saw broad wan meadows shrouded in a low-lying mist. +They scarcely heeded whither they rode at first, being only anxious to get +away, turning once westward when the spire of Chichester cathedral rose +suddenly near them out of the dewy night, pale and intricate and high. They +rode, speaking little, just a rare word now and then, at a turning, at a +footfall, at a roughness in the road. +</p> + +<p> +She seemed to be too intent upon escape to give much thought to him, but after +the first tumult of the adventure, as flight passed into mere steady riding his +mind became an enormous appreciation of the position. The night was a warm +white silence save for the subtile running of their chains. He looked sideways +at her as she sat beside him with her ankles gracefully ruling the treadles. +Now the road turned westward, and she was a dark grey outline against the +shimmer of the moon; and now they faced northwards, and the soft cold light +passed caressingly over her hair and touched her brow and cheek. +</p> + +<p> +There is a magic quality in moonshine; it touches all that is sweet and +beautiful, and the rest of the night is hidden. It has created the fairies, +whom the sunlight kills, and fairyland rises again in our hearts at the sight +of it, the voices of the filmy route, and their faint, soul-piercing melodies. +By the moonlight every man, dull clod though he be by day, tastes something of +Endymion, takes something of the youth and strength of Endymion, and sees the +dear white goddess shining at him from his Lady’s eyes. The firm substantial +daylight things become ghostly and elusive, the hills beyond are a sea of +unsubstantial texture, the world a visible spirit, the spiritual within us +rises out of its darkness, loses something of its weight and body, and swims up +towards heaven. This road that was a mere rutted white dust, hot underfoot, +blinding to the eye, is now a soft grey silence, with the glitter of a crystal +grain set starlike in its silver here and there. Overhead, riding serenely +through the spacious blue, is the mother of the silence, she who has +spiritualised the world, alone save for two attendant steady shining stars. And +in silence under her benign influence, under the benediction of her light, rode +our two wanderers side by side through the transfigured and transfiguring +night. +</p> + +<p> +Nowhere was the moon shining quite so brightly as in Mr. Hoopdriver’s skull. At +the turnings of the road he made his decisions with an air of profound +promptitude (and quite haphazard). “The Right,” he would say. Or again “The +Left,” as one who knew. So it was that in the space of an hour they came +abruptly down a little lane, full tilt upon the sea. Grey beach to the right of +them and to the left, and a little white cottage fast asleep inland of a +sleeping fishing-boat. “Hullo!” said Mr. Hoopdriver, <i>sotto voce</i>. They +dismounted abruptly. Stunted oaks and thorns rose out of the haze of moonlight +that was tangled in the hedge on either side. +</p> + +<p> +“You are safe,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, sweeping off his cap with an air and +bowing courtly. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are we?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Safe</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“But <i>where?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Chichester Harbour.” He waved his arm seaward as though it was a goal. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think they will follow us?” +</p> + +<p> +“We have turned and turned again.” +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to Hoopdriver that he heard her sob. She stood dimly there, holding +her machine, and he, holding his, could go no nearer to her to see if she +sobbed for weeping or for want of breath. “What are we to do now?” her voice +asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you tired?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I will do what has to be done.” +</p> + +<p> +The two black figures in the broken light were silent for a space. “Do you +know,” she said, “I am not afraid of you. I am sure you are honest to me. And I +do not even know your name!” +</p> + +<p> +He was taken with a sudden shame of his homely patronymic. “It’s an ugly name,” +he said. “But you are right in trusting me. I would—I would do anything for +you.... This is nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +She caught at her breath. She did not care to ask why. But compared with +Bechamel!—“We take each other on trust,” she said. “Do you want to know—how +things are with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“That man,” she went on, after the assent of his listening silence, “promised +to help and protect me. I was unhappy at home—never mind why. A +stepmother—Idle, unoccupied, hindered, cramped, that is enough, perhaps. Then +he came into my life, and talked to me of art and literature, and set my brain +on fire. I wanted to come out into the world, to be a human being—not a thing +in a hutch. And he—” +</p> + +<p> +“I know,” said Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“And now here I am—” +</p> + +<p> +“I will do anything,” said Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +She thought. “You cannot imagine my stepmother. No! I could not describe her—” +</p> + +<p> +“I am entirely at your service. I will help you with all my power.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have lost an Illusion and found a Knight-errant.” She spoke of Bechamel as +the Illusion. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver felt flattered. But he had no adequate answer. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m thinking,” he said, full of a rapture of protective responsibility, “what +we had best be doing. You are tired, you know. And we can’t wander all +night—after the day we’ve had.” +</p> + +<p> +“That was Chichester we were near?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“If,” he meditated, with a tremble in his voice, “you would make <i>me</i> your +brother, <i>Miss Beaumont</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“We could stop there together—” +</p> + +<p> +She took a minute to answer. “I am going to light these lamps,” said +Hoopdriver. He bent down to his own, and struck a match on his shoe. She looked +at his face in its light, grave and intent. How could she ever have thought him +common or absurd? +</p> + +<p> +“But you must tell me your name—brother,” she said, +</p> + +<p> +“Er—Carrington,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, after a momentary pause. Who would be +Hoopdriver on a night like this? +</p> + +<p> +“But the Christian name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Christian name? <i>My</i> Christian name. Well—Chris.” He snapped his lamp and +stood up. “If you will hold my machine, I will light yours,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She came round obediently and took his machine, and for a moment they stood +face to face. “My name, brother Chris,” she said, “is Jessie.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked into her eyes, and his excitement seemed arrested. “<i>Jessie</i>,” +he repeated slowly. The mute emotion of his face affected her strangely. She +had to speak. “It’s not such a very wonderful name, is it?” she said, with a +laugh to break the intensity. +</p> + +<p> +He opened his mouth and shut it again, and, with a sudden wincing of his +features, abruptly turned and bent down to open the lantern in front of her +machine. She looked down at him, almost kneeling in front of her, with an +unreasonable approbation in her eyes. It was, as I have indicated, the hour and +season of the full moon. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter25"></a>XXV.</h2> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver conducted the rest of that night’s journey with the same +confident dignity as before, and it was chiefly by good luck and the fact that +most roads about a town converge thereupon, that Chichester was at last +attained. It seemed at first as though everyone had gone to bed, but the Red +Hotel still glowed yellow and warm. It was the first time Hoopdriver had dared +the mysteries of a ‘first-class’ hotel. But that night he was in the mood to +dare anything. +</p> + +<p> +“So you found your Young Lady at last,” said the ostler of the Red Hotel; for +it chanced he was one of those of whom Hoopdriver had made inquiries in the +afternoon. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite a misunderstanding,” said Hoopdriver, with splendid readiness. “My +sister had gone to Bognor. But I brought her back here. I’ve took a fancy to +this place. And the moonlight’s simply dee-vine.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve had supper, thenks, and we’re tired,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “I suppose +you won’t take anything,—Jessie?” +</p> + +<p> +The glory of having her, even as a sister! and to call her Jessie like that! +But he carried it off splendidly, as he felt himself bound to admit. +“Good-night, Sis,” he said, “and pleasant dreams. I’ll just ’ave a look at this +paper before I turn in.” But this was living indeed! he told himself. +</p> + +<p> +So gallantly did Mr. Hoopdriver comport himself up to the very edge of the Most +Wonderful Day of all. It had begun early, you will remember, with a vigil in a +little sweetstuff shop next door to the Angel at Midhurst. But to think of all +the things that had happened since then! He caught himself in the middle of a +yawn, pulled out his watch, saw the time was halfpast eleven, and marched off, +with a fine sense of heroism, bedward. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter26"></a>XXVI.<br/> +THE SURBITON INTERLUDE</h2> + +<p> +And here, thanks to the glorious institution of sleep, comes a break in the +narrative again. These absurd young people are safely tucked away now, their +heads full of glowing nonsense, indeed, but the course of events at any rate is +safe from any fresh developments through their activities for the next eight +hours or more. They are both sleeping healthily you will perhaps be astonished +to hear. Here is the girl—what girls are coming to nowadays only Mrs. Lynn +Linton can tell!—in company with an absolute stranger, of low extraction and +uncertain accent, unchaperoned and unabashed; indeed, now she fancies she is +safe, she is, if anything, a little proud of her own share in these +transactions. Then this Mr. Hoopdriver of yours, roseate idiot that he is! is +in illegal possession of a stolen bicycle, a stolen young lady, and two stolen +names, established with them in an hotel that is quite beyond his means, and +immensely proud of himself in a somnolent way for these incomparable follies. +There are occasions when a moralising novelist can merely wring his hands and +leave matters to take their course. For all Hoopdriver knows or cares he may be +locked up the very first thing to-morrow morning for the rape of the cycle. +Then in Bognor, let alone that melancholy vestige, Bechamel (with whom our +dealings are, thank Goodness! over), there is a Coffee Tavern with a steak Mr. +Hoopdriver ordered, done to a cinder long ago, his American-cloth parcel in a +bedroom, and his own proper bicycle, by way of guarantee, carefully locked up +in the hayloft. To-morrow he will be a Mystery, and they will be looking for +his body along the sea front. And so far we have never given a glance at the +desolate home in Surbiton, familiar to you no doubt through the medium of +illustrated interviews, where the unhappy stepmother— +</p> + +<p> +That stepmother, it must be explained, is quite well known to you. That is a +little surprise I have prepared for you. She is ‘Thomas Plantagenet,’ the +gifted authoress of that witty and daring book, “A Soul Untrammelled,” and +quite an excellent woman in her way,—only it is such a crooked way. Her real +name is Milton. She is a widow and a charming one, only ten years older than +Jessie, and she is always careful to dedicate her more daring works to the +‘sacred memory of my husband’ to show that there’s nothing personal, you know, +in the matter. Considering her literary reputation (she was always speaking of +herself as one ‘martyred for truth,’ because the critics advertised her written +indecorums in column long ‘slates’),—considering her literary reputation, I +say, she was one of the most respectable women it is possible to imagine. She +furnished correctly, dressed correctly, had severe notions of whom she might +meet, went to church, and even at times took the sacrament in some esoteric +spirit. And Jessie she brought up so carefully that she never even let her read +“A Soul Untrammelled.” Which, therefore, naturally enough, Jessie did, and went +on from that to a feast of advanced literature. Mrs. Milton not only brought up +Jessie carefully, but very slowly, so that at seventeen she was still a clever +schoolgirl (as you have seen her) and quite in the background of the little +literary circle of unimportant celebrities which ‘Thomas Plantagenet’ adorned. +Mrs. Milton knew Bechamel’s reputation of being a dangerous man; but then bad +men are not bad women, and she let him come to her house to show she was not +afraid—she took no account of Jessie. When the elopement came, therefore, it +was a double disappointment to her, for she perceived his hand by a kind of +instinct. She did the correct thing. The correct thing, as you know, is to take +hansom cabs, regardless of expense, and weep and say you do not know +<i>what</i> to do, round the circle of your confidential friends. She could not +have ridden nor wept more had Jessie been her own daughter—she showed the +properest spirit. And she not only showed it, but felt it. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Milton, as a successful little authoress and still more successful widow +of thirty-two,—“Thomas Plantagenet is a charming woman,” her reviewers used to +write invariably, even if they spoke ill of her,—found the steady growth of +Jessie into womanhood an unmitigated nuisance and had been willing enough to +keep her in the background. And Jessie—who had started this intercourse at +fourteen with abstract objections to stepmothers—had been active enough in +resenting this. Increasing rivalry and antagonism had sprung up between them, +until they could engender quite a vivid hatred from a dropped hairpin or the +cutting of a book with a sharpened knife. There is very little deliberate +wickedness in the world. The stupidity of our selfishness gives much the same +results indeed, but in the ethical laboratory it shows a different nature. And +when the disaster came, Mrs. Milton’s remorse for their gradual loss of +sympathy and her share in the losing of it, was genuine enough. +</p> + +<p> +You may imagine the comfort she got from her friends, and how West Kensington +and Notting Hill and Hampstead, the literary suburbs, those decent +penitentiaries of a once Bohemian calling, hummed with the business, Her +‘Men’—as a charming literary lady she had, of course, an organised corps—were +immensely excited, and were sympathetic; helpfully energetic, suggestive, +alert, as their ideals of their various dispositions required them to be. “Any +news of Jessie?” was the pathetic opening of a dozen melancholy but interesting +conversations. To her Men she was not perhaps so damp as she was to her women +friends, but in a quiet way she was even more touching. For three days, +Wednesday that is, Thursday, and Friday, nothing was heard of the fugitives. It +was known that Jessie, wearing a patent costume with buttonup skirts, and +mounted on a diamond frame safety with Dunlops, and a loofah covered saddle, +had ridden forth early in the morning, taking with her about two pounds seven +shillings in money, and a grey touring case packed, and there, save for a brief +note to her stepmother,—a declaration of independence, it was said, an +assertion of her Ego containing extensive and very annoying quotations from “A +Soul Untrammelled,” and giving no definite intimation of her plans—knowledge +ceased. That note was shown to few, and then only in the strictest confidence. +</p> + +<p> +But on Friday evening late came a breathless Man Friend, Widgery, a +correspondent of hers, who had heard of her trouble among the first. He had +been touring in Sussex,—his knapsack was still on his back,—and he testified +hurriedly that at a place called Midhurst, in the bar of an hotel called the +Angel, he had heard from a barmaid a vivid account of a Young Lady in Grey. +Descriptions tallied. But who was the man in brown? “The poor, misguided girl! +I must go to her at once,” she said, choking, and rising with her hand to her +heart. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s impossible to-night. There are no more trains. I looked on my way.” +</p> + +<p> +“A mother’s love,” she said. “I bear her <i>that</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know you do.” He spoke with feeling, for no one admired his photographs of +scenery more than Mrs. Milton. “It’s more than she deserves.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t speak unkindly of her! She has been misled.” +</p> + +<p> +It was really very friendly of him. He declared he was only sorry his news +ended there. Should he follow them, and bring her back? He had come to her +because he knew of her anxiety. “It is <i>good</i> of you,” she said, and quite +instinctively took and pressed his hand. “And to think of that poor +girl—tonight! It’s dreadful.” She looked into the fire that she had lit when he +came in, the warm light fell upon her dark purple dress, and left her features +in a warm shadow. She looked such a slight, frail thing to be troubled so. “We +must follow her.” Her resolution seemed magnificent. “I have no one to go with +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“He must marry her,” said the man. +</p> + +<p> +“She has no friends. We have no one. After all—Two women.—So helpless.” +</p> + +<p> +And this fair-haired little figure was the woman that people who knew her only +from her books, called bold, prurient even! Simply because she was +great-hearted—intellectual. He was overcome by the unspeakable pathos of her +position. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Milton,” he said. “Hetty!” +</p> + +<p> +She glanced at him. The overflow was imminent. “Not now,” she said, “not now. I +must find her first.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said with intense emotion. (He was one of those big, fat men who feel +deeply.) “But let me help you. At least let me help you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But can you spare time?” she said. “For <i>me</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“For you—” +</p> + +<p> +“But what can I do? what can <i>we</i> do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Go to Midhurst. Follow her on. Trace her. She was there on Thursday night, +last night. She cycled out of the town. Courage!” he said. “We will save her +yet!” +</p> + +<p> +She put out her hand and pressed his again. +</p> + +<p> +“Courage!” he repeated, finding it so well received. +</p> + +<p> +There were alarms and excursions without. She turned her back to the fire, and +he sat down suddenly in the big armchair, which suited his dimensions +admirably. Then the door opened, and the girl showed in Dangle, who looked +curiously from one to the other. There was emotion here, he had heard the +armchair creaking, and Mrs. Milton, whose face was flushed, displayed a +suspicious alacrity to explain. “You, too,” she said, “are one of my good +friends. And we have news of her at last.” +</p> + +<p> +It was decidedly an advantage to Widgery, but Dangle determined to show himself +a man of resource. In the end he, too, was accepted for the Midhurst +Expedition, to the intense disgust of Widgery; and young Phipps, a callow youth +of few words, faultless collars, and fervent devotion, was also enrolled before +the evening was out. They would scour the country, all three of them. She +appeared to brighten up a little, but it was evident she was profoundly +touched. She did not know what she had done to merit such friends. Her voice +broke a little, she moved towards the door, and young Phipps, who was a youth +of action rather than of words, sprang and opened it—proud to be first. +</p> + +<p> +“She is sorely troubled,” said Dangle to Widgery. “We must do what we can for +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is a wonderful woman,” said Dangle. “So subtle, so intricate, so many +faceted. She feels this deeply.” +</p> + +<p> +Young Phipps said nothing, but he felt the more. +</p> + +<p> +And yet they say the age of chivalry is dead! +</p> + +<p> +But this is only an Interlude, introduced to give our wanderers time to refresh +themselves by good, honest sleeping. For the present, therefore, we will not +concern ourselves with the starting of the Rescue Party, nor with Mrs. Milton’s +simple but becoming grey dress, with the healthy Widgery’s Norfolk jacket and +thick boots, with the slender Dangle’s energetic bearing, nor with the +wonderful chequerings that set off the legs of the golf-suited Phipps. They are +after us. In a little while they will be upon us. You must imagine as you best +can the competitive raidings at Midhurst of Widgery, Dangle, and Phipps. How +Widgery was great at questions, and Dangle good at inference, and Phipps so +conspicuously inferior in everything that he felt it, and sulked with Mrs. +Milton most of the day, after the manner of your callow youth the whole world +over. Mrs. Milton stopped at the Angel and was very sad and charming and +intelligent, and Widgery paid the bill in the afternoon of Saturday, Chichester +was attained. But by that time our fugitives—As you shall immediately hear. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter27"></a>XXVII.<br/> +THE AWAKENING OF MR. HOOPDRIVER</h2> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver stirred on his pillow, opened his eyes, and, staring +unmeaningly, yawned. The bedclothes were soft and pleasant. He turned the +peaked nose that overrides the insufficient moustache, up to the ceiling, a +pinkish projection over the billow of white. You might see it wrinkle as he +yawned again, and then became quiet. So matters remained for a space. Very +slowly recollection returned to him. Then a shock of indeterminate brown hair +appeared, and first one watery grey eye a-wondering, and then two; the bed +upheaved, and you had him, his thin neck projecting abruptly from the clothes +he held about him, his face staring about the room. He held the clothes about +him, I hope I may explain, because his night-shirt was at Bognor in an +American-cloth packet, derelict. He yawned a third time, rubbed his eyes, +smacked his lips. He was recalling almost everything now. The pursuit, the +hotel, the tremulous daring of his entry, the swift adventure of the inn yard, +the moonlight—Abruptly he threw the clothes back and rose into a sitting +position on the edge of the bed. Without was the noise of shutters being +unfastened and doors unlocked, and the passing of hoofs and wheels in the +street. He looked at his watch. Half-past six. He surveyed the sumptuous room +again. +</p> + +<p> +“Lord!” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “It wasn’t a dream, after all.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder what they charge for these Juicèd rooms!” said Mr. Hoopdriver, +nursing one rosy foot. +</p> + +<p> +He became meditative, tugging at his insufficient moustache. Suddenly he gave +vent to a noiseless laugh. “What a rush it was! Rushed in and off with his girl +right under his nose. Planned it well too. Talk of highway robbery! Talk of +brigands! Up and off! How juicèd <i>sold</i> he must be feeling! It was a shave +too—in the coach yard!” +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly he became silent. Abruptly his eyebrows rose and his jaw fell. “I +sa-a-ay!” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +He had never thought of it before. Perhaps you will understand the whirl he had +been in overnight. But one sees things clearer in the daylight. “I’m hanged if +I haven’t been and stolen a blessed bicycle.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who cares?” said Mr. Hoopdriver, presently, and his face supplied the answer. +</p> + +<p> +Then he thought of the Young Lady in Grey again, and tried to put a more heroic +complexion on the business. But of an early morning, on an empty stomach (as +with characteristic coarseness, medical men put it) heroics are of a more +difficult growth than by moonlight. Everything had seemed exceptionally fine +and brilliant, but quite natural, the evening before. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver reached out his hand, took his Norfolk jacket, laid it over his +knees, and took out the money from the little ticket pocket. “Fourteen and +six-half,” he said, holding the coins in his left hand and stroking his chin +with his right. He verified, by patting, the presence of a pocketbook in the +breast pocket. “Five, fourteen, six-half,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “Left.” +</p> + +<p> +With the Norfolk jacket still on his knees, he plunged into another silent +meditation. “That wouldn’t matter,” he said. “It’s the bike’s the bother. +</p> + +<p> +“No good going back to Bognor. +</p> + +<p> +“Might send it back by carrier, of course. Thanking him for the loan. Having no +further use—” Mr. Hoopdriver chuckled and lapsed into the silent concoction of +a delightfully impudent letter. “Mr. J. Hoopdriver presents his compliments.” +But the grave note reasserted itself. +</p> + +<p> +“Might trundle back there in an hour, of course, and exchange them. <i>My</i> +old crock’s so blessed shabby. He’s sure to be spiteful too. Have me run in, +perhaps. Then she’d be in just the same old fix, only worse. You see, I’m her +Knight-errant. It complicates things so.” +</p> + +<p> +His eye, wandering loosely, rested on the sponge bath. “What the juice do they +want with cream pans in a bedroom?” said Mr. Hoopdriver, <i>en passant</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“Best thing we can do is to set out of here as soon as possible, anyhow. I +suppose she’ll go home to her friends. That bicycle is a juicy nuisance, +anyhow. Juicy nuisance!” +</p> + +<p> +He jumped to his feet with a sudden awakening of energy, to proceed with his +toilet. Then with a certain horror he remembered that the simple necessaries of +that process were at Bognor! “Lord!” he remarked, and whistled silently for a +space. “Rummy go! profit and loss; profit, one sister with bicycle complete, +wot offers?—cheap for tooth and ’air brush, vests, night-shirt, stockings, and +sundries. +</p> + +<p> +“Make the best of it,” and presently, when it came to hair-brushing, he had to +smooth his troubled locks with his hands. It was a poor result. “Sneak out and +get a shave, I suppose, and buy a brush and so on. Chink again! Beard don’t +show much.” +</p> + +<p> +He ran his hand over his chin, looked at himself steadfastly for some time, and +curled his insufficient moustache up with some care. Then he fell a-meditating +on his beauty. He considered himself, three-quarter face, left and right. An +expression of distaste crept over his features. “Looking won’t alter it, +Hoopdriver,” he remarked. “You’re a weedy customer, my man. Shoulders narrow. +Skimpy, anyhow.” +</p> + +<p> +He put his knuckles on the toilet table and regarded himself with his chin +lifted in the air. “Good Lord!” he said. “<i>What</i> a neck! Wonder why I got +such a thundering lump there.” +</p> + +<p> +He sat down on the bed, his eye still on the glass. “If I’d been exercised +properly, if I’d been fed reasonable, if I hadn’t been shoved out of a silly +school into a silly shop—But there! the old folks didn’t know no better. The +schoolmaster ought to have. But he didn’t, poor old fool!—Still, when it comes +to meeting a girl like this—It’s ’<i>ard</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder what Adam’d think of me—as a specimen. Civilisation, eigh? Heir of +the ages! I’m nothing. I know nothing. I can’t do anything—sketch a bit. Why +wasn’t I made an artist? +</p> + +<p> +“Beastly cheap, after all, this suit does look, in the sunshine.” +</p> + +<p> +“No good, Hoopdriver. Anyhow, you don’t tell yourself any lies about it. Lovers +ain’t your game,—anyway. But there’s other things yet. You can help the young +lady, and you will—I suppose she’ll be going home—And that business of the +bicycle’s to see to, too, my man. <i>Forward</i>, Hoopdriver! If you ain’t a +beauty, that’s no reason why you should stop and be copped, is it?” +</p> + +<p> +And having got back in this way to a gloomy kind of self-satisfaction, he had +another attempt at his hair preparatory to leaving his room and hurrying on +breakfast, for an early departure. While breakfast was preparing he wandered +out into South Street and refurnished himself with the elements of luggage +again. “No expense to be spared,” he murmured, disgorging the half-sovereign. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter28"></a>XXVIII.<br/> +THE DEPARTURE FROM CHICHESTER</h2> + +<p> +He caused his ‘sister’ to be called repeatedly, and when she came down, +explained with a humorous smile his legal relationship to the bicycle in the +yard. “Might be disagreeable, y’ know.” His anxiety was obvious enough. “Very +well,” she said (quite friendly); “hurry breakfast, and we’ll ride out. I want +to talk things over with you.” The girl seemed more beautiful than ever after +the night’s sleep; her hair in comely dark waves from her forehead, her +ungauntleted finger-tips pink and cool. And how decided she was! Breakfast was +a nervous ceremony, conversation fraternal but thin; the waiter overawed him, +and he was cowed by a multiplicity of forks. But she called him “Chris.” They +discussed their route over his sixpenny county map for the sake of talking, but +avoided a decision in the presence of the attendant. The five-pound note was +changed for the bill, and through Hoopdriver’s determination to be quite the +gentleman, the waiter and chambermaid got half a crown each and the ostler a +florin. “’Olidays,” said the ostler to himself, without gratitude. The public +mounting of the bicycles in the street was a moment of trepidation. A policeman +actually stopped and watched them from the opposite kerb. Suppose him to come +across and ask: “Is that your bicycle, sir?” Fight? Or drop it and run? It was +a time of bewildering apprehension, too, going through the streets of the town, +so that a milk cart barely escaped destruction under Mr. Hoopdriver’s chancy +wheel. That recalled him to a sense of erratic steering, and he pulled himself +together. In the lanes he breathed freer, and a less formal conversation +presently began. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve ridden out of Chichester in a great hurry,” said Jessie. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, the fact of it is, I’m worried, just a little bit. About this machine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” she said. “I had forgotten that. But where are we going?” +</p> + +<p> +“Jest a turning or two more, if you don’t mind,” said Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“Jest a mile or so. I have to think of you, you know. I should feel more easy. +If we was locked up, you know—Not that I should mind on my own account—” +</p> + +<p> +They rode with a streaky, grey sea coming and going on their left hand. Every +mile they put between themselves and Chichester Mr. Hoopdriver felt a little +less conscience-stricken, and a little more of the gallant desperado. Here he +was riding on a splendid machine with a Slap-up girl beside him. What would +they think of it in the Emporium if any of them were to see him? He imagined in +detail the astonishment of Miss Isaacs and of Miss Howe. “Why! It’s Mr. +Hoopdriver,” Miss Isaacs would say. “<i>Never!</i>” emphatically from Miss +Howe. Then he played with Briggs, and then tried the ‘G.V.’ in a shay. “Fancy +introducing ’em to her—My sister <i>pro tem</i>.” He was her brother +Chris—Chris what?—Confound it! Harringon, Hartington—something like that. Have +to keep off that topic until he could remember. Wish he’d told her the truth +now—almost. He glanced at her. She was riding with her eyes straight ahead of +her. Thinking. A little perplexed, perhaps, she seemed. He noticed how well she +rode and that she rode with her lips closed—a thing he could never manage. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver’s mind came round to the future. What was she going to do? What +were they both going to do? His thoughts took a graver colour. He had rescued +her. This was fine, manly rescue work he was engaged upon. She ought to go +home, in spite of that stepmother. He must insist gravely but firmly upon that. +She was the spirited sort, of course, but still—Wonder if she had any money? +Wonder what the second-class fare from Havant to London is? Of course he would +have to pay that—it was the regular thing, he being a gentleman. Then should he +take her home? He began to rough in a moving sketch of the return. The +stepmother, repentant of her indescribable cruelties, would be present,—even +these rich people have their troubles,—probably an uncle or two. The footman +would announce, Mr.—(bother that name!) and Miss Milton. Then two women weeping +together, and a knightly figure in the background dressed in a handsome Norfolk +jacket, still conspicuously new. He would conceal his feeling until the very +end. Then, leaving, he would pause in the doorway in such an attitude as Mr. +George Alexander might assume, and say, slowly and dwindlingly: “Be kind to +her—<i>be</i> kind to her,” and so depart, heartbroken to the meanest +intelligence. But that was a matter for the future. He would have to begin +discussing the return soon. There was no traffic along the road, and he came up +beside her (he had fallen behind in his musing). She began to talk. “Mr. +Denison,” she began, and then, doubtfully, “That <i>is</i> your name? I’m very +stupid—” +</p> + +<p> +“It is,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. (Denison, was it? Denison, Denison, Denison. What +was she saying?) +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder how far you are willing to help me?” Confoundedly hard to answer a +question like that on the spur of the moment, without steering wildly. “You may +rely—” said Mr. Hoopdriver, recovering from a violent wabble. “I can assure +you—I want to help you very much. Don’t consider me at all. Leastways, consider +me entirely at your service.” (Nuisance not to be able to say this kind of +thing right.) +</p> + +<p> +“You see, I am so awkwardly situated.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I can only help you—you will make me very happy—” There was a pause. Round +a bend in the road they came upon a grassy space between hedge and road, set +with yarrow and meadowsweet, where a felled tree lay among the green. There she +dismounted, and propping her machine against a stone, sat down. “Here, we can +talk,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, expectant. +</p> + +<p> +She answered after a little while, sitting, elbow on knee, with her chin in her +hand, and looking straight in front of her. “I don’t know—I am resolved to Live +my Own Life.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “Naturally.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to Live, and I want to see what life means. I want to learn. Everyone +is hurrying me, everything is hurrying me; I want time to think.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver was puzzled, but admiring. It was wonderful how clear and ready +her words were. But then one might speak well with a throat and lips like that. +He knew he was inadequate, but he tried to meet the occasion. “If you let them +rush you into anything you might repent of, of course you’d be very silly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t <i>you</i> want to learn?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I was wondering only this morning,” he began, and stopped. +</p> + +<p> +She was too intent upon her own thoughts to notice this insufficiency. “I find +myself in life, and it terrifies me. I seem to be like a little speck, whirling +on a wheel, suddenly caught up. ‘What am I here for?’ I ask. Simply to be here +at a time—I asked it a week ago, I asked it yesterday, and I ask it to-day. And +little things happen and the days pass. My stepmother takes me shopping, people +come to tea, there is a new play to pass the time, or a concert, or a novel. +The wheels of the world go on turning, turning. It is horrible. I want to do a +miracle like Joshua and stop the whirl until I have fought it out. At home—It’s +impossible.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver stroked his moustache. “It <i>is</i> so,” he said in a +meditative tone. “Things <i>will</i> go on,” he said. The faint breath of +summer stirred the trees, and a bunch of dandelion puff lifted among the +meadowsweet and struck and broke into a dozen separate threads against his +knee. They flew on apart, and sank, as the breeze fell, among the grass: some +to germinate, some to perish. His eye followed them until they had vanished. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t go back to Surbiton,” said the Young Lady in Grey. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Eigh?</i>” said Mr. Hoopdriver, catching at his moustache. This was an +unexpected development. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to write, you see,” said the Young Lady in Grey, “to write Books and +alter things. To do Good. I want to lead a Free Life and Own myself. I can’t go +back. I want to obtain a position as a journalist. I have been told—But I know +no one to help me at once. No one that I could go to. There is one person—She +was a mistress at my school. If I could write to her—But then, how could I get +her answer?” +</p> + +<p> +“H’mp,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, very grave. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t trouble you much more. You have come—you have risked things—” +</p> + +<p> +“That don’t count,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “It’s double pay to let me do it, so +to speak.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is good of you to say that. Surbiton is so Conventional. I am resolved to +be Unconventional—at any cost. But we are so hampered. If I could only burgeon +out of all that hinders me! I want to struggle, to take my place in the world. +I want to be my own mistress, to shape my own career. But my stepmother objects +so. She does as she likes herself, and is strict with me to ease her +conscience. And if I go back now, go back owning myself beaten—” She left the +rest to his imagination. +</p> + +<p> +“I see that,” agreed Mr. Hoopdriver. He <i>must</i> help her. Within his skull +he was doing some intricate arithmetic with five pounds six and twopence. In +some vague way he inferred from all this that Jessie was trying to escape from +an undesirable marriage, but was saying these things out of modesty. His circle +of ideas was so limited. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, Mr.—I’ve forgotten your name again.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver seemed lost in abstraction. “You can’t go back of course, quite +like that,” he said thoughtfully. His ears waxed suddenly red and his cheeks +flushed. +</p> + +<p> +“But what <i>is</i> your name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Name!” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “Why!—Benson, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Benson—yes it’s really very stupid of me. But I can never remember names. +I must make a note on my cuff.” She clicked a little silver pencil and wrote +the name down. “If I could write to my friend. I believe she would be able to +help me to an independent life. I could write to her—or telegraph. Write, I +think. I could scarcely explain in a telegram. I know she would help me.” +</p> + +<p> +Clearly there was only one course open to a gentleman under the circumstances. +“In that case,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, “if you don’t mind trusting yourself to a +stranger, we might continue as we are perhaps. For a day or so. Until you +heard.” (Suppose thirty shillings a day, that gives four days, say four +thirties is hun’ and twenty, six quid,—well, three days, say; four ten.) +</p> + +<p> +“You are very good to me.” +</p> + +<p> +His expression was eloquent. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, then, and thank you. It’s wonderful—it’s more than I deserve that +you—” She dropped the theme abruptly. “What was our bill at Chichester?” +</p> + +<p> +“Eigh?” said Mr. Hoopdriver, feigning a certain stupidity. There was a brief +discussion. Secretly he was delighted at her insistence in paying. She carried +her point. Their talk came round to their immediate plans for the day. They +decided to ride easily, through Havant, and stop, perhaps, at Fareham or +Southampton. For the previous day had tried them both. Holding the map extended +on his knee, Mr. Hoopdriver’s eye fell by chance on the bicycle at his feet. +“That bicycle,” he remarked, quite irrelevantly, “wouldn’t look the same +machine if I got a big, double Elarum instead of that little bell.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Jest a thought.” A pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, then,—Havant and lunch,” said Jessie, rising. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish, somehow, we could have managed it without stealing that machine,” said +Hoopdriver. “Because it IS stealing it, you know, come to think of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense. If Mr. Bechamel troubles you—I will tell the whole world—if need +be.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe you would,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, admiring her. “You’re plucky +enough—goodness knows.” +</p> + +<p> +Discovering suddenly that she was standing, he, too, rose and picked up her +machine. She took it and wheeled it into the road. Then he took his own. He +paused, regarding it. “I say!” said he. “How’d this bike look, now, if it was +enamelled grey?” She looked over her shoulder at his grave face. “Why try and +hide it in that way?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was jest a passing thought,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, airily. “Didn’t +<i>mean</i> anything, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +As they were riding on to Havant it occurred to Mr. Hoopdriver in a transitory +manner that the interview had been quite other than his expectation. But that +was the way with everything in Mr. Hoopdriver’s experience. And though his +Wisdom looked grave within him, and Caution was chinking coins, and an ancient +prejudice in favour of Property shook her head, something else was there too, +shouting in his mind to drown all these saner considerations, the intoxicating +thought of riding beside Her all to-day, all to-morrow, perhaps for other days +after that. Of talking to her familiarly, being brother of all her slender +strength and freshness, of having a golden, real, and wonderful time beyond all +his imaginings. His old familiar fancyings gave place to anticipations as +impalpable and fluctuating and beautiful as the sunset of a summer day. +</p> + +<p> +At Havant he took an opportunity to purchase, at a small hairdresser’s in the +main street, a toothbrush, a pair of nail scissors, and a little bottle of +stuff to darken the moustache, an article the shopman introduced to his +attention, recommended highly, and sold in the excitement of the occasion. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter29"></a>XXIX.<br/> +THE UNEXPECTED ANECDOTE OF THE LION</h2> + +<p> +They rode on to Cosham and lunched lightly but expensively there. Jessie went +out and posted her letter to her school friend. Then the green height of +Portsdown Hill tempted them, and leaving their machines in the village they +clambered up the slope to the silent red-brick fort that crowned it. Thence +they had a view of Portsmouth and its cluster of sister towns, the crowded +narrows of the harbour, the Solent and the Isle of Wight like a blue cloud +through the hot haze. Jessie by some miracle had become a skirted woman in the +Cosham inn. Mr. Hoopdriver lounged gracefully on the turf, smoked a Red Herring +cigarette, and lazily regarded the fortified towns that spread like a map away +there, the inner line of defence like toy fortifications, a mile off perhaps; +and beyond that a few little fields and then the beginnings of Landport suburb +and the smoky cluster of the multitudinous houses. To the right at the head of +the harbour shallows the town of Porchester rose among the trees. Mr. +Hoopdriver’s anxiety receded to some remote corner of his brain and that florid +half-voluntary imagination of his shared the stage with the image of Jessie. He +began to speculate on the impression he was creating. He took stock of his suit +in a more optimistic spirit, and reviewed, with some complacency, his actions +for the last four and twenty hours. Then he was dashed at the thought of her +infinite perfections. +</p> + +<p> +She had been observing him quietly, rather more closely during the last hour or +so. She did not look at him directly because he seemed always looking at her. +Her own troubles had quieted down a little, and her curiosity about the +chivalrous, worshipping, but singular gentleman in brown, was awakening. She +had recalled, too, the curious incident of their first encounter. She found him +hard to explain to herself. You must understand that her knowledge of the world +was rather less than nothing, having been obtained entirely from books. You +must not take a certain ignorance for foolishness. +</p> + +<p> +She had begun with a few experiments. He did not know French except +‘<i>sivverplay</i>,’ a phrase he seemed to regard as a very good light table +joke in itself. His English was uncertain, but not such as books informed her +distinguished the lower classes. His manners seemed to her good on the whole, +but a trifle over-respectful and out of fashion. He called her ‘Madam’ once. He +seemed a person of means and leisure, but he knew nothing of recent concerts, +theatres, or books. How did he spend his time? He was certainly chivalrous, and +a trifle simpleminded. She fancied (so much is there in a change of costume) +that she had never met with such a man before. What <i>could</i> he be? +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Benson,” she said, breaking a silence devoted to landscape. +</p> + +<p> +He rolled over and regarded her, chin on knuckles. +</p> + +<p> +“At your service.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you paint? Are you an artist?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well.” Judicious pause. “I should hardly call myself a Nartist, you know. I +<i>do</i> paint a little. And sketch, you know—skitty kind of things.” +</p> + +<p> +He plucked and began to nibble a blade of grass. It was really not so much +lying as his quick imagination that prompted him to add, “In Papers, you know, +and all that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” said Jessie, looking at him thoughtfully. Artists were a very +heterogeneous class certainly, and geniuses had a trick of being a little odd. +He avoided her eye and bit his grass. “I don’t do <i>much</i>, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not your profession? +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no,” said Hoopdriver, anxious now to hedge. “I don’t make a regular thing +of it, you know. Jest now and then something comes into my head and down it +goes. No—I’m not a <i>regular</i> artist.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you don’t practise any regular profession?” Mr. Hoopdriver looked into +her eyes and saw their quiet unsuspicious regard. He had vague ideas of +resuming the detective <i>rôle</i>. “It’s like this,” he said, to gain time. “I +have a sort of profession. Only there’s a kind of reason—nothing much, you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon for cross-examining you.” +</p> + +<p> +“No trouble,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “Only I can’t very well—I leave it to you, +you know. I don’t want to make any mystery of it, so far as that goes.” Should +he plunge boldly and be a barrister? That anyhow was something pretty good. But +she might know about barristry. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I could guess what you are.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—guess,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“You come from one of the colonies?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me!” said Mr. Hoopdriver, veering round to the new wind. “How did you +find out <i>that?</i>” (the man was born in a London suburb, dear Reader.) +</p> + +<p> +“I guessed,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +He lifted his eyebrows as one astonished, and clutched a new piece of grass. +</p> + +<p> +“You were educated up country.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good again,” said Hoopdriver, rolling over again into her elbow. “You’re a +<i>clairvoy</i> ant.” He bit at the grass, smiling. “Which colony was it?” +</p> + +<p> +“That I don’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must guess,” said Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“South Africa,” she said. “I strongly incline to South Africa.” +</p> + +<p> +“South Africa’s quite a large place,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“But South Africa is right?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re warm,” said Hoopdriver, “anyhow,” and the while his imagination was +eagerly exploring this new province. +</p> + +<p> +“South Africa <i>is</i> right?” she insisted. +</p> + +<p> +He turned over again and nodded, smiling reassuringly into her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“What made me think of South Africa was that novel of Olive Schreiner’s, you +know—‘The Story of an African Farm.’ Gregory Rose is so like you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never read ‘The Story of an African Farm,’” said Hoopdriver. “I must. What’s +he like?” +</p> + +<p> +“You must read the book. But it’s a wonderful place, with its mixture of races, +and its brand-new civilisation jostling the old savagery. Were you near Khama?” +</p> + +<p> +“He was a long way off from our place,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “We had a little +ostrich farm, you know—Just a few hundred of ’em, out Johannesburg way.” +</p> + +<p> +“On the Karroo—was it called?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the term. Some of it was freehold though. Luckily. We got along very +well in the old days.—But there’s no ostriches on that farm now.” He had a +diamond mine in his head, just at the moment, but he stopped and left a little +to the girl’s imagination. Besides which it had occurred to him with a kind of +shock that he was lying. +</p> + +<p> +“What became of the ostriches?” +</p> + +<p> +“We sold ’em off, when we parted with the farm. Do you mind if I have another +cigarette? That was when I was quite a little chap, you know, that we had this +ostrich farm.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you have Blacks and Boers about you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lots,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, striking a match on his instep and beginning to +feel hot at the new responsibility he had brought upon himself. +</p> + +<p> +“How interesting! Do you know, I’ve never been out of England except to Paris +and Mentone and Switzerland.” +</p> + +<p> +“One gets tired of travelling (<i>puff</i>) after a bit, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must tell me about your farm in South Africa. It always stimulates my +imagination to think of these places. I can fancy all the tall ostriches being +driven out by a black herd—to graze, I suppose. How do ostriches feed?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Hoopdriver. “That’s rather various. They have their fancies, you +know. There’s fruit, of course, and that kind of thing. And chicken food, and +so forth. You have to use judgment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever see a lion?” “They weren’t very common in our district,” said +Hoopdriver, quite modestly. “But I’ve seen them, of course. Once or twice.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fancy seeing a lion! Weren’t you frightened?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver was now thoroughly sorry he had accepted that offer of South +Africa. He puffed his cigarette and regarded the Solent languidly as he settled +the fate on that lion in his mind. “I scarcely had time,” he said. “It all +happened in a minute.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go on,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I was going across the inner paddock where the fatted ostriches were.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you <i>eat</i> ostriches, then? I did not know—” +</p> + +<p> +“Eat them!—often. Very nice they <i>are</i> too, properly stuffed. Well, we—I, +rather—was going across this paddock, and I saw something standing up in the +moonlight and looking at me.” Mr. Hoopdriver was in a hot perspiration now. His +invention seemed to have gone limp. “Luckily I had my father’s gun with me. I +<i>was</i> scared, though, I can tell you. (<i>Puff.</i>) I just aimed at the +end that I thought was the head. And let fly. (<i>Puff.</i>) And over it went, +you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dead?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>As</i> dead. It was one of the luckiest shots I ever fired. And I wasn’t +much over nine at the time, neither.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> should have screamed and run away.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s some things you can’t run away from,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “To run +would have been Death.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think I ever met a lion-killer before,” she remarked, evidently with a +heightened opinion of him. +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause. She seemed meditating further questions. Mr. Hoopdriver drew +his watch hastily. “I say,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, showing it to her, “don’t you +think we ought to be getting on?” +</p> + +<p> +His face was flushed, his ears bright red. She ascribed his confusion to +modesty. He rose with a lion added to the burthens of his conscience, and held +out his hand to assist her. They walked down into Cosham again, resumed their +machines, and went on at a leisurely pace along the northern shore of the big +harbour. But Mr. Hoopdriver was no longer happy. This horrible, this fulsome +lie, stuck in his memory. Why <i>had</i> he done it? She did not ask for any +more South African stories, happily—at least until Porchester was reached—but +talked instead of Living One’s Own Life, and how custom hung on people like +chains. She talked wonderfully, and set Hoopdriver’s mind fermenting. By the +Castle, Mr. Hoopdriver caught several crabs in little shore pools. At Fareham +they stopped for a second tea, and left the place towards the hour of sunset, +under such invigorating circumstances as you shall in due course hear. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter30"></a>XXX.<br/> +THE RESCUE EXPEDITION</h2> + +<p> +And now to tell of those energetic chevaliers, Widgery, Dangle, and Phipps, and +of that distressed beauty, ‘Thomas Plantagenet,’ well known in society, so the +paragraphs said, as Mrs. Milton. We left them at Midhurst station, if I +remember rightly, waiting, in a state of fine emotion, for the Chichester +train. It was clearly understood by the entire Rescue Party that Mrs. Milton +was bearing up bravely against almost overwhelming grief. The three gentlemen +outdid one another in sympathetic expedients; they watched her gravely—almost +tenderly. The substantial Widgery tugged at his moustache, and looked his +unspeakable feelings at her with those dog-like, brown eyes of his; the slender +Dangle tugged at <i>his</i> moustache, and did what he could with unsympathetic +grey ones. Phipps, unhappily, had no moustache to run any risks with, so he +folded his arms and talked in a brave, indifferent, bearing-up tone about the +London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway, just to cheer the poor woman up a +little. And even Mrs. Milton really felt that exalted melancholy to the very +bottom of her heart, and tried to show it in a dozen little, delicate, feminine +ways. +</p> + +<p> +“There is nothing to do until we get to Chichester,” said Dangle. “Nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing,” said Widgery, and aside in her ear: “You really ate scarcely +anything, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Their trains are always late,” said Phipps, with his fingers along the edge of +his collar. Dangle, you must understand, was a sub-editor and reviewer, and his +pride was to be Thomas Plantagenet’s intellectual companion. Widgery, the big +man, was manager of a bank and a mighty golfer, and his conception of his +relations to her never came into his mind without those charming old lines, +“Douglas, Douglas, tender and true,” falling hard upon its heels. His name was +Douglas-Douglas Widgery. And Phipps, Phipps was a medical student still, and he +felt that he laid his heart at her feet, the heart of a man of the world. She +was kind to them all in her way, and insisted on their being friends together, +in spite of a disposition to reciprocal criticism they displayed. Dangle +thought Widgery a Philistine, appreciating but coarsely the merits of “A Soul +Untrammelled,” and Widgery thought Dangle lacked humanity—would talk +insincerely to say a clever thing. Both Dangle and Widgery thought Phipps a bit +of a cub, and Phipps thought both Dangle and Widgery a couple of Thundering +Bounders. +</p> + +<p> +“They would have got to Chichester in time for lunch,” said Dangle, in the +train. “After, perhaps. And there’s no sufficient place in the road. So soon as +we get there, Phipps must inquire at the chief hotels to see if any one +answering to her description has lunched there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>I’ll</i> inquire,” said Phipps. “Willingly. I suppose you and Widgery +will just hang about—” +</p> + +<p> +He saw an expression of pain on Mrs. Milton’s gentle face, and stopped +abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Dangle, “we shan’t <i>hang about</i>, as you put it. There are two +places in Chichester where tourists might go—the cathedral and a remarkably +fine museum. I shall go to the cathedral and make an inquiry or so, while +Widgery—” +</p> + +<p> +“The museum. Very well. And after that there’s a little thing or two I’ve +thought of myself,” said Widgery. +</p> + +<p> +To begin with they took Mrs. Milton in a kind of procession to the Red Hotel +and established her there with some tea. “You are so kind to me,” she said. +“All of you.” They signified that it was nothing, and dispersed to their +inquiries. By six they returned, their zeal a little damped, without news. +Widgery came back with Dangle. Phipps was the last to return. “You’re quite +sure,” said Widgery, “that there isn’t any flaw in that inference of yours?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite,” said Dangle, rather shortly. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said Widgery, “their starting from Midhurst on the Chichester road +doesn’t absolutely bind them not to change their minds.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear fellow!—It does. Really it does. You must allow me to have enough +intelligence to think of cross-roads. Really you must. There aren’t any +cross-roads to tempt them. Would they turn aside here? No. Would they turn +there? Many more things are inevitable than you fancy.” +</p> + +<p> +“We shall see at once,” said Widgery, at the window. “Here comes Phipps. For my +own part—” +</p> + +<p> +“Phipps!” said Mrs. Milton. “Is he hurrying? Does he look—” She rose in her +eagerness, biting her trembling lip, and went towards the window. +</p> + +<p> +“No news,” said Phipps, entering. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said Widgery. +</p> + +<p> +“None?” said Dangle. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Phipps. “One fellow had got hold of a queer story of a man in +bicycling clothes, who was asking the same question about this time yesterday.” +</p> + +<p> +“What question?” said Mrs. Milton, in the shadow of the window. She spoke in a +low voice, almost a whisper. +</p> + +<p> +“Why—Have you seen a young lady in a grey bicycling costume?” +</p> + +<p> +Dangle caught at his lower lip. “What’s that?” he said. “Yesterday! A man +asking after her then! What can <i>that</i> mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Heaven knows,” said Phipps, sitting down wearily. “You’d better infer.” +</p> + +<p> +“What kind of man?” said Dangle. +</p> + +<p> +“How should I know?—in bicycling costume, the fellow said.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what height?—What complexion?” +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t ask,” said Phipps. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Didn’t ask!</i> Nonsense,” said Dangle. +</p> + +<p> +“Ask him yourself,” said Phipps. “He’s an ostler chap in the White Hart,—short, +thick-set fellow, with a red face and a crusty manner. Leaning up against the +stable door. Smells of whiskey. Go and ask him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said Dangle, taking his straw hat from the shade over the stuffed +bird on the chiffonier and turning towards the door. “I might have known.” +</p> + +<p> +Phipps’ mouth opened and shut. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re tired, I’m sure, Mr. Phipps,” said the lady, soothingly. “Let me ring +for some tea for you.” It suddenly occurred to Phipps that he had lapsed a +little from his chivalry. “I was a little annoyed at the way he rushed me to do +all this business,” he said. “But I’d do a hundred times as much if it would +bring you any nearer to her.” Pause. “I <i>would</i> like a little tea.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to raise any false hopes,” said Widgery. “But I do <i>not</i> +believe they even came to Chichester. Dangle’s a very clever fellow, of course, +but sometimes these Inferences of his—” +</p> + +<p> +“Tchak!” said Phipps, suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” said Mrs. Milton. +</p> + +<p> +“Something I’ve forgotten. I went right out from here, went to every other +hotel in the place, and never thought—But never mind. I’ll ask when the waiter +comes.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t mean—” A tap, and the door opened. “Tea, m’m? yes, m’m,” said the +waiter. +</p> + +<p> +“One minute,” said Phipps. “Was a lady in grey, a cycling lady—” +</p> + +<p> +“Stopped here yesterday? Yessir. Stopped the night. With her brother, sir—a +young gent.” +</p> + +<p> +“Brother!” said Mrs. Milton, in a low tone. “Thank God!” +</p> + +<p> +The waiter glanced at her and understood everything. “A young gent, sir,” he +said, “very free with his money. Give the name of Beaumont.” He proceeded to +some rambling particulars, and was cross-examined by Widgery on the plans of +the young couple. +</p> + +<p> +“Havant! Where’s Havant?” said Phipps. “I seem to remember it somewhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was the man tall?” said Mrs. Milton, intently, “distinguished looking? with a +long, flaxen moustache? and spoke with a drawl?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said the waiter, and thought. “His moustache, m’m, was scarcely +long—scrubby more, and young looking.” +</p> + +<p> +“About thirty-five, he was?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, m’m. More like five and twenty. Not that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me!” said Mrs. Milton, speaking in a curious, hollow voice, fumbling for +her salts, and showing the finest self-control. “It must have been her +<i>younger</i> brother—must have been.” +</p> + +<p> +“That will do, thank you,” said Widgery, officiously, feeling that she would be +easier under this new surprise if the man were dismissed. The waiter turned to +go, and almost collided with Dangle, who was entering the room, panting +excitedly and with a pocket handkerchief held to his right eye. “Hullo!” said +dangle. “What’s up?” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s up with <i>you?</i>” said Phipps. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing—an altercation merely with that drunken ostler of yours. He thought it +was a plot to annoy him—that the Young Lady in Grey was mythical. Judged from +your manner. I’ve got a piece of raw meat to keep over it. You have some news, +I see?” +</p> + +<p> +“Did the man hit you?” asked Widgery. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Milton rose and approached Dangle. “Cannot I do anything?” +</p> + +<p> +Dangle was heroic. “Only tell me your news,” he said, round the corner of the +handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +“It was in this way,” said Phipps, and explained rather sheepishly. While he +was doing so, with a running fire of commentary from Widgery, the waiter +brought in a tray of tea. “A time table,” said Dangle, promptly, “for Havant.” +Mrs. Milton poured two cups, and Phipps and Dangle partook in passover form. +They caught the train by a hair’s breadth. So to Havant and inquiries. +</p> + +<p> +Dangle was puffed up to find that his guess of Havant was right. In view of the +fact that beyond Havant the Southampton road has a steep hill continuously on +the right-hand side, and the sea on the left, he hit upon a magnificent scheme +for heading the young folks off. He and Mrs. Milton would go to Fareham, +Widgery and Phipps should alight one each at the intermediate stations of +Cosham and Porchester, and come on by the next train if they had no news. If +they did not come on, a wire to the Fareham post office was to explain why. It +was Napoleonic, and more than consoled Dangle for the open derision of the +Havant street boys at the handkerchief which still protected his damaged eye. +</p> + +<p> +Moreover, the scheme answered to perfection. The fugitives escaped by a hair’s +breadth. They were outside the Golden Anchor at Fareham, and preparing to +mount, as Mrs. Milton and Dangle came round the corner from the station. “It’s +her!” said Mrs. Milton, and would have screamed. “Hist!” said Dangle, gripping +the lady’s arm, removing his handkerchief in his excitement, and leaving the +piece of meat over his eye, an extraordinary appearance which seemed +unexpectedly to calm her. “Be cool!” said Dangle, glaring under the meat. “They +must not see us. They will get away else. Were there flys at the station?” The +young couple mounted and vanished round the corner of the Winchester road. Had +it not been for the publicity of the business, Mrs. Milton would have fainted. +“<i>Save her!</i>” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! A conveyance,” said Dangle. “One minute.” +</p> + +<p> +He left her in a most pathetic attitude, with her hand pressed to her heart, +and rushed into the Golden Anchor. Dog cart in ten minutes. Emerged. The meat +had gone now, and one saw the cooling puffiness over his eye. “I will conduct +you back to the station,” said Dangle; “hurry back here, and pursue them. You +will meet Widgery and Phipps and tell them I am in pursuit.” +</p> + +<p> +She was whirled back to the railway station and left there, on a hard, +blistered, wooden seat in the sun. She felt tired and dreadfully ruffled and +agitated and dusty. Dangle was, no doubt, most energetic and devoted; but for a +kindly, helpful manner commend her to Douglas Widgery. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile Dangle, his face golden in the evening sun, was driving (as well as +he could) a large, black horse harnessed into a thing called a gig, +northwestward towards Winchester. Dangle, barring his swollen eye, was a +refined-looking little man, and he wore a deerstalker cap and was dressed in +dark grey. His neck was long and slender. Perhaps you know what gigs are,—huge, +big, wooden things and very high and the horse, too, was huge and big and high, +with knobby legs, a long face, a hard mouth, and a whacking trick of pacing. +Smack, smack, smack, smack it went along the road, and hard by the church it +shied vigorously at a hooded perambulator. +</p> + +<p> +The history of the Rescue Expedition now becomes confused. It appears that +Widgery was extremely indignant to find Mrs. Milton left about upon the Fareham +platform. The day had irritated him somehow, though he had started with the +noblest intentions, and he seemed glad to find an outlet for justifiable +indignation. “He’s such a spasmodic creature,” said Widgery. “Rushing off! And +I suppose we’re to wait here until he comes back! It’s likely. He’s so +egotistical, is Dangle. Always wants to mismanage everything himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“He means to help me,” said Mrs. Milton, a little reproachfully, touching his +arm. Widgery was hardly in the mood to be mollified all at once. “He need not +prevent ME,” he said, and stopped. “It’s no good talking, you know, and you are +tired.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can go on,” she said brightly, “if only we find her.” “While I was cooling +my heels in Cosham I bought a county map.” He produced and opened it. “Here, +you see, is the road out of Fareham.” He proceeded with the calm deliberation +of a business man to develop a proposal of taking train forthwith to +Winchester. “They <i>must</i> be going to Winchester,” he explained. It was +inevitable. To-morrow Sunday, Winchester a cathedral town, road going nowhere +else of the slightest importance. +</p> + +<p> +“But Mr. Dangle?” +</p> + +<p> +“He will simply go on until he has to pass something, and then he will break +his neck. I have seen Dangle drive before. It’s scarcely likely a dog-cart, +especially a hired dog-cart, will overtake bicycles in the cool of the evening. +Rely upon me, Mrs. Milton—” +</p> + +<p> +“I am in your hands,” she said, with pathetic littleness, looking up at him, +and for the moment he forgot the exasperation of the day. +</p> + +<p> +Phipps, during this conversation, had stood in a somewhat depressed attitude, +leaning on his stick, feeling his collar, and looking from one speaker to the +other. The idea of leaving Dangle behind seemed to him an excellent one. “We +might leave a message at the place where he got the dog-cart,” he suggested, +when he saw their eyes meeting. There was a cheerful alacrity about all three +at the proposal. +</p> + +<p> +But they never got beyond Botley. For even as their train ran into the station, +a mighty rumbling was heard, there was a shouting overhead, the guard stood +astonished on the platform, and Phipps, thrusting his head out of the window, +cried, “There he goes!” and sprang out of the carriage. Mrs. Milton, following +in alarm, just saw it. From Widgery it was hidden. Botley station lies in a +cutting, overhead was the roadway, and across the lemon yellows and flushed +pinks of the sunset, there whirled a great black mass, a horse like a +long-nosed chess knight, the upper works of a gig, and Dangle in transit from +front to back. A monstrous shadow aped him across the cutting. It was the event +of a second. Dangle seemed to jump, hang in the air momentarily, and vanish, +and after a moment’s pause came a heart-rending smash. Then two black heads +running swiftly. +</p> + +<p> +“Better get out,” said Phipps to Mrs. Milton, who stood fascinated in the +doorway. +</p> + +<p> +In another moment all three were hurrying up the steps. They found Dangle, +hatless, standing up with cut hands extended, having his hands brushed by an +officious small boy. A broad, ugly road ran downhill in a long vista, and in +the distance was a little group of Botley inhabitants holding the big, black +horse. Even at that distance they could see the expression of conscious pride +on the monster’s visage. It was as wooden-faced a horse as you can imagine. The +beasts in the Tower of London, on which the men in armour are perched, are the +only horses I have ever seen at all like it. However, we are not concerned now +with the horse, but with Dangle. “Hurt?” asked Phipps, eagerly, leading. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Dangle!” cried Mrs. Milton, clasping her hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo!” said Dangle, not surprised in the slightest. “Glad you’ve come. I may +want you. Bit of a mess I’m in—eigh? But I’ve caught ’em. At the very place I +expected, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Caught them!” said Widgery. “Where are they?” +</p> + +<p> +“Up there,” he said, with a backward motion of his head. “About a mile up the +hill. I left ’em. I <i>had</i> to.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand,” said Mrs. Milton, with that rapt, painful look again. +“Have you found Jessie?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have. I wish I could wash the gravel out of my hands somewhere. It was like +this, you know. Came on them suddenly round a corner. Horse shied at the +bicycles. They were sitting by the roadside botanising flowers. I just had time +to shout, ‘Jessie Milton, we’ve been looking for you,’ and then that confounded +brute bolted. I didn’t dare turn round. I had all my work to do to save myself +being turned over, as it was—so long as I did, I mean. I just shouted, ‘Return +to your friends. All will be forgiven.’ And off I came, clatter, clatter. +Whether they heard—” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Take me to her</i>,” said Mrs. Milton, with intensity, turning towards +Widgery. +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” said Widgery, suddenly becoming active. “How far is it, Dangle?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mile and a half or two miles. I was determined to find them, you know. I say +though—Look at my hands! But I beg your pardon, Mrs. Milton.” He turned to +Phipps. “Phipps, I say, where shall I wash the gravel out? And have a look at +my knee?” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s the station,” said Phipps, becoming helpful. Dangle made a step, and a +damaged knee became evident. “Take my arm,” said Phipps. +</p> + +<p> +“Where can we get a conveyance?” asked Widgery of two small boys. +</p> + +<p> +The two small boys failed to understand. They looked at one another. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s not a cab, not a go-cart, in sight,” said Widgery. “It’s a case of a +horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a harse all right,” said one of the small boys with a movement of the +head. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you know where we can hire traps?” asked Widgery. “Or a cart +or—anything?” asked Mrs. Milton. +</p> + +<p> +“John Ooker’s gart a cart, but no one can’t ’ire’n,” said the larger of the +small boys, partially averting his face and staring down the road and making a +song of it. “And so’s my feyther, for’s leg us broke.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a cart even! Evidently. What shall we do?” +</p> + +<p> +It occurred to Mrs. Milton that if Widgery was the man for courtly devotion, +Dangle was infinitely readier of resource. “I suppose—” she said, timidly. +“Perhaps if you were to ask Mr. Dangle—” +</p> + +<p> +And then all the gilt came off Widgery. He answered quite rudely. “Confound +Dangle! Hasn’t he messed us up enough? He must needs drive after them in a trap +to tell them we’re coming, and now you want me to ask him—” +</p> + +<p> +Her beautiful blue eyes were filled with tears. He stopped abruptly. “I’ll go +and ask Dangle,” he said, shortly. “If you wish it.” And went striding into the +station and down the steps, leaving her in the road under the quiet inspection +of the two little boys, and with a kind of ballad refrain running through her +head, “Where are the Knights of the Olden Time?” and feeling tired to death and +hungry and dusty and out of curl, and, in short, a martyr woman. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter31"></a>XXXI.</h2> + +<p> +It goes to my heart to tell of the end of that day, how the fugitives vanished +into Immensity; how there were no more trains; how Botley stared +unsympathetically with a palpable disposition to derision, denying conveyances; +how the landlord of the Heron was suspicious, how the next day was Sunday, and +the hot summer’s day had crumpled the collar of Phipps and stained the skirts +of Mrs. Milton, and dimmed the radiant emotions of the whole party. Dangle, +with sticking-plaster and a black eye, felt the absurdity of the pose of the +Wounded Knight, and abandoned it after the faintest efforts. Recriminations +never, perhaps, held the foreground of the talk, but they played like summer +lightning on the edge of the conversation. And deep in the hearts of all was a +galling sense of the ridiculous. Jessie, they thought, was most to blame. +Apparently, too, the worst, which would have made the whole business tragic, +was not happening. Here was a young woman—young woman do I say? a mere +girl!—had chosen to leave a comfortable home in Surbiton, and all the delights +of a refined and intellectual circle, and had rushed off, trailing us after +her, posing hard, mutually jealous, and now tired and weather-worn, to flick us +off at last, mere mud from her wheel, into this detestable village beer-house +on a Saturday night! And she had done it, not for Love and Passion, which are +serious excuses one may recognise even if one must reprobate, but just for a +Freak, just for a fantastic Idea; for nothing, in fact, but the outraging of +Common Sense. Yet withal, such was our restraint, that we talked of her still +as one much misguided, as one who burthened us with anxiety, as a lamb astray, +and Mrs. Milton having eaten, continued to show the finest feelings on the +matter. +</p> + +<p> +She sat, I may mention, in the cushioned basket-chair, the only comfortable +chair in the room, and we sat on incredibly hard, horsehair things having +antimacassars tied to their backs by means of lemon-coloured bows. It was +different from those dear old talks at Surbiton, somehow. She sat facing the +window, which was open (the night was so tranquil and warm), and the dim +light—for we did not use the lamp—suited her admirably. She talked in a voice +that told you she was tired, and she seemed inclined to state a case against +herself in the matter of “A Soul Untrammelled.” It was such an evening as might +live in a sympathetic memoir, but it was a little dull while it lasted. +</p> + +<p> +“I feel,” she said, “that I am to blame. I have Developed. That first book of +mine—I do not go back upon a word of it, mind, but it has been misunderstood, +misapplied.” +</p> + +<p> +“It has,” said Widgery, trying to look so deeply sympathetic as to be visible +in the dark. “Deliberately misunderstood.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say that,” said the lady. “Not deliberately. I try and think that +critics are honest. After their lights. I was not thinking of critics. But +she—I mean—” She paused, an interrogation. +</p> + +<p> +“It is possible,” said Dangle, scrutinising his sticking-plaster. +</p> + +<p> +“I write a book and state a case. I want people to <i>think</i> as I recommend, +not to <i>do</i> as I recommend. It is just Teaching. Only I make it into a +story. I want to Teach new Ideas, new Lessons, to promulgate Ideas. Then when +the Ideas have been spread abroad—Things will come about. Only now it is +madness to fly in the face of the established order. Bernard Shaw, you know, +has explained that with regard to Socialism. We all know that to earn all you +consume is right, and that living on invested capital is wrong. Only we cannot +begin while we are so few. It is Those Others.” +</p> + +<p> +“Precisely,” said Widgery. “It is Those Others. They must begin first.” +</p> + +<p> +“And meanwhile you go on banking—” +</p> + +<p> +“If I didn’t, some one else would.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I live on Mr. Milton’s Lotion while I try to gain a footing in +Literature.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Try!</i>” said Phipps. “You <i>have</i> done so.” And, “That’s different,” +said Dangle, at the same time. +</p> + +<p> +“You are so kind to me. But in this matter. Of course Georgina Griffiths in my +book lived alone in a flat in Paris and went to life classes and had men +visitors, but then she was over twenty-one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Jessica is only seventeen, and girlish for that,” said Dangle. +</p> + +<p> +“It alters everything. That child! It is different with a woman. And Georgina +Griffiths never flaunted her freedom—on a bicycle, in country places. In this +country. Where every one is so particular. Fancy, <i>sleeping</i> away from +home. It’s dreadful—If it gets about it spells ruin for her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ruin,” said Widgery. +</p> + +<p> +“No man would marry a girl like that,” said Phipps. +</p> + +<p> +“It must be hushed up,” said Dangle. +</p> + +<p> +“It always seems to me that life is made up of individuals, of individual +cases. We must weigh each person against his or her circumstances. General +rules don’t apply—” +</p> + +<p> +“I often feel the force of that,” said Widgery. “Those are my rules. Of course +my books—” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s different, altogether different,” said Dangle. “A novel deals with +typical cases.” +</p> + +<p> +“And life is not typical,” said Widgery, with immense profundity. +</p> + +<p> +Then suddenly, unintentionally, being himself most surprised and shocked of any +in the room, Phipps yawned. The failing was infectious, and the gathering +having, as you can easily understand, talked itself weary, dispersed on trivial +pretences. But not to sleep immediately. Directly Dangle was alone he began, +with infinite disgust, to scrutinise his darkling eye, for he was a neat-minded +little man in spite of his energy. The whole business—so near a capture—was +horribly vexatious. Phipps sat on his bed for some time examining, with equal +disgust, a collar he would have thought incredible for Sunday twenty-four hours +before. Mrs. Milton fell a-musing on the mortality of even big, fat men with +dog-like eyes, and Widgery was unhappy because he had been so cross to her at +the station, and because so far he did not feel that he had scored over Dangle. +Also he was angry with Dangle. And all four of them, being souls living very +much upon the appearances of things, had a painful, mental middle distance of +Botley derisive and suspicious, and a remoter background of London humorous, +and Surbiton speculative. Were they really, after all, behaving absurdly? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter32"></a>XXXII.<br/> +MR. HOOPDRIVER, KNIGHT ERRANT</h2> + +<p> +As Mr. Dangle had witnessed, the fugitives had been left by him by the side of +the road about two miles from Botley. Before Mr. Dangle’s appearance, Mr. +Hoopdriver had been learning with great interest that mere roadside flowers had +names,—star-flowers, wind-stars, St. John’s wort, willow herb, lords and +ladies, bachelor’s buttons,—most curious names, some of them. “The flowers are +all different in South Africa, y’know,” he was explaining with a happy fluke of +his imagination to account for his ignorance. Then suddenly, heralded by +clattering sounds and a gride of wheels, Dangle had flared and thundered across +the tranquillity of the summer evening; Dangle, swaying and gesticulating +behind a corybantic black horse, had hailed Jessie by her name, had backed +towards the hedge for no ostensible reason, and vanished to the accomplishment +of the Fate that had been written down for him from the very beginning of +things. Jessie and Hoopdriver had scarcely time to stand up and seize their +machines, before this tumultuous, this swift and wonderful passing of Dangle +was achieved. He went from side to side of the road,—worse even than the riding +forth of Mr. Hoopdriver it was,—and vanished round the corner. +</p> + +<p> +“He knew my name,” said Jessie. “Yes—it was Mr. Dangle.” +</p> + +<p> +“That was our bicycles did that,” said Mr. Hoopdriver simultaneously, and +speaking with a certain complacent concern. “I hope he won’t get hurt.” +</p> + +<p> +“That was Mr. Dangle,” repeated Jessie, and Mr. Hoopdriver heard this time, +with a violent start. His eyebrows went up spasmodically. +</p> + +<p> +“What! someone you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord!” +</p> + +<p> +“He was looking for me,” said Jessie. “I could see. He began to call to me +before the horse shied. My stepmother has sent him.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver wished he had returned the bicycle after all, for his ideas were +still a little hazy about Bechamel and Mrs. Milton. Honesty <i>is</i> the best +policy—often, he thought. He turned his head this way and that. He became +active. “After us, eigh? Then he’ll come back. He’s gone down that hill, and he +won’t be able to pull up for a bit, I’m certain.” +</p> + +<p> +Jessie, he saw, had wheeled her machine into the road and was mounting. Still +staring at the corner that had swallowed up Dangle, Hoopdriver followed suit. +And so, just as the sun was setting, they began another flight together,—riding +now towards Bishops Waltham, with Mr. Hoopdriver in the post of danger—the +rear—ever and again looking over his shoulder and swerving dangerously as he +did so. Occasionally Jessie had to slacken her pace. He breathed heavily, and +hated himself because his mouth fell open. After nearly an hour’s hard riding, +they found themselves uncaught at Winchester. Not a trace of Dangle nor any +other danger was visible as they rode into the dusky, yellow-lit street. Though +the bats had been fluttering behind the hedges and the evening star was bright +while they were still two miles from Winchester, Mr. Hoopdriver pointed out the +dangers of stopping in such an obvious abiding-place, and gently but firmly +insisted upon replenishing the lamps and riding on towards Salisbury. From +Winchester, roads branch in every direction, and to turn abruptly westward was +clearly the way to throw off the chase. As Hoopdriver saw the moon rising broad +and yellow through the twilight, he thought he should revive the effect of that +ride out of Bognor; but somehow, albeit the moon and all the atmospheric +effects were the same, the emotions were different. They rode in absolute +silence, and slowly after they had cleared the outskirts of Winchester. Both of +them were now nearly tired out,—the level was tedious, and even a little hill a +burden; and so it came about that in the hamlet of Wallenstock they were +beguiled to stop and ask for accommodation in an exceptionally +prosperous-looking village inn. A plausible landlady rose to the occasion. +</p> + +<p> +Now, as they passed into the room where their suppers were prepared, Mr. +Hoopdriver caught a glimpse through a door ajar and floating in a reek of +smoke, of three and a half faces—for the edge of the door cut one down—and an +American cloth-covered table with several glasses and a tankard. And he also +heard a remark. In the second before he heard that remark, Mr. Hoopdriver had +been a proud and happy man, to particularize, a baronet’s heir +<i>incognito</i>. He had surrendered their bicycles to the odd man of the place +with infinite easy dignity, and had bowingly opened the door for Jessie. “Who’s +that, then?” he imagined people saying; and then, “Some’n pretty well orf—judge +by the bicycles.” Then the imaginary spectators would fall a-talking of the +fashionableness of bicycling,—how judges and stockbrokers and actresses and, in +fact, all the best people rode, and how that it was often the fancy of such +great folk to shun the big hotels, the adulation of urban crowds, and seek, +<i>incognito</i>, the cosy quaintnesses of village life. Then, maybe, they +would think of a certain nameless air of distinction about the lady who had +stepped across the doorway, and about the handsome, flaxen-moustached, +blue-eyed Cavalier who had followed her in, and they would look one to another. +“Tell you what it is,” one of the village elders would say—just as they do in +novels—voicing the thought of all, in a low, impressive tone: “There’s such a +thin’ as entertaining barranets unawares—not to mention no higher things—” +</p> + +<p> +Such, I say, had been the filmy, delightful stuff in Mr. Hoopdriver’s head the +moment before he heard that remark. But the remark toppled him headlong. What +the precise remark was need not concern us. It was a casual piece of such +satire as Strephon delights in. Should you be curious, dear lady, as to its +nature, you have merely to dress yourself in a really modern cycling costume, +get one of the feeblest-looking of your men to escort you, and ride out, next +Saturday evening, to any public house where healthy, homely people gather +together. Then you will hear quite a lot of the kind of thing Mr. Hoopdriver +heard. More, possibly, than you will desire. +</p> + +<p> +The remark, I must add, implicated Mr. Hoopdriver. It indicated an entire +disbelief in his social standing. At a blow, it shattered all the gorgeous +imaginative fabric his mind had been rejoicing in. All that foolish happiness +vanished like a dream. And there was nothing to show for it, as there is +nothing to show for any spiteful remark that has ever been made. Perhaps the +man who said the thing had a gleam of satisfaction at the idea of taking a +complacent-looking fool down a peg, but it is just as possible he did not know +at the time that his stray shot had hit. He had thrown it as a boy throws a +stone at a bird. And it not only demolished a foolish, happy conceit, but it +wounded. It touched Jessie grossly. +</p> + +<p> +She did not hear it, he concluded from her subsequent bearing; but during the +supper they had in the little private dining-room, though she talked +cheerfully, he was preoccupied. Whiffs of indistinct conversation, and now and +then laughter, came in from the inn parlor through the pelargoniums in the open +window. Hoopdriver felt it must all be in the same strain,—at her expense and +his. He answered her abstractedly. She was tired, she said, and presently went +to her room. Mr. Hoopdriver, in his courtly way, opened the door for her and +bowed her out. He stood listening and fearing some new offence as she went +upstairs, and round the bend where the barometer hung beneath the stuffed +birds. Then he went back to the room, and stood on the hearthrug before the +paper fireplace ornament. “Cads!” he said in a scathing undertone, as a fresh +burst of laughter came floating in. All through supper he had been composing +stinging repartee, a blistering speech of denunciation to be presently +delivered. He would rate them as a nobleman should: “Call themselves +Englishmen, indeed, and insult a woman!” he would say; take the names and +addresses perhaps, threaten to speak to the Lord of the Manor, promise to let +them hear from him again, and so out with consternation in his wake. It really +ought to be done. +</p> + +<p> +“Teach ’em better,” he said fiercely, and tweaked his moustache painfully. What +was it? He revived the objectionable remark for his own exasperation, and then +went over the heads of his speech again. +</p> + +<p> +He coughed, made three steps towards the door, then stopped and went back to +the hearthrug. He wouldn’t—after all. Yet was he not a Knight Errant? Should +such men go unreproved, unchecked, by wandering baronets <i>incognito?</i> +Magnanimity? Look at it in that way? Churls beneath one’s notice? No; merely a +cowardly subterfuge. He <i>would</i> after all. +</p> + +<p> +Something within him protested that he was a hot-headed ass even as he went +towards the door again. But he only went on the more resolutely. He crossed the +hall, by the bar, and entered the room from which the remark had proceeded. He +opened the door abruptly and stood scowling on them in the doorway. “You’ll +only make a mess of it,” remarked the internal sceptic. There were five men in +the room altogether: a fat person, with a long pipe and a great number of +chins, in an armchair by the fireplace, who wished Mr. Hoopdriver a good +evening very affably; a young fellow smoking a cutty and displaying crossed +legs with gaiters; a little, bearded man with a toothless laugh; a middle-aged, +comfortable man with bright eyes, who wore a velveteen jacket; and a fair young +man, very genteel in a yellowish-brown ready-made suit and a white tie. +</p> + +<p> +“H’m,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, looking very stern and harsh. And then in a +forbidding tone, as one who consented to no liberties, “Good evening.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very pleasant day we’ve been ’aving,” said the fair young man with the white +tie. +</p> + +<p> +“Very,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, slowly; and taking a brown armchair, he planted it +with great deliberation where he faced the fireplace, and sat down. Let’s +see—how did that speech begin? +</p> + +<p> +“Very pleasant roads about here,” said the fair young man with the white tie. +</p> + +<p> +“Very,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, eyeing him darkly. Have to begin somehow. “The +roads about here are all right, and the weather about here is all right, but +what I’ve come in here to say is—there’s some damned unpleasant people—damned +unpleasant people!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said the young man with the gaiters, apparently making a mental inventory +of his pearl buttons as he spoke. “How’s that?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver put his hands on his knees and stuck out his elbows with extreme +angularity. In his heart he was raving at his idiotic folly at thus bearding +these lions,—indisputably they <i>were</i> lions,—but he had to go through with +it now. Heaven send, his breath, which was already getting a trifle spasmodic, +did not suddenly give out. He fixed his eye on the face of the fat man with the +chins, and spoke in a low, impressive voice. “I came here, sir,” said Mr. +Hoopdriver, and paused to inflate his cheeks, “with a lady.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very nice lady,” said the man with the gaiters, putting his head on one side +to admire a pearl button that had been hiding behind the curvature of his calf. +“Very nice lady indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +“I came here,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, “with a lady.” +</p> + +<p> +“We saw you did, bless you,” said the fat man with the chins, in a curious +wheezy voice. “I don’t see there’s anything so very extraordinary in that. One +’ud think we hadn’t eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver coughed. “I came, here, sir—” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve ’eard that,” said the little man with the beard, sharply and went off +into an amiable chuckle. “We know it by ’art,” said the little man, elaborating +the point. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver temporarily lost his thread. He glared malignantly at the little +man with the beard, and tried to recover his discourse. A pause. +</p> + +<p> +“You were saying,” said the fair young man with the white tie, speaking very +politely, “that you came here with a lady.” +</p> + +<p> +“A lady,” meditated the gaiter gazer. +</p> + +<p> +The man in velveteen, who was looking from one speaker to another with keen, +bright eyes, now laughed as though a point had been scored, and stimulated Mr. +Hoopdriver to speak, by fixing him with an expectant regard. +</p> + +<p> +“Some dirty cad,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, proceeding with his discourse, and +suddenly growing extremely fierce, “made a remark as we went by this door.” +</p> + +<p> +“Steady on!” said the old gentleman with many chins. “Steady on! Don’t you go +a-calling us names, please.” +</p> + +<p> +“One minute!” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “It wasn’t I began calling names.” (“Who +did?” said the man with the chins.) “I’m not calling any of you dirty cads. +Don’t run away with that impression. Only some person in this room made a +remark that showed he wasn’t fit to wipe boots on, and, with all due deference +to such gentlemen as <i>are</i> gentlemen” (Mr. Hoopdriver looked round for +moral support), “I want to know which it was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Meanin’?” said the fair young man in the white tie. +</p> + +<p> +“That I’m going to wipe my boots on ’im straight away,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, +reverting to anger, if with a slight catch in his throat—than which threat of +personal violence nothing had been further from his thoughts on entering the +room. He said this because he could think of nothing else to say, and stuck out +his elbows truculently to hide the sinking of his heart. It is curious how +situations run away with us. +</p> + +<p> +“’Ullo, Charlie!” said the little man, and “My eye!” said the owner of the +chins. “You’re going to wipe your boots on ’im?” said the fair young man, in a +tone of mild surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“I am,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, with emphatic resolution, and glared in the young +man’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s fair and reasonable,” said the man in the velveteen jacket; “if you +can.” +</p> + +<p> +The interest of the meeting seemed transferred to the young man in the white +tie. “Of course, if you can’t find out which it is, I suppose you’re prepared +to wipe your boots in a liberal way on everybody in the room,” said this young +man, in the same tone of impersonal question. “This gentleman, the champion +lightweight—” +</p> + +<p> +“Own up, Charlie,” said the young man with the gaiters, looking up for a +moment. “And don’t go a-dragging in your betters. It’s fair and square. You +can’t get out of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was it this—gent?” began Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said the young man in the white tie, “when it comes to talking of +wiping boots—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not talking; I’m going to do it,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +He looked round at the meeting. They were no longer antagonists; they were +spectators. He would have to go through with it now. But this tone of personal +aggression on the maker of the remark had somehow got rid of the oppressive +feeling of Hoopdriver <i>contra mundum</i>. Apparently, he would have to fight +someone. Would he get a black eye? Would he get very much hurt? Pray goodness +it wasn’t that sturdy chap in the gaiters! Should he rise and begin? What would +she think if he brought a black eye to breakfast to-morrow? “Is this the man?” +said Mr. Hoopdriver, with a business-like calm, and arms more angular than +ever. +</p> + +<p> +“Eat ’im!” said the little man with the beard; “eat ’im straight orf.” +</p> + +<p> +“Steady on!” said the young man in the white tie. “Steady on a minute. If I did +happen to say—” +</p> + +<p> +“You did, did you?” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“Backing out of it, Charlie?” said the young man with the gaiters. +</p> + +<p> +“Not a bit,” said Charlie. “Surely we can pass a bit of a joke—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to teach you to keep your jokes to yourself,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“Bray-vo!” said the shepherd of the flock of chins. +</p> + +<p> +“Charlie <i>is</i> a bit too free with his jokes,” said the little man with the +beard. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s downright disgusting,” said Hoopdriver, falling back upon his speech. “A +lady can’t ride a bicycle in a country road, or wear a dress a little out of +the ordinary, but every dirty little greaser must needs go shouting insults—” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> didn’t know the young lady would hear what I said,” said Charlie. +“Surely one can speak friendly to one’s friends. How was I to know the door was +open—” +</p> + +<p> +Hoopdriver began to suspect that his antagonist was, if possible, more +seriously alarmed at the prospect of violence than himself, and his spirits +rose again. These chaps ought to have a thorough lesson. “Of <i>course</i> you +knew the door was open,” he retorted indignantly. “Of <i>course</i> you thought +we should hear what you said. Don’t go telling lies about it. It’s no good your +saying things like that. You’ve had your fun, and you meant to have your fun. +And I mean to make an example of you, Sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ginger beer,” said the little man with the beard, in a confidential tone to +the velveteen jacket, “is regular up this ’ot weather. Bustin’ its bottles it +is everywhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the good of scrapping about in a public-house?” said Charlie, appealing +to the company. “A fair fight without interruptions, now, I <i>wouldn’t</i> +mind, if the gentleman’s so disposed.” +</p> + +<p> +Evidently the man was horribly afraid. Mr. Hoopdriver grew truculent. +</p> + +<p> +“Where you like,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, “jest wherever you like.” +</p> + +<p> +“You insulted the gent,” said the man in velveteen. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be a bloomin’ funk, Charlie,” said the man in gaiters. “Why, you got a +stone of him, if you got an ounce.” +</p> + +<p> +“What I say, is this,” said the gentleman with the excessive chins, trying to +get a hearing by banging his chair arms. “If Charlie goes saying things, he +ought to back ’em up. That’s what I say. I don’t mind his sayin’ such things ’t +all, but he ought to be prepared to back ’em up.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll <i>back</i> ’em up all right,” said Charlie, with extremely bitter +emphasis on ‘back.’ “If the gentleman likes to come Toosday week—” +</p> + +<p> +“Rot!” chopped in Hoopdriver. “Now.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Ear, ’ear,” said the owner of the chins. +</p> + +<p> +“Never put off till to-morrow, Charlie, what you can do to-day,” said the man +in the velveteen coat. +</p> + +<p> +“You got to do it, Charlie,” said the man in gaiters. “It’s no good.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s like this,” said Charlie, appealing to everyone except Hoopdriver. +“Here’s me, got to take in her ladyship’s dinner to-morrow night. How should I +look with a black eye? And going round with the carriage with a split lip?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t want your face sp’iled, Charlie, why don’t you keep your mouth +shut?” said the person in gaiters. +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, driving it home with great fierceness. “Why +don’t you shut your ugly mouth?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s as much as my situation’s worth,” protested Charlie. +</p> + +<p> +“You should have thought of that before,” said Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no occasion to be so thunderin’ ’ot about it. I only meant the thing +joking,” said Charlie. “<i>As</i> one gentleman to another, I’m very sorry if +the gentleman’s annoyed—” +</p> + +<p> +Everybody began to speak at once. Mr. Hoopdriver twirled his moustache. He felt +that Charlie’s recognition of his gentlemanliness was at any rate a redeeming +feature. But it became his pose to ride hard and heavy over the routed foe. He +shouted some insulting phrase over the tumult. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re regular abject,” the man in gaiters was saying to Charlie. +</p> + +<p> +More confusion. +</p> + +<p> +“Only don’t think I’m afraid,—not of a spindle-legged cuss like him,” shouted +Charlie. “Because I ain’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Change of front,” thought Hoopdriver, a little startled. “Where are we going?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t sit there and be abusive,” said the man in velveteen. “He’s offered to +hit you, and if I was him, I’d hit you now.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right, then,” said Charlie, with a sudden change of front and springing to +his feet. “If I must, I must. Now, then!” At that, Hoopdriver, the child of +Fate, rose too, with a horrible sense that his internal monitor was right. +Things had taken a turn. He had made a mess of it, and now there was nothing +for it, so far as he could see, but to hit the man at once. He and Charlie +stood six feet apart, with a table between, both very breathless and fierce. A +vulgar fight in a public-house, and with what was only too palpably a footman! +Good Heavens! And this was the dignified, scornful remonstrance! How the juice +had it all happened? Go round the table at him, I suppose. But before the brawl +could achieve itself, the man in gaiters intervened. “Not here,” he said, +stepping between the antagonists. Everyone was standing up. +</p> + +<p> +“Charlie’s artful,” said the little man with the beard. +</p> + +<p> +“Buller’s yard,” said the man with the gaiters, taking the control of the +entire affair with the easy readiness of an accomplished practitioner. “If the +gentleman <i>don’t</i> mind.” Buller’s yard, it seemed, was the very place. +“We’ll do the thing regular and decent, <i>if</i> you please.” And before he +completely realized what was happening, Hoopdriver was being marched out +through the back premises of the inn, to the first and only fight with fists +that was ever to glorify his life. +</p> + +<p> +Outwardly, so far as the intermittent moonlight showed, Mr. Hoopdriver was +quietly but eagerly prepared to fight. But inwardly he was a chaos of +conflicting purposes. It was extraordinary how things happened. One remark had +trod so closely on the heels of another, that he had had the greatest +difficulty in following the development of the business. He distinctly +remembered himself walking across from one room to the other,—a dignified, even +an aristocratic figure, primed with considered eloquence, intent upon a +scathing remonstrance to these wretched yokels, regarding their manners. Then +incident had flickered into incident until here he was out in a moonlit lane,—a +slight, dark figure in a group of larger, indistinct figures,—marching in a +quiet, business-like way towards some unknown horror at Buller’s yard. Fists! +It was astonishing. It was terrible! In front of him was the pallid figure of +Charles, and he saw that the man in gaiters held Charles kindly but firmly by +the arm. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s blasted rot,” Charles was saying, “getting up a fight just for a thing +like that; all very well for ’im. ’E’s got ’is ’olidays; ’e ’asn’t no blessed +dinner to take up to-morrow night like I ’ave.—No need to numb my arm, +<i>is</i> there?” +</p> + +<p> +They went into Buller’s yard through gates. There were sheds in Buller’s +yard—sheds of mystery that the moonlight could not solve—a smell of cows, and a +pump stood out clear and black, throwing a clear black shadow on the +whitewashed wall. And here it was his face was to be battered to a pulp. He +knew this was the uttermost folly, to stand up here and be pounded, but the way +out of it was beyond his imagining. Yet afterwards—? Could he ever face her +again? He patted his Norfolk jacket and took his ground with his back to the +gate. How did one square? So? Suppose one were to turn and run even now, run +straight back to the inn and lock himself into his bedroom? They couldn’t make +him come out—anyhow. He could prosecute them for assault if they did. How did +one set about prosecuting for assault? He saw Charles, with his face ghastly +white under the moon, squaring in front of him. +</p> + +<p> +He caught a blow on the arm and gave ground. Charles pressed him. Then he hit +with his right and with the violence of despair. It was a hit of his own +devising,—an impromptu,—but it chanced to coincide with the regulation hook hit +at the head. He perceived with a leap of exultation that the thing his fist had +met was the jawbone of Charles. It was the sole gleam of pleasure he +experienced during the fight, and it was quite momentary. He had hardly got +home upon Charles before he was struck in the chest and whirled backward. He +had the greatest difficulty in keeping his feet. He felt that his heart was +smashed flat. “Gord darm!” said somebody, dancing toe in hand somewhere behind +him. As Mr. Hoopdriver staggered, Charles gave a loud and fear-compelling cry. +He seemed to tower over Hoopdriver in the moonlight. Both his fists were +whirling. It was annihilation coming—no less. Mr. Hoopdriver ducked perhaps and +certainly gave ground to the right, hit, and missed. Charles swept round to the +left, missing generously. A blow glanced over Mr. Hoopdriver’s left ear, and +the flanking movement was completed. Another blow behind the ear. Heaven and +earth spun furiously round Mr. Hoopdriver, and then he became aware of a figure +in a light suit shooting violently through an open gate into the night. The man +in gaiters sprang forward past Mr. Hoopdriver, but too late to intercept the +fugitive. There were shouts, laughter, and Mr. Hoopdriver, still solemnly +squaring, realized the great and wonderful truth—Charles had fled. He, +Hoopdriver, had fought and, by all the rules of war, had won. +</p> + +<p> +“That was a pretty cut under the jaw you gave him,” the toothless little man +with the beard was remarking in an unexpectedly friendly manner. +</p> + +<p> +“The fact of it is,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, sitting beside the road to Salisbury, +and with the sound of distant church bells in his ears, “I had to give the +fellow a lesson; simply had to.” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems so dreadful that you should have to knock people about,” said Jessie. +</p> + +<p> +“These louts get unbearable,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “If now and then we didn’t +give them a lesson,—well, a lady cyclist in the roads would be an +impossibility.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose every woman shrinks from violence,” said Jessie. “I suppose men +<i>are</i> braver—in a way—than women. It seems to me—I can’t imagine—how one +could bring oneself to face a roomful of rough characters, pick out the +bravest, and give him an exemplary thrashing. I quail at the idea. I thought +only Ouida’s guardsmen did things like that.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was nothing more than my juty—as a gentleman,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“But to walk straight into the face of danger!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s habit,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, quite modestly, flicking off a particle of +cigarette ash that had settled on his knee. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter33"></a>XXXIII.<br/> +THE ABASEMENT OF MR. HOOPDRIVER</h2> + +<p> +On Monday morning the two fugitives found themselves breakfasting at the Golden +Pheasant in Blandford. They were in the course of an elaborate doubling +movement through Dorsetshire towards Ringwood, where Jessie anticipated an +answer from her schoolmistress friend. By this time they had been nearly sixty +hours together, and you will understand that Mr. Hoopdriver’s feelings had +undergone a considerable intensification and development. At first Jessie had +been only an impressionist sketch upon his mind, something feminine, active, +and dazzling, something emphatically “above” him, cast into his company by a +kindly fate. His chief idea, at the outset, as you know, had been to live up to +her level, by pretending to be more exceptional, more wealthy, better educated, +and, above all, better born than he was. His knowledge of the feminine mind was +almost entirely derived from the young ladies he had met in business, and in +that class (as in military society and among gentlemen’s servants) the good old +tradition of a brutal social exclusiveness is still religiously preserved. He +had an almost intolerable dread of her thinking him a ‘bounder.’ Later he began +to perceive the distinction of her idiosyncracies. Coupled with a magnificent +want of experience was a splendid enthusiasm for abstract views of the most +advanced description, and her strength of conviction completely carried +Hoopdriver away. She was going to Live her Own Life, with emphasis, and Mr. +Hoopdriver was profoundly stirred to similar resolves. So soon as he grasped +the tenor of her views, he perceived that he himself had thought as much from +his earliest years. “Of course,” he remarked, in a flash of sexual pride, “a +man is freer than a woman. End in the Colonies, y’know, there isn’t half the +Conventionality you find in society in this country.” +</p> + +<p> +He made one or two essays in the display of unconventionality, and was quite +unaware that he impressed her as a narrow-minded person. He suppressed the +habits of years and made no proposal to go to church. He discussed church-going +in a liberal spirit. “It’s jest a habit,” he said, “jest a custom. I don’t see +what good it does you at all, really.” And he made a lot of excellent jokes at +the chimney-pot hat, jokes he had read in the <i>Globe</i> ‘turnovers’ on that +subject. But he showed his gentle breeding by keeping his gloves on all through +the Sunday’s ride, and ostentatiously throwing away more than half a cigarette +when they passed a church whose congregation was gathering for afternoon +service. He cautiously avoided literary topics, except by way of compliment, +seeing that she was presently to be writing books. +</p> + +<p> +It was on Jessie’s initiative that they attended service in the old-fashioned +gallery of Blandford church. Jessie’s conscience, I may perhaps tell you, was +now suffering the severest twinges. She perceived clearly that things were not +working out quite along the lines she had designed. She had read her Olive +Schreiner and George Egerton, and so forth, with all the want of perfect +comprehension of one who is still emotionally a girl. She knew the thing to do +was to have a flat and to go to the British Museum and write leading articles +for the daily papers until something better came along. If Bechamel (detestable +person) had kept his promises, instead of behaving with unspeakable horridness, +all would have been well. Now her only hope was that liberal-minded woman, Miss +Mergle, who, a year ago, had sent her out, highly educated, into the world. +Miss Mergle had told her at parting to live fearlessly and truly, and had +further given her a volume of Emerson’s Essays and Motley’s “Dutch Republic,” +to help her through the rapids of adolescence. +</p> + +<p> +Jessie’s feelings for her stepmother’s household at Surbiton amounted to an +active detestation. There are no graver or more solemn women in the world than +these clever girls whose scholastic advancement has retarded their feminine +coquetry. In spite of the advanced tone of ‘Thomas Plantagenet’s’ antimarital +novel, Jessie had speedily seen through that amiable woman’s amiable defences. +The variety of pose necessitated by the <i>corps</i> of ‘Men’ annoyed her to an +altogether unreasonable degree. To return to this life of ridiculous +unreality—unconditional capitulation to ‘Conventionality’ was an exasperating +prospect. Yet what else was there to do? You will understand, therefore, that +at times she was moody (and Mr. Hoopdriver respectfully silent and attentive) +and at times inclined to eloquent denunciation of the existing order of things. +She was a Socialist, Hoopdriver learnt, and he gave a vague intimation that he +went further, intending, thereby, no less than the horrors of anarchism. He +would have owned up to the destruction of the Winter Palace indeed, had he had +the faintest idea where the Winter Palace was, and had his assurance amounted +to certainty that the Winter Palace was destroyed. He agreed with her cordially +that the position of women was intolerable, but checked himself on the verge of +the proposition that a girl ought not to expect a fellow to hand down boxes for +her when he was getting the ‘swap’ from a customer. It was Jessie’s +preoccupation with her own perplexities, no doubt, that delayed the unveiling +of Mr. Hoopdriver all through Saturday and Sunday. Once or twice, however, +there were incidents that put him about terribly—even questions that savoured +of suspicion. +</p> + +<p> +On Sunday night, for no conceivable reason, an unwonted wakefulness came upon +him. Unaccountably he realised he was a contemptible liar. All through the +small hours of Monday he reviewed the tale of his falsehoods, and when he tried +to turn his mind from that, the financial problem suddenly rose upon him. He +heard two o’clock strike, and three. It is odd how unhappy some of us are at +times, when we are at our happiest. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter34"></a>XXXIV.</h2> + +<p> +“Good morning, Madam,” said Hoopdriver, as Jessie came into the breakfast room +of the Golden Pheasant on Monday morning, and he smiled, bowed, rubbed his +hands together, and pulled out a chair for her, and rubbed his hands again. +</p> + +<p> +She stopped abruptly, with a puzzled expression on her face. “Where <i>have</i> +I seen that before?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“The chair?” said Hoopdriver, flushing. +</p> + +<p> +“No—the attitude.” +</p> + +<p> +She came forward and shook hands with him, looking the while curiously into his +face. “And—Madam?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a habit,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, guiltily. “A bad habit. Calling ladies +Madam. You must put it down to our colonial roughness. Out there up +country—y’know—the ladies—so rare—we call ’em all Madam.” +</p> + +<p> +“You <i>have</i> some funny habits, brother Chris,” said Jessie. “Before you +sell your diamond shares and go into society, as you say, and stand for +Parliament—What a fine thing it is to be a man!—you must cure yourself. That +habit of bowing as you do, and rubbing your hands, and looking expectant.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a habit.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know. But I don’t think it a good one. You don’t mind my telling you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a bit. I’m grateful.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m blessed or afflicted with a trick of observation,” said Jessie, looking at +the breakfast table. Mr. Hoopdriver put his hand to his moustache and then, +thinking this might be another habit, checked his arm and stuck his hand into +his pocket. He felt juiced awkward, to use his private formula. Jessie’s eye +wandered to the armchair, where a piece of binding was loose, and, possibly to +carry out her theory of an observant disposition, she turned and asked him for +a pin. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver’s hand fluttered instinctively to his lappel, and there, planted +by habit, were a couple of stray pins he had impounded. +</p> + +<p> +“What an odd place to put pins!” exclaimed Jessie, taking it. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s ’andy,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “I saw a chap in a shop do it once.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must have a careful disposition,” she said, over her shoulder, kneeling +down to the chair. +</p> + +<p> +“In the centre of Africa—up country, that is—one learns to value pins,” said +Mr. Hoopdriver, after a perceptible pause. “There weren’t over many pins in +Africa. They don’t lie about on the ground there.” His face was now in a fine, +red glow. Where would the draper break out next? He thrust his hands into his +coat pockets, then took one out again, furtively removed the second pin and +dropped it behind him gently. It fell with a loud ‘ping’ on the fender. Happily +she made no remark, being preoccupied with the binding of the chair. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver, instead of sitting down, went up to the table and stood against +it, with his finger-tips upon the cloth. They were keeping breakfast a +tremendous time. He took up his rolled serviette, looked closely and +scrutinisingly at the ring, then put his hand under the fold of the napkin and +examined the texture, and put the thing down again. Then he had a vague impulse +to finger his hollow wisdom tooth—happily checked. He suddenly discovered he +was standing as if the table was a counter, and sat down forthwith. He drummed +with his hand on the table. He felt dreadfully hot and self-conscious. +</p> + +<p> +“Breakfast is late,” said Jessie, standing up. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +Conversation was slack. Jessie wanted to know the distance to Ringwood. Then +silence fell again. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver, very uncomfortable and studying an easy bearing, looked again +at the breakfast things and then idly lifted the corner of the tablecloth on +the ends of his fingers, and regarded it. “Fifteen three,” he thought, +privately. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you do that?” said Jessie. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>What?</i>” said Hoopdriver, dropping the tablecloth convulsively. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at the cloth like that. I saw you do it yesterday, too.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver’s face became quite a bright red. He began pulling his moustache +nervously. “I know,” he said. “I know. It’s a queer habit, I know. But out +there, you know, there’s native servants, you know, and—it’s a queer thing to +talk about—but one has to look at things to see, don’t y’know, whether they’re +quite clean or not. It’s got to be a habit.” +</p> + +<p> +“How odd!” said Jessie. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t it?” mumbled Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“If I were a Sherlock Holmes,” said Jessie, “I suppose I could have told you +were a colonial from little things like that. But anyhow, I guessed it, didn’t +I?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Hoopdriver, in a melancholy tone, “you guessed it.” +</p> + +<p> +Why not seize the opportunity for a neat confession, and add, “unhappily in +this case you guessed wrong.” Did she suspect? Then, at the psychological +moment, the girl bumped the door open with her tray and brought in the coffee +and scrambled eggs. +</p> + +<p> +“I am rather lucky with my intuitions, sometimes,” said Jessie. +</p> + +<p> +Remorse that had been accumulating in his mind for two days surged to the top +of his mind. What a shabby liar he was! +</p> + +<p> +And, besides, he must sooner or later, inevitably, give himself away. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter35"></a>XXXV.</h2> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver helped the eggs and then, instead of beginning, sat with his +cheek on his hand, watching Jessie pour out the coffee. His ears were a bright +red, and his eyes bright. He took his coffee cup clumsily, cleared his throat, +suddenly leant back in his chair, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. +“I’ll do it,” he said aloud. +</p> + +<p> +“Do what?” said Jessie, looking up in surprise over the coffee pot. She was +just beginning her scrambled egg. +</p> + +<p> +“Own up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Own what?” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Milton—I’m a liar.” He put his head on one side and regarded her with a +frown of tremendous resolution. Then in measured accents, and moving his head +slowly from side to side, he announced, “Ay’m a deraper.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a draper? I thought—” +</p> + +<p> +“You thought wrong. But it’s bound to come up. Pins, attitude, habits—It’s +plain enough. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m a draper’s assistant let out for a ten-days holiday. Jest a draper’s +assistant. Not much, is it? A counter-jumper.” +</p> + +<p> +“A draper’s assistant isn’t a position to be ashamed of,” she said, recovering, +and not quite understanding yet what this all meant. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it is,” he said, “for a man, in this country now. To be just another +man’s hand, as I am. To have to wear what clothes you are told, and go to +church to please customers, and work—There’s no other kind of men stand such +hours. A drunken bricklayer’s a king to it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why are you telling me this now?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s important you should know at once.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Mr. Benson—” +</p> + +<p> +“That isn’t all. If you don’t mind my speaking about myself a bit, there’s a +few things I’d like to tell you. I can’t go on deceiving you. My name’s not +Benson. <i>Why</i> I told you Benson, I <i>don’t</i> know. Except that I’m a +kind of fool. Well—I wanted somehow to seem more than I was. My name’s +Hoopdriver.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“And that about South Africa—and that lion.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lies.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lies!” +</p> + +<p> +“And the discovery of diamonds on the ostrich farm. Lies too. And all the +reminiscences of the giraffes—lies too. I never rode on no giraffes. I’d be +afraid.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her with a kind of sullen satisfaction. He had eased his +conscience, anyhow. She regarded him in infinite perplexity. This was a new +side altogether to the man. “But <i>why</i>,” she began. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did I tell you such things? <i>I</i> don’t know. Silly sort of chap, I +expect. I suppose I wanted to impress you. But somehow, now, I want you to know +the truth.” +</p> + +<p> +Silence. Breakfast untouched. “I thought I’d tell you,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “I +suppose it’s snobbishness and all that kind of thing, as much as anything. I +lay awake pretty near all last night thinking about myself; thinking what a +got-up imitation of a man I was, and all that.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you haven’t any diamond shares, and you are not going into Parliament, and +you’re not—” +</p> + +<p> +“All Lies,” said Hoopdriver, in a sepulchral voice. “Lies from beginning to +end. ’Ow I came to tell ’em I <i>don’t</i> know.” +</p> + +<p> +She stared at him blankly. +</p> + +<p> +“I never set eyes on Africa in my life,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, completing the +confession. Then he pulled his right hand from his pocket, and with the +nonchalance of one to whom the bitterness of death is passed, began to drink +his coffee. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a little surprising,” began Jessie, vaguely. +</p> + +<p> +“Think it over,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart.” +</p> + +<p> +And then breakfast proceeded in silence. Jessie ate very little, and seemed +lost in thought. Mr. Hoopdriver was so overcome by contrition and anxiety that +he consumed an extraordinarily large breakfast out of pure nervousness, and ate +his scrambled eggs for the most part with the spoon that belonged properly to +the marmalade. His eyes were gloomily downcast. She glanced at him through her +eyelashes. Once or twice she struggled with laughter, once or twice she seemed +to be indignant. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what to think,” she said at last. “I don’t know what to make of +you—brother Chris. I thought, do you know? that you were perfectly honest. And +somehow—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think so still.” +</p> + +<p> +“Honest—with all those lies!” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “I’m fair ashamed of myself. But anyhow—I’ve +stopped deceiving you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>thought</i>,” said the Young Lady in Grey, “that story of the lion—” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord!” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “Don’t remind me of <i>that</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought, somehow, I <i>felt</i>, that the things you said didn’t ring quite +true.” She suddenly broke out in laughter, at the expression of his face. “Of +<i>course</i> you are honest,” she said. “How could I ever doubt it? As if +<i>I</i> had never pretended! I see it all now.” +</p> + +<p> +Abruptly she rose, and extended her hand across the breakfast things. He looked +at her doubtfully, and saw the dancing friendliness in her eyes. He scarcely +understood at first. He rose, holding the marmalade spoon, and took her +proffered hand with abject humility. “Lord,” he broke out, “if you aren’t +enough—but there!” +</p> + +<p> +“I see it all now.” A brilliant inspiration had suddenly obscured her humour. +She sat down suddenly, and he sat down too. “You did it,” she said, “because +you wanted to help me. And you thought I was too Conventional to take help from +one I might think my social inferior.” +</p> + +<p> +“That was partly it,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“How you misunderstood me!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t mind?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was noble of you. But I am sorry,” she said, “you should think me likely to +be ashamed of you because you follow a decent trade.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t know at first, you see,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +And he submitted meekly to a restoration of his self-respect. He was as useful +a citizen as could be,—it was proposed and carried,—and his lying was of the +noblest. And so the breakfast concluded much more happily than his brightest +expectation, and they rode out of ruddy little Blandford as though no shadow of +any sort had come between them. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter36"></a>XXXVI.</h2> + +<p> +As they were sitting by the roadside among the pine trees half-way up a stretch +of hill between Wimborne and Ringwood, however, Mr. Hoopdriver reopened the +question of his worldly position. +</p> + +<p> +“Ju think,” he began abruptly, removing a meditative cigarette from his mouth, +“that a draper’s shopman <i>is</i> a decent citizen?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“When he puts people off with what they don’t quite want, for instance?” +</p> + +<p> +“Need he do that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Salesmanship,” said Hoopdriver. “Wouldn’t get a crib if he didn’t.—It’s no +good your arguing. It’s not a particularly honest nor a particularly useful +trade; it’s not very high up; there’s no freedom and no leisure—seven to +eight-thirty every day in the week; don’t leave much edge to live on, does +it?—real workmen laugh at us and educated chaps like bank clerks and +solicitors’ clerks look down on us. You look respectable outside, and inside +you are packed in dormitories like convicts, fed on bread and butter and +bullied like slaves. You’re just superior enough to feel that you’re not +superior. Without capital there’s no prospects; one draper in a hundred don’t +even earn enough to marry on; and if he <i>does</i> marry, his G.V. can just +use him to black boots if he likes, and he daren’t put his back up. That’s +drapery! And you tell me to be contented. Would <i>you</i> be contented if you +was a shop girl?” +</p> + +<p> +She did not answer. She looked at him with distress in her brown eyes, and he +remained gloomily in possession of the field. +</p> + +<p> +Presently he spoke. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, and stopped. +</p> + +<p> +She turned her face, resting her cheek on the palm of her hand. There was a +light in her eyes that made the expression of them tender. Mr. Hoopdriver had +not looked in her face while he had talked. He had regarded the grass, and +pointed his remarks with redknuckled hands held open and palms upwards. Now +they hung limply over his knees. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I was thinking it this morning,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course it’s silly.” “Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s like this. I’m twenty-three, about. I had my schooling all right to +fifteen, say. Well, that leaves me eight years behind.—Is it too late? I wasn’t +so backward. I did algebra, and Latin up to auxiliary verbs, and French +genders. I got a kind of grounding.” +</p> + +<p> +“And now you mean, should you go on working?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “That’s it. You can’t do much at drapery without +capital, you know. But if I could get really educated. I’ve thought +sometimes...” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” said the Young Lady in Grey. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver was surprised to see it in that light. “You think?” he said. “Of +course. You are a Man. You are free—” She warmed. “I wish I were you to have +the chance of that struggle.” +</p> + +<p> +“Am I Man <i>enough?</i>” said Mr. Hoopdriver aloud, but addressing himself. +“There’s that eight years,” he said to her. +</p> + +<p> +“You can make it up. What you call educated men—They’re not going on. You can +catch them. They are quite satisfied. Playing golf, and thinking of clever +things to say to women like my stepmother, and dining out. You’re in front of +them already in one thing. They think they know everything. You don’t. And they +know such little things.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord!” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “How you encourage a fellow!” +</p> + +<p> +“If I could only help you,” she said, and left an eloquent hiatus. He became +pensive again. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s pretty evident you don’t think much of a draper,” he said abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +Another interval. “Hundreds of men,” she said, “have come from the very lowest +ranks of life. There was Burns, a ploughman; and Hugh Miller, a stonemason; and +plenty of others. Dodsley was a footman—” +</p> + +<p> +“But drapers! We’re too sort of shabby genteel to rise. Our coats and cuffs +might get crumpled—” +</p> + +<p> +“Wasn’t there a Clarke who wrote theology? He was a draper.” +</p> + +<p> +“There was one started a sewing cotton, the only one I ever heard tell of.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you ever read ’Hearts Insurgent’?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. He did not wait for her context, but suddenly +broke out with an account of his literary requirements. “The fact is—I’ve read +precious little. One don’t get much of a chance, situated as I am. We have a +library at business, and I’ve gone through that. Most Besant I’ve read, and a +lot of Mrs. Braddon’s and Rider Haggard and Marie Corelli—and, well—a Ouida or +so. They’re good stories, of course, and first-class writers, but they didn’t +seem to have much to do with me. But there’s heaps of books one hears talked +about, I <i>haven’t</i> read.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you read any other books but novels?” +</p> + +<p> +“Scarcely ever. One gets tired after business, and you can’t get the books. I +have been to some extension lectures, of course, ‘Lizabethan Dramatists,’ it +was, but it seemed a little high-flown, you know. And I went and did +wood-carving at the same place. But it didn’t seem leading nowhere, and I cut +my thumb and chucked it.” +</p> + +<p> +He made a depressing spectacle, with his face anxious and his hands limp. “It +makes me <i>sick</i>,” he said, “to think how I’ve been fooled with. My old +schoolmaster ought to have a juiced <i>hiding</i>. He’s a thief. He pretended +to undertake to make a man of me, and he’s stole twenty-three years of my life, +filled me up with scraps and sweepings. Here I am! I don’t <i>know</i> +anything, and I can’t <i>do</i> anything, and all the learning time is over.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it?” she said; but he did not seem to hear her. “My o’ people didn’t know +any better, and went and paid thirty pounds premium—thirty pounds down to have +me made <i>this</i>. The G.V. promised to teach me the trade, and he never +taught me anything but to be a Hand. It’s the way they do with draper’s +apprentices. If every swindler was locked up—well, you’d have nowhere to buy +tape and cotton. It’s all very well to bring up Burns and those chaps, but I’m +not that make. Yet I’m not such muck that I might not have been better—with +teaching. I wonder what the chaps who sneer and laugh at such as me would be if +they’d been fooled about as I’ve been. At twenty-three—it’s a long start.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked up with a wintry smile, a sadder and wiser Hoopdriver indeed than him +of the glorious imaginings. “It’s <i>you</i> done this,” he said. “You’re real. +And it sets me thinking what I really am, and what I might have been. Suppose +it was all different—” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Make</i> it different.” +</p> + +<p> +“How?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Work</i>. Stop playing at life. Face it like a man.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said Hoopdriver, glancing at her out of the corners of his eyes. “And +even then—” +</p> + +<p> +“No! It’s not much good. I’m beginning too late.” +</p> + +<p> +And there, in blankly thoughtful silence, that conversation ended. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter37"></a>XXXVII.<br/> +IN THE NEW FOREST</h2> + +<p> +At Ringwood they lunched, and Jessie met with a disappointment. There was no +letter for her at the post office. Opposite the hotel, The Chequered Career, +was a machine shop with a conspicuously second-hand Marlborough Club tandem +tricycle displayed in the window, together with the announcement that bicycles +and tricycles were on hire within. The establishment was impressed on Mr. +Hoopdriver’s mind by the proprietor’s action in coming across the road and +narrowly inspecting their machines. His action revived a number of disagreeable +impressions, but, happily, came to nothing. While they were still lunching, a +tall clergyman, with a heated face, entered the room and sat down at the table +next to theirs. He was in a kind of holiday costume; that is to say, he had a +more than usually high collar, fastened behind and rather the worse for the +weather, and his long-tail coat had been replaced by a black jacket of quite +remarkable brevity. He had faded brown shoes on his feet, his trouser legs were +grey with dust, and he wore a hat of piebald straw in the place of the +customary soft felt. He was evidently socially inclined. +</p> + +<p> +“A most charming day, sir,” he said, in a ringing tenor. +</p> + +<p> +“Charming,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, over a portion of pie. +</p> + +<p> +“You are, I perceive, cycling through this delightful country,” said the +clergyman. +</p> + +<p> +“Touring,” explained Mr. Hoopdriver. “I can imagine that, with a properly oiled +machine, there can be no easier nor pleasanter way of seeing the country.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Mr. Hoopdriver; “it isn’t half a bad way of getting about.” +</p> + +<p> +“For a young and newly married couple, a tandem bicycle must be, I should +imagine, a delightful bond.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite so,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, reddening a little. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you ride a tandem?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—we’re separate,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“The motion through the air is indisputably of a very exhilarating +description.” With that decision, the clergyman turned to give his orders to +the attendant, in a firm, authoritative voice, for a cup of tea, two gelatine +lozenges, bread and butter, salad, and pie to follow. “The gelatine lozenges I +must have. I require them to precipitate the tannin in my tea,” he remarked to +the room at large, and folding his hands, remained for some time with his chin +thereon, staring fixedly at a little picture over Mr. Hoopdriver’s head. +</p> + +<p> +“I myself am a cyclist,” said the clergyman, descending suddenly upon Mr. +Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed!” said Mr. Hoopdriver, attacking the moustache. “What machine, may I +ask?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have recently become possessed of a tricycle. A bicycle is, I regret to say, +considered too—how shall I put it?—<i>flippant</i> by my parishioners. So I +have a tricycle. I have just been hauling it hither.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hauling!” said Jessie, surprised. +</p> + +<p> +“With a shoe lace. And partly carrying it on my back.” +</p> + +<p> +The pause was unexpected. Jessie had some trouble with a crumb. Mr. +Hoopdriver’s face passed through several phases of surprise. Then he saw the +explanation. “Had an accident?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can hardly call it an accident. The wheels suddenly refused to go round. I +found myself about five miles from here with an absolutely immobile machine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ow!” said Mr. Hoopdriver, trying to seem intelligent, and Jessie glanced at +this insane person. +</p> + +<p> +“It appears,” said the clergyman, satisfied with the effect he had created, +“that my man carefully washed out the bearings with paraffin, and let the +machine dry without oiling it again. The consequence was that they became +heated to a considerable temperature and jammed. Even at the outset the machine +ran stiffly as well as noisily, and I, being inclined to ascribe this stiffness +to my own lassitude, merely redoubled my exertions.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Ot work all round,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“You could scarcely put it more appropriately. It is my rule of life to do +whatever I find to do with all my might. I believe, indeed, that the bearings +became red hot. Finally one of the wheels jammed together. A side wheel it was, +so that its stoppage necessitated an inversion of the entire apparatus,—an +inversion in which I participated.” +</p> + +<p> +“Meaning, that you went over?” said Mr. Hoopdriver, suddenly much amused. +</p> + +<p> +“Precisely. And not brooking my defeat, I suffered repeatedly. You may +understand, perhaps, a natural impatience. I expostulated—playfully, of course. +Happily the road was not overlooked. Finally, the entire apparatus became +rigid, and I abandoned the unequal contest. For all practical purposes the +tricycle was no better than a heavy chair without castors. It was a case of +hauling or carrying.” +</p> + +<p> +The clergyman’s nutriment appeared in the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +“Five miles,” said the clergyman. He began at once to eat bread and butter +vigorously. “Happily,” he said, “I am an eupeptic, energetic sort of person on +principle. I would all men were likewise.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the best way,” agreed Mr. Hoopdriver, and the conversation gave +precedence to bread and butter. +</p> + +<p> +“Gelatine,” said the clergyman, presently, stirring his tea thoughtfully, +“precipitates the tannin in one’s tea and renders it easy of digestion.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a useful sort of thing to know,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“You are altogether welcome,” said the clergyman, biting generously at two +pieces of bread and butter folded together. +</p> + +<p> +In the afternoon our two wanderers rode on at an easy pace towards Stoney +Cross. Conversation languished, the topic of South Africa being in abeyance. +Mr. Hoopdriver was silenced by disagreeable thoughts. He had changed the last +sovereign at Ringwood. The fact had come upon him suddenly. Now too late he was +reflecting upon his resources. There was twenty pounds or more in the post +office savings bank in Putney, but his book was locked up in his box at the +Antrobus establishment. Else this infatuated man would certainly have +surreptitiously withdrawn the entire sum in order to prolong these journeyings +even for a few days. As it was, the shadow of the end fell across his +happiness. Strangely enough, in spite of his anxiety and the morning’s +collapse, he was still in a curious emotional state that was certainly not +misery. He was forgetting his imaginings and posings, forgetting himself +altogether in his growing appreciation of his companion. The most tangible +trouble in his mind was the necessity of breaking the matter to her. +</p> + +<p> +A long stretch up hill tired them long before Stoney Cross was reached, and +they dismounted and sat under the shade of a little oak tree. Near the crest +the road looped on itself, so that, looking back, it sloped below them up to +the right and then came towards them. About them grew a rich heather with +stunted oaks on the edge of a deep ditch along the roadside, and this road was +sandy; below the steepness of the hill, however, it was grey and barred with +shadows, for there the trees clustered thick and tall. Mr. Hoopdriver fumbled +clumsily with his cigarettes. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a thing I got to tell you,” he said, trying to be perfectly calm. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d like to jest discuss your plans a bit, y’know.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very unsettled,” said Jessie. “You are thinking of writing Books?” +</p> + +<p> +“Or doing journalism, or teaching, or something like that.” +</p> + +<p> +“And keeping yourself independent of your stepmother?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“How long’d it take now, to get anything of that sort to do?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know at all. I believe there are a great many women journalists and +sanitary inspectors, and black-and-white artists. But I suppose it takes time. +Women, you know, edit most papers nowadays, George Egerton says. I ought, I +suppose, to communicate with a literary agent.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said Hoopdriver, “it’s very suitable work. Not being heavy like +the drapery.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s heavy brain labour, you must remember.” +</p> + +<p> +“That wouldn’t hurt <i>you</i>,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, turning a compliment. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s like this,” he said, ending a pause. “It’s a juiced nuisance alluding to +these matters, but—we got very little more money.” +</p> + +<p> +He perceived that Jessie started, though he did not look at her. “I was +counting, of course, on your friend’s writing and your being able to take some +action to-day.” ‘Take some action’ was a phrase he had learnt at his last +‘swop.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Money,” said Jessie. “I didn’t think of money.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo! Here’s a tandem bicycle,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, abruptly, and pointing +with his cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +She looked, and saw two little figures emerging from among the trees at the +foot of the slope. The riders were bowed sternly over their work and made a +gallant but unsuccessful attempt to take the rise. The machine was evidently +too highly geared for hill climbing, and presently the rearmost rider rose on +his saddle and hopped off, leaving his companion to any fate he found proper. +The foremost rider was a man unused to such machines and apparently undecided +how to dismount. He wabbled a few yards up the hill with a long tail of machine +wabbling behind him. Finally, he made an attempt to jump off as one does off a +single bicycle, hit his boot against the backbone, and collapsed heavily, +falling on his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +She stood up. “Dear me!” she said. “I hope he isn’t hurt.” +</p> + +<p> +The second rider went to the assistance of the fallen man. +</p> + +<p> +Hoopdriver stood up, too. The lank, shaky machine was lifted up and wheeled out +of the way, and then the fallen rider, being assisted, got up slowly and stood +rubbing his arm. No serious injury seemed to be done to the man, and the couple +presently turned their attention to the machine by the roadside. They were not +in cycling clothes Hoopdriver observed. One wore the grotesque raiment for +which the Cockney discovery of the game of golf seems indirectly blamable. Even +at this distance the flopping flatness of his cap, the bright brown leather at +the top of his calves, and the chequering of his stockings were perceptible. +The other, the rear rider, was a slender little man in grey. +</p> + +<p> +“Amatoors,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +Jessie stood staring, and a veil of thought dropped over her eyes. She no +longer regarded the two men who were now tinkering at the machine down below +there. +</p> + +<p> +“How much have you?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +He thrust his right hand into his pocket and produced six coins, counted them +with his left index finger, and held them out to her. “Thirteen four half,” +said Mr. Hoopdriver. “Every penny.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have half a sovereign,” she said. “Our bill wherever we stop—” The hiatus +was more eloquent than many words. +</p> + +<p> +“I never thought of money coming in to stop us like this,” said Jessie. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a juiced nuisance.” +</p> + +<p> +“Money,” said Jessie. “Is it possible—Surely! Conventionality! May only people +of means—Live their own Lives? I never thought ...” +</p> + +<p> +Pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s some more cyclists coming,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +The two men were both busy with their bicycle still, but now from among the +trees emerged the massive bulk of a ‘Marlborough Club’ tandem, ridden by a +slender woman in grey and a burly man in a Norfolk jacket. Following close upon +this came a lank black figure in a piebald straw hat, riding a tricycle of +antiquated pattern with two large wheels in front. The man in grey remained +bowed over the bicycle, with his stomach resting on the saddle, but his +companion stood up and addressed some remark to the tricycle riders. Then it +seemed as if he pointed up hill to where Mr. Hoopdriver and his companion stood +side by side. A still odder thing followed; the lady in grey took out her +handkerchief, appeared to wave it for a moment, and then at a hasty motion from +her companion the white signal vanished. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely,” said Jessie, peering under her hand. “It’s never—” +</p> + +<p> +The tandem tricycle began to ascend the hill, quartering elaborately from side +to side to ease the ascent. It was evident, from his heaving shoulders and +depressed head, that the burly gentleman was exerting himself. The clerical +person on the tricycle assumed the shape of a note of interrogation. Then on +the heels of this procession came a dogcart driven by a man in a billycock hat +and containing a lady in dark green. +</p> + +<p> +“Looks like some sort of excursion,” said Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +Jessie did not answer. She was still peering under her hand. “Surely,” she +said. +</p> + +<p> +The clergyman’s efforts were becoming convulsive. With a curious jerking +motion, the tricycle he rode twisted round upon itself, and he partly +dismounted and partly fell off. He turned his machine up hill again immediately +and began to wheel it. Then the burly gentleman dismounted, and with a courtly +attentiveness assisted the lady in grey to alight. There was some little +difference of opinion as to assistance, she so clearly wished to help push. +Finally she gave in, and the burly gentleman began impelling the machine up +hill by his own unaided strength. His face made a dot of brilliant colour among +the greys and greens at the foot of the hill. The tandem bicycle was now, it +seems, repaired, and this joined the tail of the procession, its riders walking +behind the dogcart, from which the lady in green and the driver had now +descended. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Hoopdriver,” said Jessie. “Those people—I’m almost sure—” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord!” said Mr. Hoopdriver, reading the rest in her face, and he turned to +pick up his machine at once. Then he dropped it and assisted her to mount. +</p> + +<p> +At the sight of Jessie mounting against the sky line the people coming up the +hill suddenly became excited and ended Jessie’s doubts at once. Two +handkerchiefs waved, and some one shouted. The riders of the tandem bicycle +began to run it up hill, past the other vehicles. But our young people did not +wait for further developments of the pursuit. In another moment they were out +of sight, riding hard down a steady incline towards Stoney Cross. +</p> + +<p> +Before they had dropped among the trees out of sight of the hill brow, Jessie +looked back and saw the tandem rising over the crest, with its rear rider just +tumbling into the saddle. “They’re coming,” she said, and bent her head over +her handles in true professional style. +</p> + +<p> +They whirled down into the valley, over a white bridge, and saw ahead of them a +number of shaggy little ponies frisking in the roadway. Involuntarily they +slackened. “Shoo!” said Mr. Hoopdriver, and the ponies kicked up their heels +derisively. At that Mr. Hoopdriver lost his temper and charged at them, +narrowly missed one, and sent them jumping the ditch into the bracken under the +trees, leaving the way clear for Jessie. +</p> + +<p> +Then the road rose quietly but persistently; the treadles grew heavy, and Mr. +Hoopdriver’s breath sounded like a saw. The tandem appeared, making frightful +exertions, at the foot, while the chase was still climbing. Then, thank Heaven! +a crest and a stretch of up and down road, whose only disadvantage was its +pitiless exposure to the afternoon sun. The tandem apparently dismounted at the +hill, and did not appear against the hot blue sky until they were already near +some trees and a good mile away. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re gaining,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, with a little Niagara of perspiration +dropping from brow to cheek. “That hill—” +</p> + +<p> +But that was their only gleam of success. They were both nearly spent. +Hoopdriver, indeed, was quite spent, and only a feeling of shame prolonged the +liquidation of his bankrupt physique. From that point the tandem grained upon +them steadily. At the Rufus Stone, it was scarcely a hundred yards behind. Then +one desperate spurt, and they found themselves upon a steady downhill stretch +among thick pine woods. Downhill nothing can beat a highly geared tandem +bicycle. Automatically Mr. Hoopdriver put up his feet, and Jessie slackened her +pace. In another moment they heard the swish of the fat pneumatics behind them, +and the tandem passed Hoopdriver and drew alongside Jessie. Hoopdriver felt a +mad impulse to collide with this abominable machine as it passed him. His only +consolation was to notice that its riders, riding violently, were quite as +dishevelled as himself and smothered in sandy white dust. +</p> + +<p> +Abruptly Jessie stopped and dismounted, and the tandem riders shot panting past +them downhill. “Brake,” said Dangle, who was riding behind, and stood up on the +pedals. For a moment the velocity of the thing increased, and then they saw the +dust fly from the brake, as it came down on the front tire. Dangle’s right leg +floundered in the air as he came off in the road. The tandem wobbled. “Hold +it!” cried Phipps over his shoulder, going on downhill. “I can’t get off if you +don’t hold it.” He put on the brake until the machine stopped almost dead, and +then feeling unstable began to pedal again. Dangle shouted after him. “Put out +your foot, man,” said Dangle. +</p> + +<p> +In this way the tandem riders were carried a good hundred yards or more beyond +their quarry. Then Phipps realized his possibilities, slacked up with the +brake, and let the thing go over sideways, dropping on to his right foot. With +his left leg still over the saddle, and still holding the handles, he looked +over his shoulder and began addressing uncomplimentary remarks to Dangle. “You +only think of yourself,” said Phipps, with a florid face. +</p> + +<p> +“They have forgotten us,” said Jessie, turning her machine. +</p> + +<p> +“There was a road at the top of the hill—to Lyndhurst,” said Hoopdriver, +following her example. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no good. There’s the money. We must give it up. But let us go back to +that hotel at Rufus Stone. I don’t see why we should be led captive.” +</p> + +<p> +So to the consternation of the tandem riders, Jessie and her companion mounted +and rode quietly back up the hill again. As they dismounted at the hotel +entrance, the tandem overtook them, and immediately afterwards the dogcart came +into view in pursuit. Dangle jumped off. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Milton, I believe,” said Dangle, panting and raising a damp cap from his +wet and matted hair. +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>say</i>,” said Phipps, receding involuntarily. “Don’t go doing it again, +Dangle. <i>Help</i> a chap.” +</p> + +<p> +“One minute,” said Dangle, and ran after his colleague. +</p> + +<p> +Jessie leant her machine against the wall, and went into the hotel entrance. +Hoopdriver remained in the hotel entrance, limp but defiant. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter38"></a>XXXVIII.<br/> +AT THE RUFUS STONE</h2> + +<p> +He folded his arms as Dangle and Phipps returned towards him. Phipps was +abashed by his inability to cope with the tandem, which he was now wheeling, +but Dangle was inclined to be quarrelsome. “Miss Milton?” he said briefly. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver bowed over his folded arms. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Milton within?” said Dangle. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>And</i> not to be disturved,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a scoundrel, sir,” said Mr. Dangle. +</p> + +<p> +“Et your service,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “She awaits ’er stepmother, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Dangle hesitated. “She will be here immediately,” he said. “Here is her +friend, Miss Mergle.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver unfolded his arms slowly, and, with an air of immense calm, +thrust his hands into his breeches pockets. Then with one of those fatal +hesitations of his, it occurred to him that this attitude was merely vulgarly +defiant; he withdrew both, returned one and pulled at the insufficient +moustache with the other. Miss Mergle caught him in confusion. “Is this the +man?” she said to Dangle, and forthwith, “How <i>dare</i> you, sir? How dare +you face me? That poor girl!” +</p> + +<p> +“You will permit me to observe,” began Mr. Hoopdriver, with a splendid drawl, +seeing himself, for the first time in all this business, as a romantic villain. +</p> + +<p> +“Ugh,” said Miss Mergle, unexpectedly striking him about the midriff with her +extended palms, and sending him staggering backward into the hall of the hotel. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me pass,” said Miss Mergle, in towering indignation. “How dare you resist +my passage?” and so swept by him and into the dining-room, wherein Jessie had +sought refuge. +</p> + +<p> +As Mr. Hoopdriver struggled for equilibrium with the umbrella-stand, Dangle and +Phipps, roused from their inertia by Miss Mergle’s activity, came in upon her +heels, Phipps leading. “How dare you prevent that lady passing?” said Phipps. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver looked obstinate, and, to Dangle’s sense, dangerous, but he made +no answer. A waiter in full bloom appeared at the end of the passage, guardant. +“It is men of your stamp, sir,” said Phipps, “who discredit manhood.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver thrust his hands into his pockets. “Who the juice are you?” +shouted Mr. Hoopdriver, fiercely. +</p> + +<p> +“Who are <i>you</i>, sir?” retorted Phipps. “Who are you? That’s the question. +What are <i>you</i>, and what are you doing, wandering at large with a young +lady under age?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t speak to him,” said Dangle. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not a-going to tell all my secrets to any one who comes at me,” said +Hoopdriver. “Not Likely.” And added fiercely, “And that I tell you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +He and Phipps stood, legs apart and both looking exceedingly fierce at one +another, and Heaven alone knows what might not have happened, if the long +clergyman had not appeared in the doorway, heated but deliberate. “Petticoated +anachronism,” said the long clergyman in the doorway, apparently still +suffering from the antiquated prejudice that demanded a third wheel and a black +coat from a clerical rider. He looked at Phipps and Hoopdriver for a moment, +then extending his hand towards the latter, he waved it up and down three +times, saying, “Tchak, tchak, tchak,” very deliberately as he did so. Then with +a concluding “Ugh!” and a gesture of repugnance he passed on into the +dining-room from which the voice of Miss Mergle was distinctly audible +remarking that the weather was extremely hot even for the time of year. +</p> + +<p> +This expression of extreme disapprobation had a very demoralizing effect upon +Hoopdriver, a demoralization that was immediately completed by the advent of +the massive Widgery. +</p> + +<p> +“Is this the man?” said Widgery very grimly, and producing a special voice for +the occasion from somewhere deep in his neck. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t hurt him!” said Mrs. Milton, with clasped hands. “However much wrong he +has done her—No violence!” +</p> + +<p> +“’Ow many more of you?” said Hoopdriver, at bay before the umbrella stand. +“Where is she? What has he done with her?” said Mrs. Milton. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not going to stand here and be insulted by a lot of strangers,” said Mr. +Hoopdriver. “So you needn’t think it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please don’t worry, Mr. Hoopdriver,” said Jessie, suddenly appearing in the +door of the dining-room. “I’m here, mother.” Her face was white. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Milton said something about her child, and made an emotional charge at +Jessie. The embrace vanished into the dining-room. Widgery moved as if to +follow, and hesitated. “You’d better make yourself scarce,” he said to Mr. +Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“I shan’t do anything of the kind,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, with a catching of the +breath. “I’m here defending that young lady.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve done her enough mischief, I should think,” said Widgery, suddenly +walking towards the dining-room, and closing the door behind him, leaving +Dangle and Phipps with Hoopdriver. +</p> + +<p> +“Clear!” said Phipps, threateningly. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall go and sit out in the garden,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, with dignity. +“There I shall remain.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t make a row with him,” said Dangle. +</p> + +<p> +And Mr. Hoopdriver retired, unassaulted, in almost sobbing dignity. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter39"></a>XXXIX.</h2> + +<p> +So here is the world with us again, and our sentimental excursion is over. In +the front of the Rufus Stone Hotel conceive a remarkable collection of wheeled +instruments, watched over by Dangle and Phipps in grave and stately attitudes, +and by the driver of a stylish dogcart from Ringwood. In the garden behind, in +an attitude of nervous prostration, Mr. Hoopdriver was seated on a rustic seat. +Through the open window of a private sitting-room came a murmur of voices, as +of men and women in conference. Occasionally something that might have been a +girlish sob. +</p> + +<p> +“I fail to see what status Widgery has,” says Dangle, “thrusting himself in +there.” +</p> + +<p> +“He takes too much upon himself,” said Phipps. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been noticing little things, yesterday and to-day,” said Dangle, and +stopped. +</p> + +<p> +“They went to the cathedral together in the afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Financially it would be a good thing for her, of course,” said Dangle, with a +gloomy magnanimity. +</p> + +<p> +He felt drawn to Phipps now by the common trouble, in spite of the man’s +chequered legs. “Financially it wouldn’t be half bad.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s so dull and heavy,” said Phipps. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, within, the clergyman had, by promptitude and dexterity, taken the +chair and was opening the case against the unfortunate Jessie. I regret to have +to say that my heroine had been appalled by the visible array of public opinion +against her excursion, to the pitch of tears. She was sitting with flushed +cheeks and swimming eyes at the end of the table opposite to the clergyman. She +held her handkerchief crumpled up in her extended hand. Mrs. Milton sat as near +to her as possible, and occasionally made little dabs with her hand at Jessie’s +hand, to indicate forgiveness. These advances were not reciprocated, which +touched Widgery very much. The lady in green, Miss Mergle (B. A.), sat on the +opposite side near the clergyman. She was the strong-minded schoolmistress to +whom Jessie had written, and who had immediately precipitated the pursuit upon +her. She had picked up the clergyman in Ringwood, and had told him everything +forthwith, having met him once at a British Association meeting. He had +immediately constituted himself administrator of the entire business. Widgery, +having been foiled in an attempt to conduct the proceedings, stood with his +legs wide apart in front of the fireplace ornament, and looked profound and +sympathetic. Jessie’s account of her adventures was a chary one and given +amidst frequent interruptions. She surprised herself by skilfully omitting any +allusion to the Bechamel episode. She completely exonerated Hoopdriver from the +charge of being more than an accessory to her escapade. But public feeling was +heavy against Hoopdriver. Her narrative was inaccurate and sketchy, but happily +the others were too anxious to pass opinions to pin her down to particulars. At +last they had all the facts they would permit. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear young lady,” said the clergyman, “I can only ascribe this extravagant +and regrettable expedition of yours to the wildest misconceptions of your place +in the world and of your duties and responsibilities. Even now, it seems to me, +your present emotion is due not so much to a real and sincere penitence for +your disobedience and folly as to a positive annoyance at our most fortunate +interference—” +</p> + +<p> +“Not that,” said Mrs. Milton, in a low tone. “Not that.” +</p> + +<p> +“But <i>why</i> did she go off like this?” said Widgery. “That’s what <i>I</i> +want to know.” +</p> + +<p> +Jessie made an attempt to speak, but Mrs. Milton said “Hush!” and the ringing +tenor of the clergyman rode triumphantly over the meeting. “I cannot understand +this spirit of unrest that has seized upon the more intelligent portion of the +feminine community. You had a pleasant home, a most refined and intelligent +lady in the position of your mother, to cherish and protect you—” +</p> + +<p> +“If I <i>had</i> a mother,” gulped Jessie, succumbing to the obvious snare of +self-pity, and sobbing. +</p> + +<p> +“To cherish, protect, and advise you. And you must needs go out of it all alone +into a strange world of unknown dangers-” +</p> + +<p> +“I wanted to learn,” said Jessie. +</p> + +<p> +“You wanted to learn. May you never have anything to UNlearn.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Ah!</i>” from Mrs. Milton, very sadly. +</p> + +<p> +“It isn’t fair for all of you to argue at me at once,” submitted Jessie, +irrelevantly. +</p> + +<p> +“A world full of unknown dangers,” resumed the clergyman. “Your proper place +was surely the natural surroundings that are part of you. You have been unduly +influenced, it is only too apparent, by a class of literature which, with all +due respect to distinguished authoress that shall be nameless, I must call the +New Woman Literature. In that deleterious ingredient of our book boxes—” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t altogether agree with you there,” said Miss Mergle, throwing her head +back and regarding him firmly through her spectacles, and Mr. Widgery coughed. +</p> + +<p> +“What <i>has</i> all this to do with me?” asked Jessie, availing herself of the +interruption. +</p> + +<p> +“The point is,” said Mrs. Milton, on her defence, “that in my books—” +</p> + +<p> +“All I want to do,” said Jessie, “is to go about freely by myself. Girls do so +in America. Why not here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Social conditions are entirely different in America,” said Miss Mergle. “Here +we respect Class Distinctions.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very unfortunate. What I want to know is, why I cannot go away for a +holiday if I want to.” +</p> + +<p> +“With a strange young man, socially your inferior,” said Widgery, and made her +flush by his tone. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” she said. “With anybody.” +</p> + +<p> +“They don’t do that, even in America,” said Miss Mergle. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear young lady,” said the clergyman, “the most elementary principles of +decorum—A day will come when you will better understand how entirely +subservient your ideas are to the very fundamentals of our present +civilisation, when you will better understand the harrowing anxiety you have +given Mrs. Milton by this inexplicable flight of yours. We can only put things +down at present, in charity, to your ignorance—” +</p> + +<p> +“You have to consider the general body of opinion, too,” said Widgery. +</p> + +<p> +“Precisely,” said Miss Mergle. “There is no such thing as conduct in the +absolute.” “If once this most unfortunate business gets about,” said the +clergyman, “it will do you infinite harm.” +</p> + +<p> +“But <i>I’ve</i> done nothing wrong. Why should I be responsible for other +people’s—” +</p> + +<p> +“The world has no charity,” said Mrs. Milton. +</p> + +<p> +“For a girl,” said Jessie. “No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now do let us stop arguing, my dear young lady, and let us listen to reason. +Never mind how or why, this conduct of yours will do you infinite harm, if once +it is generally known. And not only that, it will cause infinite pain to those +who care for you. But if you will return at once to your home, causing it to be +understood that you have been with friends for these last few days—” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell lies,” said Jessie. “Certainly not. Most certainly not. But I understand +that is how your absence is understood at present, and there is no reason—” +</p> + +<p> +Jessie’s grip tightened on her handkerchief. “I won’t go back,” she said, “to +have it as I did before. I want a room of my own, what books I need to read, to +be free to go out by myself alone, Teaching—” +</p> + +<p> +“Anything,” said Mrs. Milton, “anything in reason.” +</p> + +<p> +“But will you keep your promise?” said Jessie. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely you won’t dictate to your mother!” said Widgery. +</p> + +<p> +“My stepmother! I don’t want to dictate. I want definite promises now.” +</p> + +<p> +“This is most unreasonable,” said the clergyman. “Very well,” said Jessie, +swallowing a sob but with unusual resolution. “Then I won’t go back. My life is +being frittered away—” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Let</i> her have her way,” said Widgery. +</p> + +<p> +“A room then. All your Men. I’m not to come down and talk away half my days—” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear child, if only to save you,” said Mrs. Milton. “If you don’t keep your +promise—” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I take it the matter is practically concluded,” said the clergyman. “And +that you very properly submit to return to your proper home. And now, if I may +offer a suggestion, it is that we take tea. Freed of its tannin, nothing, I +think, is more refreshing and stimulating.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a train from Lyndhurst at thirteen minutes to six,” said Widgery, +unfolding a time table. “That gives us about half an hour or three-quarters +here—if a conveyance is obtainable, that is.” +</p> + +<p> +“A gelatine lozenge dropped into the tea cup precipitates the tannin in the +form of tannate of gelatine,” said the clergyman to Miss Mergle, in a +confidential bray. +</p> + +<p> +Jessie stood up, and saw through the window a depressed head and shoulders over +the top of the back of a garden seat. She moved towards the door. “While you +have tea, mother,” she said, “I must tell Mr. Hoopdriver of our arrangements.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you think I—” began the clergyman. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Jessie, very rudely; “I don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Jessie, haven’t you already—” +</p> + +<p> +“You are already breaking the capitulation,” said Jessie. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you want the whole half hour?” said Widgery, at the bell. +</p> + +<p> +“Every minute,” said Jessie, in the doorway. “He’s behaved very nobly to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s tea,” said Widgery. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve had tea.” +</p> + +<p> +“He may not have behaved badly,” said the clergyman. “But he’s certainly an +astonishingly weak person to let a wrong-headed young girl—” +</p> + +<p> +Jessie closed the door into the garden. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile Mr. Hoopdriver made a sad figure in the sunlight outside. It was +over, this wonderful excursion of his, so far as she was concerned, and with +the swift blow that separated them, he realised all that those days had done +for him. He tried to grasp the bearings of their position. Of course, they +would take her away to those social altitudes of hers. She would become an +inaccessible young lady again. Would they let him say good-bye to her? +</p> + +<p> +How extraordinary it had all been! He recalled the moment when he had first +seen her riding, with the sunlight behind her, along the riverside road; he +recalled that wonderful night at Bognor, remembering it as if everything had +been done of his own initiative. “Brave, brave!” she had called him. And +afterwards, when she came down to him in the morning, kindly, quiet. But ought +he to have persuaded her then to return to her home? He remembered some +intention of the sort. Now these people snatched her away from him as though he +was scarcely fit to live in the same world with her. No more he was! He felt he +had presumed upon her worldly ignorance in travelling with her day after day. +She was so dainty, so delightful, so serene. He began to recapitulate her +expressions, the light of her eyes, the turn of her face.. . +</p> + +<p> +He wasn’t good enough to walk in the same road with her. Nobody was. Suppose +they let him say good-bye to her; what could he say? That? But they were sure +not to let her talk to him alone; her mother would be there as—what was it? +<i>Chaperone</i>. He’d never once had a chance of saying what he felt; indeed, +it was only now he was beginning to realise what he felt. Love! he wouldn’t +presume. It was worship. If only he could have one more chance. He must have +one more chance, somewhere, somehow. Then he would pour out his soul to her +eloquently. He felt eloquently, and words would come. He was dust under her +feet... +</p> + +<p> +His meditation was interrupted by the click of a door handle, and Jessie +appeared in the sunlight under the verandah. “Come away from here,” she said to +Hoopdriver, as he rose to meet her. “I’m going home with them. We have to say +good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Hoopdriver winced, opened and shut his mouth, and rose without a word. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter40"></a>XL.</h2> + +<p> +At first Jessie Milton and Mr. Hoopdriver walked away from the hotel in +silence. He heard a catching in her breath and glanced at her and saw her lips +pressed tight and a tear on her cheek. Her face was hot and bright. She was +looking straight before her. He could think of nothing to say, and thrust his +hands in his pockets and looked away from her intentionally. After a while she +began to talk. They dealt disjointedly with scenery first, and then with the +means of self-education. She took his address at Antrobus’s and promised to +send him some books. But even with that it was spiritless, aching talk, +Hoopdriver felt, for the fighting mood was over. She seemed, to him, +preoccupied with the memories of her late battle, and that appearance hurt him. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the end,” he whispered to himself. “It’s the end.” +</p> + +<p> +They went into a hollow and up a gentle wooded slope, and came at last to a +high and open space overlooking a wide expanse of country. There, by a common +impulse, they stopped. She looked at her watch—a little ostentatiously. They +stared at the billows of forest rolling away beneath them, crest beyond crest, +of leafy trees, fading at last into blue. +</p> + +<p> +“The end” ran through his mind, to the exclusion of all speakable thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +“And so,” she said, presently, breaking the silence, “it comes to good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +For half a minute he did not answer. Then he gathered his resolution. “There is +one thing I <i>must</i> say.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” she said, surprised and abruptly forgetting the recent argument. “I ask +no return. But—” +</p> + +<p> +Then he stopped. “I won’t say it. It’s no good. It would be rot from me—now. I +wasn’t going to say anything. Good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him with a startled expression in her eyes. “No,” she said. “But +don’t forget you are going to work. Remember, brother Chris, you are my friend. +You will work. You are not a very strong man, you know, now—you will forgive +me—nor do you know all you should. But what will you be in six years’ time?” +</p> + +<p> +He stared hard in front of him still, and the lines about his weak mouth seemed +to strengthen. He knew she understood what he could not say. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll work,” he said, concisely. They stood side by side for a moment. Then he +said, with a motion of his head, “I won’t come back to <i>them</i>. Do you +mind? Going back alone?” +</p> + +<p> +She took ten seconds to think. “No.” she said, and held out her hand, biting +her nether lip. “<i>Good-bye</i>,” she whispered. +</p> + +<p> +He turned, with a white face, looked into her eyes, took her hand limply, and +then with a sudden impulse, lifted it to his lips. She would have snatched it +away, but his grip tightened to her movement. She felt the touch of his lips, +and then he had dropped her fingers and turned from her and was striding down +the slope. A dozen paces away his foot turned in the lip of a rabbit hole, and +he stumbled forward and almost fell. He recovered his balance and went on, not +looking back. He never once looked back. She stared at his receding figure +until it was small and far below her, and then, the tears running over her +eyelids now, turned slowly, and walked with her hands gripped hard together +behind her, towards Stoney Cross again. +</p> + +<p> +“I did not know,” she whispered to herself. “I did not understand. Even now—No, +I do not understand.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chapter41"></a>XLI.<br/> +THE ENVOY</h2> + +<p> +So the story ends, dear Reader. Mr. Hoopdriver, sprawling down there among the +bracken, must sprawl without our prying, I think, or listening to what chances +to his breathing. And of what came of it all, of the six years and afterwards, +this is no place to tell. In truth, there is no telling it, for the years have +still to run. But if you see how a mere counter-jumper, a cad on castors, and a +fool to boot, may come to feel the little insufficiencies of life, and if he +has to any extent won your sympathies, my end is attained. (If it is not +attained, may Heaven forgive us both!) Nor will we follow this adventurous +young lady of ours back to her home at Surbiton, to her new struggle against +Widgery and Mrs. Milton combined. For, as she will presently hear, that devoted +man has got his reward. For her, also, your sympathies are invited. +</p> + +<p> +The rest of this great holiday, too—five days there are left of it—is beyond +the limits of our design. You see fitfully a slender figure in a dusty brown +suit and heather mixture stockings, and brown shoes not intended to be cycled +in, flitting Londonward through Hampshire and Berkshire and Surrey, going +economically—for excellent reasons. Day by day he goes on, riding fitfully and +for the most part through bye-roads, but getting a few miles to the +north-eastward every day. He is a narrow-chested person, with a nose hot and +tanned at the bridge with unwonted exposure, and brown, red-knuckled fists. A +musing expression sits upon the face of this rider, you observe. Sometimes he +whistles noiselessly to himself, sometimes he speaks aloud, “a juiced good try, +anyhow!” you hear; and sometimes, and that too often for my liking, he looks +irritable and hopeless. “I know,” he says, “I know. It’s over and done. It +isn’t <i>in</i> me. You ain’t man enough, Hoopdriver. Look at yer silly +hands!... Oh, my God!” and a gust of passion comes upon him and he rides +furiously for a space. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes again his face softens. “Anyhow, if I’m not to see her—she’s going to +lend me books,” he thinks, and gets such comfort as he can. Then again; “Books! +What’s books?” Once or twice triumphant memories of the earlier incidents nerve +his face for a while. “I put the ky-bosh on <i>his</i> little game,” he +remarks. “I <i>did</i> that,” and one might even call him happy in these +phases. And, by-the-bye, the machine, you notice, has been enamel-painted grey +and carries a sonorous gong. +</p> + +<p> +This figure passes through Basingstoke and Bagshot, Staines, Hampton, and +Richmond. At last, in Putney High Street, glowing with the warmth of an August +sunset and with all the ’prentice boys busy shutting up shop, and the work +girls going home, and the shop folks peeping abroad, and the white ’buses full +of late clerks and city folk rumbling home to their dinners, we part from him. +He is back. To-morrow, the early rising, the dusting, and drudgery, begin +again—but with a difference, with wonderful memories and still more wonderful +desires and ambitions replacing those discrepant dreams. +</p> + +<p> +He turns out of the High Street at the corner, dismounts with a sigh, and +pushes his machine through the gates of the Antrobus stable yard, as the +apprentice with the high collar holds them open. There are words of greeting. +“South Coast,” you hear; and “splendid weather—splendid.” He sighs. +“Yes—swapped him off for a couple of sovs. It’s a juiced good machine.” +</p> + +<p> +The gate closes upon him with a slam, and he vanishes from our ken. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1264 ***</div> +</body> + +</html> + diff --git a/1264-h/images/cover.jpg b/1264-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ed0a177 --- /dev/null +++ b/1264-h/images/cover.jpg |
