diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:10:03 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:10:03 -0700 |
| commit | 2b8b0e53f8e97b812d3917d7b437ed9c3dbb0114 (patch) | |
| tree | c49b867c0a8afadb10006b1aa5f7ea7bb84bfa75 | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 38325-8.txt | 14276 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 38325-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 268292 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 38325-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 343774 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 38325-h/38325-h.htm | 20054 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 38325-h/images/img-front.jpg | bin | 0 -> 69499 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 38325.txt | 14276 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 38325.zip | bin | 0 -> 268262 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
10 files changed, 48622 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/38325-8.txt b/38325-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..db558c9 --- /dev/null +++ b/38325-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14276 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Happy Warrior, by A. S. M. Hutchinson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Happy Warrior + +Author: A. S. M. Hutchinson + +Illustrator: Paul Julien Meylan + +Release Date: December 17, 2011 [EBook #38325] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAPPY WARRIOR *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece] + + + + + + +THE HAPPY WARRIOR + + + +BY + +A. S. M. HUTCHINSON + +AUTHOR OF "ONCE ABOARD THE LUGGER----" + + + + +WITH FRONTISPIECE BY + +PAUL JULIEN MEYLAN + + + + +TORONTO + +MCCLELLAND & GOODCHILD LIMITED + + + + +_Copyright, 1912,_ + +BY A. S. M. HUTCHINSON. + + +_All rights reserved._ + + + First Edition Printed, December, 1912 + Reprinted, January, 1913 (three times) + February, 1913 (three times) + Reprinted, March, 1913 + + + +Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Cushing Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. + +Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A. + + + + + Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he + That every man in arms should wish to be? + --It is the generous spirit, who,... + Come when it will, is equal to the need... + Who, with a toward or untoward lot, + Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not-- + Plays, in the many games of life, that one + Where what he most doth value must be won: + Whom neither shape of danger can dismay, + Nor thought of tender happiness betray. + --WORDSWORTH. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +BOOK ONE + +_A NICE, SHORT BOOK, ILLUSTRATING THE ELEMENTS OF CHANCE_ + +CHAPTER + + I. A PAGE OF THE PEERAGE + II. A CHANGE IN THE PEERAGE + III. INTO THE PEERAGE + IV. A FORETASTE OF THE PEERAGE + V. MISREADING A PEERESS + VI. MISCALCULATING A PEER + + +BOOK TWO + +_A BOOK OF THE SAME SIZE, ILLUSTRATING THE ELEMENT OF FOLLY_ + + I. LOVE TRIMS WRECKERS' LAMPS + II. LOVE LEADS AN EXPEDITION INTO THE UNFORESEEN + III. A LOVERS' LITANY + IV. WHAT THE TOOO-FIRTY WINNER BROUGHT MRS. ERPS + V. WHAT AUDREY BROUGHT LADY BURDON + VI. ARRIVAL OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR + VII. ENLISTMENT OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR + + +BOOK THREE + +_BOOK OF THE HAPPY, HAPPY TIME. THE ELEMENT OF YOUTH_ + + I. PERCIVAL HAS A PEEP AT THE 'NORMOUS + II. FOLLOWS A FROG AND FINDS A TADPOLE + III. LADY BURDON COMES TO "POST OFFIC" + IV. LITTLE 'ORSES AND LITTLE STU-PIDS + V. THE WORLD AS SHOWMAN: ALL THE JOLLY FUN + VI. JAPHRA AND IMA AND SNOW-WHITE-AND-ROSE-RED + VII. BURDON HOUSE LEASED: THE OLD MANOR OCCUPIED + + +BOOK FOUR + +_BOOK OF STORMS AND OF THREATENING STORM. THE ELEMENT OF LOVE_ + + I. PLANS AND DREAMS AND PROMISES + II. FEARS AND VISIONS AND DISCOVERIES + III. A FRIEND UNCHANGED--AND A FRIEND GROWN + IV. IMA'S LESSONS + V. JAPHRA'S LESSONS + VI. WITH IMA ON PLOWMAN'S RIDGE + VII. ALONE ON PLOWMAN'S RIDGE + VIII. WITH DORA IN THE DRIVE + IX. WITH AUNT MAGGIE IN FAREWELL + X. WITH EGBERT IN FREEDOM + XI. WITH JAPHRA ON THE ROAD + XII. LETTERS OF RECALL + XIII. MR. AMBER DOES NOT RECOGNISE + XIV. DORA REMEMBERS + + +BOOK FIVE + +_BOOK OF FIGHTS AND OF THE BIG FIGHT. THE ELEMENT OF COURAGE_ + + I. BOSS MADDOX SHOWS HIS HAND + II. IMA SHOWS HER HEART + III. PERCIVAL SHOWS HIS FISTS + IV. FOXY PINSENT _v._ JAPHRA'S GENTLEMAN + V. A FIGHT THAT IS TOLD + VI. THE STICKS COME OUT--AND A KNIFE + VII. JAPHRA AND IMA. JAPHRA AND AUNT MAGGIE + VIII. A COLD 'UN FOR EGBERT HUNT. ROUGH 'UNS FOR PERCIVAL + IX. ONE COMES OVER THE RIDGE + X. TWO RIDE TOGETHER + XI. NEWS OF HUNT. NEWS OF ROLLO. NEWS OF DORA + XII. PRELUDE TO THE BIG FIGHT + XIII. THE BIG FIGHT OPENS + XIV. ALWAYS VICTORY + + + + +THE HAPPY WARRIOR + + + +BOOK ONE + +A NICE, SHORT BOOK, ILLUSTRATING THE ELEMENTS OF CHANCE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A PAGE OF THE PEERAGE + +I + +This life we stumble through, or strut through, or through which we +creep and whine, or through which we dance and whistle, is built upon +hazard--and that is why it is such a very wobbling affair, made up of +tricks and chances; hence its miseries, but hence also its spice; hence +its tragedies, and hence also its romance. A dog I know--illustrating +the point--passed from its gate into the village street one morning, +and merely to ease the itch of a momentary fit of temper, or merely to +indulge a prankish whim, put a firm bite into a plump leg. Mark, now, +the hazard foundation of this chancey life. A dozen commonplace legs +were offered the dog; it might have tasted the lot and procured no more +pother than the passing of a few shillings, the solatium of a pair of +trousers or so. One leg was as good as another to the dog; yet it +chanced upon the vicar's (whose back was turned), enjoyed its bite, +jerked from the devout but startled man an amazingly coarse expression, +and hence arose alarums and excursions, a village set by the ears, +family feuds, a budding betrothal crushed by parental strife (one party +owning the dog and the other calling the vicar Father) and the genesis +of a dead set against the vicar's curate (who hit at the dog and struck +the priest) that ended in the unfortunate young man having to leave the +village. + +But all that is by the way, and is only offered to your notice because +commonplace examples are usually the most striking illustrations. It +is introduced to excuse the starting of this story with its least and +worst character. He figures but occasionally on these pages; yet by +this chance and by that he comes to play a vital part as the story +draws to an end; he comes, in fact, to close it: and therefore, out of +his place, he shall be the first to occupy your attention. + +Egbert Hunt his name. + + +II + +Miller's Field, Hertfordshire, an outer suburb of London and within the +cockney twang, was put into a proper commotion by the news that had +brought a title into its midst--had left a peerage as casually as the +morning milk at its desirable residence "Hillside," where Mr. and Mrs. +Letham (Lord and Lady Burdon as suddenly and completely as Monday +becomes Tuesday) made their home. The commotion chattered and clacked +in every household and in every chance meeting in the streets; but it +swirled most violently about Hillside and in Hillside, and its +brunt--if his own statement may be accepted--pressed most heavily upon +Egbert Hunt. + +Egbert, morose, a pallid and stoutish boy of fourteen years, +constituted the male staff at Hillside. This boy toiled sullenly at a +diversity of tasks, knives, boots, coals, windows: any soul-corroding +duties of such character, throughout the earlier hours of the day. In +the afternoon he fitted himself into a tight page-boy's suit that had +been procured through the advertisement columns of the "Lady," and +that, on the very day of its arrival, had been shorn of much of the +glory it first possessed in Egbert's eyes. + +Sunning himself proudly down the village street, the lad had been +greeted with a howl of "Marbles!" by the ribald companions he thought +to impress. + +"Marbles! They're buttons, yer silly toads!" the indignant Egbert had +cried. + +"Wot O! Marbles!" they jeered, and two of the round silver buttons +were wrenched off in the distressing affair that followed. + +Egbert carried them home in his pocket. The incident augmented the +hostile and suspicious air with which, from his childhood upwards, he +regarded the world. For this attitude the accident attending his birth +was primarily responsible. When he presented this morose disposition +to his mother's friends, Mrs. Hunt, in her softer moods, would instruct +them that his sourness--as she termed it--was due to the sudden and +unexpected discharge of a cannon during her visit to a circus, when +Egbert was but eight months on the road to this vale of tears. The +cannon had hastened his arrival (she never knew, so she said, how she +managed to get home) and the abruptness, she was convinced, was +responsible for his glum demeanor. By a dark process of reasoning, +wherein were combined retribution to the clown who had fired the cannon +and recompense to the child it had unduly impelled into the world, she +had named the boy Egbert, this being the title by which the clown was +announced on the circus programme. + +The story became a popular joke against the lad; to shout "Bang!" at +Egbert from behind concealment became a favourite sport of his grosser +companions. It rankled him sorely. For one so young he was +unnaturally embittered; his digestion, moreover, was defective. + + +III + +Upon the evening of the day on which his employers, Mr. and Mrs. +Letham, had been miraculously elevated to the style and title of Lord +and Lady Burdon, Egbert's hostility towards the world was at its +height. From half-past three onwards, callers followed one another, or +passed one another, over the Hillside threshold. Egbert was +bone-tired. It was close upon seven when kindly Mrs. Archer, the +doctor's wife, addressing him as he showed her out, inquired in her +gentle way after his mother and passed down the path with a "Well, good +night, Egbert!" + +"Good night, mum," Egbert muttered. He added in a lower but more +devout key, "An' I yope ter Gawd yer the last of um." + +The cool air invited him to the gate and he leaned wearily over it, his +bitterness of spirit increased by a boy who, spying him, cried, "Bang!" +as he passed, "Bang!" in retort to Egbert's tongue thrust out in hatred +and contempt across the gate, and "Bang! bang!" again, as the gathering +evening took him in her trailing cloak. + +Egbert drew in his tongue with a groan of misery and hate, of +indigestion and of weariness. An approaching footstep along the road +caused him to thrust it out again and to keep it extended, armed lest +the newcomer should be one of the bangers who irked his young life. + +It chanced to be his father, returning from work in the fields. Mr. +Hunt paused opposite his son and gazed for a few moments at the +outstretched tongue. At some pain to himself Egbert pressed it to +further extension: the boy was a little short-sighted and in the gloom +did not recognise his parent. + +"Tongue sore?" Mr. Hunt inquired, after a space. + +Recognising the voice, Egbert restored the member to his mouth. + +"Comes of tellin' a lie, so I've 'eard," said Mr. Hunt. + +Considerable sympathy was in his tone; but Egbert gave no more +attention to this view of retributive justice than he had vouchsafed to +the question preceding it. + +Father and son--neither greatly given to words when together--continued +to regard each other solemnly across the gate. Presently Egbert jerked +his head back at the house. "Heard about it?" he inquired. + +The news had long since permeated the village. Mr. Hunt said, "Ah!" +and taking a step forward, gazed earnestly at the house, first on one +side of Egbert's head and then on the other. His air was that of a man +who, the inmates suddenly having reached the peerage, rather expected +to see a coronet suspended from the roof or a scarlet robe fluttering +from a window; and as he stepped back he said, "Ah!" again, in a tone +that committed him, as a result of his observations, neither to +complete surprise nor complete satisfaction. + +"Ah!" said Mr. Hunt, and shifted the spade he carried from his left +hand to his right and waited. + +"Goin' to take me with 'em when they move to the 'Ouse o' Lords," +Egbert announced. "Told me so, dinner time." + +Mr. Hunt put the spade before him, and leaning on it gazed profoundly +at his son. "Ah! You'll wear one of them wing things side of yer 'at, +that's what you'll wear," he informed him. "Tall 'at." + +"Cockatoos they call um, don't they?" Egbert inquired. + +"That's right. Side of yer 'at," his father replied. "Tall 'at." + +Egbert appeared to ponder gloomily on the prospect. It was the habit +of this boy's sombre mind to suspect a hidden indignity in each change +thrust into his life. Seeking it in the cockatoos, he presently found +it. + +"Make me a Guy-forx again, I suppose," he said. "Same as these 'ere +buttons." + +Mr. Hunt took a step forward, and peering over the gate gazed down at +his son's buttons with considerable concern. + +The inspection finished, "Different in the 'Ouse o' Lords," he +consoled. "Expec' they'll all wear them wing things side of their 'ats +there. Call 'em same as they call you, that's what you can do. Tall +'ats." + +But this boy's pessimism was incurable. "I'll have the biggest, you'll +find," Egbert responded. "Else they'll give me two an' make a Guy-forx +of me that way." + +Mr. Hunt mentally visualised cockades the size of albatross wings on +each side of his son's hat. The picture made him unable to deny the +slightly outré effect that would be produced, and he began to move away. + +"Comin' in to see your mother to-night, I suppose?" he asked. + +Egbert grunted. + +"Tongue still sore?" + +"Boilin'," said Egbert, and turning from the gate moved moodily towards +the house. + +At nine o'clock, following his usual Tuesday night privilege, he betook +himself down the village street to his parents' cottage. A further +word or two dropped by his mistress joined with kitchen gossip during +supper to enable him to supply something of the information for which +he found his mother impatiently waiting. + +"So you're goin' with 'em, I hear?" she greeted him. + +Egbert nodded. + +"Think you was goin' to prising, 'stead of to a lord's castle, one +would, judgin' by your face," Mrs. Hunt exclaimed. + +"Goin' to wear one o' them wing things side of his 'at, that's what +he's goin' to wear," announced her husband. "Tall 'at." + +"An' oughter be proud," cried Mrs. Hunt. "Hold yer yed up, Sulky, do!" + +Sulky gave a stiff jerk to his bullet head. "Not goin' to the 'Ouse o' +Lords, after all," he answered his father. + +"'Ouse o' Lords! 'Ouse o' nonsense!" Mrs. Hunt exclaimed. "Goin' to +live in a castle, that's where you're goin' to live, young man. Down +in Wiltsheer; the cook told me all about it when I popped round this +afternoon." + +"Goin' to wear one o' them wing things side of 'is 'at, that's what +he's goin' to wear," pronounced Mr. Hunt doggedly. "Tall 'at. Tall +'at," he reaffirmed; but "In a castle!" Mrs. Hunt continued, heedless +of the interruption. "Burdon Old Manor, they call it, at a place +called Little Letham, which Letham is the family name of the family, +they giving their name to it as is very often the case, and a proper +castle it is, too, though called a Manor." + +Mrs. Hunt foamed out this information with a heat that increased as she +perceived the morose indifference with which Egbert accepted it. +Throwing herself into the third person, "Don't you 'ear what your +mother is a telling of you, Sulk?" she demanded. Her eye caught on the +wall behind Sulk's head a coloured presentation calendar depicting +Lambert Simnel at scullion's work in an enormous kitchen, and she took +inspiration. "A proper castle, your mother's telling you, where you'll +have scullings in the kitchen; that's what you'll 'ave, you nasty sulk, +you! Can't you say something?" + +"I'll sculling 'em!" breathed Egbert, yielding to her request. He +scented in this new form of acquaintance some fresh trial and +indignity. "I'll sculling 'em!" he repeated. + +His fierce intention earned him at once, and earned him full, the thump +upon his head that his mother's excitement and his own gloom had been +conspiring to inflict ever since he entered the cottage; and he trudged +his way back to Hillside viciously embittered against every point of an +aching day: his mistress, her visitors, the approaching change in his +life, his mother, the "scullings." "Tyrangs!" said Egbert. He +stumbled over a stone as he pronounced the savage word and bit his +tongue most painfully. "Boil yer," said Egbert to the stone; and, +including the stone with the "tyrangs," as wearily he got him to bed, +"Boil um!" he said. "Tyrangs! Toads!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A CHANGE IN THE PEERAGE + +This hazard foundation of life! As a stone tossed down a hillside +dislodges others and sets them rolling, themselves dislodging more till +the first light pitch will gather to a rumble where was peace, the +first stone cause to jump and shout many score that might have held +their place long after the thrower's idle hand was equal dust with the +dust of their descent--so it is with the lightest action that the least +of us may idly toss upon our small affairs. We cannot move alone. +Life has us in a web, within whose meshes none may stir a hand but he +pulls here, loosens there, and sets a wave of movement through a +hundred tangles of the coil. + +This hazard foundation of life! Egbert Hunt was made to lean wearily +over the gate that evening and the toads and "tyrangs" whose oppression +had cost him a bitter day were set in his path by a movement in the +web, leagues upon leagues of land and sea from Miller's Field. Life +has us in a web. In one remote corner an Afridi tribesman shot a +British officer: that was his movement in the meshes, and swift, swift, +the chain of tugs set up thereby acted upon a morose page-boy in +another remote corner, rendering him bone-tired through ushering the +visitors come to congratulate those who had stepped into the dead man's +shoes. + +This hazard touch even in the billet that the Afridi tribesman selected +for his bullet! In sheeting rain, behind a rock above a pass on the +northwestern frontier of India, Multan Khan--Afridi, one-time sepoy, +deserter from his regiment, scoundrel, first-class shot--snuggled his +cheek against his stolen rifle, hesitated for a moment between the +heads of three British officers, drew a line on one, pressed the +trigger; and, while he chuckled over his success, himself pitched dead +with a bullet through the incautious skull he had craned over the rock +the better to enjoy the fruits of his skill. + +Brief his pleasure but lusty the tug he had given the web. The news of +it reached London just in time to catch the final edition of the +evening papers as they went to press, just in time to supply a good +contents-bill for an uncommonly dull night. + + PEER + KILLED IN + FRONTIER + FIGHTING + +went flaming down the streets, substantiated in the news columns by a +brief message announcing Lord Burdon's name among the casualties of a +brisk little engagement in the Frontier Campaign. + +The morning papers did better with it, particularly that which Egbert +Hunt took in from the doorstep of Hillside. This paper's "Own +Correspondent" with the British force, eluding vigilance, had enjoyed +the fortune of getting among the party detailed for clearing the rocks +whence Multan Khan and his friends had made themselves surprisingly +unpleasant; and his long despatch, well handled in Fleet Street, +bravely headlined above: + + Gallant Young Peer + Lord Burdon Killed in Sharp Frontier Engagement + Leads Dashing Charge + +and nicely rounded off below with a paragraph written up from "cuttings +about Lord Burdon" in the newspaper's library, was distributed far and +wide on the morrow. The journalists dished it up, the presses hammered +it out, the carts, the trains, and the boys galloped it broadcast over +the country. To some it fetched tragedy (as we shall see); to others +idle interest; to Egbert Hunt a bone-aching day and cruel indignities +(as have been shown); to Mrs. Letham bewildering excitement. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +INTO THE PEERAGE + +I + +It made Mrs. Letham very excited. Mrs. Letham, coming upon it as she +idly turned over the newspaper at her breakfast, took a bang at the +heart that for the moment made the print difficult to read. +Recovering, she read it through, her pulses drumming, her breath +catching, her hands shaking so that the paper rustled a little between +them. She half rose from her seat, then read again. She read a third +time and now pursued the lines to that subjoined paragraph written up +from the "cuttings about Lord Burdon." + +"Lord Burdon, the twelfth Baron, was attached to the staff of General +Sir Wryford Sheringham, commanding the expeditionary force. He was a +lieutenant in the 30th Hussars and left England in October last with +General Sheringham when the latter went out to take command. Lord +Burdon, who only attained his majority in April last, was unmarried. +This is the first time since the creation of the Barony in 1660 that +the title has not passed directly from holder to eldest son; and about +Little Letham, Wilts, where is Burdon Old Manor, the family seat, the +expressions "Safe as a Burdon till he's got his heir," and "Safe as a +Burdon heir" have passed into the common parlance of the countryside. +The successor is of a very remote branch--Mr. Maurice Redpath Letham, +whose paternal great-grandfather was the eighth baron. It will be +noticed as a most singular event that the first break in a direct +succession extending over two hundred years should cause the new heir +to be found in the line of no fewer than four generations ago of his +house." + +When Mrs. Letham presently arose, she arose suddenly as if she forced +herself to move against spells that numbed her movements. She arose, +the paper clutched between her hands, and for a space she stood with a +dizzy air, as if her thoughts reeled in a giddy maze and perplexed her +actions. A jostle of visions--half caught, bewildering glimpses of +what this thing meant to her--spun through her brain, the mind shaping +them quicker than the mental eye could distinguish them, as one +half-stunned by a blow, dizzy between its violence and the onward +pressure of events. She put a hand for support upon the table before +her and felt, but did not think to end, the unpleasant shrinking of her +flesh communicated by her fingers scraping the wood where they bunched +the cloth beneath them. + +She was Lady Burdon...! + + +II + +With that amazement singing in her ears, and recovered from the first +effects of her bewilderment, she went quickly to the door and excitedly +up the stairs. She was thirty-five; they called her pretty; and +certainly she made an attractive presence as she came to the threshold +of the room where she sought her husband. Her entry was abrupt: a +quick jerk on the door handle, the door wide open and she with a sudden +movement standing there, tense, animated, a flush on her cheeks, +sparkle in her eyes, and a high, glad, strange note in the "Maurice!" +that she cried. "Maurice!" + +"Con-found!" came the answer. "Conster-_nation_!" and illustrating the +reason of the words, a fleck of blood came through the snowy lather on +a chin in process of being shaved. + +Mr. Letham--portly; forty; pleasant of countenance in a loose-lipped, +good-natured fashion; in a shirt and trousers before the looking-glass; +pain on face; finger firmly on the blood stain; razor in the other +hand--Mr. Letham peered short-sightedly into the mirror, made a very +squeamish stroke with the razor in the vicinity of the wound, and, +quickly over his concern, pleasantly addressed his wife. + +"'Morning, old girl. I say, you made me jump. Am I so fearfully late? +What's for breakfast?" + +He did not turn to face her. Viewed from behind, half-hitched trousers +and bulging shirt, he had a lumpish appearance, and it was the more +inelegant for the contortions of his arms and shoulders, characteristic +of a clumsy shaver. + +The spectacle caused Mrs. Letham a pucker of the brows that marred her +rosy animation. She said, "Maurice! Do turn round! I've something to +tell you." + +"M-m-m," murmured Mr. Letham, at very ticklish work with the razor. + +"Maurice!" + +"M-m-m--M-m-m. Beastly rude, I know. Half-a-second, old girl. This +is a most infernal job--" + +She interrupted him, "Oh, listen! Listen! In this paper here--" Her +voice caught. "In this paper--you are Lord Burdon!" + +Mr. Letham, signalling amusement as best he was able, gave a kind of +wriggle of his back, held his breath while he made another stroke with +the razor, and expired the breath with: "Well, I'll buy a new razor +then, hanged if I won't. This infernal thing--" and he bent towards +the glass, peering at the reflection of the skin he had cleared. + +The door behind him slammed violently, and then for the first time he +turned. He had thought her gone--angry, as she was often angry, at his +mild joking. Instead he saw her standing there, one hand behind her in +the action with which she had swung-to the door, the other clutching +the newspaper all rumpled up against her bosom; and there was that in +her face, in her eyes, and in the tremble of her parted lips that made +him change the easy, tolerant smile and the light banter with which he +turned to her. "Only my silly fun, Nelly," he began. "What is it? +Some howler in the newspaper? Let's have a--" Then appreciated the +pose, the eyes, the parted lips; and changed nervously to: "Eh? Eh? +What is it? What's up?" + +She broke out: "Your fun! Will you only listen! It's true--true what +I tell you! You are Lord Burdon." Angry and incoherent she became, +for her husband blinked at her, and looked untidy and looked doltish. +"He's unmarried. I was trying only the other day to interest you in +what that meant. When his uncle died last August I spoke to you about +it--" + +Mr. Letham, blinking, more untidy, more doltish: "Who's unmarried?" + +And she cried at him: "Young Lord Burdon! Young Lord Burdon is dead! +He's been killed in the fighting in India--" + +She stopped. She had moved him at last. + + +III + +Mr. Letham laid down his razor--slowly, letting the handle slip +noiselessly from his fingers to the dressing-table. Slowly also he +lifted his face towards his wife, and she saw his mild forehead all +puckered, his eyes dimmed with a bemused air, his loose mouth parted: +she particularly saw the comical aspect given to his perturbation by +its setting of little patches of soap with the little trickle of red at +the chin. + +He put out a hand for the paper and made a slow step towards her. +"Eh?" he said--a kind of bleat, it sounded to her. + +"No! Listen!" she told him. "Listen to this at the end of the +account," and she spread the sheet in her hands. A little difficult to +find the place ... a little difficult to control her voice.... +"Listen!" and she found and read aloud, in jerky sentences, the +paragraph that had been made out of "cuttings about Lord Burdon." + +Almost in a whisper the vital clause "_...the successor is of a very +remote branch--Mr. Maurice Redpath Letham, whose paternal +great-grandfather was the eighth baron...._" + +And in a whisper, dizzy again with the amazement of it: "Maurice! Do +you realise?" + +His turn for bewilderment. He ignored her appeal. He did not heed her +agitation. He took the paper from her and she read that in his +eyes--preoccupation with some idea outside her range--that caused her +own to harden. She crossed and stood against the bed rail, and she +eyed him with narrowing gaze as he read Our Own Correspondent's +despatch. + +"Poor young beggar!" he murmured, following the story. "Poor, plucky +young beggar!" + +She just watched his face, comical with its dabs of drying soap, +reddening a little, eyelids blinking. She watched him reach the fold +of the paper, ignore the paragraph relating to himself, and turn again +to Our Own Correspondent's account. "Poor--poor, plucky young beggar!" +he repeated. + +She gave a little catch at her breath. He exasperated +her--exasperated! Here was the most amazing fortune suddenly theirs, +and he was blind to it! Often Mrs. Letham flamed against her husband +those outbursts of almost ungovernable exasperation that a dull +intelligence, fumbling with an idea, arouses in the quick-witted. They +are the more violent, these outbursts, if the stupid fumbling, fumbling +with some moral issue, conveys a reproach to the quicker wit. She was +made to feel such a reproach by that reiterated "Poor young beggar! +Poor, plucky young beggar!" It intensified the outbreak of +exasperation that threatened her; and she told herself the reproach was +unmerited, and that intensified her anger more. It was nothing to her +and less than nothing, this boy's death; but she had rushed up to her +husband the better to enjoy her natural joy by sharing it with him, and +ready, if he had met her excitement, to compassionate the fate of young +Lord Burdon. He greeted her, instead, only with "Poor young beggar! +Poor, plucky young beggar!" She caught her breath. Exasperation +surged like a live thing within her. If he said it again! If he said +it again, she would break out! She could not bear it! She would dash +the paper from his hands. She would cry in his startled face--his +doltish face: "What! What! What! What! Don't you see? Don't you +understand? Lord Burdon! Lady Burdon! Are you a fool? Are you an +utter, utter fool?" + + +IV + +He opened his lips and she trembled. It is natural to judge her +harshly, natural to misjudge her, to consider her incredibly snobbish, +cruel, common. She was none of these. Given time, given warning, she +would have received her great news, received her husband's reception of +it, gently and kindly. But life pays us no consideration of that kind. +Events come upon us not as the night merges from the day, but as +highway robbers clutch at and grapple with us before we can free our +weapons. + +Happily, for the first time since he had taken the paper, Mr. Letham +seemed to remember her. He glanced up, flushed, damp in the eyes, +stupidly droll with the dabs of drying soap: "I say, Nellie, did you +read this: + +"_The boy--he was absolutely no more than a boy--poked this way and +that on the little ridge we had gained, trying, whimpering just like a +keen terrier at a thick hedge, to find a way up through the rocks and +thorns above us. We were a dozen yards behind him, blowing and +cursing. 'Damn it! we've taken a bad miss in balk on this line!' he +cried, turning round at us, laughing. Next moment he had struck an +opening and was scrambling, on hands and knees. 'This way, +Sergeant-major!' he shouted...._" + +Portly Mr. Letham, carried away by the grip of the thing, drew himself +up and squared his shoulders. He repeated "'This way, +Sergeant-major!'" and stuck, and stopped, and swallowed, and turned +shining eyes on his wife (she stood there brooding at him) and +exclaimed: "Can't you imagine it, Nellie? Listen: '_This way, +Sergeant-major!' he shouted, jumped on his feet, gave a hand to his +sergeant; cried 'Come on! Come on! Whoop! Forward! Forward!' and +then staggered, twisted a bit on his toes, dropped. I saw another +officer-boy jump up to him with 'Burdon! Burdon, old buck, have you +got it?'..._" + +Portly Mr. Letham's voice cracked off into a high squeak, and he +lowered the paper and said huskily: "I say, Nellie, eh? I say, Nellie, +though? That's the stuff, eh? Poor boy! Brave boy!" + +With unseeing eyes he blinked a moment at his wife's face. Brooding, +she watched him. Then he turned to the washstand and began to remove +the signs of shaving from his cheeks, holding the sponge scarcely above +the water as he squeezed it out, as though a noise were unseemly in the +presence of the scene his thoughts pictured. + +And she just stood there, that brooding look upon her face. Ah! again! +He was off again! + +"And his grandmother," Mr. Letham said, wiping his face in a towel, +sniffing a little, paying particular attention to the drying of his +eyes. "I say, Nellie, his poor grandmother, eh? How she will be +suffering! Think of her picking up her paper and reading that! ... +Only saw him once," he mumbled on, brushing his thin hair. "Took him +across town when he was going home for his first holidays from Eton. +Remember it like yesterday. I remember--" + +It was the end of her endurance; she could stand no more of it. "Oh, +Maurice!" she broke out; "oh, Maurice, for goodness' sake!" + +Mr. Letham turned to her in a puzzled way. He held a hair brush in +either hand at the level of his ears and stared at her from between +them: "Why, Nellie--" he began; "what--what's up, old girl?" + +She struck her hands sharply together. "Oh, you go on, you go on, you +go on!" she cried. "You make me--don't you understand? Can't you +understand? I thought that when I brought you this news you'd be as +excited as I was. Instead--instead--" She broke off and changed her +tone. "Oh, do go on brushing your hair. For goodness' sake don't +stand staring at me like that!" + +He obeyed in his slowish way. "Well, upon my soul, I don't quite +understand, old girl," he said perplexedly. + +"That's what I'm telling you," she cried sharply and suddenly. "You +don't. You go on, you go on!" + +He seemed to be puzzling over that. His silence made her break out +with the hard words of her meaning. "Do you really not understand?" +she broke out. "Do you go on like that just to irritate me? I believe +you do." She gave her vexed laugh again. "I don't know what to +believe. It's ridiculous--ridiculous you should be so different from +everybody else. It means to me, this news, just this: that it makes +you Lord Burdon. Can't you realise? Can't you share my feelings?" + +"Oh!" he said, as if at last he understood, and said no more. + +"How can I work up sympathy for people I have never seen?" she asked. + +He did not answer her--brushed his hair very slowly. + +"Nobody can say I should. Anybody in my place would feel as I feel." + +Still no reply, and that annoyed her beyond measure, forced her to say +more than she meant. + +"What are they to me, these Burdons?" + +"They're my family, old girl," Mr. Letham ventured. + +She did not wish to say it but she said it; he goaded her. "You've +never troubled to make them mine," she cried. + +Mr. Letham had done with his hair. He struggled a collar around his +stout neck, examined what injury his finger nails had suffered in the +process, and set to work on his tie. + + +V + +For a few minutes Mrs. Letham frowned at the solid, untidy back turned +towards her--the lumped shoulders, the heavy neck, the bulges of shirt +sticking out between the braces. She gave a little laugh then--useless +to be vexed. "You've never quarrelled with any one in your life, have +you, Maurice?" she said; and with a touch in which kindliness struggled +with impatience, she jerked down the bulging shirt, straightened a +twisted brace, said, "Let me!" and by a deft twist or two gave Mr. +Letham a neater tie than ever he had made himself. "There! That's +better! Have you?" she asked. + +He told her smiling: "Not with you, anyway, Nellie." Little attentions +like these were rare, and he liked them. In his weak and amiable way +he patted the hand that rested for a moment on his shoulder, and he +explained. "You're quite right, of course, old girl. Of course I +realise what it means to you and I ought to have shared it with you at +once. I'm sorry--sorry, Nellie. Just like me. And about never making +them your family. I know you're right there. But you don't really +mean that--don't mean I've done it intentionally. You know--I've often +told you--we were miles apart, my branch and theirs; you do see that, +don't you, old girl? A different branch--another crowd altogether. I +don't suppose you've ever even heard of the relations who stand the +same to you as I stand to the Burdons. All the time we've been +married, long before that even, I've never had anything to do with +'em." He smiled affectionately at her. "That's all right, isn't it?" + +She was getting impatient that he ran on so. "Of course, of course," +she said indifferently. "I never meant to say that." And then: "Oh, +Maurice, but do--do--do think what I'm feeling." She entwined her +fingers about his arms and looked caressingly up at him. "Have you +thought what it means to us, Maurice?" + +He liked that. He liked the "us" from her lips. His normal +disposition returned to him; he smiled whimsically at her. "'Pon my +soul, I haven't," he said; and added, smiling more, "it's a big order. +By Gad, it's a big order, Nellie." + +She clapped her hands in her excitement and stood away from him, her +eyes sparkling. "Maurice! Lord Burdon! Fancy!" + +"It'll be a nuisance, I shouldn't wonder," he grimaced. + +She laughed delightedly. "Oh, that's just like you to think that! A +nuisance! Maurice! Think of it! Lady Burdon--me! It's a dream, +isn't it?" + +"It's a bit of a startler," he agreed, smiling tolerantly down upon her +excitement. + +She laughed aloud. "But fancy you a lord!" and she looked at him, +holding him by both his arms and laughed again. "A startler! A +nuisance! What a--what a _person_ you are, Maurice! Fancy you a lord! +You'll have to--you'll have to _buck up_, Maurice!" + +He turned away for a moment, occupying himself in fumbling in a drawer. +When he turned again to her, his face had the tail of a grimace that +she thought expressive of how repugnant to him was the mere thought of +any change in his life. "Well, there's one thing," he said. "It won't +be for long;" and he tapped his heart, that doctors had condemned. + +She knew that was only his characteristic way of joking, but a flicker +of irritation shadowed her face. She hated reference to what had often +been a spoil-sport cry of "Wolf! Wolf!" + +"Oh, that's absurd!" she cried. "That's nonsense; you know it is. +Those doctors! Make haste and dress and come down. Make haste! Make +haste! I want to talk all about it. I want you to tell me--heaps of +things: what will happen, how it will happen. Now, do make haste. +I'll run down now and see to Baby." She had danced away towards the +door; now turned again, a laugh on her face. "Baby! What is he now, +Maurice?" + +"Still a baby, I expect you'll find, though I have been nearly an hour +dressing." + +For once she laughed delightedly at his mild absurdity; just now her +world answered with a laugh wherever she touched a chord. "His title, +I mean. An honourable, isn't it--the son of a peer? The Honourable +Rollo Letham! I must tell him!" She laughed again, moved lightly to +the door and went humming down the stairs. + +Mr. Letham waited till the sound had passed. When the slam of a +distant door announced the unlikelihood of her return, he dropped +rather heavily into a chair and put his hand against the heart he had +playfully tapped. "Confound!" said Mr. Letham, breathing hard. +"Conster-_nation_ and damn the thing. Like a sword, that one. Like a +twisting sword!" + +For the new Lady Burdon had been wrong in estimating any humour in the +grimace with which he had looked at her after turning away, while she +told him he must _buck up_. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A FORETASTE OF THE PEERAGE + +I + +A worrying morning foreshadowed--or might have foreshadowed--to Egbert +Hunt the strain and distress of the afternoon whose effect upon him we +have seen. Normally his master was closeted in the study with the +three young men who read with him for University examinations; his +mistress engaged first in her household duties, then in her customary +run on her bicycle before lunch; shopping, taking some flowers to the +cottage hospital, exchanging the magazines for which her circle +subscribed. These occupations of master and mistress enabled Egbert to +evade with nice calculation the tasks that fell to him. This morning +the household, as he expressed it, was "all of a boilin' jump," whereby +he was vastly incommoded, being much harried. The three young men +thoughtfully denied themselves the intellectual delights of their usual +labours with Mr. Letham. "Lucky dawgs," said Egbert bitterly, hiding +in the bathroom and watching them from the window meet down the road, +confer, laugh, and skim off on their bicycles; his mistress--writing +letters, talking excitedly with her husband--did everything except +settle to any particular task. The result was to keep Egbert +ceaselessly upon "the 'op," and he resented it utterly. + + +II + +With the afternoon the visitors; the satisfying at last of the +excitement that had thrilled Miller's Field to the marrow since the +newspapers were opened. + +A little difficult, the good ladies thought it, to know exactly what to +say. + +Some, on greeting Mrs. Letham, boldly plumped: "My dear, I _do_ +congratulate you!" At the other extreme of tact in grasping a novel +situation, those who cleverly began, "My dear, I saw it in the 'Morning +Post'!" a wary opening that enabled one to model sentiments on the lead +given in reply. + +"My dear, I _do_ congratulate you!" "My dear, I saw it in the 'Morning +Post'!" and "Ho, _do_ yer, thenk yer!" from bone-tired Egbert, +mimicking as he closed the door behind the one; and "Ho, _did_ yer, +boil yer!" closing it behind the other. + +Between these forms, then, or with slight variations upon them, fell +all the salutations but that of Mrs. Savile-Phillips who, arriving +late, treading on Egbert's foot in her impressive halt on the +threshold, called in her dashing way across the crowded drawing-room, +"And where is Lady Burdon?" + +She was at her tea table, closely surrounded, prettily coloured by +excitement, animated, at her best, tastefully gowned in a becoming +dove-grey that fortuitously had arrived from the dressmaker that +morning and mingled (she felt) a tribute to her new dignity with a +touch of half-mourning for the boy her relationship to whom death with +a hot finger had touched to life. Thus Mrs. Letham--new Lady +Burdon--took the eye and took it well. This was the moment of her +triumph; and that is a moment that is fairy wand to knock asunder the +shackles of the heavier years, restoring youth; to warm and make +generous the heart; to light the eye and lift the spirit. Hers, hers +that moment! She the commanding and captivating figure in that +assembly! + +Her spirit was equal with her presence. Physically queening it among +her friends, psychically she was aloft and afloat in the exaltation +that her bearing advertised. Each new congratulation as it came was a +vassal hand put out to touch the sceptre she chose to extend. The +prattle of voices was a delectable hymn raised to her praise in her new +dignity. She was mentally enthroned, queen of a kingdom all her own; +and as she visualised its fair places she had a sense of herself, +Cinderella-like, shedding drab garments from her shoulders, appearing +most wonderfully arrayed; shaking from her skirts the dull past, with +eager hands greeting a future splendidly coloured, singing to her with +siren note, created for her foot and her pleasure. + +Consider her state. The better to consider it, consider that something +of these sensations is the lot of every woman when, on her marriage +eve, a girl, sleepless she lies through that night, imaging the +womanhood that waits her beyond the darkness. It is the threshold of +life for woman, this night before the vow, and has no counterpart in +all a man's days from boyhood to grave. How should it? The sexes are +as widely sundered in habit, thought, custom, as two separate and most +alien races. Love has conducted every plighted woman to this threshold +and has so delectably engaged her attention on the road that she has +reckoned little of the new world towards which she is speeding. Now, +on her marriage eve, she is at night and alone: her eager feet upon the +immediate moment beyond whose passage lies the unexplored. Love for +this space takes rest. To-morrow he will lead her blindfolded into the +new country; to-night, poised upon the crest to which blindfolded he +has led her, she stands and looks across the prospect, shading her +eyes, atremble with ecstasy at the huge adventure. Mighty courage she +has--a frail figure, barriers closing up behind her to shut forever the +easy paths of maidenhood; hill and valley stretching limitless before, +where lie lurking heaven knows what ravening monsters. But she is the +born explorer, predestined for this frightful plunge into the unknown, +heedless of its dangers, intoxicated by its spaciousness, amazingly +confident in Love's power and devotion to keep her in the pleasant +places. And Love--he the reckless treaty-monger between the alien +races--is prone, unhappily, to lead her a dozen entangling steps down +the crest, and there to leave her in the smiling hills suddenly become +wilderness, in the little valleys suddenly become abyss. + +Mrs. Letham had enjoyed that intoxicating moment upon the crest. +Something of its sensations were hers again now; but she found their +thrill a far more delectable affair. Again she was upon the crest +whence an alluring prospect stretched; but now she looked with eyes not +filmed by ignorance; now could have seen desert places, pitfalls, if +such had been, but saw that there were none. Or so she thought. + +Already, in the congratulations she was receiving, she was tasting the +first sweets, plucking the first fruits with which she saw the groves +behung. For the first time she found herself and her fortunes the +centre of a crowded drawing-room's conversation. For the first time +she enjoyed the thrill of eager attention at her command when she chose +to raise her voice. It was good, good. It was sufficient to her for +the moment. But her exalted mind ran calculating ahead of it, even +while she rejoiced in it. She had her little Rollo brought in to her, +and kept him on her knee, and stroked his hair; and once and twice and +many times went into dreams of all that now awaited him; and with an +effort had to recall herself to the attentions of her guests. + +As evening stole out from the trees, in shadows across the lawn and in +dusk against the windows, like some stealthy stranger peering in, her +party began to separate. A few closer friends clustered about her, and +the conversation became more particular. Yes, it would mean leaving +Miller's Field--_dear_ Miller's Field; and leaving them, but never, +never forgetting them. Elated, triumphant, and therefore generous, +emotional, she almost believed that indeed she would be sorry to lose +these friends. + +As one warmed with wine has a largeness of spirit that swamps his +proper self in its generous delusions, so she, warmed with triumph, was +genuine enough in all her protestations. With real affection she +handed over kindly Mrs. Archer, the doctor's wife, who stayed last, to +the good offices of Egbert Hunt, and in a happy, happy glow of elation +returned to her drawing-room. This was the beginning of it! + +This the beginning of it! She drew a long breath, smiling to herself, +her hands pressed together; through the glass doors giving on to the +lawn she espied her husband, and smiling she went quickly across and +opened them. + + +III + +Mr. Letham was coming in from work in the garden. He had a +watering-can in one hand, with the other he trailed a rake. He was in +his shirt-sleeves, and his face was damp with his exertions around the +flower-beds. "Hullo! All gone?" he asked. + +The warmth of her spirit caused her to extend her hands to him with a +sudden, affectionate gesture: + +"All, yes. Maurice, you were an old wretch! You might have come in." + +"Simply couldn't, old girl. I had a squint through the window, and +fled and hid behind a bush. Thousands of you; it looked awful!" + +She laughed: "Miserable coward! I was hoping you would." + +"Were you, though?" he said eagerly. "I'd have come like a shot if I'd +known." + +That made her laugh again: he was always the lover. "Well, come and +have a talk now to make up," she told him. "Out here in the garden. +It's frightfully hot in this room." + +His face beamed. He put down the implements he was carrying, wiped a +hand on his waistcoat and slipped his fingers beneath her arm. "That's +a stunning dress," he said. + +She gathered up the trailing skirt and glanced down at it, well +pleased. "It is rather nice, isn't it?" + +"Fine! You look as pretty as a picture this evening, Nellie. I tell +you, I thought so, when I squinted in through the window." + +"That's because I'm so happy." + +"So am I." He pressed her arm to show why, and "Maurice! you are a +goose," was her gay comment; but for once his foolish loverlikeness +pleased her; her mood was widely charitable. + +They paced the little lawn in silence. She suddenly asked, "You don't +mind my being happy, do you?" + +"Mind! Good Lord!" and he pressed her arm again. + +"Being excited about--about it, I mean. It's natural, Maurice?" + +"Of course it is. Of course it is, old girl." + +"But you're not--it doesn't excite you?" + +Mr. Letham was too honest, even at risk of disturbing this happy +passage, to pretend the untrue. "Well, that's nothing," he said. +"That's nothing. I'm so beastly slow. An earthquake wouldn't excite +me." + +"I don't believe it would," she laughed, then was serious. "But I'm +excited," she said abruptly. "Oh, I am!" She put up her face towards +the veiling sky--a dim star here and a dim star there and a faint +breeze rising--and she drew a deep breath just as she had breathed +deeply in the drawing-room a few moments earlier. "Oh, I am!" she +repeated. "Maurice! I want to talk about it." + +He was not at all conscious of the full intensity of her feelings; but +for such of it as he perceived he smiled at her in his tolerant way. +"Well, you say," he told her. "You do the talking." + +She was silent for a considerable space; her mind run far ahead and +occupied among thoughts to which she could not introduce him, for he +had no place in them. That he shivered slightly recalled his presence +to her. That his presence had been deliberately shut from among the +castles she had been building caused her one of those qualms which (if +we are kind) often sting us back from our worser self to our better +nature. And she was kind, alternating ceaselessly between the many +womanly parts she had and those other parts we all possess; only to be +pitied if the events now quickly shaping for her tempted her too much, +led her too far from the point whence kindness is recoverable. + +Recalled to him and to her womanliness, "Oh, your coat!" she exclaimed. +"You've been getting hot and you'll catch your death of chill. You're +dreadfully careless. Where is it?" + +"In the summer-house. But what rot!" + +"I'll get it." She slipped her arm from his hand and ran away across +the lawn. "There!" she said, returning. "Now button it up. Ah! +You're all thumbs!" + +She fastened it for him and turned up the collar. The action brought +her face close to his. "You're jolly good to me, Nellie," he said, and +his lips brushed her forehead. A kiss it had been, but she drew back a +step. "Not going to have you ill on my hands," she told him brightly. +Then she slipped a hand into his arm and resumed, "What are we going to +do--first? I want to talk about that." + +She had talked to him of it all the morning; but as if it were +undiscussed--anything to preserve these happy moments--"Yes, go on," he +said. + +She responded eagerly. "Well, we must write to Lady Burdon, of +course--Jane Lady Burdon, now, you said, didn't you? Not to-day. +Better wait a day--to-morrow." + +"That is what I thought." + +"Yes--yes--and then you will have to go to see her. By yourself. I +won't come at first." She gave a little sound of laughter. "I don't +think I shall much like Jane Lady Burdon, from what you told me this +morning." + +He asked her: "Good lord, why, Nellie? Why, what did I tell you? I've +only seen her once, years and years ago." + +"You made her out proud; you said she would feel this terribly." + +"That poor boy's death? Of course she would. She was devoted to him. +Look, he was no more than Rollo's age when his father died. She +brought him up. Been mother and father to him all his life. Imagine +how she'd feel it." + +"Oh, I don't mean that; feel us coming in, I mean. Proud in that way." + +It was an idea that another man, though he knew it true, would have +laughed aside. Mr. Letham's hopeless simplicity put him to a stumbling +explanation. "Ah, but proud's not the word--not fair," he said. "She +has pride; you understand the difference, don't you, old girl? A +tremendous family pride. She'll feel this break in the direct +descent--father to son, as it said in the newspaper, ever since there +was a Burdon. It is one of their traditions, at the bottom of half +their traditions, and they're simply wrapped up in that kind of thing. +I should think there never was a family with so many observances--laws +of its own." + +"Tell me," she said: and while they paced, he spoke of this family +whose style and dignity they were to take; and while he spoke, +sometimes she pressed together her lips and contracted her brows as +though hostile towards the pictures he made her see, sometimes breathed +quickly and took a light in her eyes as though she foretasted delights +that he presented. She had no romantic sense in her nature, else had +been moved by such traditions of the House of Burdon as, he said, he +could remember. That white roses were never permitted in the grounds +of Burdon Old Manor, that no male but the head of the family might put +on his hat within the threshold, that the coming of age of sons was +celebrated at twenty-four, not twenty-one,--she scarcely heeded the +legends attaching to these observances. "Rather silly," she named +them, and did not condescend a reply to her husband's weak defence, +"Well, they rather get you, you know, don't you think?" + +He spoke of the Burdon motto, the arrogant, "I hold!" that was of the +bone of Burdon character, so he said. "I remember my old grandfather +telling me lots about that," he told her. "It sums them up. That's +the kind they've always been: headstrong and absolutely fearless, like +that poor boy, and stubborn--stubborn as mules where their rights, or +their will, or their pride is concerned. Stubborn in having their own +way, and stubborn in doing or not doing simply because the thing's done +or not done in the traditions they're bred up in." + +He stopped and bent to her with "Yes, what did you say?" but only +caught her repeating to herself intensely and beneath her breath, "I +hold!" + +"Yes, it's rather fine, isn't it?" he said; and he went on: "Well, +that's just what I mean about old Lady Burdon. She'll have felt that +she was holding for her grandson, had held all these years, and now was +the one, the only one, to see the tradition break, the direct +succession pass. That's what I mean by saying she has pride and will +feel it. That time I saw her, as I was telling you this morning, when +that poor boy was about Rollo's age and I was doing a walking tour down +in Wiltshire and managed to get up courage to go to Burdon Old Manor +and introduce myself, I noticed it then. She was dividing all her time +between the boy and a quaint kind of 'Lives of the Barons Burdon' as +she called it, a manuscript life of each holder of the title, hunting +up all the old records and traditions and things with the librarian; he +was as keen on it as she. He..." + +"Where will she be now, do you think?" Mrs. Letham interrupted. "In +town?" + +"In town for certain. She'd be sure to be where she could always get +earliest news of the boy." + +"In the town house? Burdon House in Mount Street, you said, didn't +you? Have you ever been there? What's it like?" + +"No, never been in. A whacking great place, from the outside. That's +where she'll be all right, unless they've sold it." + +Mrs. Letham gave him a sudden full attention. "Sold it? Why should +they have sold it?" + +"The ancient reason--want of money," he replied lightly. + +She made no response nor responsive movement; yet some emotion that she +had seemed to communicate itself to him, for looking down at her, +half-whimsically, half-gravely, "I say, you don't think we've come into +untold wealth, do you, Nellie?" he said. + +She took her hand sharply from his arm. Much that he had said, though +she could not have analysed why, had caused her kinder self to ebb. +Now it left her. She answered him by asking him: "What of all those +names you told me? Tell me them again." + +"The property? The Burdon Old Manor property? Little Letham, and +Shepwell, and Burdon, and Abbess Roding, and Nunford, and Market +Roding: those, do you mean?" + +"Yes, I mean those. How do you mean 'the ancient reason, want of +money'?" + +"Well, that's all there is, though. The money is all out of the +estate. Nothing more." + +She said impatiently: "Well? All those villages?" + +"All those duties." he corrected her. "That's the Burdon way of +looking at it. What they make on Abbess Roding they lose on Market +Roding, so to speak. It's that 'I hold!' business again. They won't +sell; they won't raise rents when leases fall in; they never refuse +improvements that can possibly be afforded. The tenantry have been +there for generations. No Burdon would ever think of turning them off +or of refusing them anything; it wouldn't enter his head. That's why I +said Burdon House in Mount Street might be sold. It's unlikely, but I +remember there was talk of it in my grandfather's time. It belongs to +an older day, when they were wealthier. They'd sacrifice that, if need +be, though it would be like a death in the family; but anything rather +than the bare idea of interfering with the people they regard as a +trust." + +He spoke quite easily, never realising the intensity of her feelings. +"Oh, it's no untold wealth," he laughed. "You mustn't think that." + +She said after a little space, "Richer than we are, though?" and added, +comforting herself with an old truism, "What's poverty to one is wealth +to another." + +"Oh, richer than we are. Good lord, yes, I hope so. I'm thinking of +years ago, anyway. Things may have changed. I'm telling you of when I +was a kid." + +She gave a little sigh of relief and she made a little laugh at the +mood she had permitted to beset her--that sigh we give and that laugh +we make when we shake ourselves from vague fears, or open our eyes from +disturbing dreams. Folly to be fearful! Life is a biggish field; easy +to give those fears the slip! The day is here, night ridiculous! She +laughed and turned smiling to her husband and proposed they should go +in. "I've got an extra special little dinner for you--to celebrate," +she told him. + +He pressed her arm against his side. "And I've got an extra special +little appetite for it," he said. "Makes me feel fearfully fit to see +you so happy." + +"Well, I am," she replied, and sighed her content and said again "I am!" + + +IV + +The night ridiculous! But when night came it caught her unstrung, too +excited for immediate sleep, and visited her with vague resentments, +with vague but chilly fears. They came gradually. Long, long she lay +awake, visioning the gleaming future. Her Rollo trod it with her--its +golden paths, limitless of delights--her little son rejoicing into +manhood as he walked them. She was intensely devoted to her baby +Rollo, born two years before. Marriage had disappointed her; from its +outset, directly she began to realise Maurice, she accounted herself +robbed of all it ought to have given her. Motherhood had recompensed +her; from Rollo's birth she had begun to dream dreams for him. Now! +She got out of bed and went to his cradle and bent above him, most +happily, most adoringly, as he slept. It was there and so occupied +that the first vague, unreasonable fear came to disturb her night. It +was gone as soon as it had come, and it had neither shape nor meaning. +Yet its discomfort made her frown. She had frowned in the midst of +happiness when Maurice was telling her of Burdon traditions, and the +repetition of the action returned her mind to what had occupied it then. + +At once resentments began to stir. She found herself resentful of Jane +Lady Burdon, as drawn by Maurice; of the tenantry at Burdon Old Manor, +who were regarded as a trust--a greedy, expensive trust on his showing; +nay, of the Old Manor itself, if saturated in traditions such as he +described. Why resentful? At first she could not say, and worried. +Then the reason came to her. It was the feeling that this old lady, +not proud but having pride, a ridiculous distinction, this old lady, +these tenantry, those traditions would resent her. Resent her? She +could not get away from the thought, and it irritated her and tired +her. Yes, and rob her, and that irritated and tired her the more. She +began to desire sleep and could not sleep for these resentments. +Resent her? Rob her? She grew angry that she could not sleep, and +then suddenly calmed herself by deliberately setting herself to see how +grotesque such thoughts were. After all, what could they do, even +suppose they desired her hurt? It came to her, with a grim sense of +the humour of it, that their own motto was against them. "I hold!" It +was she who held! + +"I hold!" The old motto did its new mistress its first service. It +charmed her, at last, to sleep. Immediately, as it seemed to her, she +passed into dreams of her amazing happiness; and in their midst the +motto rose against her. In their midst the vague fear that had +troubled her while she bent over her Rollo--but vague no longer--became +definite and horrible. She was taunted, she was terrified by some +force that told her it was all untrue; that tortured her she was +befooled and did not hold and should never hold the amazement she +fancied hers. Terrified and struggling, "I hold!" she cried. It +became the delirium of her sleep. Again and again "I hold! I hold!" +and always from that force the answer, quiet but most terribly assured: +"No, you do not! Nay, I hold!" Horror and panic overcame her. She +was so nearly awake that she tried to awake but could not. "I hold! I +hold!" "No, you do not. Nay, I hold!" There was no escape, no +escape.... When at last her fevered brain broke out of sleep, she +awoke to hear her own voice cry it aloud in agony: "I hold!" and +shaking, unnerved, thanked God for young morning stealing about the +room, and none and nothing to rebuke or contradict that waking cry. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +MISREADING A PEERESS + +I + +We will give them their title now. + +Events fell out much as the new Lady Burdon had planned. On the day +following the news, the new Lord Burdon wrote a few sympathetic lines +to Jane Lady Burdon; two days later he received an acknowledgment from +the house in Mount Street. She would like to see him, Jane Lady +Burdon, wrote, but she would like a little time in which to accommodate +herself to her sad affliction. Perhaps he would arrange to call on +that day week; and meanwhile, if he could see Mr. Pemberton, they would +be spared much explanation relative to the sudden change. + +"Rather cold," was Lady Burdon's comment; but her attention was taken +by another letter brought in with Jane Lady Burdon's by Egbert Hunt, as +they sat at early breakfast, and overlooked in the excitement. "And +Mr. Pemberton--who is Mr. Pemberton?" she asked, but had opened this +other envelope while she spoke, taken the gist of its letter at a +glance, and herself answered her question, looking up with flushed face +and sparkling eyes. "He's the solicitor," she said. + +Lord Burdon nodded. "So he is. The name comes back to me." + +"This is from him--to you. It's all right. He says it's all right, +Maurice. He's the lawyer. He knows. He admits it." + +"Sounds as though he'd committed a crime. What does he admit?" + +She was very happy, so she laughed. "Listen!" and she read him the +letter in which, in stilted, lawyer like terms, Matthew Pemberton (as +it was signed) formally advised him of the death in action on the +northwestern frontier of India, and of his succession to the barony and +entailed estates. The firm of Pemberton, it appeared, had for many +generations enjoyed the honour of acting for the house of Burdon, and, +acting on Jane Lady Burdon's instructions, Matthew Pemberton desired to +propose an interview "here or at your lordship's residence, as may be +most convenient to your lordship." + +"Maurice!" Lady Burdon exclaimed, and handed him the letter; and when +he had read it, "There! There's no doubt now, is there?" + +He had frowned over it as though it troubled him. At her words he +looked up and smiled at her beaming face and patted her hand. "Why, +you never had any doubt, had you?" he asked. + +She gave the slightest possible shiver; but with it shook off the +recollection that had caused it. "Oh, I don't know," she answered. "I +do believe I had; yes, I had. I couldn't realise it sometimes. There +was nothing--nothing to go on. Now there is, though!" And she touched +the letters that were the magic carpet arrived to wing her from the +delirium of that night toward the amazement that night had threatened. + +She exclaimed again, "Now there is!" and, pushing back her chair, rose +vigorously to her feet, casting aside forever (so she told herself) +that nightmare dream and animatedly breaking into "plans." Too +animated to be still, too excited to eat, gaily, and with a commanding +banter that rendered him utterly happy, she easily influenced her +husband, against his purpose, to bid Mr. Pemberton make the proposed +interview at Miller's Field, not Bedford Row. "'At your lordship's +residence,'" she laughed. "It's his place to do the running about, not +yours. And tell him--I'll help you to write the letter--tell him to +come the day after to-morrow, not to-morrow. Don't let him think we're +bursting with eagerness." + +"By gum, he'd better not see you, then," Lord Burdon said grimly. + +She gave him a playful pinch. "Oh, I'll do the high and haughty stare +all right," she told him, and she laughed again and ran gaily humming +to the Hon. Rollo Letham in the garden. + + +II + +Mr. Pemberton, on arrival, proved incapable of much of that running +about, in the literal sense of the term, that Lady Burdon had +pronounced to be his place. + +"Here he is!" Lady Burdon said, watching through the drawing-room +window from where she sat, as a closed station-fly drew up before the +gate. "Here he is!" There was a longish pause before the cab door +opened, and then a walking-stick came out and tapped about in a +fumbling sort of way until it hit the step. A very thin leg came +groping down the stick, its foot poking about nervously as though to +make sure that the step was stable. "Good gracious!" Lady Burdon +exclaimed. "The poor old man!" + +She forgot the high and haughty stare premeditated for the interview, +and she crossed to the window, womanly and womanishly alarmed. The +knee above the trembling leg took a jerky shot or two at stiffening, +then stiffened suddenly and took the weight of a little wisp of an old +man, who swung suddenly out upon it, whirled half around as the gusty +breeze took him and, clutching frantically against the side of the cab +with one hand, with the other made agitated prods of his stick at the +road desperately far beneath. + +"Oh, goodness!" Lady Burdon cried. "He'll kill himself! And that +idiot like a frozen pig on the box! Maurice!" But she was quicker +than her husband and, the high and haughty stare completely abandoned, +was swiftly from the room, down the path, through the gate, and with +firm young hands under a shaky old arm, just as the little old man, +unable to balance longer, was dropping stick and leg towards the ground +and in danger of collapsing tremendously upon them. + +She landed him safe. "The road slopes so frightfully here, doesn't +it?" she said. "I am afraid you are shaken." + +The little old man, very visibly shaken by the fearful adventure, +essayed to straighten his bent old frame. He raised his silk hat and +stood bareheaded before her. "You saved me from that," he said. "It +was very, very kind of you. I am clumsy and stupid at moving about." + +She was flushed by her run, the breeze was in her hair; she looked +pretty and she was quite natural. "Oh, I saw you," she smiled. "I +ought to have come before. Let me take your arm. The path is steep; +we are on the side of a hill, as you see." + +She swung open the gate with one hand and put the other beneath his arm. + +He seemed to hesitate, looking at her curiously. "Oh, I am all right +when I am on my legs," he said, with a little laugh. "Well, well--it +is very, very kind of you," and he accepted the aid she offered. + +"It is steep, you see,"--she smiled down at him,--"and rough. It ought +to be rolled, but we have the idlest gardener boy in the world. You +are Mr. Pemberton, aren't you? I am--I am Lady Burdon." + +He halted in his nice little steps and looked full up at her. "I am +very glad to know that," he said simply, and put himself again to the +task of making the house. + + +III + +Mr. Pemberton was more than pleased; he was intensely relieved and +intensely happy. His thoughts, as he came down in the train to +Miller's Field, had caused his face to wear a nervous, a wistful, +almost an appealing, look. Bound up in inherited devotion to the noble +house whose service was handed down in his firm as the title itself was +handed down, he had feared, he had dreaded what manner of people the +tragic break in the famous direct succession might have brought to the +name he loved. Nothing could so well have reassured him as that most +womanly action of Lady Burdon when she ran to his assistance at the +gate; nothing could so well have affirmed the confidence with which he +turned to her husband, come to the door to meet them, as the simple +honesty of character imprinted on Lord Burdon's face and expressed in +his greeting. Both impressions were sharpened as they sat talking at +tea. Mr. Pemberton had come to talk business; he found himself drawn +by this sympathetic atmosphere into speaking intimately of the gay +young life whose cruel termination had caused his visit. + +Clearly he had been deeply attached to that young life; he speaks of it +in the jerky, disconnected sentences of one that does not trust his +voice too long, for fear it may betray him; and when he comes to his +subject's young manhood, after eulogy of childhood and youth, clearly +Lady Burdon is interested. She draws her chair a trifle towards him, +and with her elbow on the low tea-table, cups her chin in the palm of +her hand, the fingers against her lips, watches him and attends him +closely. Her throat and face are dusky, her wrist and hand are white +against them. Her eyes have a deep and kind look. She makes a gentle +picture. + +Encouraged by her sympathy, "He was a little wild," says Mr. Pemberton. +"I am afraid a little inclined to be wild.... Always so full of +spirits, you see ... eager ... careless, reckless perhaps, impetuous +... lovable--ah, me, very lovable.... + +"I was very fond of him, Lady Burdon," he says apologetically, "very +fond;" and he stumbles into an example of what he is pleased to call +the young man's impetuous carelessness. It is of his last months in +England, before he sailed for India, that this deals. Between June and +August, having leave from his regiment, he disappeared, it seems; was +completely lost sight of by his grandmother and his friends. Towards +the end of August he appeared again. "Not himself--not quite himself," +says Mr. Pemberton, shaking his head as though over some recollection +that troubled him, "and no explanation of his absence, and, when the +chance came--General Sheringham was a relation, you know--wild to get +out to this frontier 'show,' as he called it. + +"Typical of him," says Mr. Pemberton after a pause, and smiling sadly +at Lady Burdon. "Typical. A law to himself he would always be, and +not responsible to any one for what he chose to do. A Burdon trait +that; and he was a Burdon of Burdons." + +Lady Burdon asks a question, breaking into Mr. Pemberton's history for +the first time. "But that really is extraordinary, Mr. Pemberton," she +says. "Wouldn't Lady Burdon--wouldn't his grandmother--have felt +anxious during that disappearance, and wouldn't she have questioned him +when he came back?" + +"Not unless he seemed disposed to tell her. In a way--in a way, you +know, relations between them were a little difficult. Poor boy"--and +Mr. Pemberton gives a sad little laugh--"poor boy, he often came to me +in a great way, and her ladyship, too, has had occasion. He, on his +side, passionately devoted to her, hating to hurt her, but enormously +high-spirited, difficult to handle. And she, on hers, making all the +world of him and a little apt on that account to claim too much from +him, if you follow me. He sometimes chafed--chafed, you know; hating +to hurt her but restless of her control, her claim. Latterly she had +to be very tactful with him. No, she wouldn't have questioned him +unless he seemed disposed to tell her." + +They are interrupted here by the entrance of baby Rollo on his way to +bed, for it is getting late. "The rummiest little beggar," says Lord +Burdon, introducing his small son. "Not much more than eighteen +months, and solemn enough for an archbishop, aren't you, Rollo?" + +The solemn one, pale and noticeably quiet and far from strong looking, +justifies this character by having no smiles, though Mr. Pemberton +greets him cheerfully and says approvingly: "Rollo, eh? The Burdon +name. _His_ name," he adds, and looks at Lady Burdon, who gives him a +gentle smile of understanding. + + +IV + +Mr. Pemberton looked after her very gratefully when she excused herself +to take the child up-stairs. The door closed, he turned to Lord +Burdon. "Nice--nice," he began in a stifled kind of voice, "to have a +little son growing up--to watch. We watched young Lord Burdon--that +poor boy--growing up--anxiously--so anxiously...." + +He gave a nervous little laugh. "When I say 'we' you've no idea with +what a terrible air of proprietorship the family is regarded by those, +like myself, attached to it for generations, by those dependent on it. +We looked so eagerly, so eagerly as the time drew on, to his coming of +age. He was wanted so." + +"Wanted?" Lord Burdon asked. "Wanted?" He pronounced the word +heavily, as though he had an inkling of the answer and was apprehensive. + +It started Mr. Pemberton on a recital that he spoke with seeming +difficulty and yet as though he had prepared it. It occupied longer +than either knew, and Lord Burdon, before it was finished, was sitting +sunk low in his chair, as though what he heard oppressed him. The +little old lawyer spoke of difficulties in connection with the estate; +the diminished rent roll; the urgent necessity for comprehensive +improvements essential to make the land pay its way; the long-urged +necessity for the sale of Burdon House in Mount Street, heavily +mortgaged and the interest an insupportable drain on the estate. It +led him to why they had looked so anxiously for the coming of age. +Everything that was essential was impossible, he showed, in the reign +of gentle Jane Lady Burdon, who felt that she held in sacred trust for +her grandson and would suffer no risks in raising of loans, nor +depredation of her charge by sale of the town property. He had no +eloquence, this devoted little lawyer, but he had earnestness that +seemed to him who listened to fill the room, as it were, with living +shapes of duties, demands, traditions of a great heritage that +marshalled before him and looked to him to be carried forward, as +soldiers to a leader. + +A change in Mr. Pemberton's tone aroused him. + +"He was wanted so," Mr. Pemberton said jerkily, and stopped. + +No response, and in a funny little cracked voice, "Well, he's dead," +Mr. Pemberton said. + +Lord Burdon raised his eyes, contracted with the trouble that had given +him that drooped, oppressed appearance while the other spoke, dim, +clouded as with looking at something that menaced; and their eyes +met--two very simple men. + +Mr. Pemberton stretched out fumbling hands. He cried blunderingly and +appealingly, his mouth twisting: "It has affected me--this death, this +change. I am only an old man--a devoted old man. As we looked to him, +so now we look to you." + +"Look to me!" Lord Burdon said slowly. "Look to me! Good God, +Pemberton, I funk it!" he cried. "I funk it and I hate it. I'm not +the sort. I wish I'd been left alone. I wish to God I had!" + +There followed his words a silence of the intense nature caused by +speech that has been intense. In that silence, consciousness of some +other personality in the room caused Mr. Pemberton to turn suddenly in +his chair. He turned to see Lady Burdon standing in the doorway. She +was not in the act of entering. She was standing there; and for the +briefest space, while Mr. Pemberton looked at her and she at him, she +just stood, erect, her head a trifle unduly high, with estimating eyes +and with purposed mouth. + + +V + +It had been an anxious Mr. Pemberton that came down to Miller's Field. +It was a reassured Mr. Pemberton that stayed there, but a gravely +disturbed Mr. Pemberton that went back to town. He knew Lady Burdon +had been listening, the look he had seen on her face informed him of +her displeasure with what she had heard, and he knew that in his first +estimate of her he had misread her. + +For he read her look aright. In her husband's cry--his weak, +contemptible cry--in what she had heard of the little lawyer's +statements and proposals--his tears and prayers of duties--she knew +hostility to her plans, to her dreams, to her pleasures. Her +estimating eyes that met Mr. Pemberton's inquired the strength of that +hostility; her purposed mouth was the mirror of her determination +against it. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MISCALCULATING A PEER + +I + +The little clock that is perched high over the vast fireplace in the +library at Burdon House, Mount Street, marks a shade before ten of the +evening. Its delicate ticking joins with the fluttering of the flames, +and with the steady scratch of Mr. Librarian Amber's pen, to make the +only sounds in this dignified apartment with its high-bred air, that +has known many a Burdon and that shortly is to acknowledge another +bearer of the title and serenely give farewell to the lady seated +before the fire. + +A gracious lady of many sorrows, as the Vicar of Little Letham parish, +in a surprising flight, had named Jane Lady Burdon on the previous +Sunday--and rightly named her. Sorrow has companioned Jane Lady Burdon +before; now again is called whence it has lightly slumbered--walks hand +in hand with the gentle lady, is her bedfellow, crouches on the hearth +beside her as she sits, drooping slightly, in the high-backed chair, +fingers enlocked on lap, eyes dimly upon the flames. + +Lord Burdon, who has stepped into the dead boy's shoes--(Ah, Sorrow, +walk here and here with me. Look, Sorrow, where he used to sport and +run!)--has paid his visit that afternoon; sympathetic little Mr. +Pemberton, with his papers and documents, has occupied a part of her +morning. It has been a trying day for her. Her only desire now is to +be left alone with her thoughts. (Come away, come away, Sorrow, +Sorrow; and hold me close, and open me his prattling lips, his strong +young lips.) + + +II + +Mr. Librarian Amber--very conscious of Sorrow crouching there, but +busy, busy--is writing at a table behind the drooping figure in the +high-backed chair. The bald top of Mr. Amber's narrow head, nose hard +after his pen like a diligent bloodhound on a slow scent, shines +between the splendid yellow candles in their tall, silver holders that +light his work. Neat little packets of papers, neatly arranged, dot +the polished surface of the table, like islands set in a still, dark +sea about the greater island that is Mr. Amber's manuscript. On a +chair by Mr. Amber's side is a large, slim volume held by a gilt clasp +and lettered on its cover of white vellum: + + Percival Rollo Redpath Letham + XIIth Baron Burdon + + +He is engaged, Mr. Librarian Amber, on that "Lives of the Barons +Burdon" of which Lord Burdon had spoken to his wife, walking in the +garden of Hillside. + +Then that little clock perched over the mantelpiece tinkles the hour of +ten. + +"How do you progress, Mr. Amber?" Jane Lady Burdon inquires gently. + +Mr. Amber--constitutionally nervous--starts, drops his pen, grabs at it +as it rolls for the floor, misses it in the stress of a short-sighted +fumble, makes a distressed _Tch-tch!_ as it rattles to the boards, +clears his throat, starts on one reply and, in the manner of nervous +persons suddenly interrogated, strangles it at birth and has a shot at +fortune with another. + +"I have almost got--I am just concluding the newspaper reports of the +fight, my lady. Very nearly at the end." He recollects a resolve to +be bright in order to cheer my lady, so he adds with a funny little +pop: "Almost done!" and then with a brisk little puff blows imaginary +dust from his manuscript. "Almost done! _Hoof!_" + +"I will read it over to-morrow, Mr. Amber, immediately after breakfast. +To-day is Friday. By Monday you should have finished, I think, and the +book will be ready to go into its place at the Manor. You will come +with me when I go down there next week, Mr. Amber, and we will put it +in its place together. I shall be glad to see it in its place before I +leave: all the Lives finished--our little hobby, Mr. Amber;" and her +gracious ladyship of many sorrows puts into the words the smile that +faintly touches her lips. + +Mr. Amber, desperately agitated and pleased by this coupling of himself +with his dear mistress, takes from the warmth of his happiness courage +sufficient to introduce to her a matter that has been troubling him. +He gets awkwardly to his feet, a spare, stooping figure, mild of face, +little over fifty but looking more, frowns horribly at his chair for +the noise it makes upon the polished floor as he pushes it back, and +comes forward, twisting the fingers of his hands about one another. + +"My lady--yes, I will surely finish by Monday. Your ladyship will +forgive me--intruding myself--your ladyship speaks of leaving--I am--if +I may venture--so attached--I scarcely--" + +He is quite painfully agitated. His fingers, tightly locked now by +their twistings, present a figure of his halting sentences come to a +final tangle, an ultimate and hopeless knot. + +Her gracious ladyship of many sorrows smiles in her kind way. "Dear +Mr. Amber, you should know, of course. I have been thoughtless of you +in my sorrow. I am going to my sister in York, Mr. Amber--Mrs. Eresby, +you remember. Here nor the Manor is no longer my home, you understand. +Indeed, how should I stay in houses of sad memories only?" + +Mr. Amber murmurs "Ah--my lady!" and she continues: "I intend a last +visit to the Manor--to take leave of our dear friends, Mr. Amber, and +to collect a few--memories. I would go now, but I have first to meet +Lady Burdon. Lord and Lady Burdon will very kindly come here for that +purpose on Monday so that we may know one another for a few days." + +She pauses and smiles inquiringly as though to ask Mr. Amber if he is +now sufficiently informed. He blinks considerably, starts to work at +his hands again, and suddenly says with a mouth all twisted: "It will +be very--strange--to me to be parted from your ladyship." + +She extends a gentle hand towards his that twist and twist, touching +them softly: "Dear Mr. Amber. It has been the pleasantest friendship." + +He says stupidly and brokenly, "What will I do?" + +"You must go on living with the books," she tells him. "Why, what +would they do without you, or you without them? I will speak to Lord +Burdon. You must live on just the same in the Manor library where we +have been together so often--all of us. I shall like to think of you +there. It is my wish, Mr. Amber." + +She says gently, "There!" as he clutches her hand to his lips. "I will +go to bed now. I think I hear Colden coming for me," and as her maid +enters, she rises. + +Mr. Amber tries for words. That twisting mouth forbids them, and he +turns to hold the door open. + +"Thank you. Good night, Mr. Amber. Here is our kind Colden so +thoughtful for my sleep. I am ready, Colden. Yes, I will take your +arm. Good night, Mr. Amber." And as Mr. Amber stands watching, there +comes to him faintly across the great hall: "We'll rest a moment here, +Colden. A little trying, these stairs. Do you remember how he used to +take me up? He never missed a night when he was home, did he? Do you +remember how he made us laugh about this seat...?" + +Then Mr. Amber returns to the library, closes the door and eases +emotion by a trumpet blast upon his nose. + + +III + +Mr. Amber took a seat before the fire. He was unsettled, he found, for +further progress that night upon the work that had engaged him at the +table. But his mind turned to it and from it to the eleven fine +volumes into whose company it would go, completing the lives of the +Barons Burdon that were the fruits of many years of loving +labour--result of "our little hobby." In memory he trod again those +happy days--saw himself installed librarian at Burdon Old Manor, a +bookish youth, weak-backed, weak-eyed, son and despair of a tenant +farmer; rehearsed again that youth's aimless, browsing years among the +books, acquiring strange and various knowledge from the shelves, +developing affections, habits, tastes that, as with tentacles, anchored +him by heart and mind to the house of Burdon. Mr. Amber moved +restlessly in his chair and came to the beginning of the great scheme, +propounded by her gracious ladyship, that was to become "our little +hobby," as immediately it became the purpose and enthusiasm of his +life. Well, it was done--or almost done. The results of desperately +exciting scratching about the library--among distressed old books, +among family trees, among deeds, letters, parchments, rolls, +records--were in eleven fine manuscript volumes--only the twelfth to +finish. + +A leisurely volume this twelfth, now lying on the table behind Mr. +Amber's chair. Written up during its subject's short life--dear and +most well-beloved to Mr. Amber every moment of it--the volume is as +naturally detailed as some of the earlier volumes are naturally +scrappy. Pettily detailed, perhaps. Mr. Amber starts with the precise +hour and moment--6:15-˝ A.M.--of the birth of the Hon. Rollo Percival +Redpath Letham; notes his colouring--fair; his weight at successive +infantile months--lusty beyond the average, it would appear; date of +his first articulate speech; date of first stumbling run across the +nursery floor--and suchlike small beer. His father's death is +chronicled ("cf. vol. XI, pp. 196 _et seq._") and he is shown to be yet +in his third year when he becomes twelfth Baron Burdon.... Date of +measles.... Date of whooping cough.... First riding lesson.... +Preparatory school.... First holidays.... First shooting lesson.... +Puts a charge of shot into a keeper. It is all very closely detailed. +It is detailed so closely that a gap towards the end is made +conspicuous: and this is precisely that gap occupied by the +"disappearance" of which Mr. Pemberton had spoken in the drawing-room +at Hillside. The chronicle, that is to say, is brought very fully up +to the May in which, as it shows, my lord suddenly went down to Burdon +Old Manor from London, his grandmother being at Mount Street, and +thence for a long holiday. It jumps to October and at once begins +again to be remarkably detailed, "Our Own Correspondent's" account of +the frontier engagement waiting on the table there to conclude it. But +of this May to October period, covering the June to August of which Mr. +Pemberton had spoken, Mr. Amber, like Mr. Pemberton, for the good +reason that he knew nothing of how my lord occupied it, has nothing to +say. Let it be said. My lord was in that June secretly married in +London: a matter closely germane to this history, and now to be +examined. + + + + +BOOK TWO + +A BOOK OF THE SAME SIZE, ILLUSTRATING THE ELEMENT OF FOLLY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +LOVE TRIMS WRECKERS' LAMPS + +I + +On a May morning, then, love in his heart, purpose in his eye, +gathering in his careless hand the meshes that he is going to tug, +shaking the unconsidered lives they bind--Rollo Percival Redpath +Letham, twelfth Baron Burdon, "Roly" to his gay young comrades of the +clubs and messes, was set down at Great Letham by the express from +London. + +Great Letham marks the nearest approach of the railway to the +sequestered villages that touch their hats to the Burdon Old Manor +folk. It stands at the head of a country that rolls away on either +hand in down and valley. Roughly, Great Letham centres the high lands +that bound this prospect on its nearer side, and from its outskirts +there strikes away a great shoulder of down that thrusts like a massive +viaduct straight and far to join the further hills. From a distance +this natural viaduct admits to minds however stubbornly practical the +similitude of a giant's arm. Rugged and brown and scarred it lies, not +green in greenest summer; and the humped shoulder whence it springs, +and the great mounds in which it swells along its path, present it as a +mighty limb out-thrust to hold away the hills in which its fist is +buried. Plowman's Ridge, they call it; and afoot upon it, it is kinder +of aspect. Aloof, aloft, alone, the wayfarer stands here, and breathes +or breasts the ceaseless wind that saunters or like a live thing +thunders down its track; and has on either hand a spreading valley, +whence curls the smoke of scattered hamlets, uprise the spires, come +the faint sounds of creature life and gleam the fields, as spread upon +a palette, coloured in obedience to this and that design of husbandry. + +The railway skirts the eastward vale; along the tranquil westward slope +the Burdon hamlets sleep. Viewed from the Ridge, they are ridiculously +alike; ridiculously equidistant one from the next; ridiculously +tethered, as it were, along the foot of the Ridge--like boats along a +shore; ridiculously small to have separate names, but named in their +order outwards from Great Letham: Market Roding and Abbess Roding and +Nunford--linked by those names with the monastic ruins at Upabbot in +the eastward vale; Shepwell and Burdon and Little Letham. They are +tethered to the Ridge, and the Ridge is the most direct communication +between them. Visitors from village to village, or from Great Letham +to any, climb the slope and use the Ridge, rather than plod the winding +roads that, as twelfth Baron Burdon has often declared, "take you about +two miles from where you want to get before they let you loose to go +there." + +He struck out along the Ridge now. + +Burdon village was his destination; and as he pressed his way towards +it, putting up his face to snuff the familiar wind, speeding ahead his +thoughts to what he came to seek, twelfth Baron Burdon showed himself a +very personable young man. His tawny hair he wore closely cropped +about his strong young head; beneath a straight nose he grew a little +clump of fair moustache shaved bluntly away at the corners of a firm +mouth. At a bold right-angle his jaw came cleanly from his throat; and +his chin was thick and round, matching his open grey eyes to advertise +purpose and command. A Burdon of Burdons Mr. Pemberton had named him. +A high-spirited young man, vigorous, alert; very boyish in mind, very +dominant of character. A Burdon of Burdons. Through a long line the +bone of whose quality was their "I hold!" twelfth Baron Burdon +inherited a spirit that, when crossed, was quick to be unsheathed as +from their scabbards the eager swords of remote ancestors were +quick,--dangerous as they. "Enormously high-spirited, difficult to +handle," Mr. Pemberton had told new Lady Burdon. It was handling he +could not brook. The lightest feel of the curb threw up his head as +the fine-tempered colt's. Brow and lips would assume signs that spoke, +even to one unacquainted with him, the imperious resolve of mastery. + +He was in pursuit of mastery now. + + +II + +As he came abreast of Burdon he edged down the Ridge, making towards a +little copse that ran up from a garden behind the last cottage in the +village street, the nearest to Little Letham. In the roadway this +cottage displayed, suspended from its porch, the notice, painted in +white letters on a black board: + + _POST OFFIC_ + + +(The painter had misjudged the space at his disposal but had added the +missing E on the back of the board, "Case," as he explained, "unnybody +be that dense as to turn her round to see what her do mean.") + +The cottage served in those days for the reception and distribution of +all the letters of the westward vale, a community little bothered with +correspondence; and "Post Offic" was conducted by a slight little woman +whom some called Postmum, some Miss Oxford. She was the daughter of a +former vicar of Little Letham; to twelfth Baron Burdon she was Audrey's +sister. + +Deep in the trees, as he approached the copse, the sharp white of a +skirt caught his eager eye. Taking a grassy path, he went noiselessly +down and presently was separated from his Audrey by the dense thorn +that hedged the tiny glade in which he found her. A basket of young +fern roots was beside her and she was stooped, her back towards him, +exploring in the undergrowth. + +He thought to steal up to her, and tried. The dense thorn locked him, +and she heard him and turned swiftly towards him. + +She was flushed with her stooping. Now a deeper flush rose beneath her +colour, sinking it in a warmer glow that stained her exquisitely from +throat to brow. The dark violet's shade was in her eyes; when her +colour abated, the pale rose's delicacy might have been shamed against +the fairness of her skin. She wore no hat; her soft brown locks +unruled the ribbon at her neck, and the breeze stirred her hair in +little waves about her temples. Her arms were bare where she had +thrust her sleeves beneath her elbows. She stood poised, as one might +say, upon the feet of surprise; and her lips were slightly parted, her +gentle bosom seeming to hold her breath as though she feared the +smallest sigh would waft away the sudden gladness that had caught it. + +She just whispered, "Roly!" + +"I'm caught in this da--infernal bush," Roly cried, struggling. + +"I wasn't to expect you for a week, you wrote." + +He began to writhe and wrench. "You needn't. I shall stay here +forever, I believe." + +She gave the merriest laugh: "You're simply fixed!" + +"Wait till I get at you!" He tried and was more firmly held. "I say, +what the _dickens_ has happened to me?" + +She put her hands together, enjoying his plight as a child that bends +forward at a play. "You'll never get through there, Roly. You'll have +to go back." + +He wrenched and struggled: "Go back! There's a great spike or +something sticking into me!" + +His struggles broke a network of branches at his waist. A thorny bough +sprang loose and whipped beneath his chin, forcing up his head. + +"Good Lord! Look here, Audrey, I shall cut my throat and bleed to +death; or this dashed spike will come slick through my back in a minute +and impale me!" + +"Roly! If you knew how funny you look!" + +Her tone, the way in which (as it presented itself to him) she +"squirmed" with childlike glee, caused him to laugh the jolliest laugh. +No quality of hers attracted him as this fresh and innocent and +childlike happiness that was her first characteristic; in none he found +so great delight as in the fount of innocence through whose fresh +stream came all her thoughts and words like young things at play. + +He laughed the jolliest laugh: "Well, I've not come all the way from +town just to look funny. I tell you, it's serious. I've never +imagined such a fix. I'm dashed if I can move a finger now. Audrey, +if you've got a woman's heart that feels, you'll help me out. This +infernal thing under my chin--just move that and I'll show you how we +fight in the dear old regiment--_Damn!_" + +"Oh, it has cut you!" she cried, all concern as a moment before she had +been all glee. + +A step brought her face within a hand of his. She found place for her +fingers between the thorns of the bramble beneath his chin. She drew +the branch downwards, and the action caused her to bend towards him +until their brows and eyes and lips were level. She looked directly +into his eyes and he directly into hers; and each read there those dear +and ardent mysteries that love far better images than ever love can +voice. + +He no more than breathed, "Kiss me, Audrey." + +She waited for the smallest part of a moment. Entranced, enthralled, +they only heard a lark that was a speck above them send down a tiny +melody, and far upon the down a sheep-bell's distant note. Love's +thralldom and Love's music to his thrall. The oldest play that mortals +play; and never know befooled were often meeter than enthralled, nor +better an ass to bray than some hymn seem to rise in benison. She +kissed him tenderly upon the lips; gave the smallest sigh and breathed, +"Dear Roly!" + +Comic were the word for such a thing. + + +III + +Comic, and comic that which followed when he, released, was with her in +the glade and, seated by her, took her hands and bent her to his +purpose. + +"Now, listen to me, Audrey. Put both your hands in mine." + +She responded as he bade her, performing surely the most beautiful +action in the world as she gave her hands to his. All human life has +no act more beautiful than the weaker hand confided to the stronger, +nor any nearer Godhood than when strong hand takes the weak. + +He enclosed her hands within his own. "Listen to me, Audrey," he +repeated; and, as her hands had been her spirit, he possessed and drew +her spirit on. + +Yet comic is the word: for here--he planning, she agreeing--they made +the plans they thought should make all bliss, all happiness their own; +here, in fact, trimmed wreckers' lamps to shipwreck happy lives. He +had determined upon secret marriage with her, and had determined it as +the perfect solution of difficulties whose consideration was in some +degree creditable to him. For as he told himself, and told his Audrey +now, nothing prevented him from openly declaring his intention of +contracting a marriage that would cause a breach between himself and +his grandmother; nothing but the impossibility of enduring such a +breach; that was unthinkable. + +"Passionately devoted to his grandmother," Mr. Pemberton had told; "and +she, for her part, making all the world of him." It was precisely this +uncommon devotion between him and his dear "Gran" that drove him into +torment of perplexity when first his heart informed him life without +Audrey was insupportable. With utmost content he had surrendered +himself into the object of Gran's adoring pride and, as such, into her +control of her dear possession. As he grew older, that control had +sometimes come to irk a little. "He sometimes chafed--chafed, if you +follow me," Mr. Pemberton had said. But the quality of that chafing +required better understanding than even Mr. Pemberton could give it. +It was not at conflict of will between himself and Gran that Roly +chafed; he knew his own determined character well enough to know that +if he liked he could override her will as he overrode that of others +who thought to oppose him. Where he chafed was where his devotion to +her pricked him. He could not bear the thought of giving her distress; +and he would sometimes chafe when--at this, at that, at some impulse or +boyish fling of his--he thought her distress unreasonable; unreasonable +because it shackled him unfairly; because either he would submit to it, +or, taking his way, would suffer greatly, be robbed of his pleasure, at +thought of having caused it. + +But always, when the thing was over, be glad he had given way to her or +most desperately grieved he had pained her. He knew that he was +everything to her; how hurt her then? + +With such the measure of his love for her, such the devotion between +them, and such that devotion's price, what a situation was presented +for his perplexity when Audrey came to occupy his heart! She had been +his playmate in his childhood at Burdon Old Manor, she at the Vicarage. +When her father died, Gran had expressed her fondness for his daughters +by using her influence to procure the establishment of a post-office at +Burdon and persuading the elder sister to conduct it, thus keeping +them, as she had said, "near us." That was one thing; a head of the +house of Burdon's marriage into so humble a degree--and that her +Roly--he knew to be unthinkably another. She had great plans for great +alliance for him--at some future date. At some future date! At her +great age and at his extreme youth she could scarcely think of him as +man--always as boy. It was one of the things that sometimes chafed +him. But when, as had happened, the subject of marriage came up +between them, and he would laugh at her immense ideas of his value, she +would always end so pathetically: "But, Roly, how shall I bear any one +to come between us?" + +Rehearsing it all, "How--how in God's name?" he had desperately cried +to himself, "can I tell her of Audrey?" She whom he could never bear +to distress--how give her this vital hurt? She from whom--for the +suffering it would cause her--he could never endure to be parted, how +deliberately put her away? He would tell her his intention; how endure +what she would say, or not say? He would carry out his purpose and she +would leave him and must shortly die; and how endure her death in such +circumstances? Or, haply, he would prevail on her to stay with him; +and she, supplanted, jealous of Audrey and gentle Audrey fearing her. +And how endure that? + +No--to create such a breach insupportable, and insupportable life +without Audrey. What then? + +It came to him as complete solution, and as complete solution he +pressed it now on Audrey, that he would marry Audrey first, then after +a little while tell. The more he examined it, the more obvious, the +less impossible of failure it seemed. "Gran, dear," he imagined +himself saying, taking his opportunity in one of those frequent moments +when, out driving with her or sitting alone with her in the evening, +she loved just to sit silent, resting her hand on his,--"Gran, dear, +I've something to tell you. I've done something and done it without +telling you, so as to have you go on living with me like we've always +lived together. Gran, I'm married--Audrey, Audrey Oxford; you +remember, dear?" + +Imagining it, he could imagine her arms about him. "Gran, I'm +married"--easy and kind. "Gran, I'm going to marry, going to marry +Audrey Oxford"--cruel, impossible! + +The solution removed also an obstacle to their mating on Audrey's +side--her sister. Their courtship had been carried on against her +sister's disapproval. Maggie was twenty years older than Audrey, more +mother to her than sister, and sharp-tongued in the matter of Roly's +frequent visits, the more surely to avert the disaster in which she +believed they must end. + +"In time--it's only a question of time," she had once said to Audrey, +"he will forget you, turn to his own position and responsibilities in +life--leave you broken-hearted. How else can it end?" + +And Audrey in tears: "What if I tell you he has asked me to marry him?" + +"He has asked you that?" + +"Maggie, he has." + +"Has he told Lady Burdon?" + +"Not yet, because--" + +"Ah!" + +And Audrey: "Oh, how can you say you love me?" + +And Maggie: "Audrey! Audrey!" + +And Audrey: "Maggie, I didn't mean that," + +And Maggie, steeling her heart: "But you think it: the first result of +him. You are girl and boy; you don't understand. Why, I, who would +die if you were to die, would rather see you dead than betrothed to +him. If it ended in marriage, it would end in misery." + +And later she had said to him: "If you break Audrey's heart, I will +never forgive you. That's a poor threat. I would find a way perhaps--" + +So there was Maggie stood in the way; and the solution found a way +round Maggie. And there was lastly all the clatter of his friends, all +the active disapproval of his elders; and the solution found an easy +way around that. He could not hurt Gran; he could not conciliate +Maggie; he could not face himself gossiped of, implored, advised, +reproved; and the solution offered an easy way around it all. Easily +winning Audrey to it,--her hands in his, his spirit possessing hers--he +came to details. He had examined and arranged everything. He had made +inquiries as to Registry Office marriages. They were both of age. +There was a residence formality: well, she was coming on a visit to a +girl friend in Kensington; he would take a room in a hotel in the +district. They would meet at the Registry "one fine day." Long leave +from his regiment was due. They would go on the continent--"all over +the place, the most gorgeous time"--and afterwards--easy as all the +rest was easy--Gran should be told. + +He ended: "Audrey--married!" + +And she: "Roly! ... Oh, Roly!" + +Comic were the word for such a thing. + + +IV + +Comic the word; but if, instead, you choose to judge them and to +consider preposterous his arguments of the case between his Gran and +his Audrey and preposterous his solution of it, beg you remember that +life is going to be an impossible affair for us, a thing to drive us +mad, if we are going to judge it by the standard of the correct and +noble characters that you and I possess. By some means or another we +must stoop down to the level of our neighbours and try to judge from +there. Dowered with all the virtues, as you and I are, it is the +easiest thing in the world to be impatient with another's folly, to +despise him for it, to indicate how little moral courage will rid him +of its effects; nay, to go further, and to declare it inconceivable +that such blunders and follies and misbehaviours, as for example those +upon which Roly and his Audrey were now embarked, can really have been +committed. But that is a stage too far. We must not run our excusable +intolerance of folly to the length of calling impossible even the most +absurd actions, even the most incredible weakness of character. The +whole history of mankind results precisely from these absurdities and +these incredibilities. On the one hand, we should still and should all +be in Eden if it were not so; on the other, there is the distinctly +moving thought that you and I, faultless, are dependent for our +entertainment on exactly these impossibilities of character in others: +but for them we should never enjoy the delicious thrill of being +shocked, never (the thing is unthinkable) be able to thank God we are +not as others are. + +No, we must accept these impossible follies on the part of our +neighbours: but to understand them--nay, if we are too utterly high and +they too utterly low for that, then merely to pay the poor devils for +the entertainment they give us--let us try to see as they see, feel as +they feel, become naked as they are naked to the bitter chill of +cowardice, of temptation, of God knows what indeed that strikes them to +the bone. + +Let us try, and coming to these two, let it for Audrey at least be +excused that she was the gentlest thing and all unschooled in any +heavier book of life than the airy pamphlet that begins "I love;" with +"I love" continues; with "I love" ends; and never asks, much less +supplies, what "I love" means, or what demands, or whither leads, or +how is paid. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +LOVE LEADS AN EXPEDITION INTO THE UNFORESEEN + +I + +He married her--and wearied of her. Within two months of when he +called her wife--and pressed her to him and kissed her for the fondness +of that name, and chaffed her with "Wife" in place of Audrey at every +lightest word--within two months of that tremendous day he was +discovering himself checked and irritated by the vexations, the +hindrances, the deceptions imposed by secret marriage upon his former +free and buoyant way of life. Within three he was openly irked, not +hiding from her that his temper was crossed when, stronger and more +frequently, incidents arose to cross it. Within four months--and still +their secret undeclared--he was often neglecting her, often silent in +her presence for long periods; brooding; frowning at her where she sat +or where she walked beside him; leaving her in a storm; returning to +her in remorse; assuring himself he did not love her less, nay, rather +loved her more--_But_...! Every way he turned and everything she did +and all the things she did not do, brought him and bruised him against +the bars of which that _But_ was made. + +All this most wretched and most pitiful, most excusable and most +inexcusable business may best be examined in the incidents that stood +out to mark its progress. Theirs was the oldest and most frequent of +human errors. They had jumped into the delights of the foreseen, and +behold! they found themselves in the swamp, in the jungle, in the +desert, in the whirlpool of the unforeseen. + + +II + +Audrey wrote and told Sister Maggie--a letter pledging her to secrecy, +posted on the very moment of departure for the Continent ("at our +wedding breakfast at the Charing Cross hotel, darling; and the train +just going") and breathing ecstasy of happiness, and breathing love all +atremble in its prayer for forgiveness. It informed Maggie that they +were to be Mr. and Mrs. Redpath until everybody was told; and "O, +darling Maggie, I shall not sleep until I get your letter--_Poste +restante_, Paris, dear--telling me you forgive me and how glad you are." + +Forgiveness was not to be discovered in the reply by the weeping eyes +that read it. "You have made a most terrible mistake," Maggie wrote. +"You say that you are happy, but you will find you can only be +miserable while you are living in deception." + +The wounding sentences were written in a firm, clear penmanship that in +itself was cold and bitter reprimand. As they appeared, so Audrey read +them. She did not know that they were written while the hand that made +them could be steadied from its trembling desire to send a message only +of devotion, only of prayer for Audrey's happiness, only of blessing. +The letter brought to Audrey's eyes the tears that Maggie hoped to +bring but ached to bring--forcing herself to be cruel in order to be +kind; also it brought belief that Maggie was and wished to be +estranged. It was never answered. Wisely intended, unwisely executed, +misread, it added to the record of human perversity another of those +immensely pitiful blunders that solely and alone are the cause of human +unhappiness. When Heaven holds its reassembly, Heaven, as we seek out +our loved, will surely ring with broken, loving greetings of: "I did +not know! I did not understand!" No more will need be said. All +tragedy, all sorrow is in those words; all tragedy, all sorrow removed +by them. + +Roly also had his letter. "If you cause her one single moment's +unhappiness--" and other wild words. He did not show it to Audrey. +Cause his darling unhappiness! He kissed away the tears her own letter +had brought and laughingly cheered her with an amusing account of an +incident in the hotel lobby. "We'll have to get out of this place, +Audrey. There's a man staying here and his wife that I know well. +Great pals of Gran's. I near as a toucher ran bang into them." + +It was the first glimpse of the Unforeseen. + + +III + +The first glimpse of the Unforeseen! At the moment neither recognised +it for such. At the moment it was merely "A dickens of a squeak. I +say, we'll have to look out for that kind of thing, old girl." Later, +and that before very long, incidents of the kind began to be realised +as the Unforeseen indeed. "That kind of thing" became, or seemed to +become, extraordinarily and exasperatingly frequent. What had promised +to be the fun of looking out for it became the strain of avoiding it. + +There came a day--in Vienna, an original item of their programme but +reached much earlier than intended owing to "That kind of thing's" +persistence--there came a day when signs of the strain were suddenly +evidenced, when, like a disturbed snake, unsuspected and sharply +alarming, the Unforeseen upstarted and hissed at them. Audrey had +struck up a pleasant hotel acquaintance, the matter of an hour's chat, +but related rather enthusiastically to Roly. At dinner that night she +pointed out her friend. "Right at the far end--look! By that statue +sort of thing. In pink, with that tall man; d'you see, dear?" + +He saw; and with concern she saw him set down the glass he was raising +to his lips and saw his face darken. He said: "Damnation! It's Lady +Ashington. It's maddening, this kind of thing. By God, it is. I'm +going. She'll spot me in a minute. I'm going." + +His violent words hurt her and frightened her. He got to his feet and +she made to rise also. That worsened the incident. "Stop where you +are," he said angrily. "Both of us getting up--making people look! I +can slip out behind here. Damn this business!" + +When she followed him to their room, she found his temper no better +that he had gone without his dinner. He had made arrangements, he told +her, for them to leave early in the morning, and he named their +destination. She tried to pretend not to notice his mood; but her +voice trembled a little as she said, "I've never heard of the place, +dear." + +He grunted, a little ashamed of himself: "I don't suppose anybody has. +I hope not. We must get off the beaten track. Badgered about like +this from pillar to post. It's getting on my nerves." + +She faltered, "I'm so sorry, Roly." + +Her tone pricked him. But these men hate above all things to feel in +the wrong when they are in the wrong. The effect of her humility was +to make him explain: "I don't know what possessed you, Audrey, 'pon my +soul I don't, to go palling up with that woman." + +Again she blundered. His reproach was so absurd that she laughed quite +naturally at it: "O Roly! how ridiculous! How was I to know you knew +her?" + +He turned on her, alarming her utterly. "You ought to have known!" + +Foolish, exasperating tears in her eyes: "How could I? How could I?" + +"I've told you--I've warned you; that's what I mean. I've told you +that every dashed soul I ever knew seems to be all over the Continent. +I've warned you to be careful. Asked you not to get in with people. +You absolutely don't care, seems to me. Perhaps you think it funny +dodging about like this--perhaps you enjoy it. Well, I don't. That's +enough. Let's drop the subject." + + +IV + +So and in this wise the miserable business jolted towards its climax; +deeper blunders at every step and every blunder additional to the load +that stumbled them into the next. Here was a young man that had taken +to himself pleasures, and lo! they were chains, rattling whensoever he +moved most grimly to remind him that now limits were imposed upon his +movements; that he who, by virtue of his rank, of the blood in his +veins, of his own high, careless, fearless air, that he who by virtue +of these was wont to look every man in the face more boldly than the +most of us, must now hide, dodge, shift, dissemble, or betray the +secret that, as to his torment he found, every day and every covering +deception made more impossible to discover to the world. + +Of all mankind's infirmities nothing than deception so quickly, so +deeply and so surely turns the quality of his behaviour; nothing so +cruelly tears, so acidly pierces his nerves; nothing so saps his +resolution, destroys his moral fibre. Honesty is sword and armour, +bread and wine; deception a voracious canker in the vitals, a clutch +out of hell dragging through fog of fear, through slough of sin, into +mire unspeakable. He was in its torments, he was writhing from them +into deeper blunders; he began to shudder at the thought of proclaiming +his marriage--yet. + +She saw his plight and, all unschooled in life, she contributed to the +disaster. Here was the gentlest creature, adoring and mated with an +impetuous mate that now was as a free beast trapped, goaded by the +sudden bars that caged him on every side, wildly seeking an outlet, +panicked at finding none. She searched her miserable pamphlet of "I +love," stained now with tears. It had nothing to give her. She read +into it that in marrying her Roly she thought to have brought him +nectar, and lo! it was a cup of poison she had given him, tormenting +him utterly. She blamed herself. Through wakeful nights she watched +him where he lay beside her--troubled often now in his sleep--and +sought and sought, fumbling her pamphlet, to know what amends she could +make him; and chid herself she was a burden to him; and would sit up in +the darkness and wring her poor young hands in her distracted grief. + +He noted the results that these distresses of her mind introduced to +her appearance and her behaviour. They did not aid the difficulties +with which he found himself beset. This was the beginning of the +period of neglect of her; of silence in her presence for long periods; +of brooding; of frowning at her where she sat or when she walked beside +him; of leaving her in a storm, returning in remorse; of assuring +himself he did not love her less, nay, rather loved her more--_But!_ + + +V + +At the end of August came their return to England, and immediately his +full realisation of the ghastly delusion of the idea that it were easy +to tell Gran--easy and kind--when the thing was done. Monstrous +delusion, ghastly folly! Why, the very fates were arrayed against it. +He returned to find Gran ailing, in bed. He went to the Mount Street +house, bracing his warped resolution to the pitch of telling her, and +it was to her bedroom he must go, and found her weak and stretching out +her arms to him and overjoyed--O God! so overjoyed!--to have her Roly +back. How tell her? Agony enough that she had no reproach for his +neglect of her through the summer, nor any that he was come now with +the news that he had run his leave to the last day and must at once +rejoin the regiment at Canterbury. Agony enough that she nothing +reproached, nothing questioned; unthinkable the agony of watching her +while he said, "Gran--Gran, dear, I'm married. Audrey, Audrey Oxford, +you know," and of hearing her poor lips falter, "Married? Married, +Roly? Audrey Oxford? Married, Roly?" + +Unthinkable! Impossible! + +But it was another blunder committed, another step deeper into the +coils, and he knew it for that when he left her, and ranged it with the +similar torments that possessed him: the mad initial folly; the blunder +of not proclaiming the marriage immediately he was married; the blunder +of each hour delayed during the weeks on the Continent. + +Now he was in the very jungle of the Unforeseen. Each step, every day, +lost him deeper in its fastnesses; and like one so lost indeed, its +dangers--encountered or suspected on every hand--preyed upon his mind, +robbed his remaining courage, lost him his moral bearings that remained +unwarped. His regimental duties kept him at Canterbury. He could not +have Audrey there. He took a tiny furnished flat in the neighbourhood +of Knightsbridge and there installed her, and there ran up to see her +as often as might be. And the inevitable began. The inevitable--the +chaff of his companions as to why he was forever "dodging up to town"; +the meetings with his friends and their "Roly, where the devil do you +get to these days?" the discovery that not only his men friends but his +larger circle of acquaintances--Gran's friends--were beginning to +gossip of his mysterious habits. The former put a man's interpretation +on his conduct, baited him that they would track him down "to see what +she was like." That thrice infuriated him: on Audrey's account; on the +fear that they might do it and disclosure be forced, to relieve her +from the horrible thing; and on the fact that what was implied was +detestable to his nature. The larger circle of his friends were not +more charitable, if more discreet. Gran, who was better again and had +gone for her health to Burdon Old Manor, sent letters that failed to +hide concern telling him of this, that and the other friend who had +written saying he denied himself to everybody, was frequently in town, +but never available and never to be found. Gran "hoped nothing was +wrong, dear;" but erased her suspicion with her pen, but not so well +that he could not read the words and picture the troubled thoughts that +wrote them. + +Ah! this was that grisly Unforeseen in shape new and most monstrous. +How meet it? How meet it? Just as he had shrunk from announcing his +intention of marriage because of the clatter of tongues and the +opposition that it would loose upon him, so now, but a thousand, +thousand times more, he shrank from the clatter that divulgement of his +secret would cause; from the resentment of his world at its befoolment +by him (as they would feel it); from the sneers and laughter at his +turpitude; from the apologies with which he must go round on his knees +to those he had deceived; from the interminable explanations he must +make. The Unforeseen in shape most monstrous! It rushed him as a host +of savage beasts that had snarled, that had threatened, that had come +at him singly and torn him but been whipped, but that now was on him in +the pack. How meet it? How meet it? God! What a lightsome, +harmless, innocent, mad, wanton, reckless thing he had done, and what a +turmoil he had loosed! + +Bitter days, these, in the Knightsbridge flat. That pamphlet of "I +love" all connoted now, written in tears, with what "I love" demands, +where leads and must be paid. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A LOVERS' LITANY + +I + +Bitter days--but suddenly breaking to dawn. There came to him, on the +rack of this torment, a thought that tortured him anew, yet made for +healing. Audrey? Even if, as in his extremity he debated, he dared +all and defied all--snatched himself out of this hell by publishing his +position and crying to all concerned, "Now do and say your +worst!"--even if he so made an end of it, to what would he bring her? +How would she be received, suddenly proclaimed his wife when this ugly +crop of suspicion and gossip was at its height? He knew, or through +his distraught imagination he believed he knew; and he writhed to +picture her--his gentle, unversed Audrey--thus introduced to the +suspicious, uncharitable, malicious atmosphere that well he was aware +his world could breathe. "Comes from a post-office somewhere, or a +shop was it? Married at such and such a date--_so he says!_" + +Thus the gate was slammed anew upon his resolution and locked and +double-locked: the way must somehow be prepared for Audrey, the gossip +by some means made to die, before he declared her. And with that there +was unlocked and opened wide the gate that had barred up his love. +Imagining the world's treatment of her, he realised his own. + +It was in the tumult of these discoveries that he presented himself at +the Knightsbridge flat and greeted his Audrey with a fondness that made +her cry a little for happiness; she frequently cried in these days, not +often for happiness. His fondness continued at that dear level through +the evening. It emboldened her to urge again the step that she +believed the best of all the many plans she ceaselessly revolved for +curing the trouble she told herself she had brought upon him. She +urged him to tell Gran. "Do tell her, dear. It will end all your +worry. You're so worried, Roly. I see it--oh, how I see it! And I +only add to it because I'm not--because I don't--because I vex you in +so many ways. I know I do. You used to be so happy. You will be +again directly this is all over. Do tell her, Roly! Roly, _do!_" + +She had been seated on the floor, her head resting against him where he +sat in a great armchair. Now, in this appeal of hers, she was turned +about and on her knees, her hands enfondling his, her face lifted +towards him. + +He made a little choking sound, all his love for her surging; all his +treatment of her wounding him; the thought of what he would bring her +to if he took the course she urged filling him with remorse and with +pity for her. He said in a strangled voice: "I can't; I can't," and +stooping, he raised her to him so that they lay together in the big +chair, their faces close, his arms about her.... + +For a little space, except that she was crying softly, they were +silent--clasped thus, most dear to one another; and then proclaimed +that dearness in scraps of murmured sentences, the gaps filled up by +what their tones and their clasped arms instructed them.... + +Just murmurs, and dusky evening in the room--light, faint as their +tones were faint, and in the shadows (how else seemed the air they +breathed at every breath to thrill them?) spirits of true lovers that +were winged down as, let us believe, lovers' spirits may when mortals +love. + +Just murmurs. + +He said: "Audrey, Audrey, I've been so cruel--angry--thoughtless." + +And she: "No ... no." + +And she again: "Go to her, then, Roly. Don't tell, if you think +not.... Just be with her for a little.... You'll be happy then.... +Leave me alone a little, dear.... Not even write." + +And he: "Audrey! ... Audrey!" + +Her voice: "I shall be happy ... if only you are happy..." + +And his: "I have been mad ... mad to treat you so.... Forgive.... +Forgive." + +Her voice--and close, close, all those lovers' spirits to hear this +lovers' litany: "When you are happy ... I am happy." + +And his--and all these murmurs chorused from lover's wraith to lover's +wraith, as watchers handing flame from hand to hand to instruct heaven +love still is here: "Audrey! ... Audrey!" + +And she: "My dear ... my dear!" + + +II + +Happy for her, happy for him, for all that have a smile and tear for +true love, to remember that from that moment never a hasty word or +thought passed between them. In that lovers' litany all such were +purged, the past wiped out as if it had never been. And, as if in +reward, into the night that surrounded Roly came a ray like a +miraculous rope thrown to one in a pit. + +The way must somehow be prepared for Audrey, he had said; the gossip +somehow be made to die before he could declare her. + +Sir Wryford Sheringham supplied the way. + +General Sir Wryford Sheringham had been his father's close friend, was +Gran's much-trusted nephew and her adviser in Roly's training. Gran +was sending him appealing letters in these days, imploring him to find +out what it was that was wrong with her dear Roly. Chance enabled him +suddenly to reply that, on the eve of his return to India, he was now +returning to take command of the Frontier Expedition that the +government of India had been saving up for a long time against three +Border tribes, and that he purposed taking Roly with him. He could +invent a corner to shove the boy into, he wrote; and she must not break +her heart nor shed a single tear except for joy that the chance had +come to get the boy away and to work. "Whatever it is he's been up +to," Sir Wryford wrote, "this'll pull him out of it and send him back +to you his father's son again." + +They walked into this last and supreme blunder as blindly as they had +gone into the first. Roly presented it as the opportunity more +wonderful than any that he could have invented to give this gossiping +the slip. When he returned ("loaded with medals, old girl," as, aflame +with excitement, he told her) it would all be forgotten; open arms for +him and open arms for her. + +Audrey's contribution to the folly was as characteristic. The news +struck her like a blow; but instantly with the shock came its anodyne. +He planned for her; every word of his rushing, thoughtless words was +drafted to scale of "Because I love you so;" though they had been +actual knives she would gladly have clasped such to her heart. + +Credit him that the night before the day on which he sailed he had a +sudden realisation of his madness. Credit him, at least, that now for +the first time in their misguided chapter, he saw a blunder before he +was irrevocably in it, and seeing it, tried to halt. He realised. He +told her it was impossible that he should leave her thus. He must +leave her in her right place. He must leave her with Gran. Gran was +in town to bid him good-by. He must--he would tell her that very night +of their marriage: in the morning take Audrey to her. + +But at that she broke down utterly--betraying for the first time the +flood and tempest of her agony at losing him and, while he strove to +soothe her, imploring him not to put upon her this last trial of her +strength. "I couldn't bear it, Roly!" she sobbed. "Roly, I couldn't +bear it!" Overwrought by the cumulative effects of the past months, +culminating in the sleepless agony of this last week and now in the +unendurable torture of good-by, she became hysterical at his proposal; +sobbed as if her reason were gone, shaking with dreadful spasms of +emotion that terrified him lest she would be unable to retake her +breath. His arms about her, and his loving pleadings, his earnest +promises to withdraw what he had said, joined with the sheer weariness +of her convulsive distress at last to relieve her. She passed into a +still, exhausted state and thence--utterly alarming him by her deathly +pallor and by the faintness of her voice--into imploring him in +whispers into the last, worst folly of all their pitiable blunders. +She could not be left, she implored him, with Gran--left alone with +her, left in such circumstances. "No, no! Roly, no! Together, Roly; +not alone, not alone!" And then she began to assure him of her +happiness if she might just wait here. "You can always think of me and +imagine me here: just waiting for you, and thinking of you and praying +for you; and not lonely, not unhappy. I _promise_ not lonely; I +promise, _promise_ not unhappy! You can't think of me like that if you +leave me with Lady Burdon. You don't know _what_ may happen to me; how +she may feel towards me or what I might imagine she felt and what I +might not do. I _could_ not--I _could_ not!" + +Try to understand him that he suffered himself to be convinced against +himself. So placed; so implored; so loved and so loving; so shackled +by the train of blunders he had committed, a hundred times more wise, +more strong a man than twelfth Baron Burdon would have given way as he +gave way. This was their farewell, and not to rob its fleeting hours +more he agreed, and turned with her to rehearse the plans for her +comfort in his absence. The flat was taken for six months ahead. +"Back in four! Now I bet you any money I'm back in four!" There was +money banked for her. Finally he wrote and gave her two letters, one +addressed to a Mr. Pemberton--"One of the best, old Pemberton"--the +other to Gran. He began to say, "If anything happens to me," but went +on: "If ever you get--you know--down on your luck--that kind of +thing--or feel you'd like to make it known about us before I come back, +just send those letters--just as they are; you needn't write or take +them yourself. They explain everything, they ... oh, don't cry.... +Audrey ... Audrey!" + +Within a few hours he was gone. Within four months they were building +a cairn of stones above him to keep the jackals from his body. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +WHAT THE TOOO-FIRTY WINNER BROUGHT MRS. ERPS + +I + +Come to her in the month of January. Bridge those long weeks wherein +she lived from mail day to mail day--as one not strong that has a weary +mile to cover and walks from seat to seat--and come to her there. + +She was at this time not in good health, suffered much from headaches +and was oppressed with a constant fatigue. In this condition fresh air +without exertion had become very desirable to her, and she formed the +daily habit of long rides outside the leisurely horsed tramcars of +those days. Study of a guide acquainted her with their routes. She +had a particular one for each day of the week, counting from Saturday +to Friday, and arranged on a little plan by which (as she made believe) +each journey was part of a long journey whose end was Friday's ride, +whence she returned home to find the Indian mail. Not only fresh air +was obtained by this means, but a sense of actively advancing towards +the day that brought the letters, round which she lived. + +On an afternoon of this January her ride was from Holborn, through +Islington and Holloway, to Highgate Archway. On the near side of the +Holloway road, half a mile perhaps below the stopping place, there is a +group of houses approached by shallow steps that have resisted the +overpowering inclination of the district to become shops and instead +support their tenants by providing apartments. The car that carried +her had stopped here. She had learnt to eke out the amusement of these +rides by attention to all manner of little incidents, and--employed +with one such--was wondering if her car would restart before it was +reached by a newsboy who ran towards them from the distance, his pink +contents-bill fluttering apronwise before him. Some one was a terribly +long time over the business of alighting or entering. The newsboy won. +A few yards from where she sat above him he stopped to sell a paper and +to fumble for change. The halt caused his fluttering pink apron to +come to rest. + + PEER + KILLED IN + FRONTIER + FIGHTING + + +Had something actually struck her throat? Was a hand actually +strangling there? Could they see she was fighting for breath? Was the +car really rocking--right up so she could not see the street, right +down and all the street circling? Could others hear that shrill and +enormous din that threatened to split her brain? + +Through the tremendous hubbub and the dizzy rocking she got down. If +this strangle at her throat did not relax, if this dizzy whirling did +not cease, this immense din silence.... + +A curious voice, leagues away, said: "Yer've got ter pye fer it, +y'know." + +She put her fingers in her purse and held out what she could gather. A +figure that had been going up and down in front of her seemed to take a +tremendous sidelong sweep and vanished. She was left with a paper in +her hands and knew what she must do. But if this din, this giddy +circling.... + +It suddenly stopped. Everything stopped. There was not a sound, there +was not a movement. + + +II + +London stands stock still in the middle of a windy, crowded pavement to +open its evening paper and to peer at the stop-press space for only one +particular purpose. While she thus stood and peered (and suddenly knew +this icy silence was the gathering of an immense tide that was +coming--coming) a woman who wore an apron over a capitally developed +figure, and a rakish cloth cap over a headful of curl papers, opened +the door of the house immediately beside her (appearing with the air of +one shot at immense velocity out of a trap) and called "I! Piper!" +She then exclaimed nearly as loudly "Ennoyin'!" and then saw Audrey. + +This lady's name was Mrs. Erps, and she knew perfectly well, and +rejoiced to observe an example of, the peculiarity in regard to +London's evening paper that has been noted above. Mrs. Erps rolled her +solid hands in her apron and came down ingratiatingly. A model of +correctness. "Excoose me, my dear," she began, "Excoose me, wot 'orse +won the tooo-firty? My old man--Ho, thenks, I'm sure--Ho, gryshus!" + +Relating the incident later in the evening to a lady friend, and acting +it with considerable dramatic power: "'Ands me the piper she does," +said Mrs. Erps, "as natural as I 'ands this apring to you and then +looks at me jus' as if I mightn't had been there, and then she says in +a whissiper 'Oh, dear!' she says. 'O Gawd!' and _dahn_ she goes +plump--dahn like that!" explained Mrs. Erps from the floor, very nearly +carrying her friend with her in the stress of dramatic illustration. + +But Mrs. Erps was more than a great tragedy actress; she was also a +kindly soul and there is to be added to this quality the genial warmth +aroused in her by the fact that the tooo-firty winner was Lollipop, +that Lollipop had cantered home at what she called sevings, and that +her old man was seving times arf a dollar the richer for the +performance. "Carry 'er in there," said Mrs. Erps in a very loud voice +to a policeman in particular and to a considerable area of the street +in general. "Young man, that's my 'ouse, and Mrs. Elbert Erps my nime, +and dahn in front of it the pore young thing's fell jus' as she was +'anding me this very piper wot 'ad come aht to see the tooo-firty +winner. 'Excoose me,' I says to 'er, 'excoose me--'" + +The policeman: "All right, mother. Now, then, you boys." + +Mrs. Elbert Erps, going backwards up the steps, hands beneath the arms +of that poor stricken creature: "There's a cleeng, sweet bed in my +first front, well-haired and wool blenkits, that lets eight and six and +find yer own, and could ask ten, and there she'll rest, the poor pretty +thing, dropped on me very doorstep, as yer might say, and standin' +there with the piper same as you might. 'Excoose me,' I says to 'er, +'excoose me--'" + +Mrs. Erps shot open her front door with a backward plunge of her foot, +the policeman closed it with a backward kick of his foot; and to the +continued recital in great detail of how it all happened, their burden +was carried to the first front and laid upon the cleeng, sweet bed, +well-haired, wool blenkits, eight and six and find yer own. + +They loosened her dress at her throat; beneath the constable's +direction made use of water and chafed her hands. "Marrit," said Mrs. +Erps, denoting the wedding ring. "Marrit, she is." + +Presently Audrey opened her eyes. + +"Why, _there_ you are!" cried Mrs. Erps in high delight. "There you +are, my pretty. Safe and sahnd as ever you was. There you are! You +recolleck me, don't you, my love? Wot you gave the piper to? 'Excoose +me,' I says to yer, 'excoose me,' I says--" + +Audrey's eyes went meaninglessly from Mrs. Erps to the constable, her +eyelids fluttered above them and closed. + +"_Stand_ aht of it!" said Mrs. Erps to the constable in a very sharp +whisper. "_Stand_ aht of it, frightenin' her. 'E won't 'urt you, my +pretty. 'E only carried of yer up. _Dahn_ you went, yer know, right +dahn. Where's your 'usbing, my pretty?" + +Her lips just parted. She moaned "Oh, dear! O God!" + +Mrs. Erps communicated to the constable: "Jus' 'er very words. _Dahn_ +she went--" + +The eyes opened again. + +"Your 'usbing, dear, I'm askin'. 'Usbing. Ain't you got a ma, my +dear? Ain't you got a pa?" + +She said: "Dead ... dead ... Oh, dear..." + +"Orfing," communicated Mrs. Erps. + +"Rambling in her mind," said the constable. "Not answering you, she +wasn't." + +"You pop off, young man," commanded Mrs. Erps with sudden hostility. +"Ramberling! Didn't I ask her, and didn't she give answer back to me? +Ramberling! You pop off. I'll fine where she lives, and my old man +'ll come to the station if so need be. 'E ain't afraid of yer, so +don't you think it. Served on a joory, he has, before now. +Ramberling! I'm going to rub 'er pore feet. That's what I'm goin' to +do. Ramberling! She knows me as spoke 'er fair before ever you came. +'Excoose me,' I says to her, 'excoose me--'" + +The policeman, from the door: "Yes, I've heard that." + +Mrs. Erps, bending over the stairs: "Pop off! That's what I'm telling +you. Pop off!" + + +III + +Mrs. Erps rubbed the "pore feet," put a hot bottle to them, covered the +poor, motionless form with two of the wool blenkits, called up her old +man when he came in; and in his presence and in that of the lady second +floor lodger and the young man first back lodger, trembling with +witnessed honesty, she opened the pretty dear's purse and searched her +pocket for any clue to her home. There was none. Mrs. Erps, having +counted the money in the purse, written down the amount and had the +paper signed by her old man, by second floor and by first back, bade +them pop off, and sat beside her patient with soothing words and +frequently a kiss to the reiterated "Oh, dear ... oh, dear ... O God!" +that came in scarcely audible sighs as from one numbed with pain and +utterly tired. + +So, only now and then sighing, eyes closed, she lay for close upon +three hours. Mrs. Erps stole away to cook up a nice bit of fried fish +for 'er old man, revisiting the first front at intervals, waiting to +hear that weary moan, and returning down-stairs increasingly troubled +with: "I don't like to hear her. Fair wrings my 'art, it does." + +A visit paid towards seven o'clock was better rewarded. Audrey opened +her eyes, looked full and intelligently at Mrs. Erps, standing there +with a lighted candle, and quite naturally addressed her. She +questioned nothing. She seemed fully to understand where she was and +why. In tones weak but quite clear and collected she made two +requests. Please let her stay here for the night and leave her quite +alone; she wanted nothing, just to be alone; and please send a telegram +for her. + +She dictated the message and it was sent--to Maggie, and with Mrs. +Erps' address added, and running: "Please come at once. He is dead. +Audrey." + + +IV + +Miss Oxford arrived in the early afternoon of the next day. All the +devotion of the years she had mothered Audrey, all the +longing--longing--longing of the past months for news, all the agony of +suspense in the train journey (the papers informing her as they +informed new Lady Burdon at Miller's Field), all a breaking heart's +distress was in the little cry she gave when she entered first front +and saw that strangely white, strangely impassive face lying on the +pillow. + +"My darling! Oh, my darling"--arms about the still form, tears raining +down. + +No responsive movement; just "Dear Maggie--dear Maggie." + +"Why did you never write?" + +"Dear Maggie..." + +There was no more of explanation between them. + +"Maggie, I want to be quite, quite still. Not to talk, Maggie darling. +Just hold my hand and let me lie here. Are you holding it?" + +"Audrey! Audrey! Yes--yes. In both mine." + +"I don't feel you." + +She seemed to feel nothing, to want nothing, and, though she lay now +with wide eyes, to see nothing. She just lay, scarcely seeming to +breathe. Once she said, in a very fond voice, "Yes, Roly," as if she +were in conversation with him. No other sound. + +After a long time Maggie told her: "Darling, I'm going to bring a +doctor to see you." + +No reply nor movement when Maggie released the hand she held and left +the room to seek Mrs. Erps. No interest nor response when the doctor +came, or while he examined her. He took Maggie aside. "She's very +young. How long has she been married?" + +"In June--the first of June." + +They spoke in whispers. When he was going, he repeated what he had +most impressed. "No fear of it happening so far as I can see. She +doesn't seem in pain. That numbness? Mental. Her mind is too +occupied. I don't think movement would bring it on; but don't move her +yet. We mustn't run risks. It would be fatal--almost certainly fatal +if it happened. Another shock would do it; nothing else, I think. +Well, there's no likelihood of shock, is there? You can guard against +that. See to that and you've no need to worry. She couldn't possibly +live through it in her present state. Otherwise--why, we'll soon be on +the right road and getting strong for it. I'll look in to-night." + +This was in the passage, and with Mrs. Erps in waiting at the front +door rehearsing in her mind: "As I was telling you when you come, +doctor, 'Excoose me,' I says to 'er, 'excoose me--'" But what Mrs. +Erps overheard caused her to let him escape and to say instead to Miss +Oxford, "Oh, the pore love! If any one makes a sahnd to shock 'er--not +if I knows it, they don't." + +Mrs. Erps knew quite well the meaning of that recurrent "it" in the +doctor's words. + + +V + +But it was not in Mrs. Erps's power to prevent the shock that came. + +It came in direct train of action from that "Yes, Roly" that Maggie had +heard, separated from it by the days of high fever, the mind wandering, +that almost immediately supervened. As one that falls asleep upon a +resolution and wakes at once to remember it and to act upon it, so, the +fever releasing her to her senses, Audrey took up immediately that +which lay in those words of hers. + +She had fallen into a natural sleep that promised the end of her fever. +She awoke, and directly she awoke sat up in bed. She was alone. Only +the one thought was in her mind; she got up and began to dress. + +The resolution of her mind governed the extreme weakness of her body. +She was no more aware of her feebleness than one strung up in battle +notices a wound not immediately crippling. She knew exactly what she +must do. She found her purse on the mantelpiece and took it and left +the house without being noticed--or thinking to escape or to give +notice. Only that one thought occupied her; a few yards down the +street she met a cab and hailed it. "Burdon House, Mount Street," she +directed the driver. + +"Yes, Roly," had been when Roly, visiting her more clearly, more real +than any other figure about her during that numb and impassive period +when she desired to be quiet in order to talk with him, had told her to +go to Gran, to comfort Gran, and to be comforted. + + +VI + +Old butler Noble admitted her. Events had caused old butler Noble to +be considerably shaken in his wits. A week ago the door would have +been closed to a young woman who asked for Lady Burdon and refused her +name. To-day, on the explanation, "The name does not matter. Lady +Burdon will be glad to see me," it was held open and the visitor taken +to the library. + +This was the second day of new Lord and Lady Burdon's visit for the +latter to make Jane Lady Burdon's acquaintance. Only that morning old +butler Noble had made the mistake of turning away a Miller's Field +friend who had called to see new Lady Burdon, carrying out a promise to +report how baby Rollo, left behind, was getting on. "Her ladyship is +seeing no one," Noble had informed her. The excellent Miller's Field +friend had been too overawed by his manner to explain exactly whom it +was she wished to see. She sent a note of explanation by messenger. +Noble delivered it to his mistress, who read it and sent him with it to +new Lady Burdon. The note was foolishly worded. New Lady Burdon, ill +at ease in this house, crimsoned to think it had been read. From the +outset, hostile and prepared for hostility, she had taken a sharp +dislike to this old man-servant; angry and mortified, she questioned +him and spoke to him as he was unaccustomed to be addressed. + +It was beneath the lesson of this incident that he admitted Audrey +without question. She was none of his mistress's friends. In the +first place he knew all such; in the second they did not call at the +impossible hour of half-past six in the evening, nor present the +strange appearance--white, not very steady, faltering in voice--that +she bore. + +He took the news of her arrival to new Lady Burdon. + +"Gave no name, do you say?" + +"She said your ladyship would be glad to see her." + +Lady Burdon hesitated a moment. She tingled with fresh hostility +against this man because she wondered whether he expected her to accept +that statement or to send him again for the name. She did not know and +hated him the more, and hated all the fancied resentment for which he +stood, because she did not know. + +Her mind sought a way out. She said with a little laugh: "Oh, I think +I know. Very well." + +She went to the library. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +WHAT AUDREY BROUGHT LADY BURDON + +I + +It was very dim in the library. Above the centre of the room light +stood in soft points upon a high chandelier. A fire burnt low within +the shelter of the great hearth. The rest was shadow. + +Lady Burdon came easily into the room, but in the doorway stopped; and +Audrey, who had made a forward movement, prepared words on her lips, +also stopped. There was something odd about this girl who stood there, +Lady Burdon thought, and her mind ran questing the cause of some +strange apprehension that somehow was communicated to it. There was +something wrong, Audrey thought; and she began to tremble. For a +briefest space, that was a world's space to Audrey's mind bewildered +and to Lady Burdon's mind suspicious, as they went hunting through it, +these two stood thus, and thus regarded one another. + +It was told of this library at Burdon House--Mr. Amber's "Lives" record +it--that in the days when gentlemen wore swords against their thighs, a +duel was fought here, that the thing went in three fierce assaults, +each ended by a bloody thrust on this side or on that, and that between +the bouts the rivals panted, sick with fatigue and hurt. + +Words for swords, and the first bout:-- + +Lady Burdon closed the door. She went a step towards Audrey and said, +"Yes?" + +Audrey, with fumbling hands, swaying a little where she stood: "I +think--I came to see Lady Burdon." + +Odd her look, and odd her tone, and strange the trembling that visibly +possessed her. Lady Burdon was about to explain. Her mind came back +from its questing like one that cries alarm by night through silent +streets. "Beware!" it cried to her. "Beware!" and for her explanation +she substituted: + +"I am Lady Burdon." + +The first thrust. + +Audrey put a hand against a chair that stood beside her. The trembling +that had taken her when, expecting to see Roly's Gran, this stranger +had appeared, began to shake her terribly in all her frame. This Lady +Burdon? For the first time since her will had got her from her bed and +brought her here, she was informed how weak she was. A dreadful +physical sickness came over her and all the room became unsteady. + +Respite enough, and the second bout:-- + +Lady Burdon demanded: "Who are you, please?" + +No reply, and that augmented her suspicion, and she came on again: "Who +are you, please?" + +Wave upon wave that dreadful sickness swept over Audrey and set her +brain aswim. Bewildered thoughts, like frantic arms of one that +drowns, tossed up upon the flood, and like such arms that gesticulate +and vanish, spun there a dizzy moment and spun away: This Lady Burdon? +... then this not Roly's house ... then what? ... then where? This +Lady Burdon? ... then all her life with Roly was dream ... had never +been ... none of her life had ever been ... what had been then? + +A third time: "Who are you, please? Why do you not answer me?" + +She made an effort. She said very pitiably: "Oh, how--oh, how can you +be Lady Burdon?" + +No wound--only the merest scratch, but increasing in Lady Burdon the +dis-ease that had come to her on entering the room and had heightened +at every moment. + +In her turn it was hers to give pause, but she engaged quickly for the +third bout. + +"I see you do not understand," she said. + +And Audrey: "Oh, please forgive me. No, I do not understand; I have +been ill. I am ill." + +"But I am afraid I do not understand you. I do not understand your +manner. If you will tell me who you are--what it is you want--I can +perhaps explain." + +But Audrey only looked at her. Only most pitiable inquiry was in her +eyes. Lady Burdon read their inquiry, that same "Oh, how can you be +Lady Burdon?" and the question and the silence brought vague, +unreasoning alarm in violent collision with her suspicions. Anger was +struck out of their conjunction. She said sharply: + +"You must answer me, please. You must answer me. What is the matter? +I am asking you who you are." + +Mr. Amber's account of the duel says that one contestant drove the +other the length of the room and had him pinned against the wall:-- + +Into Audrey's bewilderment, the dreadful sickness and the trembling she +could not control, these sharp demands came like numbing blows upon one +in the trough of the sea grappling for life. When Roly had come to her +as she lay stupefied and she had answered him "Yes, Roly," he had told +her clearly as if in fact he had stood beside her, what she should say +to Gran. She had come with the words prepared. They suddenly returned +to her now. + +The words she had made ready: "I am Audrey--" she said. + +Mr. Amber's account of the duel says that the one contestant, having +his rival pinned, was too impetuous and ran upon the other's sword:-- + +Lady Burdon said: "Audrey? Do you say Audrey? Are you known here?" + +And ran upon the other's sword:-- + +"I am Audrey--I am Roly's wife." + + +II + +As a dreadful blow sends the stricken, hands to face, staggering this +way and that on nerveless, aimless legs; or as a tipsy man, unbalanced +by fresh air, will blunder into any open door, so, at that "I am +Audrey--I am Roly's wife"--Lady Burdon's mind was sent reeling, +fumbling through a maze of spinning scenes--marriage? and what +then?--before it could fix itself to realisation. + +She stood plucking with one hand at the fingers of the other; and when +the whirl subsided and she came dizzily out of it her mind was leaden +and the first words she could get from it were none she wanted. + +Her voice all thick: "He was not married," she said. + +The reply, very gentle: "We did not tell any one." + +And to that nothing better than "Why?" + +"Roly did not wish it." + +Thick and heavy still: "Why do you come now?" + +And Audrey in a little cry: "Because he is dead!" + +Then Lady Burdon said dully: "You had better go," and at the +bewilderment that came into Audrey's eyes repeated more strongly: "You +had better go--quickly;" and then "Quickly!" with her voice run up on +the word, and her hands that had been plucking flung apart. + +Her mind was over its numbness and through the whirl of nightmare +meanings in that "I am Roly's wife;" and it came out of them as one +shaken by a fall and strung up for vengeance. Marriage! Impossible! +And she a fool to be frightened by it--at worst a horrid aftermath of +disgusting conduct. + +"Quickly!" she cried and then burst out with: "I see what you are--to +come at such a time--to this house of mourning--he scarcely dead--with +such a story--wicked--infamous--I know, I see now why you were +surprised to see me--an old lady you expected--grief-stricken--" + +She stopped, achoke for breath, and Audrey said: "Oh, please--please." + +Misgiving, that subtle, coward spy that spies the way for fear, cast +its net over Lady Burdon. The pleading, gentle air--no flush of shame, +no note of defiance hunted her mind back to its alarms. And Audrey +said: "He did not wish our marriage known;" and at "marriage" misgiving +turned and shouted fear to follow. + +She said slowly: "You persist marriage? There are proofs of marriage. +Where are your proofs?" + +The pleading look only deepened: "But I never thought--" Audrey said, +"--but I never thought--" She swayed, and swayed against the chair she +held. It supported her. "I never thought I would not be believed. +Lady Burdon will understand. I know she will understand. If I may see +her, please..." + +"If you were married--proofs." + +There was a considerable space before Audrey answered. Presently she +said very faintly: + +"I am very ill ... I am very ill ... I can bring proofs.... But she +will understand.... Please let me see her.... Please, please..." + +In advertisement of her state her eyelids fluttered and fell upon her +eyes while she spoke. Her voice was scarcely to be heard. + +Her condition made no appeal to Lady Burdon. The simplicity of her +words, her simple acceptance of the challenge to bring proofs, returned +Lady Burdon to that dull plucking at her hands; and presently she +turned and went heavily across the room and through the door, closed it +behind her and went a few paces down the hall--to what? At that +question she stopped, and at the answer her mind gave went quickly back +to the door and stood there breathing fast. What was shut in here? A +monstrous thing come to strike her down as suddenly as miracle had come +to snatch her up? And where had she been going? To publish it? To +impel the horrible fate it might have for her? To say to old Lady +Burdon and to Maurice: "There is a woman here who says she was married +to Lord Burdon?" To say what would spring into their minds as it tore +like a wild thing at hers:--"Yes, if marriage, a child ... an heir?" +At thought of how narrowly she had escaped the results of that action, +she trembled as one trembles that in darkness has come to the edge of a +cliff and by a single further step had plunged to destruction; and at +imagination of the bitterness, the humiliation that would be hers if +the worst were realised and she returned from what she had become to +worse than she had been, she writhed in torture of spirit that was like +twisting poison in her vitals. All her plans, all her dreams, all her +sweet foretasting sprang up before her, mocking her; all the +intolerable sympathy of her friends, all the secret laughter it would +hide, came at her, twisting her. + +Somewhere in the house a door opened and shut. She put a hand +violently to her throat, as though the shock of the sound were a blow +that struck her there. She found herself braced against the door, +guarding it; listening for footsteps, and strung up to keep away +whoever came. Silence! But the attitude into which she had sprung +informed her of the determination that had shaped unperceived beneath +the tumult of her thoughts. She was not going to fall beneath the blow +that threatened her! When she knew that, she was calmer, and set +herself to satisfy her fears. What was shut in here? A wanton.... +Wanton? Who never flushed, never railed, defied? A betrayed, then. +Well, what was that to her, and how was she concerned? A betrayed? +Who came with no story of betrayal that might or might not be, but with +assertion of marriage that was capable of definite proof or disproof? +Marriage? Impossible! A lie! Impossible? There came to her +recollection of that strange disappearance of which Mr. Pemberton had +told; was marriage the secret of it? There swept back to her that +vivid and hideous nightmare on the very night of the news when she had +cried "I hold!" and had been answered: "No, you do not--nay, I hold." +Was that foreboding? There flamed before her again the mock of her +plans, the humiliation of her downfall. She struck her clenched hands +together; and as if the violent action caused an assembly of her +arguments, she reduced her position to this: either the thing was true, +in which case it could be proved; or it was a lie, in which case no +consideration recommended her to do other than keep it to herself and +herself stamp upon it. + +That satisfied her and she reëntered the room to act upon it. + +Audrey was on her knees by the chair. The sight shook her +satisfaction. Wanton? Betrayed? A lie? + +Audrey turned towards her: "I have been praying," she said. She got to +her feet and came forward a step: "She is coming to see me?" + +Lady Burdon said: "I have told her. She will not see you." + +She was committed. She stood agonisingly strung up in every fibre, as +one that waits an appalling catastrophe. She saw Audrey wring her +hands and heard her moan "Oh ... Oh!" + +She heard her own voice say: "You can bring your proofs." She had, as +it were, a vision of herself opening the street door and watching +Audrey pass her and go down the steps and out of sight. She was only +actually returned to herself when she found herself, as one awaking who +has walked in sleep, striving to make her trembling hands close the +latch of the door. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +ARRIVAL OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR + +I + +The driver of a four-wheeled cab, crawling down Mount Street, pushed +along his horse when he saw Audrey walking with very slow and uncertain +steps ahead of him. He drew into pace alongside her and began to +repeat: "Keb? Keb, miss--keb,--keb?" with a persistence and regularity +that suggested it was the normal sound of his breathing. + +She stopped and stared at him in a dazed way. He pulled up and went on +quite contentedly: "Keb?--Keb, miss--keb,--keb?" His voice and his keb +came presently into her realisation. There returned to her knowledge +of what she purposed. Her thoughts seemed to her to be drifting +shapes, and this one had floated away and she had been trying to reach +it--hanging there just above her--while she stared at him. She gave +him the address of the Knightsbridge flat and presently was driving +there and presently going up the stairs, very slowly, taking her key +from her purse, and then entering. + +The flat was in extraordinary confusion. She did not notice. The +woman who came daily to attend her wants had come twice to find her not +returned, and a third time with a gentleman friend (on tiptoe), taking +a stealthy and permanent departure an hour later with everything that +could be conveniently carried. The back of a drawer in a bureau had +not received this lady's attention. It contained all that Audrey had +come to seek: a box of carved wood, picked up on the Continent. Those +two letters Roly had given her for Mr. Pemberton and Gran were here. +Her mind had turned to them when she had realised the thing that had +never occurred to her: that she would not be believed. Here also was +her marriage certificate and all the letters Roly had written +her--before marriage and from India. + +She took up the box and began to retrace her steps. She had scarcely +got down the stairs when dizziness seized her again. The dreadful +sickness and the trembling that the shock of her first encounter with +Lady Burdon had caused her had been stamped out by the final blow that +made her wring her hands and cry "Oh ... oh!" and had sent her numbed +from the house and carried her numbed to this point. Her physical +senses had been drugged, just as they had been hypnotised by the +instruction to which she had answered "Yes, Roly." Now they were +suddenly released from the kindness of the drug. Dizziness--and while +all things spun about her--pain. It caught her with a violence so +immense that she believed her body could not contain it and would go +asunder. It drove her, as it seemed to her, through unconsciousness +and into a state in which she met it again with a quality in its +sharpness that she knew for death, as if she recognised death. It +dropped her back from where she had seen death, through the degree of +its first immensity, and down to a gnawing that told her it was +gathering force to rush up again and this time leave her there--gone. +In that respite she got to the cab. She would die at the next +onslaught--Maggie! If Maggie could hold her when it came! She did not +know the address in the Holloway Road; but knew it was there, and a +butcher's with a strange name--Utter--had caught her attention opposite +when she left the house. She tried to tell the driver, but her +condition overcame her speech. He saw her state and jumped down to +her, and she called tremendously upon herself and effected the words. +He more lifted than helped her in, and she continued to hold herself +until he got back to his box, then collapsed groaning. + +The cabman pulled up opposite the establishment of Mr. Utter and had +scarcely stopped his horse when from Mrs. Erps's house came Mrs. Erps, +plunging down the steps, and Miss Oxford, who stopped at the entrance, +not daring to come on. Mrs. Erps peered through the cab window and +then called back to Miss Oxford. "Told yer it was. Safe and sahnd!" +and began to tug at the handle and sharply addressed the cabman: "Ho, +ain't you got a nasty stiff door!" and cried through the window: "Why, +_there_ you are, my dear! Popping off like you hadn't ought to, give +us a fair ole turn!" and flung open the door and said, "Ho, dear!" and +turned a frightened face to Maggie, come beside her. + +The open door revealed how Audrey was collapsed, and showed the hue of +ashes that her face had, and gave the groaning that came from her. + +Miss Oxford went to her. "Audrey! ... dying! She is dying!" + +By common understanding they began to try to carry her out. The cabman +leant over from his box and presently saw Mrs. Erps come backing out +with violent movements and suddenly had her fist shaken in his +surprised face. "'Old your old 'orse, carng yer!" Mrs. Erps cried +furiously. "Joltin' of us! 'Old your old catsmeat, carng yer!" She +plunged round to the further door, and through that they lifted her +whose groaning terrified them utterly, carried her up-stairs, and for +the second time she was laid on the cleeng blenkits, well haired, eight +an six and find yer own. + +All Mrs. Erps's breath--no policeman to assist her--was this time +required for the exertion. But when their burden was laid she voiced +the extremity to which it was clearly come. "'Ad er shock, she 'as," +said Mrs. Erps. "Some one's done it on 'er." + +"Oh, bring the doctor," Miss Oxford cried. "Quick! Quick! Oh, my God +... my God!" + +She did what she could while Mrs. Erps was gone. She was praying, when +her prayer was so far answered that Audrey recognised her. "Maggie..." +and then "I am dying--forgive," and then caught up in her pains again +while Maggie cried: "Don't! Don't! It is for you to forgive me; you +will be all right soon--very soon." The pains drew off a little. +Audrey began to speak very faintly. "I went to Lady Burdon--" Very +feebly she told what had happened and Maggie, who had begged her, +"Darling, don't talk--don't worry," listened as one that is held +aghast. When the slow words failed, she did not at once realise that +Audrey's voice had stopped. Mrs. Erps and the doctor found her +kneeling by the still form with strangely staring, unweeping eyes. + +"She has had a shock," the doctor began. + +"They have killed her," Miss Oxford said. + +Bending over the patient he did not notice her words nor the intensity +of their tone; and there began to come very quickly a dreadful urgency +that caused agony of grief to override the agony of hate that had +possessed her. + + +There was a thin, new cry went up in the room: and that was life newly +come. And there was heavy breathing with dreadful pause at each +expiration's end and then the straining upward climb: and that was life +fluttering to be gone. Longer the pauses grew and harsher the upward +breath. Loud the thin cry struck in, and as though it called that +fleeting life, and as though that fleeting life, in the act of +springing away, turned its head at the sound, Audrey opened her eyes. + +There seemed to be a question in them. Miss Oxford bent closely over +her: "A boy, my darling." + +She seemed to smile before she died. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +ENLISTMENT OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR + +I + +That day of Audrey's death was in two minds at two breakfasts in +different quarters of London on a morning some while later. In the +Mount Street house Jane Lady Burdon, starting in an hour to make her +home with her sister in York, was reading to Lord and Lady Burdon a +letter just received from India. It was a sympathetic note from the +officer who had been with her Roly when he fell. "'His last words,'" +she read aloud with faltering lips, "'were: _Tell Gran to love Audrey_. +It was difficult to catch them, but I think that was it.'" + +Jane Lady Burdon laid down the letter and smiled feebly. "They have no +meaning for me," she said. + +And Lord Burdon: "Nellie! What's up, old girl?" + +Lady Burdon struggled with the dreadful agitation the words had caused +her. They had meaning for her. "_I am Audrey--I am Roly's wife._" + +"So sad," she exclaimed, "so sad--excuse me--I--" She rose shakily and +went from the room. After two days of suspense she had thought that +hideous alarm defeated and disproved. What now? And what had she done? + +The other breakfast was at Mrs. Erps's--also immediately before a +journey. "No one," Mrs. Erps had said, "no one hadn't oughter travel +on a nempty stomach," and had forced Miss Oxford to the table before +the start for Little Letham and "Post Offic." "I know you've had +bitter trouble as loved the pretty dear meself ever since 'Excoose me,' +I says to 'er, 'excoose me,' as I've told yer. An' Gord alone knows I +know what trouble is, as 'ad twings of me own pop off in one mumf. But +you've got the living for to think of. Same as I 'ad my ole man, +you've got this blessed ingfang what never know'd a muvver's breast and +took to the bottle like nothing I never did see." + +And to the blessed "infang" reposing in her arms while she talked: +"Didn't yer, yer saucy sossidge? That's what you are, yer know--a +saucy sossidge. Ho, yes yer are. No use yer giving answer back ter +me, yer know. A saucy, saucy sossidge, wot I should cook up with +mashed if I had me way with yer, bless yer." + +Maggie scarcely heard; but there was one sentence of Mrs. Erps that +joined her thoughts: "You've got the living for to think of." Yes, she +had that--and the dead to revenge. "They have killed her," she had +cried to the doctor. Through the long night, when she knelt beside the +still figure, that thought had burned within her and refused her tears. +It grew to an intolerable agony that pressed upon her brain as though a +band of steel were there. She understood what had bewildered +Audrey--who it had been that had said "I am Lady Burdon." Her +imagination pictured the woman. An orgasm of most terrible hate +possessed her, increasing that dreadful pressure on her brain, and +suddenly something seemed to her to have given way beneath the pressure. + +Hate or passion of that degree never filled her again. She was +strangely quiet in manner when Mrs. Erps came to her in the morning, +strangely quiet at the funeral in Highgate Cemetery while Mrs. Erps +wept in loud emotion, and always quite quiet in mind. The child was +going to live, she was somehow fully assured of that, and she was not +going to give him up--her Audrey's child--as, if she spoke, she might +have to give him up. He was going to live with her at "Post Offic" and +take his mother's place; and one day.... They had taken Audrey from +her. One day she would return to them Audrey's son. "I am Lady +Burdon" had murdered Audrey. One day, when "I am Lady Burdon" was +secure and comfortable in her possessions, and had forgotten Audrey, +Audrey's son should avenge his mother.... + +Nothing could go wrong, Miss Oxford thought. She went through all the +proofs in the carved box. Nothing was wanting. One day she would hand +them to him--and then! + +She wrote to her friend, Miss Purdie, at Little Letham, who had been +taking care of "Post Offic" for her and told her--for the village +information--that Audrey had lost her husband, and, on the shock, had +died, in giving birth to a son. "I have called him Percival--his +father's name--Percival Redpath." + + +"Look arter yerself," cried Mrs. Erps, as the train drew out of +Waterloo. "Look arter yerself. Can't not look arter him if yer +don't--and 'e 'll want lookin' arter, 'e will. 'E's going ter be a +knockaht, that's what 'e's going to be, ain't yer, yer saucy sossidge! +Sossidge! Goo'by, sossidge. Goo'by...." + + + + +BOOK THREE + +BOOK OF THE HAPPY, HAPPY TIME. THE ELEMENT OF YOUTH + + + + +CHAPTER I + +PERCIVAL HAS A PEEP AT THE 'NORMOUS + +I + +Young Percival was seven--rising eight--when he first saw Burdon Old +Manor. Miss Oxford had taken him for a walk, and they were in the +direction of the Manor grounds, a locality she commonly avoided, when +"There's a cart coming!" he warned her. He had lagged behind, +exploring in a dry ditch; and he raced up to her with the news, +catching her hand and drawing her to the hedge, for she had been +walking in the middle of the road, occupied with her thoughts. + +Percival had learnt to be accustomed to long silences in his Aunt +Maggie and to rescue her from them when need arose. They were +familiar, too, to all the villagers and to the "help" who was now +required for the domestic work of "Post Offic." Not the same but a +very different Miss Oxford had returned to "Post Offic" seven years +ago, bringing the news of poor, pretty Miss Audrey's loss of husband +and death, and bringing the little mite that was born orphan, bless +him. A very different Miss Oxford, for whose characteristic alertness +there was substituted a profound quietness, a notable air of absence, +preoccupation. It was held by the villagers that she had gone a little +bit strange-like. Her sister's death, it was thought, had made her a +little touched-like. The "help," a gaunt and stern creature named +Honor, who largely devoted herself to bringing up Percival on a system +of copy-book and devotional maxims which had become considerably mixed +in her mind, called her mistress's lapses into long silence symptoms of +an "incline," and in kindly, rough fashion sought to rally her from +them. Percival, nearest the truth, called them "thinking." When Aunt +Maggie lapsed into such a mood, he would often stand by her, watching +her face doubtfully and rather wistfully, with his head a little on one +side. Presently he would give a little sigh and run off to his play. +It was as though he puzzled to know what occupied her, as though he had +some dim, unshaped idea which, while he stood watching, he tried to +formulate--and the then little sigh: he could not discover it--yet. + +What was clear was that nothing ever aroused Aunt Maggie from her +strange habit of mind; and that at least is symptom of a dangerous +melancholy. What was plain was that her fits of complete, of utter +abstraction, embraced her like a sudden physical paralysis in the midst +of even an energetic task or an absorbing conversation; and that at +least is sign of a lesion somewhere in the faculty of self-control. +She divided her time between those periods of "thinking" and an intense +devotion to Percival; and the two phases acted directly one upon the +other. It was in the midst of loving occupation with the child, that, +perhaps at some look in his eyes, perhaps at some note in his voice, +abstraction would suddenly strike down upon her; it was from the very +depth of such abstraction that she would suddenly start awake and go to +find Percival or, he being near her, would take him almost violently +into her arms. + + +II + +In characteristic keeping with this habit, her action when now he ran +to her and drew her from the roadway with his cry, "There's a cart +coming! A cart, Aunt Maggie!" Her grey, gentle face and her sad eyes +irradiated with a sudden colour and sudden light that advertised the +affection with which, standing behind him to let the cart pass, she +stooped down to him and kissed his glowing cheek--"Would I have been +run over, do you think?" + +Percival was eagerly awaiting the excitement of seeing the cart come +into view around the bend whence it sounded. But he stretched up his +hands to fondle her face. "Well, I believe you would, you know," he +declared. "Of course they'd have shouted, but suppose the horse was +bobbery and wouldn't stop?" + +Aunt Maggie feigned alarm at this dreadful possibility. "Oh, but +you're all right with me," Percival reassured her. He had a quaint +habit of using phrases of hers. "I keep an eye on you, you know, even +when I'm far behind." + +She laughed and looked at him proudly; and she had reason for her +pride. At seven--rising eight--Percival had fairly won through the +vicissitudes of a motherless infancy. He had come through a lusty +babyhood and was sprung into an alert and beautiful childhood, dowered +of his father's strong loins, of his mother's gentle fairness, that +caused heads to turn after him as he raced about the village street. + +Heads turned from the cart that now approached and passed. It proved +to be a wagonette. Two women and a man sat among the many packages +behind. On the box-seat, next the driver, was a lanky youth, +peculiarly white and unhealthy of visage. Percival stared at him. In +envy perhaps of the sturdy and glowing health of the starer, the lanky +youth scowled back, and lowering his jaw pulled a grimace with an ease +and repulsiveness that argued some practice. Turning in his seat, he +allowed Percival to appreciate the distortion to the full. + +This was that same Egbert Hunt, whose power of grimace opened, as it +continues, our history. + +Percival directed an interested face to Aunt Maggie. "Is that a clown +sitting up there?" he asked her. He had accompanied Aunt Maggie into +Great Letham on the previous day, and had been much engaged by the +chalked countenance of a clown, grinning from posters of a coming +circus. + +Aunt Maggie answered him with her thoughts: "I think they must be going +to the Manor, dear. I expect they are Lord Burdon's servants." + +"Well, I'm sure he was a clown," Percival answered. But a few paces +farther up the road, stepping into it from a footpath over the fields, +a little old gentleman was met, whom Aunt Maggie greeted as Mr. Amber, +and who verified her opinion. + +"The family is coming down the day after to-morrow," Mr. Amber said, +"as I was telling you last week. Servants are to arrive to-day. I +think I saw them in the wagonette as I came down the path. And how are +you, Master Percival? I hope you are very well." + +Percival put his small hand into the extended palm. "I'm very well, +Mr. Amber, thank you. One of them was a clown, you know. He made a +face at me--like this." + +"God bless my soul, did he indeed?" Mr. Amber exclaimed. + +"Yes, he did," said Percival. "Just make it back again to me, will you +please, so I can see if I showed you properly?" + +But Mr. Amber declined the experiment. "The wind might change while I +was doing it," he said, "and then I should be like that always." + +"Oh, I shouldn't mind," Percival declared. + +"But I should," said Mr. Amber, and poked Percival with his stick. + +They were very close friends, Percival and this bent old librarian, +permanently located at Burdon Old Manor in those days and a constant +visitor at "Post Offic" for the purpose of enjoying the affection +displayed in his silvery old face as it watched the glowing young +countenance upturned to it. "But I should," said he; "and what would +they think of me in there?" + +Percival turned about. They had reached the boundary of the Manor +grounds and he pointed through the trees. "Is that where you live, Mr. +Amber?" + +"Yes, I live in there. Look here, now, here's a nice thing! You're +growing up nearly as big as me and you've never been to see me. That's +not friendly, you know." + +"Oh, but I've wanted to, you know," Percival cried. "We don't often +come this way, you see, do we, Aunt Maggie?" + +He bounded across the road to squint through the wooden paling that +surrounds the Manor park, and Mr. Amber gave a little sigh and turned +to Aunt Maggie. + +"How Percival grows, Miss Oxford! And what a picture, what a picture! +You know, he recalls to me walking these lanes twenty years ago, with +just his counterpart in looks and spirits and charm--ah, well! dear me, +dear me!" And he began to mumble to himself in the fashion of old +people whose thoughts run more easily in the past than in the present, +and to walk around poking with his stick in a fashion that was his own. + +He referred to Roly, Aunt Maggie knew. "You never forget him, do you?" +she said gently. She also was devoted to a memory. "You never forget +him?" + +"No--no," said Mr. Amber, poking around and not looking at her. +"Certainly not--certainly not." + +Percival's voice broke in upon them, announcing his observations +through the fence. "I say, you've got a lovely garden to play in, you +know," he called. + +They turned from thoughts that had a common element to the bright young +spirit in whom those thoughts found a not dissimilar relief. + +"Well, it's not exactly my garden," Mr. Amber replied in his deliberate +way. "I live there just like Honor lives with you. She looks after +the cooking and I look after the books, eh? Would you like to see my +books?" + +"Picture books?" + +"Why, yes, some have got pictures. Yes, there are pictures in some. +And fine big rooms, Percival. You would like to see them." + +Percival turned an excited face to Aunt Maggie, and Aunt Maggie smiled. +He took Mr. Amber's hand. "Thank you very much indeed," he said. "I +tell you what, then. I will see your books and then I think you will +let me play in your garden, please, if you please?" + +Mr. Amber declared that this was a very fair bargain. "Come in and +have some tea, Miss Oxford. Mrs. Ferris will be glad to see you. She +finds housekeeping very dull work, I am afraid, with only me to look +after." + +Aunt Maggie did not reply immediately. Percival looked at her +anxiously. He observed signs of "thinking," and thinking might be +fatal to this most engaging proposition. "If you possibly could, Aunt +Maggie!" he pleaded. + +But it was Mr. Amber's further argument that persuaded her. His words +acutely entered the matter with which she was occupied. "You know, +Percival must be the only soul in the countryside that hasn't seen the +Manor," he urged. "It was the regular custom for any one who liked to +come up in the old days. You recollect the Tenant Teas in the summer? +Why, it's his right, I declare." + +A little colour showed on her cheeks. "Yes, it is his right," she said. + + +III + +Percival was to enjoy another right before the day was out. The +decision to accept Mr. Amber's invitation once made, he had whooped +ahead through the Manor gates and flashed up the long drive at play +with a game of his own among the flanking trees. A noble turn in the +avenue brought him within astonished gaze of the house, and, very +flushed in the cheeks, he came racing back to his elders. + +"I say, it's a perfectly 'normous house you live in, Mr. Amber." + +"Aha!" cries old Mr. Amber, highly pleased. "I knew you would like it, +Master Percival!" + +"Why, I call it a _castle!_" Percival declares. + +They turn the corner and Mr. Amber points with his stick. "Well, +you're not quite wrong, either. That part--the East Wing we call +that--you see how old that is? Almost a castle once, that. See those +funny little marks? Used to be holes there to fire guns through. What +do you think of that?" + +Percival's face proclaims what he thinks--and his voice, deep with awe, +says, "Fire them bang?" + +"Bang? I should think so, indeed!" + +"Who at?" + +"Aha! Strange little boys, perhaps. I'll tell you all about it, if +you'll come and see me sometimes." + +Percival announces that he will come every single day, and runs eagerly +up the five broad steps that lead to the great oak door, now standing +ajar, and halts wonderingly upon the threshold to gaze around the +spacious hall and up at the gallery that encircles it. + +Aunt Maggie stops so abruptly and gives so strange a catch at her +breath that Mr. Amber turns to look at her. Following her eyes, and +reading what he fancies in them, "Why, he does make a brave little +picture, standing there, doesn't he?" Mr. Amber says. + +Her faint smile seems to assent. But she sees the child, framed in the +fine doorway, as his father's son surveying for the first time the +domain that is his own. + +They join him on the threshold and he turns to them round-eyed. "Why, +it's simply 'normous!" he declares. "Aunt Maggie, come and look with +me. It's simply 'normous." + +"Told you so!" cries Mr. Amber, vastly delighted. "Fine big rooms, I +said, didn't I, now?" + +"'Normous!" Percival breathes. "Per-feck-ly 'normous to me, you know;" +and after a huge sigh of wonder, pointing to the gallery, "What's that +funny little bridge up there for?" + +"Bridge!" says Mr. Amber almost indignantly. "Gallery, we call that. +Goes right around the hall, see? Except this end. Bridge! Bless my +soul, bridge!" For the moment he is really almost put out at this +slight done to a celebrated feature of the Manor, his concern betraying +the profound devotion to the house, the sense of his own incorporation +with it, that always characterises him when beneath its roof. That +devotion and that sense have deepened greatly during these years in +which the new Burdons have neglected the Manor and he, living in the +past, has grown to feel himself the custodian of the memories as he is +the author of the "Lives" of the house of Burdon. He has a trick, +indeed, as Percival comes to know, of speaking of "we" when he talks of +himself in connection with the Manor. He uses it now. "We are very +proud of that gallery, I can tell you. Do you know we've had--well, +well, never mind about that now. Come along, I'll take you all over +and up there, too. Come along, Miss Oxford. We'll find Mrs. Ferris +first." + +Mr. Amber takes Percival's hand and starts up the hall; and then pulls +him up short again, but with an exaggerated concern this time. "But +here, I say, young man, what's this? Cap on! Good gracious, you can't +wear your cap here, you know!" + +Percival goes almost as red as the jolly red fisher cap he wears, and +pulls it off, much abashed. He explains his breach of manners. "I +always do take it off in a house. But this doesn't feel like a house +to me, you know; it's simply 'normous!" + +"Ah, but that's a strict rule of ours here. No one but a Burdon may be +capped in the hall; a tradition we call it. There was a--a wicked man +came here hundreds of years ago and kept on his hat and they didn't see +his face properly and thought he was a good man; and the Lord Burdon +that was then came to speak to him, and the wicked man took out his +dagger and killed Lord Burdon. What do you think of that?" + +Percival seeks the proper touch. He asks: "With blug?" + +"Blug--blood!" Mr. Amber exclaims testily, a trifle injured that his +legends adapted to the use of children should lack conviction. "Why, +bless my soul, of course there was blug--blood. Blug--dear me--blood!" +and he puts so fierce an eye round where they stand, as if expecting a +stain to ooze through the floor and corroborate him, that Percival +draws back in haste lest he should be standing in the pool. + +That makes Mr. Amber laugh and he pats Percival's golden head and +concludes. "So ever since then, you see, we never let any but a Burdon +wear his hat in the hall here. It would be a sign of coming disaster +to the house, the tradition says." + +He turns to Aunt Maggie. "My lady was very particular about it," he +says. "She made a great point of observing all the traditions." + +Jane Lady Burdon, though she has been dead these four years, is always +"my lady" to Mr. Amber, as Roly remains to him "my lord" or "my young +lord." Aunt Maggie, standing a little aside, looking at Percival, +replies in her quiet voice: "I know--I remember. They are not so +foolish--traditions--as some people think, Mr. Amber." + +He nods his head in very weighty agreement, then turns again to +Percival who, gazing round, discovers a new amazement. "But _two_ +fireplaces!" Percival cries. + +"Big as a small room, too, aren't they?" says Mr. Amber, important and +gratified again. "Now, look at that! There's another story for you!" +He leads Percival to one vast hearth, high over which the Burdon arms +are carved in oak. "See those letters around there? That's our motto. +That's the Burdon motto: 'I hold!' That was the message a Burdon sent +to the king's troops when Cromwell's men--another wicked man, +Cromwell--were trying to get in. 'I hold!' he told his messenger to +say--just that, 'I hold!' and afterwards, when Cromwell was dead and +another king came back, the king changed the Burdon motto to that. 'I +hold!' Fine? Eh?" + +"I hold!" breathes Percival, mightily impressed. + +"Why, I tell you--I tell you," cries Mr. Amber, "there's a story in +every inch of this house. Better stories than all your picture books. +I'll just tell Mrs. Ferris about tea and then we'll go round. I know +all the stories; no one knows them like I do." And he toddles off to +Mrs. Ferris, absorbed in his lore and congratulating himself upon it, +and Aunt Maggie and Percival are left alone. + +It is then that Percival enjoys his second right of that day. + +Aunt Maggie calls him to her. "Put on your cap again a minute, +Percival--just for a minute." + +"Oh, but I mustn't, Aunt Maggie." + +She takes the cap from his hand and holds it above his clustering curls. + +He protests. "Mr. Amber said so, you know." + +"What did he say, dear?" + +"Only Burdons, Aunt Maggie." + +She placed the cap on his head and took his face between her hands and +kissed him. She looked up, and all about the hall, and high to where, +around the gallery, portraits of bygone Burdons looked steadily down +upon her; and her lips moved as if she spoke some message that she +signalled with her eyes. + +"Whoever are you talking to, Aunt Maggie?" + +She put her hands on his shoulders as he stood sturdily there, the +jolly red fisher cap on the back of his head, a puzzled expression in +his face, and she held him a pace from her. "Say the motto, Percival, +dear--the Burdon motto. Do you remember it? Say it while you have +your cap on--out loud!" + +"Is it a game, Aunt Maggie?" + +"Say it quickly, dear--out loud!" + +"I hold!" says Percival, clear and sharp. + +In the gallery behind him there was a sound of movement. He turned +quickly and saw a man's figure step hastily away. + +"Some one was watching us, Aunt Maggie." + +But Aunt Maggie was gone into her "thinking." + + +IV + +There followed for Percival the most delightful two hours. There was +first a prodigal tea in the housekeeper's room, where motherly Mrs. +Ferris set him to work on scones and cream and strawberry jam, and +where, as the meal progressed, he gladly gave himself over to Mr. +Amber's entrancing stories of Burdon lore, while Aunt Maggie and Mrs. +Ferris gossiped together. + +Mrs. Ferris confirmed the arrival of servants in advance of Lord and +Lady Burdon and gave some details of the visit. Her ladyship had +written to say they expected to stay about a month. They came for the +purpose of seeing if the fine air, for a holiday of that length, would +pick up Rollo. "An ailing child," said Mrs. Ferris. "Just the +opposite of that young gentleman, from all accounts," and she nodded +towards the young gentleman, who beamed back at her as cheerfully as a +prodigiously distended mouth would permit. "A lazy-looking lot," Mrs. +Ferris thought the servants were, and ought to have come earlier, too, +for there was work to be done getting the house ready, Miss Oxford +might take her word for it--all the furniture and the pictures in +dusting sheets--made her quite creepylike to look into the rooms +sometimes. Not right, she thought it, to neglect the Manor like these +were doing. She knew her place, mind you, but she meant to have a word +with her ladyship before her ladyship went off again. + +But the rooms had no creeps for Percival when at last the tea was done, +the jam wiped off, and the promised tour of inspection started. He put +a sticky hand confidingly into Mr. Amber's palm and breathed "'Normous! +Simply 'normous to me, you know," as each apartment was discovered to +him; and stood absorbed, the most gratifying of listeners, while Mr. +Amber, comfortably astride his hobby, poured forth the stories and the +legends that had gone into his cherished "Lives" and that he had by +heart and could tell with an air which called up the actors out of +their frames and out of the very walls to play their parts before the +child. Yet once or twice he stopped in the midst of a recital and +stood frowning as though something puzzled him, and once for so long +that Percival asked: "Are you thinking of something else, Mr. Amber?" + +"Eh?" said Mr. Amber. "Thinking? I'm afraid I was. Let me see, where +was I?" But he turned away, leaving the story unfinished; and as they +walked from the room Percival said politely: "I don't mind if you were, +you know. I only asked. Aunt Maggie does it and I just run away and +play." + +Mr. Amber pressed his old fingers closer about the young hand they +held. "Don't run away when I do it," he said. "Just wake me up. It +keeps coming over me that I've done all this before--held a little +boy's hand and told him all this just like I hold yours and tell you. +Well, that's a very funny feeling, you know." + +"'Strordinary!" Percival agreed in his interested way; and Mr. Amber +was caused to laugh and to forget the stirring in his mind of +recollections buried there twenty years down. Twenty years is deep +water. It was to be more disturbed, causing much frowning, much "funny +feeling," before ever it should clear and show the old librarian, +looking into the pool of his own mind over Percival's shoulder, +Percival's reflection cast up from the depths. + +The tour finished in the library. "Now this is the library!" announced +Mr. Amber at the threshold, much as St. Peter, coming with a new spirit +to the last gate, might say: "Now this is Paradise." + +"Now this is the library. This is my room. Now, we'll just wipe our +feet once again--sideways, too--that's right. And I think our fingers +are still a little sticky, eh? that's better--_there_!" + +"'Normous!" breathed Percival. "Simply 'normous, to me, you know." + +No dust sheets here, everything mellow with the deep sheen of age +carefully attended. Tier upon tier of books, every hue of +binding--dark red to brown, brown to deep blue, deep blue to white--and +all, however worn, however aged, exquisitely responsive to Mr. Amber's +soft chamois leather. + +Mr. Amber waved a proud hand at them. "I expect you'll live a long +time before you see another collection like this, Master Percival. And +I know every one of them--every single one just like you know your +toys. In the pitch dark--in the pitch dark, mind you--I could put my +hand on any one I wanted without touching another. What do you think +of that, eh?" + +Percival has no better thought for it than the old one. + +"'Normous!" he declares. "Simply 'normous to me, you know, Mr. Amber!" + +"And the care I take of them!" Mr. Amber continues, as pleased with his +audience as if Percival were the librarians of the House of Lords, the +Bodleian and the British Museum rolled into one. "You wouldn't find +enough dust on those books, _anywhere_, to cover the head of a pin!" +He points to the highest and furthest shelves: "You'd think there might +be dust right up there, wouldn't you? Well, you just choose one of +those books--any one, anywhere you like." + +"To keep for my own?" + +"Keep! Bless my soul, no! Keep! Dear me! dear me! No, just point to +a book." + +"That one!" says Percival, stretching an arm. "That one in the corner!" + +Mr. Amber accepts the challenge with a triumphant rubbing together of +his hands. "That brown one, eh? Very well. That's a rare +volume--Black Letter--Latimer's 'Fruitfull Sermons'--London, 1584. +Now, you see." He trots excitedly to a high, wheeled ladder, runs it +beneath the "Fruitfull Sermons," climbs up shakily, fetches down the +volume and presents it for Percival's inspection: "There! Run your +finger over the top of it; that's where dust collects. Ah, not that +finger; got a cleaner one? That'll do. Now!" + +It is getting dusk in the library, so Mr. Amber clutches the small +finger that has rubbed over the "Fruitfull Sermons," and they go to a +deep window where young head and old peer anxiously at the pink skin. + +"Not a speck!" Mr. Amber cries triumphantly. "Not a speck of dust! +What did I tell you?" + +And Percival, holding the finger carefully apart from its fellows: +"'Strordinary! Simply 'strordinary to me, you know!" + +Mr. Amber climbs laboriously up the steps again, and seats himself at +the top, and starts dusting all around the "Fruitfull Sermons," and +completely forgets Percival, who wanders about for a little and then, +hearing a sound, goes to the door. + + +V + +Here was the white-faced youth, our Egbert Hunt, who had grimaced at +him from the box of the wagonette. The white-faced youth stood on the +further side of the passage, paused beneath a window by whose light he +seemed to be examining a small phial held in his hand. + +Percival ran forward: "Hallo! Are you a clown, please?" + +The white-faced youth bit a pale lip and stared resentfully: "Do you +live here?" + +"No, I don't," Percival told him. "I've been having tea with Mrs. +Ferris." + +The white-faced youth developed the sudden heat characteristic of +Egbert Hunt in the Miller's Field days. "Well, don't you call me no +names, then," said Egbert Hunt fiercely. + +"I'm not," Percival protested. "You made a face at me when you were +driving in the road, and I thought you were a clown, you see." + +Egbert Hunt breathed hotly through his nose. "Saucing me, ain't you?" +he demanded. + +Percival had heard the expression in the village. "Oh, no," he said in +his earnest way. "I thought you had a funny face, that was all." + +His engaging tone and air mollified the sour Egbert. "I've got a sick +yedache," said Egbert. "That's what I've got--crool!" + +Percival looked sorry and sought to give comfort with a phrase of Aunt +Maggie. "It will _soon_ go," he said soothingly. + +"Not mine," Egbert declared. "Not my sort won't. I'm a living martyr +to 'em. Fac'." He nodded with impressive gloom and took three +tabloids from the phial he held in his hand. "Vegules," he explained; +and swallowed them with a very loud gulping sound. + +"What are you, please?" Percival inquired, vastly interested. + +"Slave," said Egbert briefly. + +"But you're not black," argued Percival, recalling the picture of a +chained negro on a missionary almanac in Honor's kitchen. + +"Thenk Gord, no!" said Egbert piously. "White slaves are worse," he +added. + +"And were those slaves in the carriage with you?" + +"Tyrangs," said Egbert Hunt. "Tyrangs and sickopants of tyrangs." + +Percival started a question; then, as a sound came: "That's my Aunt +Maggie calling me. Good-by! I hope your poor head will soon be +better." + +Egbert smiled the wan smile of one not to be deluded into hope: "You've +been kind to me," he said. "I like you. You ain't like all the rest. +What's your name?" + +"Percival. I really must go now, if you please. My Aunt Maggie--" + +He started to run in the direction of Aunt Maggie's voice; but Egbert +recalled him with a very mysterious and compelling "H'st!" and wag of +the head. + +"Was that your Aunt Maggie in the hall with you just now?" Egbert +inquired. + +A sudden recollection came to Percival. "You mean before tea? Was +that you?" + +"What she make you put your cap on for, and say 'I hold'? That was a +funny bit, that was." + +"Why, I don't know," said Percival. "Was that you up on the bridge?" + +Egbert did not answer the question. "You ask her," he said, "an' tell +me. Odd bit, that was." + +"Yes, I will," Percival agreed. "I say, I must go. What's your name, +if you please?" + +"Mr. Unt. Run along; you're a nice little chap; I like you." + +"I like you, too," said Percival, very interested in this strange +character. "I'm sorry I thought you were a clown. Good-by, Mr. Unt. +I say, there is my Aunt Maggie! Isn't this a 'normous house?" and he +scampered brightly to the sound of Aunt Maggie's voice. + +"Abode of tyrangs," said Mr. Hunt, moving swiftly in the opposite +direction. "Boil um!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +FOLLOWS A FROG AND FINDS A TADPOLE + +I + +The acquaintance with slave Egbert was very shortly renewed. The +afternoon of the Friday that was to see the arrival of the Burdons at +the Old Manor brought also a threshing-engine up the village street--a +snorting and enormous thing that fetched Percival rushing to the gate +and drew him after it and kept him in charmed attendance until "Post +Offic" was half a mile behind. Here the engine stopped, and the men +who accompanied it setting themselves to a deliberate meal, Percival +turned himself into a horse that had escaped from its stable and was +recaptured and began to trot himself home. + +He was in the lane that strikes out of the highroad towards Burdon Old +Manor when his quick eye caught sight of a frog in the grass-grown +hedge-side and "Whoa!" cried Percival and changed from escaped horse to +ardent frog-hunter. The sturdiest frog, it proved to be, a big, solid +fellow and wonderfully nimble at great jumps when Percival was found to +be in pursuit. He pressed it hotly; it bounded amain. He laughed and +followed--it was here--it was there--it was lost--it was found--it was +gone again. He grew stubborn and vexed in the chase. A frown stood on +his moist brow. He began to breathe hotly. The frog perceived the +change. It lost its wits. It dashed from cover, made with wild bounds +across the road, was closely followed, and lived to tell the frightful +tale by intervention of a shout before it, a stumble behind it, and the +barest pulling up of the Manor wagonette within a yard of fallen +Percival. + +Lord Burdon jumped out and lifted Percival in his arms before the +frog-hunter was well aware of what had happened. "Not hurt, eh? +That's all right! You young rascal, you--you might have been killed. +Haven't you got ears? What are those great flappers for, eh?" and Lord +Burdon tweaked a flapper and laughed jovially. "What were you doing, +eh?" + +"I was chasing a frog," said Percival, rubbing his ear and using his +elevation on Lord Burdon's arms to have a stare at the little boy and +the pretty lady in the wagonette. + +"A frog! Why here's a frog for you. Come and look at my frog in the +cart here." + +Lord Burdon carried him to the body of the wagonette. "Here's my frog! +tadpole, rather. Rollo, look here. You're only a little tadpole, +aren't you? Look what this fine air is going to do for you. Look at +this great lump of a fellow. That's what you've got to be like!" + +The little tadpole smiled shyly. Tadpole was an excusable description. +Rollo Letham at nearly ten might have passed for younger than Percival +at rising eight. He was very thin, pale, fragile; his head looked too +big for his delicate frame; his eyes were big and shy, his mouth +nervous. + +"A shame!" said Lady Burdon, smiling. "You're not a tadpole, are you, +Rollo? But this is a splendid young man!" And she stretched a kind +hand--nicely gloved--across the cart to Percival. + +Lord Burdon raised him to meet it. Bare knees, well-streaked with mud +and blood, came into view. + +"Oh, your poor little knees!" Lady Burdon cried. + +Percival caught Rollo's eye fixed in some horror on the wounds. "I cut +them every day!" he said bigly, and shot a proud glance at the tadpole. + +"Well, they're terrible. They must be washed. Bring him in, Maurice. +We'll wash him, as we've nearly killed him, at the house." + +"Yes, do! Yes, please do!" Rollo whispered, and his mother patted his +hand, pleased at the animation of the thin little face. + +Lord Burdon hesitated: "Take him to the Manor? Why, that may be miles +from his home, you know." + +"I suppose we can send him back in the trap, can't we?" Lady Burdon +said, a trifle disagreeably. "You're a regular old woman, Maurice. +Lift him in next to Rollo. You can see how Rollo takes to him, I +should have thought." + +"Didn't want to be had up for kidnapping, you know," Lord Burdon +responded cheerfully. "Would be a bad start in the local opinion--eh?" +And he laughed with the appeal and the apology with which he always met +his wife's waves of impatience. "Shove up, Rollo! In you get, +frog-hunter! Heavens! What a lump. All right. Drive on!" + +"Gee up!" cried Percival, highly entertained, and chatted frankly with +Lady Burdon as the wagonette bowled along. To her questions he was +nearly eight, he told her; he would have another birthday in a short +time; Honor gave him a sword at his last birthday and his Aunt Maggie +gave him a trumpet. "You may blow my trumpet, if you like," turning to +Rollo. "Honor says it is poison to blow it because I've broken the +little white thing what you blow through. But I blow it all right." + +Rollo flushed and smiled and put a thin little hand from beneath the +rug and took Percival's muddy fist and held it for the remainder of the +journey. Boy friends who did not laugh at him were new to him. + +"Miss Oxford's little boy," Percival explained to further questions. +"I live at the post-office, and we've got a drawer _full_ of stamps +with funny little holes what you tear off." + +Lady Burdon turned to her husband: "Ah, I know now. You remember? You +remember the vicar telling us about Miss Oxford when we first came down +here? Well, she's to be congratulated on her nephew. I'm glad. He'll +be the jolliest little companion for Rollo." + +Lord Burdon remembered. "Yes--this will be her sister's child. +Orphan, poor little beggar." + +And Lady Burdon: "We'll be able to have him up with Rollo as much as we +like, I've no doubt. Look how happy they are together," and she smiled +at them, chatting eagerly. + +Percival was twisting and bending the better to see the occupants of +the box-seat. A form that seemed familiar sat beside the driver. +"Why, that's Mr. Unt!" Percival cried brightly, and as the familiar +form turned at the sound of its name, "How's your poor headache, Mr. +Unt?" he asked. "Much better now, isn't it?" + +Mr. Unt's pallid face became slightly tinged with embarrassment. "The +young gentleman spoke to me at the Manor Wednesday, me lady," he +apologised. "Had come up to take tea with Mr. Hamber." He profited by +the touch of his hat with which he spoke to draw his hand across his +forehead; a sick yedache clearly was still torturing there. + +"His headaches are terrible," Percival explained. "I thought he was a +clown, you know. I saw him driving in this carriage with tyrangs." + +Egbert's back shivered. "Parding, me lady," said he, turning again. + +Lady Burdon laughed. "Hunt," she told Percival. "Not Unt. He speaks +badly." + +"You know, his headaches--" Percival began; and she added more +severely: "He is a servant." + +"He's my servant," Rollo said. "Hunt looks after me when I go out. I +hate nurses, so I have him. He'll be yours too, if you'll come and +play with me. Both of ours. May he, mother?" + +"You can tell Miss Oxford that some one will always be there to keep an +eye on you if she will let you come and play," Lady Burdon replied to +Percival. + +"So now he is yours and mine," cried Rollo, squeezing the hand he held. + +"Thank you very much," Percival said. "Of course, if his headache is +very bad we won't have him, because he will like to lie down." + +He spoke clearly; and a tiny little tremble of Egbert's back seemed to +advertise again the gratitude that sympathy aroused in him. + +"Oh, that's nothing," Rollo declared. "He pretends." + +The poor back drooped. "Tyrangs," Egbert murmured and furtively edged +a vegule to his mouth. + + +II + +In the dusk of that evening Percival went bounding home, immensely +pleased with his new friends and with the new delights in life they had +discovered for him. He had nice clean knees and a bandage on each--a +matter that caused him considerable pride. He had gladly promised to +come to see Rollo again on the morrow, and he would have stayed much +longer into the evening had not Lord Burdon (as Lady Burdon said) +"begun to fidget" and to persist that Miss Oxford must be getting +nervous at this long absence. + +"His aunt will naturally be glad when she knows where he has been," +Lady Burdon had exclaimed. + +Lord Burdon gave the smile that she knew came before one of his +annoying rejoinders. "That won't make her wild with joy while she +doesn't know where he is, old girl." + +She was irritable. The vexation of having to leave London, which she +enjoyed, for Burdon which she felt she would hate, was settling upon +her. She looked at him resentfully. "That is funny, I suppose?" she +inquired. "You are always very funny, aren't you?" and she gave orders +for Hunt to take Percival home. + +Down the road Percival chattered brightly to Egbert, holding his hand. +"I jump like this," he explained, capering along, "because I pretend +I'm a horse. Then if you want me to walk quietly you only have to say +'whoa!' you see." + +"Whoa!" said Egbert very promptly. + +Percival's legs itched to jump out the animation that events had +bottled into him. "Did you say 'gee up'?" he presently inquired. + +"No," said Egbert. + +"Oh," said Percival, and with a little sigh repeated "oh!" + +Egbert felt the appeal. "Fac' of it is, that jumping jerks me up." + +"Got another sick headache, have you?" + +"Crool," said the living martyr to 'em. + +Percival took another phrase of Aunt Maggie: "You must be thor'ly out +of sorts, I think." + +"Got one foot in the grave, that's what I've got," Egbert agreed. +"Fac'." + +Percival peered down at Egbert's legs. "Which one, please?" he +inquired. + +"Figger o' speech," Egbert told him, and explained: "Way of saying +things." He added: "Go off in the night one of these days, I shall;" +and commented with gloomy satisfaction: "Then they'll be sorry." + +Percival asked: "Who will?" He visioned Egbert running by night with +one foot embedded in a tombstone, and he was considerably attracted by +the picture. "Who will?" he repeated. + +"Tyrangs!" said Egbert. "Too late to be sorry then. Fac'." + +"Well, I should be dreffly sorry," Percival assured him. + +"Believe you," said Egbert, "and many thanks for the same. First +that's ever said a kine word to me, you are; and I'll be grateful--if +I'm spared." + +He looked at his watch and then down the lane. "Think you could get +home safe from here? Fac' is I'm behind with my vegules and left them +in my other coat." + +"Oh, yes," Percival agreed. "This is just by the corner, you know." + +"Well, then," said Egbert, halting, "you see, if I don't take 'em fair, +can't expec' them to treat me fair, can I?" + +Percival assented: "Oh, no." + +"Sure you'll be all right?" + +"Oh, yes. I'll be a horse, you see. Just say 'gee up!' will you?" + +"Gee up!" said Egbert. + +"Stead-_ey_!" cried Percival, prancing. "Stead-_ey_! Goodnight!" and +bounded off. + +"Nice little f'ler," commented Egbert; and hurried back to the vegules. + +Where the lane turned to the village, horse Percival was made, as he +declared, to shy dreff'ly. He galloped almost into the arms of two +figures that stepped suddenly out of the dusk. "Oh, Percival!" Aunt +Maggie cried and kissed him. "Oh, Percival, where _have_ you been?" + +"Say 'whoa!" cried Percival. "Say 'whoa!' Aunt Maggie. I'm a horse--a +white one, you know." + +Two heavy hands pressed the white horse's shoulders, stilling its +plunges. "You're a bad little boy, that's what you are," Honor +exclaimed, "running off and frightening your Auntie, and not caring nor +minding. Don't Care comes before a fall, as I've told you many times +and--" + +"_Pride_ comes before a fall," corrected Percival. "You've got it +wrong _again_, Honor," and Honor's flow was checked with the suddenness +that had become the established termination of attempts to reprove +Percival since he had learnt the right phrasing of her store of +confused maxims. + +She took his hand while she pondered doubtfully upon the correction, +and with Aunt Maggie holding the other, he skipped along, bubbling over +with his adventures. "I've got bandages on both my legs, Aunt +Maggie--oh, and Hunt has got one of his legs in the grave, just fancy +that! I've been having tea with Rollo; and Lady Burdon put on these +bandages and she wants me to go and play with Rollo every day. _Do_ +let me, Aunt Maggie. I say, you are squeezing my hand most dreffly, +you know." + +Aunt Maggie relaxed the sudden contraction of her fingers. "Lady +Burdon--yes?--tell from the very beginning, Percival dear." + +"Well, she said 'Promise to tell your Aunt Maggie I will come and ask +her to let you be Rollo's little friend and'--Aunt _Maggie_! You're +_hurting_!" + +She recollected herself again and patted the small fingers. "Tell from +the very beginning, dear. How did you meet them?" + +"Well, you understand, I was catching a frog--" + +"Post Offic" was reached, supper was swallowed, his merry head +beginning to droop and nod, while still he excitedly recounted all his +adventures. He was almost asleep when Aunt Maggie undressed him and +put him to bed. + +She sat a long time beside him, watching him while he slept. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +LADY BURDON COMES TO "POST OFFIC" + +I + +In the morning Lady Burdon came with Rollo to make her request that +Percival might spend much of his time at the Old Manor as Rollo's +playmate. In these seven years since the amazement at Miller's Field, +this was but her third visit to the estate, her first for the purpose +of staying any length of time, and the first that had seen Rollo with +her. Two days had been spent here when Jane Lady Burdon had been +brought to rest in Burdon churchyard; three when Mr. Maxwell, the +agent, had been troublesome and importunate in the matter of expensive +alterations on the property. Lady Burdon had come down then "to have +an understanding with him;" as she expressed it--"to see for herself." +The result had been as unfortunate for Mr. Maxwell (to whom she had +shown some temper) as it had been augmentative of the dislike she had +always felt for the property and its greedy responsibilities. The +result had been to filter over the countryside from Mr. Maxwell that +she was the controlling partner in the new representatives of the +house; that hers was the refusal to take up the urgently needed +irrigation scheme; hers the scandal (as it became) of neglect to carry +out improvements in the cottages over at Abbess Roding; hers the crime +(as it was held) of the selling-up over at Shepwall that entailed +eviction of tenants old on the land as the house of Burdon itself. + +On the other hand the result had been to return Lady Burdon to the +Mount Street life with at least a temporary stop put to the Maxwell +whinings and at least a lighter drain from the Mount Street expenses. + +Miss Oxford had not seen her on either of these visits. Miss Oxford +had only smiled in an odd way when she heard of the behaviour that had +set the countryside clacking. The better Lady Burdon flourished, the +more Lady Burdon exercised the prerogatives of her usurped position, +the riper she ripened for the blow, when there should be returned to +her the son whose mother she had murdered; that was the entertainment +Miss Oxford nursed through these years, living so gently and so +quietly, "thinking" so much, poor dear. + +"Strange-like?" "Silly-like?" Or dreadfully sane? For Miss Oxford's +own part, she knew only one thing of her mental condition. At very +rare intervals there seized her a state that was related to and that +recalled the tremendous pressure in her brain when she had knelt, +consumed with hate and desire for vengeance, by Audrey's death-bed. It +took the form of a sudden violent fluttering in her brain, as though a +live, winged thing were beating there, beating to be free. The +pressure that came by Audrey's death-bed had ended in a snap--in +something giving that left her extraordinarily, tinglingly calm, +possessed by the plan and certainty of revenge to be taken by Audrey's +son--one day. The fluttering, the winglike beating ended of its own +volition, and outside any command she could put upon it--sweeping up +all her senses in its beating, only leaving to her the terror that it +would end--in what? Sometimes it came in just the tiniest flutter, +without cause and gone as soon as come, just arresting her and +frightening her like a swift shoot of pain in a nerve. Sometimes in +the briefest flutter but with cause; such a case had been when Percival +told her of his meeting with the Burdons and she had caused him to +exclaim by clutching his hand. Once of much longer duration and of new +effect, and with revelation to her of the end it threatened. That was +when, a few days ago, she had stood alone with Percival in the great +hall of Burdon Old Manor. It was the fluttering that had bade her make +him put on his cap and cry 'I hold!' and she had been informed that if +it did not stop--if it did not stop!--if it did not stop! she would +scream out her secret--run through the house and cry to all that Lady +Burdon was-- + +It had stopped. The beating wings ceased. She was returned to her +quiet, gentle waiting. + + +II + +It always took the same form--the presentation of a picture. + +"They're coming! They're coming!" cried Percival, bursting into the +parlour with tossing arms, aflame with excitement, hopping on lively +toes, to announce Lady Burdon and Rollo. "They're coming, Aunt +Maggie!" and he was away to greet them at the gate. + +Aunt Maggie was at the table where post-office business was conducted. +The open door gave directly on to the garden path; and she heard voices +and then a step on the threshold and bent over the papers before her; +and then a pleasant tone that said "Good morning, I am Lady Burdon," +and immediately the beating wings, wild, savage, whirling, and she +transported from where she sat to watch herself in the picture that the +fluttering always brought. + +Immense beating of the wings, the sound drumming in her ears; seven +years rolled up as a stage-curtain discloses a scene, and she saw the +room in the Holloway road, herself kneeling there and Audrey's voice: +"... and then said 'I am Lady Burdon' ... O Maggie! O Maggie! ... and +I said 'Oh, how can you be Lady Burdon?' ... Maggie! Maggie!" The +beating wings drove up to a pitch they had never before reached. +Through their tumult--buffeted, as it were, by their fury--and from the +scene in which she saw herself, she looked up and saw Lady Burdon +smiling there, and heard Lady Burdon's voice: "Good morning, I am Lady +Burdon." Again, as in the great hall with Rollo, if it did not +stop!--if it did not stop!--if it did not stop! she must cry out: "You +are not! You said that to Audrey and killed her! Now--" + + +And again, and this time when the terrible fluttering had almost beaten +itself free and she had formed her lips to release it, it suddenly +stopped. As at the bedside, seven years before, she fell from paroxysm +of passion to unnatural calm, so now she was returned to her normal, +quiet self, content to wait, and she said quite quietly: "Percival told +me to expect you." + +Lady Burdon advanced pleasantly. "Ah, and I hope he also remembered to +tell you of my apologies. I am afraid we kept him with us much too +long last night." + +She looked around the room with the air of one willing to chat and to +be entertained, and Miss Oxford, murmuring there was no occasion for +apology, advanced a chair with: "Please sit down, if you will. This is +very humble, I am afraid. It is only the post-office, you know; and +only a toy post-office at that." + +She was quite herself again. Through this interview, and always +thereafter when she met Lady Burdon or thought of her, she was invested +with the calmness that had come to her by the death-bed. She knew +quite certainly that she had only to wait. She was not at all anxious. +She knew she could wait. She only feared--now for the first time, and +increasingly as the attacks became more frequent--that an onset of that +dreadful fluttering might descend upon her and might not go before it +had driven her to wreck the plan for which she waited--Percival, not +she, to avenge his mother. + +The fear caused in her a noticeable nervousness of manner. Lady Burdon +attributed it to natural embarrassment at this gracious visit, and that +made her more gracious yet. Miller's Field would have perceived in +Lady Burdon, as she sat talking pleasantly, a considerable change from +the Mrs. Letham it had known. She was very becomingly dressed. She +had grown a trifle rounder in the figure and fuller in the face since +Miller's Field gave her good-by, and that advantaged her. Her olive +complexion was warmer in shade, healthier in tinting than it had been. +The walk from the Manor had touched her freshly, and she had been +pleased by the respectful greetings of the villagers. Rollo, +completely in love with Percival, was brighter than she had ever known +him. She had hated the idea of burying herself down here for a month; +but she was beginning to entertain an agreeable view of taking up her +neglected position and dignity in this pleasant countryside. She was +very happy as she faced Miss Oxford: her happiness and all that +contributed to it made her very comely to the eye; and she was aware of +that. + +She spoke enthusiastically of Percival. "Such a splendid young man. +Such charming manners." She spoke most graciously of knowing all about +Miss Oxford and of how plucky of her it was to take up the post-office. +She said smilingly that Miss Oxford was not to take advantage of the +post-office by keeping herself to herself as the saying was; and when +Miss Oxford replied; "You are kind; we have no society here, of course; +with the one or two families the post-office makes no difference; we +are all old friends; with you, it is different;" she said very +winningly: "Not kind, in any case--selfish. It is Percival I am after. +We have taken so much to him. He and my Rollo have struck up the +greatest friendship, and that is such a pleasure to me. Rollo as a +rule is so shy and reserved with children. He has no child friends. +It will do him a world of good if Percival may play with him. Percival +will be the making of him." + +She smiled in confident and happy belief of her words, and Miss Oxford +smiled, too. It was not for Lady Burdon to know--yet--that Percival +was being brought up to be not Rollo's making but his undoing. + +But Miss Oxford only said that the friendship would be capital for +Percival also, since Lady Burdon permitted it. "There are no boys here +in Little Letham that he can make close companions," she said. "We +seem short of children--except among the villagers. I think Mrs. +Espart's little girl at Upabbot over the Ridge is the nearest." + +Lady Burdon nodded. "Mrs. Espart--yes, I am to go over there. She +left cards, thinking we had arrived. Abbey Royal, she lives at, +doesn't she?" + +"Abbey Royal, yes. One of our show places, you know. What Percival +would call 'normous," and Miss Oxford related the "'normous; simply +'normous to me, you know," of Percival's visit to the Manor. "We came +to 'enormous' when I was reading to him shortly afterwards," she said, +"and he exclaimed: 'I know! 'Normous, like Mr. Amber's house!' Mr. +Amber showed him round." + +"He is the sweetest little fellow," Lady Burdon laughed. "And reading +to him--I was going to ask you about that--about lessons, I mean. Does +he do lessons? Rollo's education has been terribly neglected, I am +afraid. I thought it would be so nice if he could join his new friend +in them while he is here." + +"Percival goes every morning to Miss Purdie--you would have passed her +cottage--next to the Church." + +"Capital," Lady Burdon said. "I will arrange for Rollo." + +"She will be delighted. Having Percival has already lost her a chance +of another pupil. Mrs. Espart was going to send her little girl over +daily, but didn't like the idea of the post-office little boy." + +"Ridiculous!" Lady Burdon cried. "I will tell her so." She turned at +the sound of much scrambling and laughter in the doorway. "Ridiculous! +Rollo, you are going to do lessons with Percival. Now won't that be +jolly, darling?" + +But it was Percival who was first in and came bounding to them with: +"Aunt Maggie! Aunt Maggie! Rollo has got a pony of his own in London +and rides it! Well, what do you think of that?" + +Aunt Maggie thought it splendid and was introduced to Rollo, and +"suddenly seemed to lose her tongue," as Lady Burdon told Lord Burdon +at lunch. "Hugged Percival as though she hadn't seen him for a year +and scarcely looked at Rollo. Jealous, I believe, at the difference +between their stations. Funny, that kind of jealousy, don't you think?" + +But it was not jealousy that had silenced Aunt Maggie and caused her to +clutch Percival to her breast. At sight of him with Rollo, and of Lady +Burdon smiling at him, that fluttering had run up in her brain, and she +had clasped Percival to restrain herself while it lasted. It had gone +while she held him; but she had almost cried: "Do you dare smile at +him? He is Audrey's son! Audrey's son!" + +Percival wriggled from her embrace and she heard Lady Burdon say to +Rollo: "Well, why not a pony here?" and heard her laugh delightedly at +the excited roar the suggestion shot out of Percival. + +"I wonder if there is anywhere here we could get a pony for Rollo?" she +heard Lady Burdon say, and heard the question repeated, and made a +great effort to come out of the shaken state in which the fluttering +had left her. + +"Over at Market Roding you might get a pony," she said dully. "There +is a Mr. Hannaford there. He has ponies. He supplies ponies to +circuses, I have heard." + +Lady Burdon kissed Percival good-by at the gate. "Lord Burdon shall +take you over with Rollo to this Mr. Hannaford," she told him. "That +Miss Purdie's cottage? We are going to look in on our way. Run back +to your Aunt Maggie. She is tired, I think." + +"Well, she's thinking, you know," said Percival. + +Lady Burdon laughed. "Thinking, is she, you funny little man? Of +what?" + +And Percival, in his earnest way: "Well, I don't know. It 'plexes me, +you know." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +LITTLE 'ORSES AND LITTLE STU-PIDS + +I + +The pony was obtained from Mr. Hannaford and lessons were arranged with +Miss Purdie. + +It was the happiest party that occupied the wagonette on that drive to +and from Mr. Hannaford's farm at Market Roding. Lord Burdon, Rollo, +Percival--each declared it that evening to have been the very jolliest +time that ever was. + +"Well, we have had a jolly day, haven't we, old man?" Lord Burdon said +to Rollo when he kissed him good night. Lord Burdon had worn a shabby +old suit and had told the boys stories till, as he assured them, his +tongue ached; and had walked with them about Mr. Hannaford's farm, with +Percival prancing on one side and Rollo quietly beaming on the other. +In London, in the life that Lady Burdon directed at Mount Street, such +careless, childish joys were impossible. Not since the day he had +spent with Rollo at the Zoölogical Gardens, when Lady Burdon was at +Ascot, had he so completely enjoyed himself--and not a doubt but that +the bursting excitement of young Percival was responsible for the far +greater joviality of this day at Mr. Hannaford's. + +"Did I tell you about when they came to the ditch while we were walking +over the farm?" Lord Burdon asked Lady Burdon. "That little beggar +Percival--" + +Lady Burdon looked at him over the book she was reading. "Not a sixth +time, _please_, Maurice," she said. "I'm really rather tired of +hearing it," and Lord Burdon assumed his foolishly distressed look and +for the remainder of the evening sat smiling over the jolly day in +silence. + +The jolliest day for Rollo! He had been the quiet one of the party +because to be retiring was his nature, but when Percival shouted and +when Percival jumped, Rollo's heart was in the shout and Rollo's spirit +bounded with the jump. He had never believed there could be such a +friend for him or so much new fun in life. Hitherto his chief +companion had been his mother, his constant mood a dreamy and shrinking +habit of mind. Vigorous Percival introduced him to the novelty of +"games," showed him what mirth was, and what vigorous young limbs could +do. The jolliest day! He fell asleep that night thinking of Percival; +in his dreams with Percival raced and shouted; awakened in the morning +with Percival for his first thought. + +And of course it was the jolliest day for Percival. "I never had such +fun, you know," Percival declared to Aunt Maggie. "I rode the pony all +alone and Mr. Hannaford said I was a Pocket Marvel; so I should like to +know what you think of that?" + +Mr. Hannaford, indeed, was mightily pleased with Percival. Mr. +Hannaford was an immensely stout man with a tremendously deep voice and +with very twinkling little eyes set in a superbly red face. He wore +brown leather gaiters and very tight cord-breeches and a very loose +tail-coat of tweed, cut very square. From his habit of never removing +his bowler hat in the house even at meals, the common belief was that +he slept in it, and he punctuated his sentences when he spoke, and +marked his alternate strides when he walked, by tremendously loud +cracks of a bamboo cane against a gaitered leg. It was his frequent +habit when he desired emphasis to bless what he termed his "eighteen +stun proper," and he caused Rollo to giggle by his trick of calling a +horse "a norse." + +Mr. Hannaford received his visitors by raising his hat as far from his +head as any one had ever seen it, by giving three terrific cracks of +his cane against his leg, and by extending to Rollo and Percival in +turn a hand of the size of a small shoulder of mutton. + +"Well, you've come to the right place for a little 'orse, me lord, +bless my eighteen stun proper if you haven't," Mr. Hannaford declared. +"And 'll want a proper little 'orse for your lordship's son, moreover," +continued Mr. Hannaford, after another tremendous leg-and-cane crack +and looking admiringly at Percival. + +Percival was quick with the correction. "Oh, I'm not his son. I'm +only a little boy, you know. I can ride, though, because sometimes I +pretend I'm a horse all day long; so I should like to know what you +think of that?" + +Mr. Hannaford was hugely delighted, and having begged his lordship's +pardon for the mistake, gave it as his deliberate opinion that a young +gentleman who could pretend he was a norse all day long was a Pocket +Marvel. + +The Pocket Marvel performed a prance or two in order to show that this +estimate of him was well merited, and they proceeded to the stables, +Mr. Hannaford, as they walked, making clear, to the tune of astonishing +leg-and-cane cracks, the reasons why the right place for a little 'orse +had been selected by his lordship. + +"There's money in little 'orses," said Mr. Hannaford. (Crack!) "And +I'm one of the few that know it." (Crack!) He broke off, stared towards +the house, face changing from its superb red to astonishing purple, and +to a distant figure roared "Garge!" in a voice like a clap of thunder. +"Garge! Fetch that pig out of the flower beds! You want my stick +about your back, Garge; bless my eighteen stun proper if you don't." + +"Pardon, me lord," begged Mr. Hannaford, bringing his stick back to his +leg from where it had flourished at Garge, and continuing: "There's +more demand for little 'orses than anybody that hasn't given brain to +it would believe, me lord. Gentlefolks' little girls want little +'orses and gentlefolks' little boys want little 'orses; gentlefolks' +little carts want little 'orses, young gentlemen want little polo +'orses, and circuses want little trick 'orses. Where are they going to +get 'em?" inquired Mr. Hannaford, and answered his question with: +"They're coming to me." (Crack!) + +"Capital!" declared Lord Burdon, who was finding Mr. Hannaford a man +nearer to his liking than any he had met within the radius of Mount +Street. + +"Capital's the word," agreed Mr. Hannaford. "Bless my eighteen stun +proper if it isn't!" (Crack!) "It will take time, mind you, me lord. +I'm doing it in stages. Stage One: circus little 'orses. I rackon I'm +level with Stage One now. Started with circus little 'orses because I +was in the circus line once and my brother Martin--Stingo they call +him, me lord--is in it now. Proper connaction with circus little +'orses I've worked up. They come to me when they want a circus little +'orse, bless my eighteen stun proper if they don't." (Crack!) "Stage +Two: little gentlefolks' little 'orses--just starting that now, me +lord. Stage Three: gentlefolks' little carts' little 'orses. Stage +Four: young gentlemen's little polo 'orses. What I want," declared Mr. +Hannaford with a culminating crack of tremendous proportions, "is to +make people when they see a little 'orse think of Hannaford. +Hannaford--little 'orse; little 'orse--Hannaford. Two words one +meaning, one meaning two words; that's my lay and I'll do it, bless my +eighteen stun proper if I won't!" (Crack!) + +"'Pon my soul it's a big scheme," said Lord Burdon, highly entertained +and beginning to realise that this was no common man. + +"Correct!" Mr. Hannaford assured him, and confided with a terrible +crack: "I call it a whopper. One of these days Stingo will settle down +and join me and there'll be no more holding us than you can hold a +little 'orse with your finger and thumb." + +"Settle down?" Lord Burdon questioned, greatly interested. "Younger +than you, eh?" + +"Three and a half minutes," returned Mr. Hannaford, and added, "Twins," +in reply to Lord Burdon's exclamation of surprise. "Not much in point +of time, but very different in point of nature. Wants settling down; +then he'll be all right. You'll see Stingo in a minute, me lord; he's +here," and Mr. Hannaford pointed to the line of sheds they had reached. +"On a visit," he explained; and added with a heavy sigh: "Here to-day +and gone to-morrow; that's Stingo." + +He unlatched a door. "This way, me lord. Only wooden stables at +present; brick, and brick floors, that's to come. This way, my young +lordship. This way, little master; don't you be a little 'orse now, +else maybe we shall make a mistake and tie you up in a stall." + +The interior was dim. Restless movements announced the presence of +several little 'orses, and presently was to be seen a line of plump +little quarters, mainly piebald, one or two more sedately coloured. + +"Gentleman to buy a little 'orse," announced Mr. Hannaford; and +immediately a face that was the precise replica of his own appeared +from over the side of a partition. + +"Well he's come to the proper place for a little 'orse," announced the +face in a very husky whisper and disappeared again. + +"Why, just my very words!" declared Mr. Hannaford with high delight. +"Just my very words, bless my eighteen stun proper if it wasn't! Step +out, Stingo. Lord Burdon, over from Burdon, with his young lordship +and a--" Mr. Hannaford stopped and stared around him. "Why, +wherever's that young Pocket Marvel got to?" + +"I'm here!" Percival called excitedly. "I'm stroking this dear little +black one and he knows me; so I should like to know what you think of +that?" He came dancing out from the stall of the little black one, his +face blazing with excitement, and simultaneously the replica of Mr. +Hannaford's face appeared again and a replica of Mr. Hannaford's figure +advanced towards them. + +"Proud!" declared the replica in a strained whisper, and raised his +hat. "You're doing well," he whispered to Mr. Hannaford. "You're +doing uncommon well." He extended his hand and the brothers shook +hands, very solemnly on the part of the replica, with beaming delight +on the part of Mr. Hannaford. + +"Steady down, boy; steady down and join us," Mr. Hannaford earnestly +entreated, holding Stingo's hand and gazing into his face with great +fondness. But Stingo slowly shook his head, and turning to Lord Burdon +again, raised his hat and after many severe throatings managed a husky +repetition of "Proud!" + +Mr. Hannaford heaved an astonishingly loud sigh, pulled himself +together with a leg-and-cane crack that caused all the little 'orses to +start, and addressed himself to business. Little master, he declared, +had a proper eye for a proper little 'orse. The little black 'orse +that little master had stroked might have been specially born for his +lordship's purpose; picked up at Bampton fair last spring, a trifle too +stout and not quite the colouring for a circus little 'orse and trained +to be the first of Stage Two: little gentlefolks' little 'orses. + +Concluding this recommendation, Mr. Hannaford put his head outside the +stable and roared "Jim!" in a voice that might have been heard at +Little Letham; Stingo put his head out and throated "Jim!" in a husky +whisper that nobody heard but himself; and presently there appeared a +long, thin youth wearing a brimless straw hat that was in constant +movement owing to an alarming habit of twitching his scalp. + +"Fix him up and run him out," commanded Mr. Hannaford, jerking a thumb +at the little black 'orse; "and keep your scalp steady, me lad, else +you'll do yourself a ninjury." He glared very fiercely; and Jim, +touching an eyebrow which a violent twitch had rushed up to the point +that should have been covered by the brimless straw hat, took down a +bridle and approached the little black 'orse with the air of one who +anticipates some embarrassment. + +Mr. Hannaford's stables looked on to a small enclosed paddock, much cut +about with hoofs and marked in the centre by a deeply trodden ring, +around which, as he explained, the little 'orses were put through their +circus paces. + +Rollo shyly held his father's hand; Stingo revolved slowly on his own +axis the better to keep a surprised eye on Percival, who pranced and +bounded with excitement; and presently the little black 'orse, with +tossing head and delighted heels, was produced before them. + +"Now!" said Mr. Hannaford, patting the little black 'orse with one hand +and extending the other to Rollo. "Up you come, my little lordship. +Nothing to be afraid of. Only his fun that. Steady as a little lamb +when you're on his back--perfectly safe, me lord," he assured Lord +Burdon. + +But Rollo hung back, nestling his hand deeper into his father's and +flushing with nervous appeal into Lord Burdon's face. His riding in +the Park did not accommodate the natural timidity of his nature to the +adventures of a strange mount, and less so to the doubtful prospects +that the spirit of the little black 'orse appeared to offer. Lord +Burdon understood, and patted Rollo's hand. "Not feeling quite up to +it, old man? Well, we'll ask Mr. Hannaford to send the pony over to +the Manor, and try him there, eh?" + +"Blest if you ain't right, me young lordship," declared Mr. Hannaford +tactfully. "Never be hurried into trying a new little 'orse. That's +the way. Jim shall bring him round for you, me lord, first thing in +the morning. Walk him up the field, Jim, to let his lordship see how +he moves." + +Jim clicked his tongue, the little black 'orse bounded amain, and +Percival, who had been watching with burning eyes, could control +himself no longer. "Oh, let me!" Percival cried. "Just one tiny +little ride! Lord Burdon, _please_ let me! I _'treat_ you to let me!" + +"Why, you can't ride," Lord Burdon objected playfully. + +"I could ride him _anywhere_!" Percival implored. "He knows me. Just +look how he's looking at me. Oh, please--_please_!" and he ended with +a shout of delight, for Lord Burdon nodded to Mr. Hannaford and Mr. +Hannaford swung Percival from the ground into the saddle. + +"Shorten up that stirrup-iron, Jim," said Mr. Hannaford, stuffing +Percival's foot into the stirrup on his side. "Catch hold this way, +little master. Stick in with your knees. That's the way. Run him +out, Jim." + +The straw-hatted youth made a clutch at the bridle, the little black +'orse jerked up its little black head, and Percival jerked up the +bridle and cried: "Let go! let go!" and kicked a stirruped foot at the +straw-hatted youth and cried: "He _knows_ me, I tell you!" + +"Pocket Marvel," commented Stingo huskily, watching the struggle. +"Pocket Marvel, if ever I saw one." + +"Why, that's just the very words that I called him, bless my eighteen +stun proper if it isn't!" cried Mr. Hannaford in huge delight; and +simultaneously the straw-hatted youth, with a terrible cry and a +tremendous jerk of the scalp, received a pawing hoof on his foot and +relaxed his hold on the bridle. + +Away went the little black 'orse and away went the Pocket Marvel +bounding in the saddle like an india-rubber ball; shouting with +delight; losing a stirrup; clutching at the saddle; saving himself by a +miraculous twist as the little black 'orse circled at the top of the +field; bumping higher and higher as the little black 'orse came gamely +trotting back to them, and finally shooting headfirst into Mr. +Hannaford's arms, as Stingo caught the bridle and the little black +'orse came to a stop. + +Mr. Hannaford placed Percival on his legs and he stood by the little +black 'orse's side, breathless, flushed, the centre of general +congratulations and laughter, from the deep "Ho! Ho!" and terrible +leg-and-cane cracks of Mr. Hannaford to the silent signals of +appreciation indicated by the rapid oscillation of the brimless straw +hat on the astonishing scalp movements of Jim. + +"Well, I'm afraid I got off rather too quickly, you know," he announced. + +"Not a bit of it!" Mr. Hannaford declared stoutly, rubbing that portion +of his waistcoat into which Percival's head had cannoned. "You got off +same as you stuck on; like a regular little Pocket Marvel, bless my +eighteen stun proper if you didn't." + +The Pocket Marvel went crimson with new pride and excitement. He made +to turn eagerly to the little black 'orse again; and there occurred +then an incident of which he thought nothing at the time, nor for many +years, but which secreted itself in that strange storehouse of the +brain where trivialities permanently root themselves and whence they +stir, shake off the dust and emerge, when the impressions of far +greater events are obliterated. As he stretched a hand to the bridle, +he caught a glimpse of Rollo's face. Distress not far removed from +tears was there. The boy was concealing himself behind his father. +His sensitive nature caused him to feel that the laughing group, when +it turned attention to him, would to his detriment compare him with +this bold young junior; he shrank from that moment. + +Percival turned away from the little black 'orse and ran to him. "Now +it's your turn, Rollo. You see, he knew me from the beginning, and +that's why he liked me to ride him. Now you try. I promise you I +shall run by his side and then, you see, he'll know you're a friend of +mine." + +He took Rollo's hand and drew him forward. "Sure you'd like to, old +chap?" Lord Burdon asked, and Rollo said; "Oh, yes," and mounted by +himself, as he had been taught in London. + +"There you are!" cried Percival, beaming up at him and clapping his +hands with delight. "There you are! Now, then!" And he set off +running alongside as he had undertaken, as the little black 'orse broke +into a trot. Once in the saddle, Rollo abandoned his fears and rode +easily. The little black 'orse outpaced Percival's small legs, and +Percival came running back and took Lord Burdon's hand and watched with +eager eyes and squirmed with delight. + +"He doesn't bump like I did, you see," he said. "Look how he turns +him!" and he freed his hand and clapped and shouted: "Well done, Rollo!" + +"'Pon my soul, Percival, you're a devilish good little beggar," said +Lord Burdon; and a similar thought was in the minds of the brothers +Hannaford when, the pony purchased, they watched the wagonette drive +from the farm. "I shall save up and come with my Aunt Maggie and buy +one too," Percival declared, giving his hand to Mr. Hannaford over the +side of the trap. "In my money-box I've got three shillings already; +so I should like to know what you think of that?" + +"Pocket Marvel, that little master," commented Mr. Hannaford, as the +wagonette turned out of sight. + +Stingo made three husky attempts at speech and at length whispered: +"Thought he was the young lordship when I first saw 'em." + +Mr. Hannaford beamed with delight and extended his hand. "Why, that's +just what I thought!" he declared; "bless my eighteen stun proper if it +wasn't. Steady down, boy, steady down and join us." + +But Stingo's handshake was limp, and he shook his head slowly. + + +II + +Then there were the lessons with Miss Purdie. Very considerably less +satisfactory, these, than the tearing excitements that the pony +provided, yet having plenty of fun for Percival's eager young mind, and +increasing along a new path the intimacy between the two boys. Rollo +was the more advanced; but his grounding! "Your grounding," as Miss +Purdie would cry, "is shoc-_king_! Grounding is _everything_! _Look_ +at this sum! _What_ is seven times twelve, sir? ... then _why_ have +you put down a six? How _dare_ you laugh, Percival? You are _worse_! +Rollo, it's _no_ good! You must begin at the _beginning_. Grounding +is _everything_!" + +Terribly frightening, Miss Purdie, when swept by her little storms. +Rather like a little bird, Miss Purdie, with her sharp little glances +from behind her spectacles. "_Don't_ put your tongue out when you +write, Percival! What would you think of me, if I moved my tongue from +corner to corner every time I write, like that? _Don't_ laugh at me, +sir!" + +"Well, it comes out by itself," Percival expostulates, "and I don't +even know that it is out, you know; so I should like to know what you +think of that?" + +"I don't think any thing _about_ it," says Miss Purdie, with a stamp of +her little foot. "That _stu_-pid question of yours! _How_ often have +I told you not to use it?" + +Very like a little bird, Miss Purdie, with her sharp little glances, +with her nimble little hops to and fro, and with her perky little +cockings of the head on this side and the other as she encourages an +answer. + +"Now the grammar lesson and I hope you've both prepared it. Gender of +nouns. Masculine, Govern-_or_. Feminine?" + +"Govern-_ess_," venture the boys, a trifle apprehensively. + +"Good boys! Masculine, Sorcer-er. Feminine?" + +"Sorcer-_ess_," says the chorus, gathering courage. + +"Masculine, Cater-_er_. Feminine?" + +"Cater-_ess_," bawls the chorus, thoroughly enjoying itself. + +"_Not_ so loud! Masculine, Murder-_er_. Feminine?" + +"Murder-_ess_," howls the chorus, recklessly delighted. + +"Good boys! Now be careful! Prosecutor? Take time over it. +Masculine, Prosecut-_or_. Feminine?" + +"Prosecutr-_ess_!" thunders the chorus, plunging to destruction on the +swing of the thing; and "Oh, you _stu_-pids! you _stu_-pids!" cries +Miss Purdie. "You intol-er-able _stu_-pids!" and the unhappy chorus +hangs its head and cowers beneath the little storm it has let loose. + +Delightfully appreciative, though, Miss Purdie, when the "break" of ten +minutes comes and when the boys gorge plum-cake and milk and make her +positively quiver with recitals of the terrible gallops on the pony; +and delightfully concerned, too, when, as happens once or twice, Rollo +is discovered to have a headache and is made to lie on the sofa in a +rug and with a hot-water bottle, while the lessons are continued with +Percival in fierce whispers and hissed "_stu_-pids." Delightfully +inconsequent, moreover, Miss Purdie, who at the end of an especially +exasperating morning, when Hunt is heard with the pony outside the +gate, will suddenly cry: "Well, _go_ away then, you thorough little +_stu_-pids; _go_ away!" and will drive them to the door and then at +once will go into ecstatics over the pony and hurry Percival in for +sugar, and quake with terror while the pony nibbles it from her hand, +and stand and wave at her gate while they go flying down the road, one +in the saddle, the other gasping behind. + +Delightfully appreciative, Miss Purdie, and they learn to love her for +all their terrible fear of her. + +Percival, Miss Purdie finds, is the more affectionate--also the more +troublesome. Rollo takes his cue from Percival and acts accordingly. +"You are the ringleader!" cries Miss Purdie, stabbing a forefinger at +Percival on the fearful morrow of the day on which truant was +played--whose morning had seen Miss Purdie running between her house +and her gate like a distressed hen abandoned by her chickens; whose +afternoon had seen the alarm communicated to Burdon Old Manor and to +"Post Offic"; and whose evening had discovered the disconsolate return +to the village of two travel-stained and weary figures. "_You_ are the +ringleader in everything, and I don't know whether you ought to be more +ashamed or _you_"--and she turns from the ringleader to stab her finger +at the ring, as represented by Rollo--"or _you_, for allowing yourself +to be led away by one so much younger." + +"I've told you," protests Percival, "I've told you again and again we +got lost; so I should like to know what you think of that?" + +"_Don't_ use that _abom_-inable phrase, sir! If you hadn't gone +off--tempted Rollo to go off--you wouldn't have got lost, would you?" + +Percival beams at her in his disarming manner. "Well, you see, we saw +a fox and went after it and kept on seeing it and _then_ found we were +lost; so I should like--" + +"_Don't_ argue. I tell you, you are the _ring_-leader!" + +She pauses and glares. "I should like to tell you," says the +ringleader, still beaming, "about a very funny thing we saw. We saw--" + +"_Stand_ in the corner!" cries Miss Purdie. "_Stand_ in the corner! +You are incorrigible!" and she turns to Rollo with "Geography, sir!" in +a voice that causes him to tremble. + + +III + +Certainly Percival is the leader. He has the instinct of leadership. +It is to be noted in the carriage and in the demeanour of his vigorous +young person. A sturdy way of standing he has: squarely, with his +round chin up, his head thrown back, his knees always braced, his arms +never hanging limply but always slightly flexed at the elbows as though +alert for action, his eyes widely opened, his gaze upwards and about +him with the challenging air of one who expects entertainments to arise +and would be quick to greet them. He is rarely still; he is rarely +silent. A brisk way of movement he has; a high young voice; a +compelling laugh with a clear note of "Ha! Ha! Ha!" as though the +matter that tickles him tickles him with the boniest knuckles wherever +he is ticklish. He has the instinct of leadership. When he is with +Rollo and an affair arises, he does not suggest a plan of action; he +immediately acts. On their rambles, when an obstacle or an emergency +is discovered, it instantly arouses in him a reflex action by which +vigorously, and without estimate of its difficulties, it is attacked. +"You are so thoughtless, Percival, so thoughtless!" Aunt Maggie cries +when he explains a mired and dripping state with "I jumped the ditch +and found I couldn't jump." + +"Well, but I wanted to get across, you see," Percival explains. + +"If you had looked first you would have seen you couldn't get across." + +"Well, but I _did_ get across!" + +"You didn't; you fell in, you stupid little boy." + +"But I got _across_," beams Percival; and Aunt Maggie undoes her +scolding by kissing him. She has marked this impetuous and determined +spirit in him; and she knows it for the "I hold" spirit that is his by +right of birth; one day he will present it to Lady Burdon. + +He had the instinct of leadership. At first, in the excursions with +Rollo, he unconsciously expected in Rollo a spirit equal to and similar +with his own. At first, when he ran suddenly, or suddenly took a great +jump, or set off at a quick trot towards some distant excitement, he +expected to find Rollo at his side and was surprised to turn and find +him hanging back, timid or tired. Very shortly he accepted the +difference between them and emphasized that he was leader. It became +natural to him that, with the action of starting to run or of storming +a stout hedge, he should give to Rollo a hand that would aid him along +or pull him through. It became natural, when a difficult place was +reached, to release the hand with a little confident movement that +implied "Stay;" to rush the obstacle; somehow to scramble to the +further side, and then turn and cry directions and encouragement, +ending always with "I'll catch you, you know; you'll be all right." + +And as the weeks went on, the complement of this hardy spirit became +natural to Rollo. Percival put out the hand of aid; the hand that +desired aid was always ready. Rollo's hand acquired the habit of +relying on Percival for physical support; his mind came to depend on +Percival for moral benefit. However they were employed, he took his +note from his leader. If Percival chose to be idle at their lessons, +Rollo also would be inattentive and mischievous. On the days when +Percival was immense in his promises to work hard, Rollo would +sedulously apply himself. Percival led; he followed. Percival called +the tune; Rollo danced to it. Percival stretched the hand; Rollo took +it. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE WORLD AS SHOWMAN: ALL THE JOLLY FUN + +I + +The stay at Burdon Old Manor came to an end; it had been so productive +of health and happiness in Rollo, he became, as years went on, so much +more and more devoted to Percival, that it was made the beginning of +regular visits. The Manor continued to doze for the most part under +the care of Mrs. Housekeeper Ferris, with Mr. Librarian Amber's library +the only room that had no dust sheets about the furniture; but there +were periodic openings: always a visit at Easter before the London +season began, always a visit in August reaching into October when the +London season was ended. + +The visits marked the fullest times of Percival's life, as they marked +the happiest of Rollo's; but life was steadily and joyously filled for +Percival in these days, and he with a zest for it that carried him +ardently along the hours. + +The years were passing; he grew apace. It was a period, the villagers +told one another, of rare proper weather: the winters hard with all the +little hamlets tethered along Plowman's Ridge sometimes cut off for +days together by heavy falls of snow; the springs most gentle and most +radiant, escaping with a laugh from Winter's bondage and laughing down +the lanes and up the hedgerows and through the fields, where every +mother, from earth that mothered all, was fruitful of her kind; the +summers glorious, with splendid days joining hands with splendid days +to form a stately chain of sunshine through the warmer months. + +Rare proper weather with the energy of its period in every hour, and +Percival that energy's embodiment. He grew properly, the villagers +said, and knew without a second glance what figure it was that went +scudding along the Down in the young mornings, and knew without a +second thought whose voice came singing to them as they stooped in +their fields or trudged behind their herds. He grew lustily; lissom of +limb, as might be seen; eager and finely turned of face, having an air +and a wide eye that caused chance tourists to turn and look again; very +big of spirit, as those knew who had the handling of him. + +"He's getting that independent there's no doing a thing with him," +stormed Honor one day, coming with Percival (both very red in the face) +to lay a passage of arms for arbitrament before Aunt Maggie. + +"Oh, Percival! And Honor is so kind to you!" + +"I know, I know; but she tries to _rule_ me, Aunt Maggie!" + +"And ruling you want," Honor cried, "as your Aunt Maggie well knows. +Spare the pickle and spoil the rod!" + +"You've got it wrong!" said Percival with scornful triumph, and after +he had stalked away, his head thrown up in an action that Aunt Maggie +well remembered in Roly, she sought to placate Honor with thoughts that +were frequently coming to her in those days. "He is getting big, +Honor. I think we forget how he is growing. We mustn't keep him in +too tightly." + +Then there was Miss Purdie. "To my face!" cried Miss Purdie, +fluttering into "Post Offic" one afternoon, "to my face he called the +sum a _beastly_ sum--the sum, mind you, I had set him myself! A +_beastly_ sum!" and then completely spoilt the horror of it by sighing +and winding up, "but he is such a _sweet_. So lovable! So merry!" + +"He's growing, you see," joined Aunt Maggie. + +"Of _course_, he is," agreed Miss Purdie. "It's just his spirit. He's +so _manly_!" and she gave herself a little shake and said: "Oh, I like +a _manly_ boy!" + +Still, the truculence of character that had brought her warring down to +"Post Offic" remained to be settled. Moreover, the boy's mind was +developing outside the range of Miss Purdie's primers and exercise +books. "He wants _Latin_," said Miss Purdie. "He wants _algebra_. He +wants _Euclid_!" and the ladies decided that his tuition had better be +handed over to Miss Purdie's brother, who could supply these +correctives. They shook hands on it and agreed that Mr. Purdie should +take over the duties on the morrow. On the doorstep Miss Purdie +repeated the necessity with terrible emphasis: "He wants _Latin_! He +wants _algebra_! But I shall miss our lessons together! Oh, dear, how +I shall miss them!" + +She hurried home with little sniffs which she strove to check by +repeating very fiercely: "He wants _Latin_!" + + +II + +Percival took up with immense zest the new freedom from petticoat +control and the new regimen of lessons. He liked the new subjects; and +it was notable in him that he carried into the exercise of his tasks +the same quickness and determination with which he entered upon--and +completed--all pleasanter affairs that came to his hand. Mr. Purdie, +for his part, was enchanted. Mr. Purdie was plump and soft, with +lethargic ways and pronounced timidity of character. In his youth Mr. +Purdie had been called to the Bar. A very small legacy came to him +thereafter, and his lymphatic nature led him at once to abandon town +life, to go to sloth at his ease with his sister at Burdon village. He +was vastly attracted by Percival. Very shortly after their +introduction as master and pupil, he came to Aunt Maggie with the +suggestion that Percival might spend with him some leisure as well as +the school-hours. "A boy can be taught in his play as well as his +work," he announced in his pompous manner. "At Percival's age, and as +he grows, there are things in which only a man can guide him." He gave +one of his shrill, absurd chuckles: "And I think Master Percival likes +me. Eh, Percival?" + +Percival eyed him doubtfully. He could not see stout and soft Mr. +Purdie contributing much entertainment to his rambles. "Well, if you +bring your tricycle, we might have some fun," he admitted. + +Ah, these were the happy days. Happy, happy time! There was fun in +alarming Mr. Purdie during their walks by taking him across fields that +had fierce cows; by climbing trees with the plump tutor imploring +beneath; by pretending to go out of depth when bathing in Fir-Tree +Pool, with the plump tutor beseeching from the bank like an agitated +hen that has hatched ducklings. There was particular fun in the +tricycle. + +The tricycle was an immense affair of remote construction, having the +steering-wheel attached by a bar behind and manipulated by handles on +either side of the seat that required almost as much winding as a +clock--"twiddling" Percival called it--when the machine was to be +deflected from a straight passage. Percival's legs were too short for +the treadles, Mr. Purdie's too soft for propulsion up even the gentlest +incline. Tricycle excursions took, therefore, the form of laborious +pushing, with inordinate perspiration on the part of Mr. Purdie, until +the brow of a hill was gained, when Percival would balance upon the +steering wheel bar, Mr. Purdie in considerable trepidation on the seat, +and away they would go with delighted shoutings from Percival--legs +dangling, hands clutching the plump tutor's coat--and anguished +entreaties of "Steady! steady! Don't touch my arms! Don't touch my +arms!" from Mr. Purdie, back-pedalling tremendously, clutching at the +brake, winding at the handles. Then the laborious ascent of the next +slope, Mr. Purdie dripping at every pore, Percival crimson in the face +and carrying on a long argument: "If you'd only _work_ when we get near +the bottom and not use that rotten brake, we'd get halfway up and not +have this awful _pushing_!" + +"Well, kindly do not push _me_," says Mr. Purdie, very hot. + +Happy, happy time! Disaster came on the day on which there entered Mr. +Purdie's eye the fly that he always dreaded. Mr. Purdie in the seat +was back-pedalling with immense caution down Five Furlong Hill; +Percival on the steering bar behind was peering ahead round the plump +tutor's ample girth and at intervals urging: "Now let her go!" + +It was the fly that let her go. Whack! came the fly into Mr. Purdie's +eye. "Whoa!" cried Mr. Purdie. "Bother! dear me! Whoa!" Up went Mr. +Purdie's knees in the twitch of pain; up came his hand to his tortured +eye; round went the released pedals; forward shot the tricycle. + +"Hurrah!" cried Percival. "Well done! Ripping of you!" + +Mr. Purdie, between agony of his eye and terror for his safety, gave a +shrill cry of dismay; took a grab at the brake and a grab back at his +eye; received two terrible blows on the backs of his legs that fumbled +wildly for the whizzing treadles, and barked out: "Brake! Brake! Fly +in my eye!" + +"Which eye?" Percival shouted, enjoying the speed enormously. + +The alarmed tutor bundled his words in a heap the better to get them +out and arrest the catastrophe that threatened. + +"Catchabrakeandontbesilly! Catchabrakeabekilled!" + +They whizzed! + +Percival bawled: "We don't want the brake! I can't reach the brake! I +like it! We're simply whizzing! Mind your legs!" His cap was gone. +His hair fluttered in the rushing wind. His face was crimson with +excited glee. His clear laughter on its strong note of "Ha! Ha! Ha!" +rose high above the rattling of all the machine's vitals and the cries +of the agonised bearer of the fly. He clung tightly to the podgy waist +and shouted: "Ha! Ha! Ha! We're whizzing! We're whizzing!" + +Mr. Purdie took another six hammers on his legs and struck a note of +new alarm. + +"I'm blind, you know! I can't see! I can't steer!" + +"A straight road!" Percival bawled. "Look out, though! A corner +coming!" + +"How can I look out? Draggle your legs on the ground!" + +"Twiddle to the left!" Percival bellowed. "Ha! Ha! Ha! Twiddle, Mr. +Purdie, twiddle!" + +Mr. Purdie twiddled frantically; the tricycle outraced his efforts. +"Look out for yourself!" from Percival, and with a loud and exceeding +bitter cry from Mr. Purdie, the machine plunged at the hedge, planted +Mr. Purdie very firmly into the midst, shot Percival firmly on top of +him, took a violent somersault across the ditch that skirted the hedge, +and poised itself above them. + +Mr. Purdie's last despairing cry cut sharply across Percival's peals of +laughter--then the crash. The fluttering beat of wings as a cloud of +chaffinches, terrified by this amazing avalanche, burst from the floor +of the wood beyond the hedge, then peal on peal of laughter again from +Percival. + +In muffled tones from the depth of the hedge: "It is a miracle we are +not killed. Where are you, Percival?" + +Percival checked his mirth sufficiently to reply: "Well, I don't know +_where_ I am! My head is down here, but where my legs are I don't +know." + +"One of them is under me and hurting me terribly. Move, please." + +Between the peals of laughter: "I can't move, Mr. Purdie. I'm +practically standing on my head, you know." + +"I don't know anything about it. My face is almost in something highly +unpleasant--a dead bird, I think. Please stop that laughter and try to +do something. The odour here is most noisome." + +"Well, but I can't stop laughing. Did you see us shoot?" + +"Please try to control yourself. I did not see us shoot." + +A mighty effort causes Percival's head and shoulders to come up with a +jerk; Mr. Purdie feels the weight of pupil and tricycle removed from +his back, and there follows another crash and further yells of laughter. + +In muffled agony from the hedge: "Now what has happened?" + +"Well, I'm bothered if I haven't fallen again! I've fallen out, +though." + +Out of the depths: "Percival! Percival! Don't be such a silly little +boy! Pull me out!" + +"Well, I'm all mixed up in this awful trike, you know. Now, I'm up!" + +"Pray pull me, then. I am retching with this noisome smell." + +"Well, there's nothing to pull!" cries Percival, plunging round the +tremendous stern that sticks out of the hedge. "Your trousers are +simply _tight_!" + +Out of the depths: "Tch! Tch! Push me sideways, then." + +The mammoth stern is pushed sideways and hauled backways, and presently +begins to rise, and presently the stout tutor is ponderously disgorged +from the hedge, and staggers forth with grunts and moans, and collapses +on the roadside, feet in ditch, very bedraggled and unfortunate looking. + +"Don't think I'm laughing at you," Percival says. "I'm really very +sorry for you. But you're not hurt, you know. Let me rub you down +with leaves." + +"I am terribly shaken. Do not touch me for a few minutes, please." + +"Is the fly still in your eye?" + +"I don't know where the fly is." + +"Your trousers are awfully torn." + +"Be silent, please. I am dazed." + +He remains dazed when at last they begin to trudge home, the wrecked +tricycle left for a cart. But at the top of the hill that plunged them +to disaster, the infectious spurts of laughter at his side challenge +his self-esteem and he sets out to sound his reputation in Percival's +regard. + +"I think I steered rather well, considering I couldn't see." + +Percival is always generous: "Splendidly! Oh, dear, I'm aching with +laughing!" + +"I was only afraid for you, Percival." + +"We whizzed, you know! We simply whizzed!" + +Mr. Purdie glances back down the hill and shudders to have whizzed it. +"Were you laughing all the way down?" + +"Anybody would laugh at a whizz like that." + +The plump tutor has a close acquaintance with one person who would not. +The remark pricks him and he finds a comforting answer. "Only very +silly people laugh at danger." + +"Well, I didn't know it was danger," said Percival; and Mr. Purdie +first looks at him thoughtfully and then gives one of his shrill, +absurd chuckles. + + +III + +Happy, happy time! There were the visits to Mr. Hannaford, always made +on a whole holiday because an early start was necessary, where the +little 'orse farm was progressing famously and where Percival was made +quite extraordinarily welcome. Terrible leg-and-cane cracks would +announce in which quarter of the farm Mr. Hannaford was to be found, +and Percival would discover Mr. Hannaford watching a little circus +'orse at exercise, or watching the builders at work in the brick +stables that were slowly displacing the line of sheds, and watching all +the time to the accompaniment of bellowing instructions punctuated by +leg-and-cane cracks of astounding volume. + +Percival would plant himself squarely by Mr. Hannaford's side in Mr. +Hannaford's position--legs apart, head thrown back--and would eagerly +follow the proceedings until Mr. Hannaford suddenly would observe him +and would cry in a voice the whole farm might hear: "Why, it's the +little Pocket Marvel! Bless my eighteen stun proper if it ain't! +However long a you been there, little master?" + +Percival, beaming all over his face and putting his small hand into the +tremendous shake of Mr. Hannaford's shoulder of mutton fist: "Only +about ten minutes, thank you, Mr. Hannaford. Don't you mind me, you +know. I like watching." + +"Ah, and I've got something for you to watch," Mr. Hannaford would say. +"Now you come over here with me. Got that little lordship with you?" + +"Not come back yet," Percival would reply, capering along, tremendously +happy. "How are you going along, Mr. Hannaford? Properly?" + +"Properly to rights! Look at that now!" And with a terrible +leg-and-cane crack Mr. Hannaford would pause before the new stables and +call Percival's attention to some new feature that had arisen since his +last visit. "Names on the doors, d'you see? 'Crocker's' on that door, +'Maddox's' on this door. Do a deal in little 'orses with Crocker's +circus; take your gross profit; set aside share of expenses; set aside +wear and tear; set aside emergency fund; take your net profit; build +your stable; call it Crocker's. Same with Maddox: deal, gross, share, +wear, emergency, net, stable--call it Maddox! What d'you think of that +for a notion?" + +"Why, I call it jolly fine, Mr. Hannaford," Percival replies. "I call +that a proper notion. Reminds you how you did it, doesn't it?" + +"Why, that's just exactly what it does do!" cries Mr. Hannaford, +enormously delighted. "Just the very notion of it, bless my eighteen +stun proper if it ain't! Now you come along over here." And Mr. +Hannaford would leg-and-cane crack, and Percival would trot and +chatter, over to another marvel, where a similar performance would be +gone through, owner and spectator tremendously happy, and both +profoundly serious. + +Mr. Hannaford would usually propose lunch after this. Mr. Hannaford +permitted no women in his establishment; but the long, low-roofed +dining-room in the old farmhouse was kept at a shining cleanliness, and +the meal was invitingly cooked, by a one-armed man of astoundingly +fierce appearance and astonishingly mild disposition, who answered to +the names of Ob and Diah accordingly as Mr. Hannaford preferred the +former or latter half of the Obadiah to which the one-armed man was +entitled, and who had left the greater part of his missing arm in the +lion's cage he had attended when travelling with Maddox's Monster +Menagerie and Royal Circus. + +Three places were always set at the table when Percival visited. One +for Mr. Hannaford at one end, one at the other end for brother +Stingo--"in case," as Mr. Hannaford would say--and one on Mr. +Hannaford's right for Percival. There was a tremendous silver tankard +of ale for Mr. Hannaford, a similar tankard for Percival--requiring +both hands and containing milk--and always, when Mr. Hannaford raised +the dish-cover, there developed from the cloud of steam a plump chicken +which Mr. Hannaford called chick_un_ and Percival chick_ing_ and which +they both fell upon with quite remarkable appetites. + +"Well, it's a most astonishing thing to me," Percival would say when +the cover went up, and the chicken settled out of the steam. "Most +amazing! You know I like chicking better than anything, and every time +I come you just happen to have chicking for dinner! Most amazing to +me, you know!" + +And Mr. Hannaford would lay down the carving knife and fork and stare +at the chicken and say: "Well, it is a chickun again, so it is, bless +my eighteen stun proper if it ain't!" and would give a tremendous wink +at Ob in order to enjoy with him the joke arising from the fact that +directly Percival was sighted on the farm a messenger was sent to Ob to +prepare the meal that Percival liked best. + +Then they would eat away, and pull away at the colossal tankards, and +Percival would always make a point of saying: "Stingo not home?" + +A long pull at the tankard and a heavy sigh from Mr. Hannaford: "Not +just yet, little master. Still restless, I'm afraid. Still restless." + +And Percival, in the old phrase and with the air of a grandfather: +"Well, he'll settle down, you know. He'll settle down." + +"Why, that's just what I say!" Mr. Hannaford would exclaim, immensely +comforted. "Settle down--of course he will! Just what I'm always +telling him, bless my eighteen stun proper if it ain't!" + +Always the same jolly lunch, always the same mingled seriousness and +jolly fun, always the same jokes. Percival did not know that much of +it was carefully planned by Mr. Hannaford that he might enjoy the +fullest relish of the Pocket Marvel's visit. There was the great +chicken joke, there was also the killing joke for the production of +which by Percival Mr. Hannaford would dawdle lunch to an inordinate +length. + +At length it would come: "Nothing I can have a ride on, I suppose, Mr. +Hannaford?" Percival would say with careful carelessness. + +"Never a norse fit for it," Mr. Hannaford would reply, equally off-hand. + +A heavy sigh from Percival: "Oh, dear! Sure, I suppose?" + +"Certain! Got a little brown 'orse--but there, you'd never ride him." + +"I bet I would! I bet I would!" + +Mr. Hannaford, looking terribly fierce and in a very violent voice: +"Bet you wouldn't!" + +"Try me, then! Only try me!" + +And Mr. Hannaford would bounce up and seize his cane, and they would +rush off, and the saddle would be put on the little brown 'orse, and +Percival would mount him and gallop him and cry "You see! You see!" +And Mr. Hannaford would pretend huge amazement and declare that +Percival was a proper little Pocket Marvel, bless his eighteen stun +proper if he wasn't. + +Once or twice Stingo would be there, and then the jolly fun would be +jollier than ever; and in the evening Mr. Hannaford's gig with the big +black mare would come around and the brothers would labour up into the +seat and Percival would squeeze in between them and they would let him +drive and he would pop the mare along at a lashing speed and there +would be the highest good-fellowship. He would be set down at the top +of Five Furlong Hill--nothing would induce Mr. Hannaford to come into +the village where women might be met. "Well, good night, Mr. +Hannaford; good night, Mr. Stingo. Thank you most awfully for all your +kindness to me. I hope I'll come again soon." + +The brothers would usually wait until he reached the turning to the +village; setting up, the one a husky shout, and the other a terrible +bellow, in reply to the faint "Good night!" that came to them through +the dusk. + +"I never in all my life took to nothing, not even a little 'orse, like +I have to that little master," Mr. Hannaford would say. "Never seen +such a proper one, never." + +And Stingo, with painful huskiness: "Ought to ha' been a little +lordship!" + +"Why, that's just exactly what I say," Mr. Hannaford would reply, +enormously pleased. "Bless my eighteen stun proper if it isn't!" + + +IV + +Happy, happy time! There were the visits to mild old Mr. Amber in the +library at Burdon Old Manor. Strongest contrast, the delights here, to +those enjoyed among the little 'orses. Strongest contrast, mild old +Mr. Amber with his stooping shoulders and his gentle ways, to +tremendous Mr. Hannaford with his lusty back and his vigorous habits. + +But the same eager welcome: "Well, well, Master Percival, this is +indeed a pleasant surprise! And we are just sitting down to our +tea--and I declare Mrs. Ferris has sent us some strawberry jam! Now if +that isn't too fortunate I don't know what is!" + +"Well, it's awfully jolly," Percival agrees. "Mrs. Ferris makes very +nice strawberry jam, doesn't she?" + +In the act of pouring tea, mild old Mr. Amber sets down the pot and +emphasises with his glasses. "My dear sir--my dear Percival, she makes +the very best strawberry jam! Mrs. Ferris has made that strawberry jam +for forty years--to our certain knowledge, for-ty years." + +Percival's rounded eyes show his appreciation of this consistent +industry. "Must have made a lot," is his comment. + +"Tons," says Mr. Amber. "My dear sir--my dear Percival, I should +say--tons." He stabs the glasses at his listener. "And every berry, +sir, every single berry, wet season or dry, from our own gardens!" + +It always comes back to that with Mr. Amber. The old Manor, the House +of Burdon, is his world and his life, and he is mightily jealous you +shall know their quality. + +There is generally a little interlude of this kind in the course of the +visit. Its effect stays for a few minutes, Mr. Amber slowly repeating +to himself "every berry--every single berry, sir," in the tone of one +impressively warning against any challenge of his statement; and then +he simmers down and recollects that his visitor is the Percival who +occupies a large portion of his heart. He likes to take Percival's +hand. He likes to feel that warm young grasp within his own chilly old +palm. He likes to lead the boy and feel those sturdy young fingers +twitch to the excitement of what tales he can tell or what treasures he +can show. + +"Now what have we got to show you in our shelves this evening? Nothing +much, we fear. Oh, yes, we have, though! Those folios--we've +rearranged them so as to fill the ninth and tenth in this tier. That +was your suggestion, wasn't it? I agree, you know, I quite agree. +It's an improvement." + +"Keeps them stiffer," says Percival, head on one side, rather proud. + +"Just exactly what it does! Keeps them stiffer. Lessens the strain. +We ought to have thought of that, Percival. We reproach ourselves +there, you know." + +There is a tinge of the self-reproach in his voice, and Percival +hastens with: "Of course you would have done it yourself, as you said, +but you get into your ways, don't you?" + +"Well, we do," agrees Mr. Amber, very comforted. "That's just what it +is--we get into our ways." + +At other times when Percival comes to the library, there is no answer +to his knock on the door. He turns the handle very gently; pokes in +his head very quietly; peers all about the apartment; cannot see Mr. +Amber; enters very cautiously; and presently espies him perched high +aloft on one of the wheeled book-ladders, sitting cross-legged, +catalogue on knee, pencil in hand, brow puckered in mental labour. + +Then Percival closes the door behind him, so that there shall be +scarcely the faintest click, and gives a tiny cough and says: "Very +busy, Mr. Amber?" + +"'M-'m," says Mr. Amber, wagging his head, waving the pencil and +frowning horribly. "'M-'m!" + +Percival tiptoes with enormous caution to the other ladder; wheels it +to a shelf where he has found entertainment; selects his book; perches +himself; and for an hour or more the two, each on his ladder, the child +and the man, the lissom young form and the withered old figure, sit +high among the books, entranced among the worlds that books discover. + +"'M-'m!" says Mr. Amber at intervals, frantically waving. + +"Only coughed," explains Percival. "Only that choking, you know. It--" + +"'M-'m! 'M-'m!" and they bury themselves again. + +That is the usual course. Once or twice there have been conversations +across the room from the tops of the ladders. Percival has looked up +from his book to find Mr. Amber turned towards him and regarding him +with eyes that do not appear to see his smile of greeting. "Mr. Amber, +is there anything funny about me that you look at me so?" + +Mr. Amber will start as though he had been dreaming. "Funny? Eh? +Why, no, Percival; nothing funny at all." + +"If it is my boots, they are quite clean. I gave them twelve wipes +each, like you told me." + +"It's not your boots." + +Silence between them. + +"Funny us two sitting up here like this, like two mountains in the sea. +Rather jolly, isn't it?" + +"It recalls to me," says Mr. Amber, "another little boy who used to sit +up there just as you sit.... In this dim light ... there are ways you +have, Percival..." + +Silence again. Twilight gathering in the corners of the vast room. A +moth softly thudding the window-pane. There is something in the +atmosphere that seems to hold Percival. At "Post Offic" he likes the +lamps to be lit when dusk draws down; here there is a feeling of +gentleness about him, with curious half-thoughts and with half-familiar +gropings and stretchings of the shadows. "Thinking without thinking, +as if I was in some one else who was thinking," he has described it to +Aunt Maggie. + +"Your voice, too," says Mr. Amber suddenly. + +Percival knows what is in Mr. Amber's mind. "Thinking of your young +lordship, aren't you, Mr. Amber?" + +"He used to sit there," Mr. Amber replies. "In this dim light ... +seeing you there..." + +Silence again. Twilight wreathing from the corners across the ceiling; +shadows grouping and moving in new fantasies; soft thuddings of the +moth as though a shadow beat to enter. + +Percival stretches a hand, and against the window's light perceives a +shadow he has watched drift caressingly about his fingers. + +Mr. Amber, little above a whisper, peering through the gloom: "Why do +you stretch your hand so, my lord?" + +"I'm touching a shadow that's come right up to me;" and then Percival +realises the last words, and laughs and says: "You called me 'my +lord!'--you did really, Mr. Amber!" + +"God bless me!" says Mr. Amber, shaking himself--"God bless me, we are +getting the shadows in our brains. Come down and watch me light the +lamps." + + +V + +Happy, happy time! Best of all when the family is at the Old Manor and +when the friendship with Rollo can be taken up where it was left, to be +deepened and to be discovered more than ever fruitful of delights. The +boys are older now. Childish games are done with; very serious talks +(so they believe) take the place of the chatter and the "pretending" of +earlier days: they discuss affairs, mostly arising from adventures in +the books they read; there has been a general election, and they agree +that the Liberals are awful rotters; there has been one of the little +wars, and they kindle together to the glory of British arms and wish +they might be Young Buglers and be thanked by the general before the +whole regiment like the heroes of Mr. Henty's books. + +Percival calls the tune, starts the discussions, constructs the +adventures. Rollo follows the lead, leaning on the quicker mind just +as he relies on the stronger arm and the speedier foot when they are on +their rambles together. It is Rollo who throws the acorn that hits the +stout farm boy driving a milk cart beneath them, as they perch in a +tree. It is Percival who scrambles down responsive to the insults of +the enraged boy, and takes a most fearful battering that the stout +boy's stout arms are able to inflict. + +"I ought to have fought him," Rollo says half-tearfully, with shamed +and shuddering glances at the bloody handkerchief held to the suffering +nose, the lumped forehead and the blackened eye. "He said the one that +hit him. It was my shot." + +Percival, in terrible fury, muffled from behind the handkerchief: "How +could you fight him? Dash those great clodhopping arms of his! A mile +long! I'll have another go at him, I swear I will." + +It is Rollo who cries: "Percival, it will kill us!" when the ram they +have annoyed comes with a fourth shattering crash against the boards of +the pigsty to which they have fled for safety. It is Percival who +cries: "Run, when he sees us!" whips over the palisade, springs across +the field, and takes the tail-end of an appalling batter as he hurls +himself through the far gate. + +"How ever could you dare?" Rollo asks, joining him in the road. "Has +he hurt you frightfully?" + +"How could you have escaped?" says Percival, limping. "He'd have got +you in that sty. I knew I could beat him. Dash the brute, it stings! +There's the kind of stick I want! I'll teach him manners!" + +It is Rollo who gives an appealing look at Percival when Lord Burdon +starts them in a race for sixpence. It is Percival who whispers as +they run: "We'll make it a dead heat." + +"It was awfully decent of you, Percival," Rollo exclaims, as they go to +spend the prize at Mrs. Minnifie's sweet shop. + +"Oh, it's rotten beating one another when people are looking on," +Percival replies. "I vote for lemonade as well, don't you?" + +It is the spirit between them that had its first evidence on the day +when the visit was made to Mr. Hannaford to purchase the little black +'orse. Then Rollo hung back while Percival jumped to ride; then +Percival brought him forward, encouraging him, to taste the fun. So +now, as the years sunder their natures more sharply, and as affection +more strongly bridges the gulf, the more sharply does the one lead, the +other follow; the more naturally does the one support, the other rely. + +Everybody notices it: Aunt Maggie, who only smiles; Lady Burdon, who +says: "Rollo, Percival's a regular little father to you, it seems to +me. Don't let him rule you, you know. Remember what you are, Rollo +mine." Even Egbert Hunt notices it. Mr. Hunt is still attached to +Rollo's person. Sick yedaches trouble him less frequently; but his +hatred of tyrangs has deepened with the increasing tenure of his +servitude. He spends less of his wages on vegules; much of it on +socialistic literature of an inflammatory nature; but he never forgets +the sympathy of Percival in the vegule days, and he is strongly joined +with all those who, meeting the boy, have a note stirred by his sunny +nature. + +"Always does me good to see you," Mr. Hunt says one day. "Something +about you. He'll never be a slave who works for you." + +"Well, who's going to work for me?" Percival inquires. + +"The point!" says Mr. Hunt with impressive gloom. "The very point." +He fumbles in his pocket and produces thumbed papers, just as he +fumbled and produced vegules at an earlier day. "It's in the +lowlier"--he consults a paper--"in the lowlier strata that you find the +men a man can follow, but the men that can't lead owing to the heel of +the tyrang. It's the Bloodsuckers we got to serve." He indicates the +paper: "Bloodsuckers, they call 'em here." + +"Silly rot," says Percival. + +"Ah, you're young," Mr. Hunt returns. "You're young. You'll learn +different when they begin to sap your blood for you. You're a higher +strata than me, Master Percival. Benificent influence of education, +you've had. But you're under the Bloodsuckers. Squeeze you out like +an orindge, they will, and throw yer away. Me one day, you another." +He indicated the paper again. "There's a strong bit here called +'Squeezed Orindges.' Makes yer boil." + +"I'm boiling already," says Percival. "It's a jolly hot day. If you +don't like being what you are, I wonder you don't be something else." + +"No good," Mr. Hunt tells him. "Out of one tyrang's heel and under +another. We've got to suffer and endure, us orindges, until the day +when they are swept away like chaff before the wind." + +Percival is rather interested: "Well, who's going to sweep them? and +sweep whom?" + +"Ah!" says Mr. Hunt darkly. "Who? Makes yer boil." + +"Well, I shouldn't worry, Hunt," says Percival, in the old "Have you +got one of your poor sick yedaches?" tone. "I shouldn't, really. I +feel angry sometimes, but you've only got to have a game of something, +you know. There's Rollo! Come on down and help us to build that raft +on Fir-Tree Pool. We'll have a jolly time. Rollo! Hunt's going to +help us, so we can get that big plank down now! Come on, Hunt!" + +He bounds away towards Rollo, and Mr. Hunt, watching before he starts +to follow, says: "Ah, pity there's not more like you! You ought to ha' +been one of them." He scowls horribly in the direction of Lady Burdon, +who is waving to the boys from the door. "One o' them, you ought to +ha' been. Makes yer boil!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +JAPHRA AND IMA AND SNOW-WHITE-AND-ROSE-RED + +I + +And there were three new friends who contributed to this happy, happy +time and who came vitally to contribute to later years. There were +Japhra and Ima, who lived in a yellow caravan that was sometimes +attached to that Maddox's Monster Menagerie and Royal Circus with which +Mr. Hannaford traded in little 'orses; and there was Dora, whose mother +was that Mrs. Espart of Abbey Royal at Upabbot over the Ridge who--as +Miss Oxford had told Lady Burdon--did not send her little girl to +lessons with Miss Purdie because of the post-office little boy. + +Percival first met Japhra and Ima on a day not long after the end of +Rollo's first visit, when--his playmate gone--he was temporarily a +little lonely. He came upon them by Fir-Tree Pool, stepped through the +belt of trees that surround the pool and halted in much delight at the +entrancing sight his eyes gave him. + +Here was a yellow caravan with little curtained windows, a thing most +pregnant of mysteries to eight-years-old. A big white horse, +unharnessed from the van, was cropping the turf. There was an iron pot +hanging above a jolly fire of sticks. On the steps of the van a girl +of about Percival's own age sat knitting. She was olive of face, with +long, black hair; her legs were bare and they looked very long, +Percival thought. By the fire, astride of a felled tree trunk, was a +little man with a very brown face that was marked like a sailor's with +many puckered little lines. He had a tight-lipped mouth with a short +pipe that seemed a natural part of it, and he wore a long jacket and +had a high hat of some rough, brown fur. He was reading a book; and as +Percival stood watching, he put a finger to mark his place and looked +up slowly as though he had known Percival was there but wished to read +to a certain point before interrupting himself. + +He looked up and Percival noticed that his eyes, set in that brown, +puckered face, were uncommonly bright. "Welcome, little master," said +he. "All the luck!" + +"Hullo!" said Percival. "Excuse me staring. This is funny to me, you +know." + +"Quiet, though," said the little man, his eyes twinkling; "and that's +the best thing in life." + +Percival came up to him, vastly attracted. "Do you live in that van?" + +"That's where I live, little master--Ima and I." + +Percival stared at the girl on the steps, who stared back at him and +then smiled. "Ima? That's a funny name," he said. + +"Maybe she's a funny girl," said the little man, twinkling more than +ever. + +Percival took it quite seriously. "Well, her legs are long," he said +appraisingly. + +"They can run, though, little master," said the girl. She had a +curiously soft voice, Percival noticed. But he was rather puzzled with +it all and remained serious. "Is your name funny, too?" he asked the +little man. + +The little man's tight lips were stretched in what Percival came to +know for his most advanced sign of amusement. He opened his lips very +slightly when he spoke, and the short pipe that seemed to grow there +did not appear at all to incommode his speech. "Why, try it for +thyself," said the little man,--"Japhra." + +"Well, I've not heard it before, you know," said Percival politely. +"You don't mind my asking questions, do you?" he added. "This is +rather funny to me, you know." + +"Why, I'm a questioner myself, little master," the little man assured +him. "I'm questioning always. I go through life seeking an answer." + +"What for?" asked Percival. + +"Why, that's the question, little master," said the little man. "What +for? Who knows?" + +Percival regarded him with the same puzzled air that he sometimes gave +to Aunt Maggie. "Well, if you don't mind," he said, "what are you, +then?" + +Far from minding, Japhra seemed to like it. Twinkling away: "Why, +that's another question I ask and cannot answer," said he. "What is +any man? One thing to one man and one thing to another--a riddle to +himself, little master. But I can unriddle thee this much: Wintertime +I am a tinker that mends folks' pots and pans; Springtimes I am +Punch-and-Judy-man that makes the children laugh; Summertimes I am a +fighter that fights in the booths. I have been prize-fighter that +fights with the knuckle; cattleman over the sea; jockey, and wrestler, +and miner, and preacher once, and questioner since I was thy size; +there's unriddling for thee." + +"It's a good lot," said Percival gravely. "What are you just now, +please?" + +"Or a bad lot," said Japhra. "Who knows?--and there's the question +again! No escape from it." He looked solemn for a moment and then +twinkled again. "Just now a fighter, little master. To-morrow I join +Boss Maddox's circus for the summer with my boxing booth." + +"Boss Maddox!" cried Percival. "Why, Mr. Stingo goes with Maddox's +circus. Do you know Mr. Stingo?" + +"None better," said Japhra. "I am of Stingo's crowd, as we say. Dost +thou?" + +"I know him very well," Percival declared. "I know his brother best. +They call me a Pocket Marvel, you know; so I should like to know what +you think of that?" + +"Why, I think that's what thou art," said Japhra. "A rare one. There +were fairies at thy christening, little master." + +"What for?" asked Percival and asked it so seriously that Japhra +twinkled anew and replied: "Why, there's the question again. What for? +Why that sunny face they have given thee? and those fine limbs? and +that straight back? What for? There's some purpose in it, little +master." + +He looked strangely at Percival as though behind his twinkling he +indeed questioned these matters and found, as he had said, a question +in all he saw. But when he saw how mystified he held Percival, he +stopped his searching look and asked: "Any more questions, little +master?" + +He had kept his finger on the open page of his book all this time; and +Percival pointed and said: "Well, what are you reading, if you please?" +and was told "Robinson Crusoe." + +"Why, I'm reading that!" cried Percival in much delight. + +"Then thou art reading one of the only three books a man wants," said +Japhra. "There's 'Pilgrim's Progress'--" + +"I've read that too! In Mr. Amber's library--" + +"And there's the Bible." + +"And that as well!" cried Percival. + +"Why," said Japhra--not twinkling now, but grave--"why, then, thou hast +read the beginning and end of wisdom. Crusoe and Pilgrim and +Bible--those are the books for a man. I read them and read them and +always read them new. They are the books for a questioner, and thou +art that amain. And they are the books for a fighter, and that is thy +part. I have unriddled thee so far, little master. I know the +fighting type. Mark me when the years come. A fighter, thou." + +He placed a blade of grass in "Robinson Crusoe" and put the volume +beneath his arm. He got up and took Percival's small hand in his horny +fist. "Come thou and see my van, little master," said he. "We are +friends--thou and I and Ima here." And then he twinkled again. "And +why? What brought thee whom the fairies attended and that has read the +books and is the fighting type? What brought thee here? Why, there's +the question again!" + +It was the beginning of Percival's chiefest friendship of them all. In +the rare proper seasons that followed one another through this the +happy, happy time, the van came more and more frequently Lethamwards. +Summertimes it was away with Stingo's crowd in Maddox's Monster +Menagerie and Royal Circus. But Wintertimes it would come tinkering, +and sometimes remain a week or more snow-bound, and Springtimes +Punch-and-Judying through the Burdon hamlets; and these were happy, +happy times indeed. There was all Japhra's lore, all his dimly +understood "questioning" to hear; and all his stories of his strange +and varied life; and all his reading aloud from his three books, who +could read them and put a meaning into them as none other could. And +there was the boxing to learn, with Percival a very apt and eager pupil +and Japhra insistent that it was a proper game--the only proper game +for a man. And once every summer there was the visit of Maddox's +Monster Menagerie and Royal Circus to Great Letham, where +Percival,--introduced by Japhra, sponsored by Stingo,--was made +enormously welcome by rough, odd van folk who were of "Stingo's crowd." +He learnt the sharp and growing difference between Stingo's crowd and +Boss Maddox's men. Boss Maddox was boss and of increasing wealth and +weight: attracting showmen to his following from many parts of the +country and incorporating them in his business, but unable to win the +allegiance of the little knot of independents who called Stingo "Boss," +and hating them for it. Rough, odd men who made an immense deal of +Percival and had rough, odd names: Old Four-Eyes, who wore spectacles +and had a Mermaid and a Mummified Man; Old One-Eye, whose left eye was +gone and had a Wild West Rifle Range; Old 'Ave One, who was given to +drink ("'Ave one, mate?") and had the Ring 'em where Yer Like--A Prize +fer All; and the rest of them. Percival never mixed with the Maddox +crowd but once, when he boxed, and to the immense delight of Japhra and +all the Stingo men, defeated, a red-haired, skinny youth of his own +age, whom Boss Maddox was introducing to the public as the Boy Wonder +Pugilist. "Looks like a fox to me," Percival said aloud, when he first +saw the Boy Wonder. The Boy Wonder heard, and the men who stood about +heard and laughed; there certainly was a foxy look about the Juvenile +Wonder's cunning face with its red head. The Wonder furiously resented +the remark and the laughter; expressed a desire to shut Percival's +mouth; succeeded in shutting one of his eyes, but was certainly beaten. + +He became Percival's first enemy--and chance set aside the first enemy +for further use. + + +II + +Ima, when the van came Lethamwards, was Percival's first girl friend, +and chance had use also in store for her. She was a strange, quiet, +very gentle thing, but one that could run, as she had told him, and +bold and active stuff for any ramble. With odd ways, though. + +"Ima, you do look at me an awful lot," Percival told her in the early +days, catching her large eyes fixed upon him. + +"Well, thou art not like other boys I see," she told him; and a little +while after she asked him, "Dost thou know little ladies with white +skins like thine, little master?" + +"I'm brown!" said Percival indignantly. + +She shook her head. "But little ladies?" + +"I know one," said Percival. "White! Well, you'd stare if you saw +her, Ima. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red, I call her," and in his tone was +something akin to the mingled admiration and awe with which small +schoolboys speak of their cricket captain. + +She was silent for a moment; then, "Well, tell me, little master," she +said. + +It was of Dora that he told her. + +When Lady Burdon had returned that call paid on her by Mrs. Espart from +Abbey Royal she had been as greatly captivated by Dora as she had been +taken by Dora's mother. She found in Mrs. Espart a curiously cold and +high-bred air that appealed to her--being a quality she was at pains to +cultivate in herself--and appealed the more in that it very graciously +unbent towards her. Its unbending was explainable by the quality that, +for her own part, she presented to Mrs. Espart--that of her rank and +station. + +Mrs. Espart had been married in her teens, brought from school for the +purpose, by a mother whose whole conception of duty in regard to her +daughters was wealthy marriage, and who had fastened upon it in this +case in the person of Mr. Espart--a nice little man, an indifferently +bred little man, but a most obviously well-possessed little man. The +girl was hurriedly fetched from her finishing school, whirled through a +headachy fortnight of corseting and costuming, and put in Mr. Espart's +way and then in his possession with the docility of one educated from +childhood for such a purpose. Used as a woman who never had realised +there was a life beyond the cloisters bounded by lessons in deportment, +in the nice languages and the nice arts; as a wife who never yet had +been a child but always a young lady, Mrs. Espart discovered that she +was mated with a vulgarian, Mr. Espart that he had married, as he +expressed it, "a frozen statue." She thought of him and despised him +as the one; he thought of her, feared her, and adored her as the other. +The chill she struck into his mind communicated itself in some way to +his bones, and very shortly after he had bought Abbey Royal--her +command being that he should nurse the local political interests, +enrich the Party from his coffers and so win her the social status her +sisters had--he began to shrivel and incontinently died--frozen. + +Mrs. Espart proceeded to bring up the child born of this marriage +precisely as she had herself been brought up,--in narrow cloisters, +that is to say, in dutiful obedience and for the ultimate purpose of +suitable marriage. She repeated in Dora's training the training she +had received from her own mother, its object the same, with this +difference--that whereas in her case that object was a wealthy match, +in Dora's--Mr. Espart having made wealth unnecessary--it was position. +Time was absurdly young for any plans when Mrs. Espart first met Lady +Burdon, but plans had crossed her mind when she drove out to leave +cards at the Manor: she had heard of Rollo. She made Lady Burdon very +welcome when Lady Burdon came. + +Dora was two years younger than Rollo, Lady Burdon found. When, on the +occasion of this visit, she was brought to the drawing-room--a +strikingly pretty child in a curiously unchildish way--she already +showed marks of the machinery that ordered her life. She was curiously +prim, that is to say, of noticeably trained deportment; curiously +self-assured and yet not childishly frank; curiously correct of speech +and with a dutiful trick of adding "Mamma" to every sentence she +addressed to her mother. + +She was her mother's child; similarly trained; similarly developing. +"A very well brought-up child," as Lady Burdon afterwards commented to +her husband, and noted in her also the strong promise of the beauty +that later years were to realise. She was to be notably tall and was +already slim and shot-up for her years; she was to be notably fair of +complexion and showed already a wonderful mildness and whiteness of +skin, curiously heightened by the little flush of colour that warmed in +a sharply defined spot on either cheek. Lady Burdon rallied her once +during their conversation--the subject was French lessons, which it +appeared she found "Terribly puzzling, Lady Burdon, do I not, Mamma?" +and her face responded by a curious deepening of the red shades, her +cheeks and brow gaining a hue almost of transparency by contrast. + +It was that quality and that characteristic that made Percival--meeting +her when she was brought over to tea with Rollo--call her, as he told +Ima, Snow-White-and-Rose-Red. + +The name was from his fairy book, and to his mind fitted exactly this +fragile and well-behaved and reserved Miss who he thought was the most +beautiful thing he had ever seen. It fitted her more surely yet when +he came to know her when she was fourteen and just returned, Rollo also +having come to the Manor, for her first holidays from the highly +exclusive school to which she was sent. + +By then the friendship between Lady Burdon and Mrs. Espart had grown to +closest intimacy. They met, and Dora and Rollo met, intimately in +London; and Abbey Royal was rarely closed when Burdon Old Manor was +opened. Mrs. Espart had suffered to lapse that attitude towards the +little post office boy which Lady Burdon had termed "ridiculous." She +never liked, and certainly never encouraged, Percival, but she accepted +him as undetachable from Rollo, whom by now she encouraged greatly in +friendship with Dora, and it was thus that Dora at rare intervals +contributed to these days of the happy, happy time. + +At fourteen she was actively advanced in her first term at the +exclusive school by the machine that was shaping her. Strikingly now +she promised, as always she had hinted, what should be hers when full +maidenhood was hers. The singular fairness of her complexion was the +grace that first struck the observer; and with it was to be noticed +immediately the curious shade on either cheek that flushed to a warm +redness when she was animated, and, flushing sharply within its +limitations, sharply threw into relief the transparent fairness of her +skin. Her head, small and most shapely, was poised with the light and +perfect balance of a flower on its stem. Her features were small, +proportioned as a sculptor would chisel the classic face--having the +straight nose, the delicate nostrils, and the short upper lip of high +beauty. Her eyes were well-opened, strangely dark for her fair +colouring, well-lit, with the light and shade and softness of dew on a +dark pansy when the sun first challenges the flowers at daybreak. Her +abundant hair, soberly dressed in a soft plait that reached her waist, +was of a dull gold that in some lights went to burnished brass. She +was poised upon her feet with the flower-grace of her head upon her +throat. She was of such a quality and an air that you might believe +the very winds would divide to give her passage, afraid to touch and +haply soil so rare a thing. + +Percival in these days went beyond even his first wonder at her. He +had never believed there could be such a beautiful thing, and at their +meetings he was very shy--regarding her with an admiration that was +very apparent in his manner. He, certainly, if not the winds, had in +her presence a feeling of necessity to be gentle with so rare and +strange a thing. He could class her nowhere except with +Snow-White-and-Rose-Red; and to him that was her meetest +class--belonging to a different race and to be indulged as an honoured +guest should be; permitted to have caprices; expected to be strange. + +She came occasionally to tea at the Old Manor. The boys would take her +then for a walk in the grounds--sometimes further afield. Percival, +never free from the wonder she caused in him, always had much concern +for her on these occasions. He constantly inquired if they were not +going too far for her; he would always propose they should turn back if +they came to a muddy lane. It happened once that a lane desperate in +mud could not be avoided. He showed her the drier path against the +hedge, but this was so narrow as to require some balancing to keep it. + +"You must hold my hand," he said. + +To shake hands with her had always been a matter of some diffidence. +Now he was to support her while she picked her way. He took her little +gloved hand in his. It lay warmly within his grasp; and concerned lest +he should hurt so delicate a thing, he let it rest in his palm, passing +his fingers about her wrist where there was bone to feel. + +"Tell me if I hurt you," he said. "I'm trying not to--and not to +splash"--and he trod carefully, above his boot soles in the mire. + +She told him: "You're not, thank you. These lanes are wretched. I +hate them." + +Much of her weight was on him. There was a perfume about her person, +and it came to him pleasantly: he had never walked so close to her +before. The soft plait of her hair was about her further shoulder, +hanging down her breast. With her free hand she held her skirt raised +and closely against her legs for fear of brambles in the hedge. +Percival looked at her daintily-shod feet, picking their way, and he +gave a funny little laugh. + +"What are you laughing at?" she asked him. + +"My boots--and yours. You must have funny little feet." + +She half withdrew her hand. + +"I think you are the rudest boy I have ever met," she said. + +"Oh, I didn't mean to be rude," Percival declared. + +She told him in her precise way: "You are rude, although you are nice +in some ways. I think I have never known any one stare at me so +frightfully as you stare. I have seen you often staring." + +Percival gave for explanation: "If I stare, it's because I've never +seen any one like you." + +She gave the slightest toss of her chin. + +He went on: "Do you know what I call you? I call you +Snow-White-and-Rose-Red." + +He saw the blush shades on her cheek very slightly darken. It sounded +a pleasant thing to be called. But she said: "It sounds stupid; what +is it?" + +"From a fairy tale. Don't you know it?" + +"I don't care about reading." + +"What do you like doing best of all?" + +"I think I like going for drives--and that;" she half slipped and +added, "I simply hate this." + +"I've got you perfectly safe," Percival assured her. + +She said nothing to that, either of doubt or thanks; and they finished +the lane in silence. But when dry ground was reached and she withdrew +her hand, she thanked him prettily. With Rollo--who had no wonder of +her and whom she saw more frequently--she was on easy terms; and now +the three walked back to the Old Manor more companionably than was +usual with them. When Dora left, she surprised Percival by thanking +him again; she surprised him more by showing him a little mark on her +hand he had held and playfully protesting his grasp had caused it. +Thereafter when they met she had a smile for him. + +He liked that. + +She came to be very frequently in his mind, though why he did not know. +Once he came to Aunt Maggie with a dream he had had of her. "The +rummiest dream, Aunt Maggie. I dreamt I was chasing her, and chasing +her, and calling her: 'Snow-White! Snow-White! Rose-Red! Rose-Red!' +and every time I nearly caught her Rollo came up and caught hold of me, +and away she went. And fancy! I fought Rollo! Aren't dreams absurd?" + +Aunt Maggie put her hand to her forehead. "Was that the end, dear?" + +"Why, the end was more absurd than ever. Although I tried, I couldn't +hit Rollo--simply couldn't. He hurt me, but I couldn't do anything, +and he threw me down and went off with Dora. Doesn't it show how +ridiculous dreams are? Fancy dear old Rollo being stronger than me! +Is your head hurting, Aunt Maggie?" + +"Just a shoot of pain--it's gone now." + +While he described his dream, and while she pictured it, one of those +flutterings had run up violently in her brain. It passed, but left its +influence. "Absurd!" she agreed. "If ever you did quarrel with him--" + +Percival laughed. "I never could, in any case." + +"Are you very fond of him, Percival?" + +Rollo was returning to London that day. "I simply hate his going +away," Percival said. "I wish to goodness he lived here always. He +wishes it, too." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +BURDON HOUSE LEASED: THE OLD MANOR OCCUPIED + +I + +It happened that within a very short time of that wish it was granted. +Burdon House in Mount Street was let; Burdon Old Manor was permanently +occupied. + +This began in a visit that Lady Burdon, very decidedly out of temper, +paid to Mr. Pemberton at the office in Bedford Row. Relations between +Lady Burdon and the little old lawyer had radically altered since that +occasion of their first meeting at Miller's Field. Mr. Pemberton, who +in these years had relinquished to his son all the business save the +cherished Burdon affairs, had long been aware that the misgivings which +had clouded his first happy impression of Lady Burdon had been the +juster estimate of her character. He had perceived the dominance she +exercised over her indulgent husband; he had accepted, after what +protest he dared, that the management of the estate was in her hands. +He had foreseen the fruits of the wilfulness of a woman thrown out of +balance by the sudden acquisition of place and possessions; it was +because these fruits were now being plucked that he preferred to keep +the Burdon affairs in his own hands. He could not bear the thought of +handing over to his son this honoured trust in shape that would cause a +lifting of the eyebrows: "Father, I've been going through the Burdon +papers. I say, they seem in a precious bad way ... I don't +understand...." + +He could not endure the thought of that. + +On this day when Lady Burdon came angrily--and defiantly--to Bedford +Row, the position was raised very acutely between them. + +"I know--I know," Mr. Pemberton was saying. "But, Lady Burdon, you +must perceive the possibility--nay, in the circumstances, the extreme +probability--that though Lord Burdon countenances in the smallest +particular all you find it necessary to spend--and on the property not +to spend--he yet may not appreciate the state of affairs--the +imperative necessity that a halt be called. I have written to him +frequently. The replies come from you." + +She parted her lips to speak, but he had already had sufficient taste +of her mood to make him hasten with: "I know. I know. Lord Burdon has +told us both that he hates business and that he likes to encourage you +in the pleasure you find in it. That is admitted, Lady Burdon. We +have no quarrel there. My point is--how far is Lord Burdon to be +suffered to indulge his dislike? how long is he to be kept in +ignorance? I think no longer. That is why I purpose making a call on +him. I purpose it, again, because I believe Lord Burdon's +influence--when he understands--may join with mine to move you, where +mine alone causes you annoyance." + +He indicated the papers that littered the table. "You see the +position. I tell you again--I tell you with all the seriousness of +which I am capable--that the crash is as near to you as I am near to +you sitting here. I tell you that it is not to be averted unless for a +period--a mere few years--Burdon House is given up. It will let +immediately on a short lease. There, alone, will be more than +relief--assistance. It will save you much that you now find +necessary--there is the relief of the whole situation." + +She broke out: "It would never have come to this but for the cost of +this irrigation scheme on the Burdon property. That is your +doing--yours and Mr. Maxwell's. I tell you again I was amazed--amazed +when I heard of it." + +"And I have reminded you, Lady Burdon, that when I approached you in +the matter you desired not to be troubled with it. I had often and +often urged it upon you. This time you said it was to be left entirely +to our discretion--Maxwell's and mine." + +"I shall repudiate the contract. The work is not begun. You can get +out of it as best you can." + +He said very quietly, "That is open to you--of course." He paused and +she did not speak, and he went on. "You would have no case, I think. +The authority is too clear. But I do not mind saying I would try to +get out of the contract or--. Our firm could not be involved in a +lawsuit against the house we have served these generations." He +dropped his voice and said more to himself than to her: "No--no. Never +that!" He looked up at her and assumed a cheerful note: "You have to +think of your son, you know, Lady Burdon. What is he to come into? +This irrigation scheme will be the making of the property--the land +cries for it. If you can cut off the Burdon House establishment for a +few years, young Mr. Rollo will have reason to bless you when in +process of time he assumes the title. If you decide--" + +She rose abruptly: "I must be going." + +Mr. Pemberton hobbled after her down the stairs to attend her to her +carriage. A bitter wind was blowing. The coachman was walking the +horses up and down. The footman who waited in the doorway, rugs on +arm, ran into the street and beckoned to him. Lady Burdon watched the +carriage, tapping her foot on the ground and frowning impatiently. A +large piece of pink paper came blowing down the pavement, somersaulting +along in a ridiculous fashion--heels over head, heels over head, +grotesquely like a performing tumbler. + +"Cold!" said Mr. Pemberton, briskly, rubbing his hands together. "Very +cold!" + +She made no reply. She was much out of temper. She was considerably +beset. She was stiffening with an angry determination against +abandoning her life in town. She was freshly aroused against Mr. +Pemberton for his devoted loyalty to her husband's house--he had stung +her by the manner of his acceptance of her threat to repudiate the +contract; and by his reference to Rollo--he had hit her there. + +The tumbling paper--a newspaper contents bill she could see--flung +itself flat a few yards from them, throwing out its upper corners as it +came to rest, for all the world like an exhausted tumbler throwing out +his arms. The carriage drew up. + +With a foot on the step: "You need not call on Lord Burdon till I have +written to you--to arrange a date," she said. + +Mr. Pemberton replied: "I certainly will not. I will await your +letter, Lady Burdon." + +She settled herself in her seat, drawing her furs about her. He was +certainly a doddering old figure as he stood there--shrunken in the +face, bent in the body, his few white hairs tumbled in the wind. + +"Your house is very dear to me, Lady Burdon," he went on. "You must +believe I act only in your best interests--in what I believe to be--" + +She nodded to the footman, turned towards her from the box, and the +carriage began to move. The tumbler contents bill leapt up with an +absurd scurry, somersaulted down to them, and flung itself flat with a +ridiculous air of exhaustion. + +"Tragedy in the House of Lords," she read idly, and drove away. + + +II + +Lady Burdon drove straight home. She arrived to be apprised she was +concerned in the "Tragedy in the House of Lords" that the tumbler bill +had brought somersaulting down the street. As the carriage drew up, a +maid hurried down the steps and gave her the news: "His lordship"--the +girl was scared and breathless--"His lordship, my lady--taken ill in +the House of Lords--fell out of his seat in a faint--brought him home +in Lord Colwyn's carriage--carried him up-stairs, my lady--fainted +or--a doctor is with him, my lady." + +Lady Burdon wrestled with the confused sentences, staring at the girl, +not moving. "Fainted or--" + +She threw back the rug from about her lap and sprang from the carriage. +A newsboy rushing down the street almost ran into her, and she had to +stand aside to give him passage. Her eye caught the pink bill +fluttering against him where he held it: "Tragedy in the House of +Lords." + +God! The tragedy was here. She ran swiftly up the steps and up the +stairs. At the door of Lord Burdon's room terror leapt at her like a +live thing so that she staggered back a step and could not turn the +handle. "Fainted or--?" She caught her hand to her bosom, her poor +heart beat so. She had a vision of him dead, being carried up the +steps. There flashed with it a vision that showed him tired after +lunch and her saying: "If you knew how elegant you look, lounging +there! You ought to go to the House. You never go. You can sleep +there;" and he saying, "Right-o, old girl." + +Sleep there? Had she driven him to die there? Fainted or--? + +She entered the room. A man wearing a frock-coat stood by the +dressing-table. She stared, and stared beyond him to the bed. She put +her hand to her throat and strangled out the word "Maurice!" The man +turned to her and began to speak. She ran past him and flung herself +beside the bed and took Lord Burdon's hand and pressed it to her face. +She burst into a terrible sobbing, raining tears upon the hand she +held. From the threshold she had seen the eyes open, the faint twist +of a smile of greeting upon the white, pained face. + +Alive! That was sufficient! For the moment, in the first agony of her +distress, she required nothing more. Between the recovery from her +first shock at the news, and the terror that had held her back when she +reached his door, remorse, like bellows at the forge, quicked her every +memory of him to burning irons within her. Happen what might, she was +to be suffered to slake their torture. + +She felt the hand she held move in her grasp. It was his signal of +response to her sympathy. He said very weakly, in an attempt at the +old tone: "Made an--awful ass--of--myself, old--girl." He groaned and +breathed: "O God! Pain--pain!" + +She would not speak to the doctor. She desired nothing but to be left +there holding that hand, feeling it move for her and pressing it +against her face that was buried upon it when it moved. She desired to +be told nothing, to do nothing. This was between him and her--let them +be left to it while yet they could be left! A procession of pictures +was marching through her mind. In each she saw herself in a scene of +her neglect of him or her impatience with him. She had the feeling +that while she might hold that hand and feel it move, each picture +would pass--atoned for, forgiven, erased. This was between him and +her--let them be left to it while yet they could be left! + +Movements, the opening and closing of the door, whispering voices, came +to her. Some one touched her. She shook herself at the touch and +crouched lower. This was between him and her!--for pity's sake!--if +you have pity, let us be left to it while yet we can be left! + +The movements continued. They seemed to be closing about +her--impatiently waiting for her. They began to force themselves upon +her attention so that her mind must leave its pictures and distinguish +them. She crouched lower ... if you have pity! She heard stiff +rustlings and fancied a nurse was in the room. She heard a heavier +step and presently felt a touch that seemed to command obedience. + +She raised her head--A nurse, the man she had first seen, another +man--older. He pointed at the figure on the bed and motioned with his +head towards the door. Maurice seemed to sleep. She rose with a +little shuddering gasp and looked at them, twisting her hands +together--if they had pity! ... what did they require of her? + +The older man was bending over the bed, whispering with the younger. +The nurse came to her, smiling gently, and nodded towards him: "Sir +Mervyn Aston. He will speak to you outside. Will you not leave us +just a moment? Quite all right." + +She remembered the name. It was the specialist Maurice had sometimes +consulted. She had not bothered much about it: but she remembered the +name. Sir Mervyn looked towards her and moved across the room. She +looked again at the bed. The nurse nodded brightly. She followed Sir +Mervyn to the door. + +"Down-stairs," he said, and trod heavily down before her. He was a +great man and took the privilege of bad manners. In the library he +turned to her: "Did you send for me?" She had not expected that. She +had expected sympathy--at least information. She stared at him, +momentarily surprised out of her grief. His face was stern; she +believed his manner accused her. + +"No," she said. + +"You expected this?" + +Expected it! Of what could he be thinking? + +"I've told Lord Burdon repeatedly that this life--I've warned him again +and again to get out of it. Hasn't he told you?" + +Now she knew that he was accusing her. She never had cared to listen +when Maurice told her he had been to Harley Street. She stood twisting +her hands together, nervous before this brusque man. + +"Hasn't he told you?" + +"No." + +He looked sharply at her. He was a great man and had learned to read +between the lines that his fashionable patients presented him. "A +pity," he said briefly. "This might have been averted for many years." + +"Tell me"--she said, and could say no more: "tell me--" + +His tone became a little kinder. "We must hope for the best, you know. +There is always that. I will look in again at midnight. They are +making him quite comfortable up-stairs." + +He said a little more that she did not catch. Presently she realised +that he had left her. "This might have been averted for many years!" +She ran to a bureau and fumbled frantically for pen and paper. She was +in a sudden panic to do one thing that she believed would soften that +dreadful sentence if the worst came. She was in a panic to get it done +before there might be a sound from above and a horrid running down the +stairs. She found her writing materials. Pen in hand she listened, +trembling violently. No sound! As quickly as she could write she +scrawled to Mr. Pemberton: "I have decided. We are going to Burdon Old +Manor at once. Make arrangements to let the house, please." + +Whatever happened now, she had begun her share of the bargain she +prayed to press on death. If death would spare him, she would devote +her life to him! + +As she was sealing the letter Rollo came in. He had been to a matinee +with Mrs. Espart and Dora, at home for her holidays. Lady Burdon gave +a little motherly cry at the sight of him and took him in her arms. + +They went up-stairs together. + +The doctor had gone. The nurse told her Lord Burdon was asleep; but +when she went to her former position on her knees beside the bed and +took his hand again, he opened his eyes and his eyes smiled at her; and +then closed; he seemed desperately weary. + +She did not cry now. There was this bargain to be forced on death; +and, as with the letter, so now with her promises, she was in a panic +to get them done, believing that if death--God, as she named it--might +know all she offered to pay, he must accept the price and hold his hand. + +She was not the first that has believed death--or heaven--is open to a +deal. + +Through the long evening she knelt there, Rollo with her. Thus and +thus she promised--thus and thus would she do--thus and thus--thus and +thus! Mostly she bargained, frantically reiterating. At intervals she +would turn to protest--protesting that her sin was very light for so +heavy a threat. What had she done? She had done no wrong. She had no +flagrant faults--she was serenely good, as goodness is judged. She was +devout--she was charitable. Only one little failing, heaven! She had +desired to enjoy herself, and enjoying herself had neglected him. But +he did not care for the things she liked. Indeed he did not! He was +happiest when she was happy. Indeed he was! Yet she saw the error of +her way. If he might be spared, heaven--thus and thus--thus and +thus--thus and thus! + +Physical weariness overcame her as she heaped her promises, leading her +mind astray and tricking it into nightmare dreams whence she would +struggle with trembling limbs. The dreams took gross or strange forms. +She would be running down the street pursued by the tumbler +contents-bill, somersaulting behind. It caught her and fell flat, +flinging out its armlike corners, and she saw it was Maurice. She +stooped to him, and it was the bill again, gone from her on the wind. +She pursued it, and saw it take semblance of Maurice, and pursued it +with stumbling feet and could not catch it. + +She struggled from these horrors and found her mind again. She was +intensely cold, she found. Sir Mervyn had come and was bending over +her husband. Sir Mervyn nodded to her and sat down by the bed. She +dared ask no questions. She crouched lower where she knelt. The night +went on--Sir Mervyn still there. She prayed on--thus and thus! thus +and thus! She was tricked into the nightmare dreams. She was with +Rollo's friend, Percival, and running to Rollo, who seemed in distress. +A woman stopped them. She recognised in her the girl who had come with +that claim to be Lady Burdon years before. The girl caught Percival +and held him and Percival held her. She struggled to be free, for +Rollo was calling her wildly. His cries grew louder, louder, louder, +and burst as a real cry suddenly upon her. + +"Mother! Mother!" + +She started up. Rollo was on his feet, bending towards his father. + +"Lift! Lift!" Lord Burdon murmured. + +Sir Mervyn raised him. She clutched his hand. He rallied upon the +strength of life's last pulse and flutter, and smiled, and murmured, +"Poor old girl!" + +Then she saw death come; and she turned and threw her arms about her +son. + + + + +BOOK FOUR + +BOOK OF STORMS AND OF THREATENING STORM. THE ELEMENT OF LOVE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +PLANS AND DREAMS AND PROMISES + +I + +Three women were counting the years now. The years were rolling +up--curtain by curtain, like mists from a distant hillside; and behind +them the ultimate prospects for which Lady Burdon waited, Mrs. Espart +waited, and Aunt Maggie waited began to be revealed. Mrs. Espart had +conveyed to Lady Burdon her ambition--formulated long ago--with regard +to Dora and Rollo. Lady Burdon reckoned the union as very desirable +and gave its consummation a first place among her aspirations for her +Rollo. Aunt Maggie saw the hour of her revenge approaching so that its +years might now be estimated on the fingers of one hand. + +So near the desirable ends were approaching that the women began to +name dates for their arrival. Youth, with only a few years lived and +so enormous an experience gained in those years (as youth believes), +cannot endure the thought of planning ahead for a space that is a fair +proportion of its whole lifetime. Five years is a monstrous, an +insupportable period to youth that has lived but four times five or +less. Age, with fewer years to live than have been lived, and with the +knowledge of how little a decade has to show, will plan for five years +hence with nothing near so much of sighs and groanings as youth will +suffer if it must wait five months. + +The women began to name dates. Those very close friends, Lady Burdon +and Mrs. Espart, spoke of dates frequently. Mrs. Espart and Dora had +already "come into the family" as Mrs. Espart smilingly expressed it, +when, at Lord Burdon's death, and on being acquainted with her dear +friend's intention to let the Mount Street house on a short lease and +retire to Burdon Old Manor, she had offered herself as lessee. The +offer had been most gratefully, most gladly accepted. The great town +house was made over to Mrs. Espart for a seven years' term and thus, in +Mrs. Espart's phrase, "remained in the family"--ready for Rollo and +Dora, as the ladies plotted. + +And now they were naming dates. "When Rollo is twenty-four," Lady +Burdon said to Mrs. Espart, come over from Abbey Royal to lunch at the +Manor one day, "look, dear, he is just on twenty now. You know my +plans. Next year he is to go to Cambridge. His illness has thrown him +back. But next year will be time enough. Three years at Cambridge, +then, and that will bring him almost to twenty-three. Then I wish him +to go abroad--to travel for a year. That is so good for a young man, I +think. Then when he comes back he will be ready to settle down and he +will come back just the age for that tradition of ours--celebrating +comings-of-age at twenty-four instead of twenty-one. That would be so +splendid for the wedding, wouldn't it?" + +"Splendid!" Mrs. Espart agreed. "Splendid! That old Mr. Amber of +yours was trying to tell me the other day how that twenty-four +tradition arose. But, really, he mumbles so when he gets excited--!" + +"Oh, he's hopeless," Lady Burdon agreed. Her tone dismissed his name +as though she found his hopelessness a little trying, and she went back +to "Yes, splendid, won't it be? When I look back, Ella, everything has +gone wonderfully. From the very beginning, you know--the very +beginning, I planned a good marriage for Rollo. It was so essential. +To be your Dora--well, that makes it perfect; yes, perfect!"--and Lady +Burdon stretched out her hands and gave a happy little sigh as though +she put her hands into a happy future and touched her Rollo there. + +"And I for Dora," Mrs. Espart said. "From the very beginning, too, I +arranged great matches for Dora in my mind. That it should be your +Rollo,"--she gave a little laugh at her adaptation of the words--"that +it should be your Rollo--why, really, perfect is the word!" + +They were silent for a space, enjoying the beauty of the hillside that +the thinning years were disclosing. + +"You've never said anything to Rollo?" Mrs. Espart asked. + +"Oh, no--no, not directly, anyway. It will come about naturally, I +feel that. They are so much together. And in any case Dora--Dora is +so wonderfully beautiful, Ella. I couldn't conceive any man not +falling in love with her. In a year or so's time, developing as she +is--why, you'll change your mind perhaps--when they're all worshipping +her!" + +She laughed, and her laugh was very reassuringly returned. "But it is +Rollo she will marry," Mrs. Espart smiled. "With her it is as you say +with him--it will come naturally. In any case--well, she is being +brought up as I was brought up. She is dutiful. You find so many +girls encouraged in independence nowadays. Nothing is so harmful for a +girl ultimately, I think." + +Lady Burdon nodded her agreement. "How happy Rollo will be!" she said, +and spoke with a little sigh so caressingly maternal and with eyes so +fondly beaming that Mrs. Espart put out a hand to touch her and told +her, "I love your devotion to Rollo, Nellie." + +"He is everything to me," Lady Burdon said softly. "Everything!" + +"I know he is. Why, you look different again when you speak of him +even! Do you know, you were looking wretchedly ill when I came this +morning, I thought." + +"I had slept badly." Lady Burdon looked hesitatingly at her friend as +though doubtful of the expediency of some further words she meditated. +Then, "I had my nightmare," she said; and at the question framed on +Mrs. Espart's lips went on impulsively: "Ella, I've never told you +about my nightmare. I think I shall. It worries me. Do you know, +just after we came into the title a girl came to see me and said she +was the former Lord Burdon's wife." + +"_No_! What happened?" + +"Oh, nothing, of course--nothing serious. I sent her away. She said +she would bring proofs; but I never saw her again." + +"You wouldn't, of course. One of those creatures, I suppose," and Mrs. +Espart curled her lip distastefully and added: "I suppose some young +men will do those things--no doubt that's what it was; but it's rather +disgusting, isn't it? And how very horrible for you! But, Nellie, +where does the nightmare come in?" + +"With the girl," Lady Burdon said and gave a little uneasy movement as +though even the recollection worried her. "With the girl. I dream of +her whenever--that's the odd thing--whenever something particular +happens. See her just as I saw her then and say 'I am Lady Burdon,' +and she says 'Oh, how can you be Lady Burdon?' Then I get that +dreadful nightmare feeling--you know what it is--and say 'I hold!' and +she says 'No, you do not--Nay, I hold!' It's too silly--but you know +what nightmares are. And it only comes when something particular +happens--or rather is going to happen. The night before we heard of +old Lady Burdon's death, that was once. Then the night before we came +down here for that stay when Rollo met his friend Percival and we began +to come regularly. Then the night my husband died." She stopped, +smiled because Mrs. Espart was smiling at her indulgently, as one +smiles at another's unreasonable fears, but went on, "and now last +night!" + +Mrs. Espart laughed outright: "Why, what a hollow moan, Nellie!--'and +now last night!' I'd no idea you were such a goose. You've let the +silly thing get on your silly nerves." + +"Only because things have always happened with it." + +Her concern, however foolish, was clearly so genuine that Mrs. Espart +changed banter for sympathetic reassurance. "Why, Nellie, really you +must be more sensible! Why, dreaming it last night proves how silly it +is. What's happened to-day? Look, I'll tell you what's happened +to-day, and it's something to settle your wretched girl and your omens +once and for all. She nightmared you last night and to-day we've +settled how happy we are all going to be with our young folk married! +There! Tell her that with my compliments if she ever comes again!" + +Her air was so brisk and stimulating that Lady Burdon was made to +laugh; and her facts were so convincing that the laugh was followed by +a little sigh of happiness, and Lady Burdon said: "Why, Ella, it's +funny, isn't it, how in this life some things _do_ go just as one +wishes, for all that people say to the contrary?" + +That was to be proved. Down at "Post Offic," while the ladies planned, +a date was also being named. + + +II + +"But when? When?" Percival was saying to Aunt Maggie. "I'm +eighteen--eighteen, but you still treat me like a child. I ought to be +doing something. I'm just growing up an idler that every one will soon +be despising. But when I tell you, you ask me to wait and say I've no +need to be anxious and that I shall be glad I waited when I know what +it is you are planning for me." + +"You will be, Percival," Aunt Maggie said. + +But he made an impatient gesture and cried again: "But when? When? +That satisfied me when I was a boy. It doesn't now. I'm not a boy any +longer. That's what you don't seem to see." + +That indeed he was boy no more was written very clearly upon him as he +stood there demanding his future--not for the first time in these days. +He was past his eighteenth birthday: his bearing and his expression +graced him with a maturer air. The mould and the poise of head and +body that as a child had caused a turning of heads after him were +displayed with a tenfold greater attraction now that they adorned the +frame of early manhood. There was about the modelling of his +countenance that air of governance that is the first mark of high +breeding. The outlines and the finish of his face were extraordinarily +firm, as though delicate tools had cut them in firm wax that set to +marble as each line was done. The chin was rounded from beneath and +thrown forward; and to that firm upward round the lower jaw ran in a +fine oval from where the small ears lay closely against the head; +deeply beneath the jaw, cut cleanly back with an uncommon sweep, was +set the powerfully modelled throat that denotes rare physical strength. +The eyes were widely opened, of a fine grey--unusually large and of a +quality of light that seemed to diffuse its rays over all the brow. +The forehead was wide, with a clear, sound look. Outdoor life had +tinted the face with the clean brown that only a fine skin will take; +the hair was of a tawny hue and pressed closely to the scalp. He was +of good height and he carried his trunk as though it were balanced on +his hips--thrown up from the waist into a deep chest beneath powerful +shoulders. He held his arms slightly away from his sides in the +fashion of sailors and boxers whose arms are quick, tough weapons. +After all this and of it all was a gay, alert air, as though he were +ever poised to spring away at the call of the first adventure that came +whistling down the road. His face was not often in repose. Ardent +life was forever footing it merrily up and down his veins, delighting +in motion and in its strength, and his face was the mirror of its +discoveries. + +Just now, voiced in his "I'm growing up an idler that every one will +soon be despising," it was discovering restrictions that his brow +mirrored darkly. "It's not fair to me, Aunt Maggie," he said. "I +ought to be doing something for myself. I must be doing something for +myself. But you put me off like a child. You tell me to wait and +won't even tell me what it is. You tell me to wait--when? when?" + +Aunt Maggie said pleadingly: "Soon, Percival, soon." + +"No, I've heard that--I've heard that!" he cried. "I want to know +when." + +She named her date. "When you are of age, dear. When you are +twenty-one." + +He cried: "Three years! Go on like this for three years more!" + +He swung on his heel and she watched him go tremendously down the path +and through the gate. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +FEARS AND VISIONS AND DISCOVERIES + +I + +Percival took the highroad with the one desire to be alone--to walk far +and to walk fast. The prodding of his mind that goaded him, "I'm +growing--I'm losing time--I'm settling into a useless idler!" that +tortured him he was in apron-strings and likely to remain there, +produced a feverish desire to use all his muscles till he tired them. +His feet beat the time--"I must do something--I _must_ do something!" +and he swung them savagely and at their quickest. It was not +sufficient. He was extraordinarily fit and hard; the level road, +despite he footed it at his fiercest, could scarcely quicken his +breathing. A mile from "Post Offic" he struck off to his right and +breasted the Down, climbing its steepness with an energy that at last +began to moisten his body and to give him the desired feeling that his +strength was being exercised. "I must do something!" he spoke aloud. +"I must--I can't go on like this--I won't!" and taxed his limbs the +harder. If he must feel the chains that bound him in idleness, let him +at least make mastery of his body and rebuke it till it wearied. + +At the crest of Plowman's Ridge he paused and drew breath and turned +his face to the wind that ever boomed along here and that had come to +be an old friend that greeted his ears with its jovial, gusty Ha! Ha! +Ha! + +Far below him he could see "Post Offic" with its garden running to the +wood. From his distance it had the appearance of a toy house enclosed +by a toy hedge, the toy trees of the wood rigid and closely clipped +like the painted absurdities of a child's Noah's Ark. As he looked, a +tiny figure came from the house and went a pace or two up the garden +and seemed to stand and stare towards him up the Ridge. Aunt Maggie, +he was sure, and had a sudden wave of tenderness towards her, looking +so tiny and forlorn down there. He remembered with a prick at heart +that, even in the heat of his anger in the parlour half-an-hour ago, he +had noticed how small she looked as she stood pathetically before him, +gently replying to his impatience. He thought to wave to her with his +handkerchief, but knew she could not see him. He remembered--and +another prick was there--that she had said, seeking, no doubt, to win a +moment from his violence, "Do you see my eyeglasses, dear? I'm getting +so shortsighted, Percival." He flushed to recollect he had disregarded +her words and had threshed ahead with his "It's not fair to me--not +fair to me, keeping me here doing nothing!" He had been unkind--he was +unkind--and she was so small, so gentle, so loving, so tender to his +every mood. + +But that very thought of her--how small she was, how gentle--that had +begun to abate his warring mood, returned him suddenly to its +conflicts. That was just it!--so small, so gentle, so different from +him in every way that she could not understand his situation and could +not be reasoned with. No one understood! No one seemed to realise how +he was growing, and how blank the future, and hence what he was +growing. They all laughed at him when he spoke of it. + +They all laughed! Mr. Purdie laughed--Mr. Purdie had laughed and said, +"Oh, you're not a man yet, Percival!" and had given his absurd, +maddening chuckle. + +"His silly, damned chuckle!" cried Percival to old friend wind at the +top of a wilder burst of resentment against the world in general and +for the moment against Mr. Purdie in particular. + +Rollo laughed--Rollo had laughed and declared: "Oh, don't start on +that, Percival! That'll be all right when the time comes." + +"When the time comes! Good lord! The time has come," Percival told +old friend wind. "It's slipping past every day. All very well for old +Rollo--all cut and dried for him. For me! I'm to be idling here when +he goes to Cambridge, am I? And idling like a great lout when he comes +back!" + +Lady Burdon laughed--they all laughed, thinking him foolish, not +realising. Ah, they would laugh in another way--and rightly so--when +they did realise, when they saw him standing among them idle, useless, +helpless, dependent on Aunt Maggie. They would all laugh--they would +all despise him then. Everybody.... + + +II + +As he came to that thought--visioned some distorted picture of himself, +overgrown, hands in pockets in the village street, and all his friends +going contemptuously past him--there came a sudden change in old friend +wind that for a moment left him vacant, then somehow changed his +thoughts anew. Old friend wind, that had been buffeting him strongly +in keeping with his turbulent mood, dropped, and he was in silence; +then came with a different note and bringing a scent he had not +apprehended while it went rushing by. Nothing odd that he should be +responsive to this change. The wind on Plowman's Ridge was old friend +wind to him, and everybody who is friends with the wind knows it for +the live thing that it is--the teller of strange secrets whispered in +its breezes, the shouter of adventures thundered in its gales. Who +lies awake can hear it call "Where are you? Oh, where are you?"--who +climbs the hill to greet it, it welcomes "Welcome--ho!" Sometimes, to +those who are friends with it, it comes lustily booming along in high +excitement ("This way! This way! There's the very devil this way!"); +sometimes softly and mysteriously tiptoeing along, finger on lip +("Listen! Listen! Listen! Hush--now here's a secret for you!"). + +In this guise it came to him now--dropped him down from the turbulence +of spirit to which it had contributed, caught him up and led him away +upon the cloudy paths of the scent it gave him. The fragrance it bore +in this its whispering mood stirred, in that quick and certain manner +that scents arouse, associations linked with such a fragrance. There +was in the scent some hint of the perfume that was always about Dora; +and immediately he was carried to thought of her.... + +She to see him idler! She to pass him by contemptuously! His mental +vision presented her before him as clearly as if she were here beside +him on the Ridge. He saw her perfect features, with their high, cold +expression; the transparent fairness of her skin; that warm shade of +colour on either cheek that, as though she saw him watch her, deepened +with their strange attraction even as he visioned her. He visioned her +clearly. He could have touched her had he stretched a hand. And he +was caused--he knew no reason for it--a slight trembling and a slight +quickening of his breath. + +She to see him idler! ... In rebuke of such a thought he released his +mind to wild and undisciplined flights that showed himself the champion +of tremendous feats--of arms, of heroism, of physical +prowess--performing them beneath the benison of her eyes, returning +from them to receive her smiles.... + +For a considerable space he stood lost among these clouds. They had +drifted upon him suddenly. He found them delectable. Then he began to +find them strange and puzzling--scenes that were meaningless, +sensations that could not be determined. It is to be remembered of him +that, though he was now advanced to the period when the sap is up in +youth and quickening in his veins, he did not pursue the life nor was +he of the nature that encourages the amorous designs. A sluggish habit +of mind and body is the soil to nurture these: he was alert and braced, +eager and sound from foot to brain--a thing all fibre and fearless, +whose only quest was what should give him the challenge of movement, of +light, and ring back tough and true when he taxed it. No room was +here, then, for the disturbances that sex throws up; and yet these very +qualities that such disturbance could not undermine conspired to arouse +him very mightily when he should turn him to enquire what this +disturbance was, and discovering, should launch himself upon it. + +He was near to the brink of that launching now. Dora with her rare +beauty always had exercised upon him a feeling different from any he +commonly knew; he never yet had troubled to suppose that it was caused +by any emotion outside his normal life. She had astonished him by her +grace of form and feature on that day when he had discovered her to be +Snow-White-and-Rose-Red of the fairy book. Thereafter she had remained +to him a delicately beautiful object--set apart from the ordinary +fashion of persons he knew; not to be treated quite as he treated them; +a very dainty thing, making him aware of the contrast that his own +sturdy figure, strong limbs, brown face, and hard young hands +presented. As a boy he had always been caused a manner of awe in her +presence; as he grew older the awe went back to the sheer admiration +that she had caused in him at their first meeting. Out of her company, +in the long months that frequently separated her visits, he rarely +thought of her; though sometimes--and he had no reason for it--he would +find her pretty figure in his mind or in his dreams. When he +reëncountered her, the admiration sprang afresh; he liked to watch her +face, to stand unnoticed and expect, then see, her cold smile part her +lips, or those strange shades of colour deepen and glow upon her +cheeks; he liked in little unobserved ways to protect her as he had +protected her that day in the muddy lane; it caused him a strange +rapture to have her thank him for any service. + + +III + +These were his relations to her through the years. He never had +thought to analyse them nor question why he so regarded her--never till +now. Now for the first time as he stood on Plowman's Ridge he mused +among the misty tangle of the sensations that old friend wind had +brought, lost and astray among the visions presented to his mind by +estimate of how Dora would consider his idle plight--now for the first +time he suddenly questioned himself what she was to him. + +He was all unused to the sensations in which, by an effort recalling +himself from his musings, he found himself suffused. They were +all--that slight trembling and that slight quickening of his breath +that possessed him--foreign to his nature, and he made a sharp movement +as though they were tangible and visible things that he would shake +from about him. Useless!--they had him wrapped.... Quicker his +trembling, and his breath quicker. What was she to him? Up sprang the +answer, answering with a triple voice that demanded his acknowledgment. +Up sprang the answer, causing him a physical thrill as though indeed +there burst at last from within him some essence that had been too long +held and now was loosed like fire through his veins. With a triple +voice, clamouring he should recognise it! What was she to him? Her +face and figure stood in all their beauty before his mental eye--that +was one voice and he trembled anew to hear it. What was she to him? +Memory of a light speech of Rollo on the previous day came flaming to +his mind: "And mother, I believe, has a plot with Mrs. Espart that I +shall marry Dora then and settle down"--that was a second voice and +stung him so that he knit his brow. What was she to him? Of them +all--of all who would laugh and have him in scorn when he was taskless +idler--bitterest, most intolerably goading, that she should hold him +so--that was the third voice and drew from him a sharp intake of the +breath as of one that has touched hot iron. + +What was she to him? In triple voice he had the answer, demanding his +acknowledgment, clamouring for his recognition. By a single word he +signed the bond. None was by to listen, and yet he flushed; there was +none to overhear, and yet he spoke scarcely above a whisper. He just +breathed her name--"Dora!" + +An intense stillness came about him. He stood enraptured, all his +senses thrilled. Out of the stillness, echo of his whisper, seemed to +come her name of Dora! Dora! Dora! floating about him as petals from +the bloomy rose. He raised his face to their caress and was caught up +in sudden ecstasy--believed he was with her, touching her; and saw and +felt her stoop towards him, bringing her perfume to him as the may-tree +stoops and sheds its fragrance when first at dawn the morning breathes +in spring. + + +IV + +So for a space he stood etherealised--awed and atremble; youth brought +suddenly through the gates and into the courts of love where the strong +air at every tremulous breath runs like wine to the brain, to the heart +like some quick essence. For a space he stood so; then was aware that +old friend wind was up again and drumming Ha! Ha! Ha! upon his ears as +one that mocks. + +What was she to him? The answer, now he had it, stirred to wilder +tumult the feelings that had brought him turbulently breasting up the +Ridge. He looked again towards "Post Offic," toylike below, and had no +tender thought for it--bitter vexation instead, as of the captive who +goes to fury at the chains that bind him. + +That he should submit to be thus chained, thus apron-stringed! That +Dora should laugh! That she should know him idler! Goading +thoughts--maddening thoughts, and he flung himself, bruising himself, +against them as the captive against his prison walls. That she should +laugh! It should not be! It was not to be endured! He threw up his +head in determination's action, his hands clenched, his body braced, +resolve upon his angry brow. + +Ha! Ha! Ha! drummed old friend wind--Ha! Ha! Ha! + +He gave a half cry and turned and strode away along the Ridge, taking +the direction that led him from home, and exerting himself under new +impulse of the desire to rebuke his body and haply ease his mind. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A FRIEND UNCHANGED--AND A FRIEND GROWN + +I + +An hour at that pace brought him above Great Letham, clustered below. +He paused irresolutely. From among the roofs, as it were, a crawling +train emerged. He watched it worm its way along the eastward vale, +then abruptly turned his back upon it as upon a thing more fortunate +than he--not bound down here, as he was bound. Brooding upon the +landscape, he suddenly became aware of a thin wisp of smoke that +pointed up like a grey finger from the valley beneath him. It mounted +in a steady, wand-like line from the belt of trees that marked Fir-Tree +Pool, and its site and its appearance braced him to an alert attention. +It had signalled him before. Only one person he had ever known lit a +fire down there: only one hand in his experience contrived a flame +which gave quite that steady, grey finger. He remembered Japhra +showing him how to get the heart of a fire concentrated in a compact +centre; he remembered Ima laughing at the sprawling heap, burning in +desultory patches, that had come of his first attempt at imitation. + +"If only it is Japhra!" he said aloud; and he struck down the +Ridge-side for a straight line across country to where the smoke +proposed that Japhra might be. + +More than a year had passed since last the van had visited the +district. Even Stingo, met sometimes over at Mr. Hannaford's, could +give him no better news of it than that Japhra had not taken the road +with Maddox's these two seasons. The disturbed state of mind that now +vexed Percival could be soothed in no other way, he suddenly felt, than +by the restful atmosphere that Japhra always communicated to him. +Japhra would not laugh at him. Japhra would understand how he felt. +Japhra would advise in that quiet way of his that made one see things +as altogether different from the appearance they seemed to present. If +only it were Japhra! + + +II + +It was Japhra! + +As Percival came quickly through the trees that enclosed the water he +caught a glimpse of the yellow van. As he emerged he heard Japhra's +voice: "Watch where he comes!" and he pulled up short and cried +delightedly: "You knew! You were expecting me!" + +Clearly they had known! Not surprise, but welcome all ready for him, +was in Japhra's keen little eyes that glinted merrily, and on Ima's +face, that was flushed beneath its dusky skin, her lips parted +expectantly. Even old Pilgrim, the big white horse that drew the van, +had its head up from its cropping and looked with stretched neck and +seemed to know. Even tiny Toby, that was Dog Toby when the Punch and +Judy show was out, was hung forward on his short legs like a pointer at +mark, and now came bounding forward in a whirl of noisy joy. + +Japhra was astride of a box, a piece of harness between his legs, a +cobbler's needle in his right hand, and the short pipe still the same +fixture in the corner of his mouth. Ima was on one knee, about to rise +from the fire whose smoke had signalled. + +"You knew! You were expecting me!" Percival cried again, and went +eagerly to them as they rose to greet him, his hands outstretched. + +"Father knew thee before I heard thy footsteps," Ima told him. "The +fire crackled at my ears or I had known." + +She seemed to be excusing herself, as though not to have heard were +short of courtesy; and Japhra, who had Percival's hand, gave a twist of +his face as if to bid him see fun, and teased her with: "Thou didst +doubt, though, Ima, for look how I had to bid thee 'watch where he +comes.'" + +Percival thought she would toss her head and protest indignantly as +when he used to tease her when they had trifled together. Instead, her +eyes steadily upon his face, "Nay, for I knew it was he," she replied +simply. + +He no more than heard her. At a later period he found that the words +had gone to the backwaters of his mind, where trifles lie up to float +unexpectedly into the main stream. Years after he recalled distinctly +her tone, her words, and the look in her eyes when she spoke them. + +Now he laughed. "You two can hear the world go round, I believe." He +turned to Japhra: "But how on earth you could tell--" + +"Footsteps are voices, little master, when a man has lived in the +stillness." + +Percival laughed again--laughed for pure happiness to hear himself +still given that familiar title, and for pure happiness to be again +with Japhra's engaging ideas. "You're the same as ever, Japhra--the +same ideas that other people don't have." + +"Ah, but 'tis true," Japhra answered him. "Footsteps have tongues, and +cleaner tongues than ever the mouth holds. Look how a man may oil his +voice to mask his purpose--never his feet. Thine called to me, how +eagerly they brought thee." + +"Eagerly!--I should think they did! You're just the one I want. I've +not seen you for a year--more. Eagerly--oh, eagerly!" + +Japhra's bright eyes showed his delight. "And we were eager, too. We +have spoken often of little master, eh, Ima? Not right to call him +that now, though. Scarcely reckoned to see him so grown. Why, thou'rt +a full man, little master--there slips the name again!" + +He twinkled appreciatively at Percival's protest that to no other name +would he answer, and he went on: "A full man. Ten stone in the chair, +I would wager to it. What of the boxing?" + +"Pretty good, Japhra. The gloves you gave me are worn, I can tell you." + +"That's well. Never lose the boxing. It is the man's game. Ay, thou +hast the boxer's build, ripe on thee now as I knew would be when I saw +it in thee as a boy. The man's game--never lose it." + +"I'm keener than ever on it," Percival told him. "I'm glad you think +I've grown. I've got a punch in my left hand, I believe." His spirits +were run high from his former despondency, and he hit with his left and +sparkled to see Japhra nod approvingly and to hear him: "Ay, the look +of a punch there." + +"Yes, I've grown," he said. "You've not changed, Japhra--not a scrap." + +Japhra nodded his head towards the fir trees. "Nor are the old limbs +yonder. They stay so till the sap dries, then drop. Nary change. +Only the young shoots change. What of Ima?" + +She had turned away while they talked. She was back at the fire, and +Percival turned towards where she stood, about to lift from its hook +the cooking pot that hung from the tripod of iron rods. As he looked, +she swung it with an easy action to the grass. The pot was heavy: she +stooped from the waist, lifted and swung it to the grass with a +graceful action that belonged to her supple form, and, as the steam +came pouring up and was taken by a puff of breeze to her face, went +back a step and looked down at her cooking from beneath her left +forearm, bare to the elbow, raised to shield her eyes. + + +III + +That was Percival's view of her. She had put up her hair, he noticed, +since last he saw her. It was dressed low on the nape of her neck; +evening's last gleam delighted in its glossy blackness against her +olive skin. Beneath the arm across her face he saw the long lashes of +her eyelids almost on her cheeks, as she stood looking downwards. Her +mouth was long, the lips, blending in a dark red with her brown +colouring, lying pleasantly together in the expression that partners +the level eye and the comfortable mind. She was full as tall as +Percival--very slim in the build and long in the waist that was moulded +naturally from her hips to spread and cup her bosom, and therefore +taller to the eye. She wore a blouse of dark red cloth; her skirt was +of blue, hung short of her ankles, and pressing her thighs disclosed +how alert and braced she stood. She wore no shoes nor stockings, and +her feet, slender and long, appeared no more than to rest upon the +short grass that framed them softly. + +"What of Ima?" + +"Ima?--Ima has grown, though," Percival said. "Why, she's simply +sprung up!" + +"Ay, grown," Japhra agreed. "Grown fair," he added, watching her. + +Percival said, "Yes, she is pretty." The vision of Dora's high +fairness came to his mind, challenged and rebuked his favour of another +of her sex, and returned him swiftly to the stress that had brought him +down here for comfort and that the first reëncounter with Japhra had +caused to be overshadowed. His eyes lost their brightness. He +remained looking dully at Ima, not seeing her; and presently started +and flushed to realise that he was hearing a repeated question from +Japhra. + +"What ails, master?" + +"Ails? I heard you the first time, Japhra. I was thinking. I'm +troubled--sick. That's what ails." + +His face flushed with the same cloudy redness that the beat of rising +tears drives into the faces of children. On the Ridge he had put +against his trouble the stiffness that was of the bone of Burdon +character. Down here was sympathy--and he was very young; it sapped +the stubbornness. + +"That's what I'm here for," he said thickly. "To tell you, Japhra." + +Japhra had a keen look to meet the misty countenance that was turned to +him. + +"Food first, then," he said, and gave a twinkle and a sniff at the +savour from Ima's cooking that made Percival smile in response. +"Naught like a meal to take the edge off trouble. There'd be few +quarrels in the world if we all had full bellies always." + +"Well, food first, then," Percival agreed, making an effort; and he +raised his voice: "What's Ima got for us?" + +She turned at the sound of her name and smiled towards him, and the +smile caused beauty to alight upon her face as a dove with a flashing +of soft wings comes to a bough. He saw it. Her beauty abode in her +mild mouth and in her seemly eyes. Her parted lips discovered it to +step upon her face; her raised eyes released it, starry as the stars +that star the forest pool, to star her countenance. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +IMA'S LESSONS + +She had odd ways, Percival found--oddly attractive; sometimes oddly +disconcerting. She did not at first contribute to the conversation +while they ate. She was very quiet; and that, and the way in which, as +he noticed, she kept her eyes upon him, was in itself odd. Dusk was +veiling the camp as they took the stew she had prepared. They had the +meal on the grass near the van, and Percival, not eating with great +ease in the squatting pose, noticed how erect she sat, as though her +back were invisibly supported--her plate on her lap, the soles of her +bare feet together. + +He deferred his trouble, as Japhra had proposed, till the meal should +be done. He was interested to know where the van had been all these +months; and when he questioned Japhra, "We have had the solitary +desires, Ima and I," Japhra told him. "The solitary desires, master, +whiles thou hast been growing. A sudden wearying of Maddox's and all +the noisy ones. North to Yorkshire, we have been; west to Bristol's +border; deeper west to Cornwall. The road has had the spell on +us--calling from every bend and ever keeping a bend ahead, as the road +will to those who are of it. Summers we have passed the circus on its +tour and laid a night with old Stingo and then away, urgent to move +quicker and lonelier. Trouble has worsened in the circus crowd." + +"What, between Stingo's men and Boss Maddox's?" + +"Ay," said Japhra. "Boss Maddox is the biggest showman in the west +these days. He rents the pitches at all the fairs before the season +begins; and the Stingo crowd, who must take what he gives, he puts in +the worst places. His hand is heavy against them. One fine day the +sticks will come out and there'll be heads broken, as happened on the +road back in '60. I was in that and carry the mark of it on my pate to +this hour. Pray I'll be there when this one falls." + +"I'd like to be with you, Japhra." + +Japhra showed his tight-lipped smile: "Well, a camp fight with the +sticks out and the heads cracking is a proper game for a man, master. +Thou'dst be a handy one at it, I warrant me." + +Ima broke in with her first contribution to their talk. She said +quickly: "Shame, Father. Not for such as he--fights and the rough +ways." + +But she was silent again and without reply when Percival sought to +rally her for this opinion of him; and Japhra twinkled at him and said: +"There's one would like to meet thee, though--sticks or fists"; and +went on, when Percival inquired who: "Thy friend Pinsent. Thy name of +Foxy for him has stuck to him and he has not forgiven thee. A fine +fighter he has grown--boxed in some class rings for good purses in the +winter months, and in the summer is a great attraction at the fairs. +Boss Maddox is fond of him. Boss Maddox has fitted him with a booth of +his own and he gets the crowds--deserves 'em, too. But 'Foxy' has +stuck to him--and suits him. He hates it; and's not forgotten where he +owes it." + +Percival laughed. "Well, if he's done so well, I ought to be proud to +have given him something to remember me by. He could wallop me to +death, of course." + +"There's few of his weight he could not hand the goods to," Japhra +agreed. He looked estimatingly at Percival and added: "One that could +keep the straight left in his face a dozen rounds'd serve it up to him, +though. Foxy has no bowels for punishment. I have watched him." + +And again Ima broke in. "Ah, why dost talk so?" she addressed her +father. "He is nothing for such ways--fights and the fighting sort." + +This time Percival would not let her opinion of him escape without +challenge. "Why, Ima!" he turned to her, "that's the second time +you've said that. Seems to me you think I ought to be wrapped in +cotton-wool." + +His voice was bantering, but had a note of impatience. The events of +the day had not made him in humour to take lightly any estimate of +himself that seemed to reflect on his manliness. + +She noticed it. Her voice when she answered him had a caressing sound +as though she realised she had vexed him and would beg excuse. "Nay, +only that thou art not for the rough ways--such as thou," she said; +and, mollified, he laughed and told her: "Well, you never used to think +so, anyway. You've changed, you know, Ima, changed a lot since I last +saw you." + +"And should have changed," Japhra announced. "Scholar with lesson +books, she has been these winter months." + +Percival thought that very quaint. "Scholar, Ima; have you?" he asked +her, and saw the blood run up beneath her dusky skin. "I can't imagine +you at lessons!" + +"Nor those who taught me," she replied; and paused and added very +gravely, speaking in her gentle voice, "Yet have I learnt--and still +shall learn." + +Percival asked: "Learnt what?" + +Odd her ways--oddly attractive, oddly disconcerting; speaking steadily +and more as if it were to herself and not to listeners that she spoke. +"Learnt to sit on a chair," she told him, "and to sit at a table +nicely; to wear shoes on my feet, and stockings; to go to church and +sing to God in heaven; to talk properly as house folk talk; to sleep in +a bed; to wear a hat and stiff clothes; to abide within doors when the +rain falls and when the stars alight in the sky--these have I learnt." + +Percival was tempted to laugh, but her gravity forbade him. "How +terrible it sounds--for you! But why, Ima, why?" + +She did not answer the question. She smiled gently at him and went on +with the same air of speaking to herself: "Lessons from books, also. +Figures and the making of sums; geography--as capes and bays and what +men make and where; of a new fashion of how to hold the pen stiffly in +writing; of nice ways in speaking--chiefly that I should say 'you' when +I would say 'thou'--that is hardest to me; but I shall learn." + +Something almost pleading was in her voice as she repeated, "I shall +learn;" and Percival turned for relief of his puzzlement to Japhra: +"Why, whatever's it all for, Japhra?" + +Japhra gave his tight-lipped smile. "Woman's reasons--who shall +discover such?" But Ima made a motion of protest, and he went on: +"Nay, the chance fell, and truly I was glad she should have woman's +company--and gentle company. In Norfolk where we pitched the winter +gone by was a doctor I had known when we were young--he and I. He +shipped twice aboard a cattle boat with me, having the restlessness on +him in those days. Now I found him stout and proper, but not forgetful +of an indifferent matter between us. He brought his lady to the van, +and she conceived a fancy for Ima, holding her a fair, wild thing that +should be tamed. Therefore took Ima to her house and to her board, and +taught her as she hath instructed thee. Thus was the manner of it; as +to the wherefore--why, woman's reasons, as I have said," and he smiled +again. + +Ima got abruptly to her feet. The meal was ended, and she began to +collect the plates. Her action plainly rebuked the further questions +with which Percival was playfully turning to her. He offered instead +to help her with her washing of the dishes, but she told him: "Nay, +maid's work this. Abide thou with father, and talk men's talk." In +the action of moving away she turned to Japhra and added her earlier +plea: "So it is not of boxing and the rough ways." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +JAPHRA'S LESSONS + +I + +Japhra took up Ima's words when she had left them. "Nay, but the +boxing is my business," Japhra said, filling his pipe. "I'm for the +boxing again this summer. Money's short and old Pilgrim yonder has +full earned his rest and must have another take up his shafts. Another +horse is to be bought, wherefore a sparring booth again for me." + +Percival asked: "When are you going?" + +"To-morrow. I pick up the circus by Dorchester. My lads are waiting +me. Ginger Cronk, I have--thou mind'st Ginger?--and Snowball White, a +useful one. Stingo seeketh another for me. A good lad, I must have, +if the money's to be made, for Foxy Pinsent hath a brave show that will +draw the company--two coloured lads and four more with himself." + +Percival was silent. "I wish I could go with you," he said presently: +"And you're going to-morrow, you say?--to-morrow?" + +"At daybreak, master." + +"Ah!" Percival gave a hard exclamation as though feelings that were +pent up in him escaped him. "Now I had found you again, I hoped I was +going to see you often for a bit. My luck's right out," and he gave a +little laugh. + +Japhra lit his pipe. "So we come back to thy trouble," he said. + +His voice and a motion that he made invited confidence. Percival +watched through the dusk the glow from his pipe, now lighting his face, +now leaving it in shadow. He had longed to tell Japhra; he found it +hard. + +After a moment: "Hard to tell!" he jerked. + +"How to bear? That is the measure of a grief." + +"Impossible to bear!" + +"Tell, then." + +"There's little to be told. That's it! That's the sting of it--so +little, so much. A man must do something with his life, Japhra!" + +"Ay, that must he, else life will use him, breaking him." + +"Why, that's just it! That's what will happen to me! I'm a man--they +think I'm not; there, that's the pith of it!" He was easier now and in +the way of words that would express his feelings. He went on: "Look, +Japhra, it's like this--" and told how he was growing up idler, how +Aunt Maggie answered all his protestations for work for his hands to do +by bidding him only wait--and he ended as he had begun: "A man must do +something with his life!" + +He stopped,--aware, and somehow, as he looked through the dusk at +Japhra, a little ashamed, that his feelings had run his voice to a note +of petulance. He stopped, but a space of silence came where he had +looked for answer. Evening by now was full about the camp. Night that +evening heralded pressed on her feet, and was already to be seen +against the light in the windows of the van where Ima had lit the lamp. +From the pool was the intermittent whirring of a warbler; somewhere a +distant cuckoo called its engaging note that drowsy birds should not +make bedtime yet. In the pines a song-thrush had its psalm to make; at +intervals it paused and the air took a night-jar's whirr and catch and +whirr again. Old Pilgrim cropped the grass. + + +II + +Percival said: "What are you thinking of, Japhra?" + +"Of life." + +"What of life?" + +"How hot it runs." + +"Meaning me--I'm in a vile temper, I daresay you think." + +"How hot it runs, master--how cold it comes and how little the profit +of it." + +Percival said heavily: "What is the use of it, then?" + +Japhra bent forward to him and Percival saw the little man's +tight-lipped, firm-lined countenance with the tranquil strength of mind +that abode in the steady aspect of the bright eyes, deep beneath their +strong brows. + +"The use?" Japhra said. "Nay, that is the wrong way of estimate. For +thee in thy mood, for all men when life presses them, inquire rather +what is the hurt of it. How shall so small a thing as life, a thing so +profitless, that soon becomes so cold, returneth to earth and is +nothing remembered nor required--how shall so small a thing offend thee +and make shipwreck of thy content? Thus shouldst thou judge of it." + +"Some men are not soon forgotten, Japhra." + +"Ay, master, and what men? They that have seen how small a thing is +life and have recked nothing of it." + +"How have they done great things, then?--fought battles, written books?" + +"Why, master, how wrote Bunyan in chains or Milton in blindness?" + +"They didn't mind." + +"Even so. Profitless they knew life to be, and cared not how it tasked +them." + +"But, Japhra, that's--that's all upside down. Are there two things in +a man, then--life and--?" + +Japhra said: "So we come to it--and to thee. Truly there are two +things: life which is here in the green leaf, and gone in the dry; and +the spirit which goeth God knows where--into the sea that ever moves, +the wind that ever blows, the sap that ever rises--who shall say? But +knoweth not death and haply endureth forever if it were mighty +enough--as Milton, as Bunyan. Look at me, master, for that is the +plain fact of it and the balsam for all thy hurts." + +He stopped and drew slowly at his pipe with little puffs that floated +to Percival like grey thistledown dropping through the night. + +"Go on," Percival said. "Go on, Japhra." + +"Why, there thou hast it," Japhra told him. "Lay hold on thy +spirit--let that be thy charge; and of what cometh against thee take no +heed save to rebuke it as a boxer rebuketh the cunning of him that is +matched against him. So was the way of Crusoe, of old Bunyan's +Pilgrim, and of the Bible men, and that is why I call them the books +for a fighting man. Here's my way of it, master--there's force in the +world that moves the tides and blows the winds and maketh the green +things grow. Out of that force I unriddle it we come, and back to it +return. In some the spirit is utterly swallowed up in life, and at +death crawleth back suffocated and befouled and only fit to come again +in some rank growth--so much a lesser thing than when it came springing +to a human breast that the force of the world whence it came is by so +much lessened and can give birth to a flower less and a toadstool more." + +"And then there's the other way about," said Percival, attracted by +this argument. + +"Ay, truly the other way about, master. The way of the mighty men in +whom the spirit rebuketh life and increaseth, and at death goeth +shouting back--so quickening the force of the world that, just as the +cup spilleth when much is added, so there be mighty storms when great +men die--thunders and rushing winds, great lightnings and vast seas." + +Percival drew a long breath. "Why, it's a fine idea, Japhra--fine." + +"Look at a case of it," Japhra said. "My Bible in the van there hath +one. I have it by heart. Look when Christ died. Never a man than He +cared less how life tasked Him; and at His death--when there went +shouting back the spirit that He had increased beyond the increase of +any man--look thou what came: 'And behold the veil of the Temple was +rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth quaked; and the +rocks rent and the graves were opened.' And again: 'And it was about +the sixth hour; and there was darkness over all the earth until the +ninth hour; and the sun was darkened.'" + +He stopped; and Percival breathed long and deep again: "Fine, +Japhra--fine. I never thought of it like that. Fine--I think I see." + +"Surely thou dost, master; or any man that giveth thought to it. Take +it to thine own case--that is my word to thee. Reck nothing how life +assaileth--hold on only to thy spirit. Thou wouldst be doing something +and art irked by the bonds that hold thee--never fear but that in its +time the thing will come. I have seen men--I know the fashion of them. +Thou art of the mould and mind to which adventures come. See to it +thou art ready for them when they arrive--trained as the boxer is +against the big fight." + +Percival said heavily: "What's the prize, Japhra?" Now that the +application of this engaging view was pressed to his own case he had a +dark vision of what it required of him. "What's the prize?" + +"Why, content! Look, little master, here's happiness, here's +content--and content is all the world's gold and all its dreams. +Whatever cometh against thee, whether through the flesh or through the +mind, get thou the mastery of it. How? Every man according to his +craft. The philosophers, the reckoners--theirs to judge bad against +good and find content that way. That was old Crusoe's manner of it. +Thou art the fighting type--the Ring for thee." + +Percival got abruptly to his feet. At the same moment Ima opened the +door of the van and stood above them--held, as it were, upon the light +that streamed from the interior. + +"The Ring for thee," Japhra repeated, "there to meet and conquer all +thy vexations. Make a boxer of thy spirit. Step back through the +ropes then and take up the champion belt marking thee thine own man, +thine own master: a proud and jewelled thing to wear--content." + +Ima's voice broke in upon them. "The champion belt?" she said. "What, +is it still boxing, thy talk?" + +Japhra turned his face up to her and the lamplight showed the twinkling +with which he met the reproach in her voice. "Why, it is my trade," he +said, "and thine. In two days thou'lt be taking the money at the door +of my booth." + +"Not his trade, though," she answered. + +Percival said: "Japhra, would I be a likely one for your booth, do you +think?" + +He was holding out his hand in the action of farewell. Japhra got up +and took it and held it. "Why, if I get as proper a build as thine for +my third lad I will put a polish to it that would vex Foxy Pinsent +himself. Keep up the boxing, master. Art thou going?" + +Percival said abruptly, "Yes, I'm going." He released the hand and +went away a step. "I'm going. I've a longish way home and things to +do before bedtime. You'll be gone at daybreak?" + +"At dawn, little master." + +"On the Dorchester road?" + +"Ay, to Dorchester." + +"All the luck with you, Japhra. I'm better for seeing you." He spoke +jerkily as though his throat were full and speech difficult. He +stopped abruptly, and half turned away; then, recollecting Ima, went +back to the van and stretched up his hand to where she stood: "Good +night, Ima." + +She stooped down to him. The action brought her face into the darkness +and he noticed how her wide eyes, as she stooped, seemed actually to +light it. "Farewell!" she said. + +It was perhaps that he had so obviously only attended to her as an +afterthought that her throat, for all the sound her word had, might +have been as full as his. Some thought of the kind--that he had been +churlish to her--crossed him. He said more kindly: "I say, though! +your hand is cold, Ima." + +She withdrew her fingers, giving him no reply. But as he turned away +and went a step, "What of thy way home?" she cried, and cried it on a +sudden note as though it went against her will. + +"By the Ridge," he told her. "By Plowman's Ridge and then along." + +She answered him: "Yes, I am cold. I will warm me to the Ridge with +thee--if thou wilt suffer me." + +In the mood that was on him he had preferred to be alone. But under +the same apprehension of having been churlish to her, "Why, that's +jolly of you," he said. + + +III + +She went within the van a few moments; and while he waited he had a +last exchange with Japhra: "You've helped me, Japhra. But I shall +disappoint you if I'm tried too hard. Content--I'll make a fight for +it. But I shall not endure it very well if I am still to be idler." +He gave a hard little laugh. "When it's a fight for mastery of myself +I shall disappoint you, I believe." + +Japhra told him: "I have seen men, master, and know the fashion of +them. Thou wilt not disappoint me." + +"You can't say that of any one--for certain." + +"I say it of thee. Though thou failest a score times thine is the +mould that comes again--for that I shall look. Listen to me, little +master--that name clings: I cannot shake it from me. Listen to me. +Thy type runneth hot through life till at last it cometh to the big +fight. Send me news of that." He struck a match to relight his pipe +and cupped the flame against his face. "Send only 'The Big Fight, +Japhra,'" he said. + +The flame of his match built up the dusky night in walls of immense +blackness. In their heart Percival saw the kindly face with its tight +lines and keen eyes. "I shall know the winner," Japhra said; and the +cup of light within his hands shadowed and lit again his face as he +nodded. + +The Big Fight was drawing towards Percival. Aunt Maggie had the very +date of it, and the articles reckoned and ready. When it rushed +suddenly upon him and he was in its stress and agony, he remembered the +lighted face, the confident nod and the message that was to be sent. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +WITH IMA ON PLOWMAN'S RIDGE + +I + +Ima had put on shoes and stockings when she reappeared from the van and +joined Percival to accompany him to the Ridge. The two were come +almost to the Down's skirt before they exchanged words. "I have things +to do before bedtime," Percival had told Japhra; and as he walked he +was too occupied by the thoughts of what he purposed--hunted by them as +the tumult of his concerns had hunted him earlier in the day--to give +attention to Ima who had come with him when he had preferred to be +alone. She was perhaps aware of that. She followed the half of a pace +behind the short, impatient steps that partnered--and signified--his +mood, her eyes watching what of his face she could see and ever and +again turning swiftly ahead, as though she feared he might catch her at +it and feared that might offend him; so a dog that knows itself +unwanted may be seen, wistful at its master's heels--with little wags +of a timid tail and with beseeching glances; eager to communicate some +succour to this angry mood; afraid to hazard what may further vex. + +Yet he was pleasant when presently he spoke to her. + +They stepped from a dense lane about whose mouth and overhead the +arching brambles trailed as though to curtain a sanctuary from trespass +by outer dust and breeze and light. Before them the Down ran smooth +and grey to where, beneath the moon, it took a silver rim along the +line of Plowman's Ridge. A harsher scent was here than briar and wild +rose breathed within the lane and jealously entwined to hold there; the +breeze came with a swifter touch to the face; the light challenged the +eyes that the gloom had rested. + +Together their effects aroused Percival's senses from his thoughts to +his companion. + +"Warmer now, Ima?" he asked. + +"Warmer now, little master," and she smiled and added: "unseemly to +call thee that, now thou hast grown so." + +He moved with her to a gate that faced the Down. "Let's rest a bit," +he said. "Why, we've both grown, Ima, since the last time I saw you. +You've grown. You've put up your hair--properly grown up. I shall +have to treat you with terrible respect." + +She did not respond to his light tone. Her eyes that looked quietly at +him had a grave air. "I am a gipsy girl to thee," she said. "I am not +for thy respect--such as me. For ladies that." And before he could +answer her she went on: "What of that little lady thou hast told me +of--Snow-White-and-Rose-Red as thou didst name her to me?" + +He did not notice a changed tone--to be described as stiff--in her +voice. It did not occur to him that in the matter of his respect she +made comparison between herself and her whom she named with his fond +name for her; he was only surprised and only grateful to have that name +spoken to him. + +"Why, she's grown," he said. "Fancy you remembering her, Ima!" + +Eagerness was in his voice. "I am cold again," she told him, and drew +away. "Let us go up the Down." + +He did not follow her movement or her words, but pursued his own +"--remembering that I called her that, anyway," he said. + +If it had been her purpose to dismiss the subject, at least she earned +herself his full attention by the swiftness with which she turned upon +him and by the swiftness of her reply. "It is thee I remember," she +answered him. "Not her--or any such. Thou wast my friend when we +played boy and girl together. All thou hast done with me, all thou +hast told me, point me the way to thee as remembered marks along the +road point to a camping-place--no more, and of themselves nothing." + +She had his attention; but he attributed the quickness of her speech +and her odd thought and simile only to the general oddness of her ways. +"Well, you needn't go back to those days in future," he told her. +"We're friends now just as much as then." + +She shook her head and smiled. "Nay, after this day I must needs go +farther back," she said, her voice smooth again. "Thou dost not +understand--playmate days I seek. I lie in my bed on the fine nights +with the van door wide, and watch the stars and play I walk among +them--from star to star and round about among the stars, high to the +van's roof and low to where the trees and hills stretch up to them: +thou with me as when first I knew thee--in that wise I seek thee; not +thus"--she broke off and changed the note of her voice. "What talk is +this?" she smiled. "Childish fancies--they are not for thee," and she +moved away and he followed her up the Down. + +"Ima, they're pretty fancies, though," he said. "And, you know, you'll +lose them all if you aren't careful--if you go making yourself stiff +and proper with those extraordinary lessons of yours. What are they +for, those lessons? They'll spoil you, Ima. They'll make you quite +different. All that kind of thing is for--for the others--for what +you'd call fine ladies." + +"Even so," she said; and pronounced the words as if--though to his mind +they explained nothing--everything was explained by them; and said no +more until the crest of Plowman's Ridge was reached. + + +II + +He was willing enough for his own part to relapse into his own +thoughts. He went so deeply into them that, coming to the Ridge and +involuntarily pausing there, he was twice told by her "Here I return," +before he was aroused to her again. Bemused, he stared at her a moment +as one stares that is aroused from sleep, and his mind jumped back in +confusion to the last words that had passed between them. "Well, if +you were so anxious for the lessons, why did you give them up when the +winter was over?" + +She answered him--sadness in her voice rather than reproach--"We have +done that talk long since. Thou dost not heed me. It is that I am +going that I am telling thee." + +He knew he had been careless of her again, and sought to laugh it off. +"Well, it is why you stopped your lessons that I am asking thee," he +mimicked her. "Woman's reasons, Ima?" + +She threw out her hands towards him in a gesture of appeal. "Ah, do +not toy me woman's reasons," she said. "Think me less light than +that--if thou thinkest of me. Not woman's reasons bade me back to the +van when winter broke. Not woman's reasons. I knew me there were +green buds in the ditches beneath the dead wet leaves. I had +discovered them to the sun and the breezes many years--turning back the +leaves and smelling the smell they have. How could I stay beneath a +roof when I had thoughts of such?" + +She drew a deep and tremulous breath of the mild night air as though +she inhaled the scents of which she spoke, and he watched her gaze +across the eastward vale with those starry eyes that, as she went on, +never the lids unstarred, and she said: "Thoughts of such--of green +buds in the ditches beneath the moulding leaves that waited for me to +uncover them and knew me when I came; of the first cloud of dust along +the road--dust, ah! of tiny sprigs on every bough that I might run to +see; of busy birds stealing the straws and coming for the bits of cloth +and wool they know I place for them; of early light with all the trees +and fields wet and aglisten; of gentle evenings when the new stars come +dropping down the sky; of the road--the road, ah!--I sitting on the +shafts; of the cool brooks, and leading Pilgrim in and hearing him suck +the water and hearing him tear the grass; of the running stream about +my feet and the soft grass that sinks a little--these bade me back." + +She turned to him and said in the low voice in which she had been +speaking: "Not women's reasons these." She changed her voice to one +that cried: "Remember me that if I am not like fine ladies I cannot +help be what I am with these things speaking to me. Now I am going," +and she went swiftly from him and was a dozen paces gone before he +called her back. + + +III + +"Ima!" While she spoke he had envisaged what she told, setting its +freedom and its elemental note to his own desires as one sets music +that stirs the breast. Shaking himself from the spell, "Ima!" he +called, and went to her. "Don't go like that. Say good-by properly." + +She stopped short and put her hand to her side as though his call had +launched a shaft that struck her. She did not turn--as though she +dared not turn--until he was close up to her, touching her. Then she +turned, and he saw her eyes amazingly lit, and as they met his, saw the +light pass like a star extinguished. It was as if she had expected +much and had found nothing; and it was so pronounced that he said: +"Ima! Why, what did you think I was going to say?" + +There was a wild rose in the bosom of her dress that she had plucked as +they came through the lane. She bent her head to it and put her hands +to it in the action of one that seeks to cover lack of words by some +occupation. She drew the flower from her breast and placed it in his +coat, pinning it there. + +"That's right," he smiled. "I'll keep that to remember you by. What +did you think I was going to say? You seemed as though you expected +something--then as if you were disappointed. What was it?" + +She was very careful in settling the flower. Then she dropped her +hands and looked up at him. "I asked nothing," she said. "How should +I be disappointed?" + +"Asked! No! I saw it in your eyes." + +She answered swiftly, almost as one speaking in menace of offending +words: "What in mine eyes?" + +"Why, what I tell you. As though you expected something and were +disappointed." + +"No more?" she inquired, and repeated it--"No more?" + +"No more--no. But I want to know why--or what?" + +She gave a gentle laugh and relaxed her attitude that had been +strained, in keeping with her voice. She seemed to have feared he had +derived some secret that she had; and she seemed glad and yet a little +sad her eyes had not betrayed her. She gave a gentle laugh and threw +her hands apart as if to show how small a thing was here. + +"Why, little master, there is nothing in that," she said. "The eyes +light for that the heart runneth to peep through them as a child to the +window." + +He laughed at the pleasant fancy: "Well, what did your heart run to +see?" + +"Nay, I have not done," she told him. "Look also how one may see a +child run happily past the window--from the van I have seen it: so +sometimes the heart but passeth across the eyes with a glad face, +singing from one happy thought to where another waits. I think my +heart passed so and thou didst catch the gleam." + +He heard her take in a quick breath as her words ended. Then, "Suffer +me to go now," she said. "Keep my pretty flowers;" and turned and went +swiftly from him down the slope; and was dim where the moonlight faded; +and was gone in the further darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +ALONE ON PLOWMAN'S RIDGE + +I + +She was as quickly gone from Percival's mind as from his sight. Now +that he was free and alone--as he had wished to be alone--he faced +about with an abrupt movement and began to set homewards at a swift +pace along the Ridge; simultaneously his mind returned to his own +business. + +He had reached a sudden determination while he talked with Japhra; he +found his mind carried forward to the scenes of its prosecution, and he +was made to breathe deeply and to walk fast as he visioned them. A +conflict possessed him and tore at him as he went. Before he got to +bed that night he would have from Aunt Maggie what she purposed for his +future--he would have it in definite words--he would not be put off by +vague generalisations--he would accept nothing in the nature of "next +year will be time enough to decide"--nay, nor "next month," nor "next +week"--he would have it definitely, clearly, unmistakably now. That +was his determination; thence arose the conflict. He assured himself +as he walked that let him but know Aunt Maggie's intentions, and +however cruel, however impossible, however unendurable they might be, +he would follow wise Japhra's advice--would meet in the ring as if it +were a physical antagonist the passionate impulse to reward all kind +Aunt Maggie's love by violent refusal to obey her--would meet and would +defeat it there. + +He threw up his head as he so thought and had his fists clenched and +his jaw set. The action made him conscious of old friend wind. At +this the pitch of his heat, "Ha! Ha! Ha!" shouted old friend wind in +his ears. "Accept idleness if Aunt Maggie so desires, will you?--and +the laughter and contempt, eh? Ha! Ha! Ha!" + +He put down his head again. The wind was getting up; it took some +buffeting. + +He began to reason now that he should have argued with Japhra when +Japhra laid down the law of self-discipline and moral conduct. + +"You can't make one rule to cover everything!" he said aloud, driving +along against the wind. "A man must do something with his life!" he +cried. + +He suddenly realised that he was dallying; he suddenly knew that he was +weakening. He was persuading himself that the hour of the fight would +fall when he questioned Aunt Maggie; he suddenly realised that the +battle was already begun. + + +II + +The knowledge brought him to a dead halt. His thoughts had fallen in +train with his steps: he had the feeling that he was being beaten while +he walked--only could be master of himself while he stood still and +centred all his faculties on defeating the impulses that goaded him as +they had goaded him earlier in the day. As the sufferer on a sick-bed +tosses wearily through the sleepless night and comes from weariness to +savage groans and curses that rest is not to be found nor a cool +position discovered, so he lashed in spirit to find a stable thought +that would support him amid the tumult that possessed him. He strove +to image Aunt Maggie with gentle eyes; he could command no more than a +glimpse before she was presented to him again as not understanding--not +understanding!--unkind, unkind! He directed his mind at Japhra and +strove to see how small a thing, how childish, how petty was his +trouble; in a moment, "Preposterous! preposterous!" shouted the tumult. +"A small thing to others? Easy for them to think that. Let them apply +it to their own concerns! How can they judge what is your affair +alone? If you are struck, can they feel your pain? If you are +starving, can they measure your hunger?" And again, with greater +cunning: "Why, what a damnable philosophy is this that calls upon a man +to suffer any rebuke, and smile and submit, and declare it is a small +thing, unworthy of notice, and cover himself with sophistries as that +life is too big, the sea too deep, the hills too high, for such an +affair to cause affront! What, is that a man's part, do you think? A +man's part--or a coward's?" + +"Not the right way to put it!" Percival struggled. "A false way to +look at it!" + +And his adversary, with deeper cunning yet: "Is it fight you would, as +Japhra bade you? You did not explain all the circumstances to him. A +man must do something with his life--he admitted that. Is it fight you +would? Why, fight then! Choose your own life. Make your own life. +For that a man should fight! Get into the world and prove yourself a +man! You are no better than a baby here--worse than a baby; you're a +lout. What sort of a lout will you be in another year or so? What +will they think of you then? Ah, go on; make this precious +ring-business of your life. Rebuke yourself--your natural desires, +your rightful ambitions; win your fight as Japhra bade you win it, and +then when all laugh at you or ignore you for a contemptible lout--then +tell them, tell all the village what a rare prize you have really +won--tell it to Rollo, tell it to Dora!" + +The poor boy cried aloud: "Oh, these infernal thoughts! These infernal +thoughts! If only I could get them out of my head--think of something +else!" He was going mad over it, he told himself. His head +ached--ached. It would all come right--there was no cause for all this +worrying. He had often thought about it before--never till now, till +to-day, this wild, maddening, throbbing fury of trouble. What was it? +What was it that caused these feelings and all this pain--why, why was +he so taxed and tormented? If only he could get it out of his mind, +could think of something else till he got home! There would be the +jolly, jolly little supper with Aunt Maggie awaiting him; after it they +would talk quietly, happily together, and he would tell her how he +really must be doing something, and she would understand and everything +would be put right. If only he could get it out of his mind--if he +went back now as he was, why, he was not in a fit state of mind to go +near her--and why? why? why this sudden difference, this sudden, +maddening, throbbing state that goaded and tortured like a wild live +thing within his brain? why? + + +III + +More reasoned thoughts these--at least a consciousness of his condition +and an attempt to plumb its cause. More reasoned thoughts--and they +brought him suddenly to a calmer moment and there to the answer he +sought: Dora. + +He was not far in person from the very spot where earlier in the day +the vision of her had come to him and he had breathed her name and had +her name come floating about him--Dora! Dora! Dora! soft as rose petals +fall, sweet as they. He was not far in person from that +spot--realising her in spirit he was aswoon again in that vision's +ecstasy; and suddenly knew what reason urged his burning mood, and +suddenly discovered why he burned to do. She the sweet cause of all +this new distress!--hers the dear fault that life was now thus changed! + +Further than that he might not go--nor cared to seek. It was not +his--nor ever belongs to youth suddenly under the sex attraction--to +know a new ichor was mingled with his blood, causing it to surge and +boil and test the very fibre of his veins. Not his to know a sap that +had been storing in his vigour was now released whence it had +stored--touching new strengths that had not yet been felt; flushing the +brain in cells not yet aroused; and crying, and crying to be relieved; +and causing in his strength a tingling vibrancy, as a willow rod that +has been bent springs upright and vibrates when its constraint is cut. +Not his to know, nor care to seek, how love manifested itself within +him, nor what love was, nor why he loved, nor if, indeed, love were +this sudden thing. He only knew that what had served his boyhood could +not suffice now Dora filled his mind; he only knew that in all the +world to bring to Dora's eyes the light of admiration was his sole +desire; he only knew that to have her hold him in contempt--even in +slight regard--was to endure an outrage unendurable; he only knew he +was possessed to challenge mighty businesses--of arms, of strength, of +courage, of riches--that he might win her smile. + +He had the new thoughts now for which he had cried while the tumult of +right and wrong conduct vexed him. She filled his mind, suffused his +being, stood with her exquisite face before his eyes. Peace in the +guise of ardour came where conflict in passion's flame had burned. "If +only I could see her before I go home!" he thought. + +The recollection came of a hot day earlier in the week when, at lunch +with Dora and Rollo at the Old Manor, they had conspired to abuse the +sultry weather. "But the evenings are worth it," Dora had said. "In +London it is different;" with her mother she had just come from London +for a few days at Abbey Royal before she went, for her last term, to +the "finishing" school near Paris. "In London it is different--of ten +more stifling at night than in the day. But here! Here the evenings +are worth it. Always after dinner I stroll in the garden--and love it." + +If only he could see her before he went home! He looked at his watch +beneath the moonlight. Almost nine o'clock it told him. That would be +about her hour. He could strike across to Abbey Royal in fifteen +minutes if he ran. There was just the chance!--just the chance of a +glimpse of her, the first glimpse since this new and adorable sense of +her had come to be his. He might even speak with her--hear her voice. +Hear her voice!--it was the utmost desire he had in all the world! +There was just the chance!--if it failed, still he could see the home +where she lived, see it with the new eyes that now were his--her home, +the grounds her feet had trod, the gates her hand had touched, the +flowers perhaps her dress had brushed or she had stooped to breathe. + +There was just the chance!--along the Ridge, down to Upabbot, behind +the church and so to her home. His mind leapt across his route, eager +to urge his pace. He pocketed his watch and set towards the shrine +that had his heart. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +WITH DORA IN THE DRIVE + +I + +There was just the chance! "Ah, Chance be kind!" his prayer, but in +the simpler form: "If only I can see her!" For he could not have told +himself precisely what he desired of her. The new condition of mind +and body that possessed him was too newly come for him clearly to +understand towards what it impelled him. We speak of love as an +intoxication. He was as it were beneath the first and sudden influence +of a draught of wine more potent than the drinker knows--causing an +elevation of the spirits, that is to say, a sharper note in the +surroundings, something of a singing in the ears; a readiness for +adventure, but not a clear notion as to the form of adventure required; +a sudden comprehension that there is more tingling stuff in life than +ever the dull round has revealed; but a sense that it is there and must +be found rather than an exact knowledge of what it will prove to be. +He only knew he wished to see her; that seemed the goal; he had no +thoughts nor fancies to take him to what might lie beyond--then reached +the Abbey gates and saw the drive, and saw her there, and stopped as if +a hand suddenly rebuked him in the throat. + +That he felt a surge run through his being and flame upon his face, +that he felt suddenly abashed and could not dare to make his presence +known--these marked his nearness to knowledge of his state. + + +II + +The night was very clear. By now the full moon had disdained more +trifling with the clouds that earlier had joined hands about her. Far +to the west they trailed their watery burdens to the hills: she queened +above them--queenly serene, aloof in the unbounded vault that all her +empery of stars about her ruled and divided subject to her rule. The +Abbey gates stood wide. Between their pillars little breezes came to +him and brought to him the fragrance of the flowers that banked the +drive on either hand. He saw they also stirred the dress and some +light scarf that Dora wore. + +Mystery was here. He knew not what--only that, conditioned by some new +sense that caused him strangeness, he was upon the threshold of things +as yet unknown. + +He watched--afraid as yet. She was stooped above a cluster of pansies. +While he looked, she plucked a blossom here and there, her hand now +hovering above their shade and now caressed amid their bloom, and +raised them to her face. + +She turned then and came towards him; and he drew back a step. Mystery +was here; not yet, not yet to challenge what it held! + +She reached the gates and paused a moment. The little breezes that had +brought the flowers to him stopped their play; her scarf's floating +ends--gossamer and delicately painted--came softly to her sides. You +might have said that the night airs had heralded her here, had taken +form in her scarf's ends to attend her as she walked, and now awaited +which way she should please to move. + +Snow-White-and-Rose-Red! The childish appreciation of her, aroused in +him years before, returned to him again. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red--that +was she! As when a child he had been caused a childish wonder and a +child's unspoilt delight at so rare a thing as she appeared to him, so +now, seeing her for the first time with the new eyes that belonged to +his new condition, he felt himself amazed and almost awed that beauty +could have this degree. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red! All she had promised +in her girlish years dowered her now in the burgeoning of her +maidenhood--and dowered more than it had told, as all the beauty of the +opening bud scarcely can hint the opened blossom's beauty; and dowered +more than it had told by the increasing strangeness, as she grew, of +this rare perfection of each feature in one face. Rare, strangely +rare, the transparent fairness of her skin; rare, rare that almost +crimson shade on either cheek, sharply defined, not blended, as it were +frozen there; rare the dark pansy of her wide and stilly eyes; rare, +most rare of all, transcending all, the high air with which she bore +herself--that her chaste and faultless face maintained, with which her +eyes looked and that her presence seemed to make. + +He saw her dress. He saw her scarf to be some filmy veil about her +shoulders and that beneath it all her throat was bare. He saw that it +was turned about her throat in a loose fold that lay where her bosom +was disclosed by the silk evening gown she wore, draped low, but +maidenly discreet. At throat, at breast, at arms, at hands, he saw +this filmy thing was challenged of its whiteness and seemed to take a +shade. + +She moved; he thought to speak. Mystery was here and held him on its +threshold. + +Watching her he had a sudden new conception of her quality. Later, +when he had spoken to her, when he had left her, when he trod again +each passage of their meeting, recalled her voice, her mode of speech, +and how she bore herself, he recalled that conception and knew it was +most proper to her, and thrilled to know it so. + +As he looked, and afterwards as he remembered, he conceived the word +that estimated all her beauty, all her quality and her degree--frozen. +Frozen and thus invested with the strange rareness that frozen beauty +has. Frozen and thus most proper that those flames upon her cheeks +never could stain beyond themselves, as blood that will not run in +snow; proper the quaint precision of the words she used, as icicles +broken in a cold hand; proper the high pitch of her voice, curiously +hard, without modulations, as winter sounds are hard. + +Snow-White-and-Rose-Red--and frozen snow and frozen red. She was that +in his new discovery of her: and was that better than he knew; +caparisoned and trained for that. + + +III + +She raised to her face the pansies he had seen her gather, caressed +them a moment against her lips, then turned and went a few steps back. +And then he spoke--stepped from the pillar's shadow and into mystery's +doors and called her--"Dora!" + +The little breezes ran among the flowers: "Bend! Bend! you sleepy +things and blow her your caresses where she moves again!"--ran among +the tree-tops high above the borders: "Salute! Salute! you sentinels, +and show your joy, she comes!"--chased from her path a daring leaf or +two--sprung to her person and bade her veil attend her--caught his low +whisper and tossed it from her ears. + +Tiny the stir; yet stiller all the voice he made. He waited; breathed +her name again--"Dora!" and then she heard. + +She gave the faintest start; turned, and said, "Why--Percival?" and +then a little laugh, and then spoke "Percival!" again. + +He went to her. "Did I frighten you? I'm sorry." + +He went into the mystery that barred him at the gate. Her surprise +caused the shades upon her cheeks to flame to sudden crimson, promoting +her beauty to its most high effect. Her lips--also of her +surprise--were lightly parted, alert, with the aspect of some nymph of +the woods and glades, startled and poised to listen. Not yet, not yet +his to know all the truth of what influence had him here. He only had +known he wished to see her: he only knew now that he wished to stay and +talk with her. He was in the mystery--not yet of it; but already, at +this first contact with her presence, a glimmering, a suspicion +arose--softened his voice, quickened his senses. + +"I ought to have been frightened," she said. "I never heard you come. +But I scarcely was startled. It is the most curious circumstance, but +I happened to be thinking of you." + +As icicles broken in a cold hand! + +He did not cry, as love might have directed him--"Thinking of me! +You!" Not yet, not yet the knowledge that would give that ardour. He +only was boyishly pleased. He only said: "Were you, Dora? I'm awfully +glad you were." + +And she, no more aware of deeper things than he: "Well, they were not +particularly nice thoughts I had of you," she said, and gave a little +laugh that toned with the clear pitch of her voice. "Indeed, I was +vexed with you." + +He laughed back an easy laugh: "I wonder what I've done?" + +"It is what you have not done, Percival--or did not do. I was at the +Manor all the afternoon and had the dullest time that anybody could +imagine. Your fault. Rollo was expecting you to tea, and was looking +out for you all the time, and was the most ungracious person. To me, +you know, it is ridiculous how he seems to dote upon you." + +And Percival laughed brightly again. Happy, happy to be with +her--alone, alone at this hour, in this still place! "Old Rollo!" he +laughed. "Well, anyway, if I failed him, I've seen you." + +She asked him. "But why have you come--so late?" and at that his +laughter left him. + +"I wanted to see you," he said. "I don't know why," and paused. + +He did not know; but in declaring it to her, and in that pause, came a +step nearer discovery. Some nameless reason held his speech, and, +while she waited, fluttered in his eyes and communicated its influence +to her also. In that pause suspicion came to both of some strange +element that trembled in the air--fugitive, remote, but causing its +presence to be known as a scent declares itself upon the breeze. She +saw a tinge of redness kindle in his face. He saw the faintest trace +of deepening colour in the shades upon her cheeks. + +Not yet, not yet the truth! Transient the spell and quickly gone. +Only, a little shaken by it, "You're going away soon, Dora," he said. +"I think that's why I came." + +Free of it: "But that's not a reason," she answered him lightly. "I am +not going so suddenly--not till the end of the week." + +"Saturday--it's the day after to-morrow." + +"Ah, well, time goes so slowly here." + +"Dull for you--I can imagine that. To this French school, are you +going, Dora? I heard you telling Lady Burdon of it." + +"It's not a school. No more school for me, and I am very thankful." + +"Tell me what you do there." + +She went into a sudden break of laughter. She had somewhere picked up +a single vulgar phrase that consorted most strangely with her precise +manner of speech. "Your coming here like this," she laughed, "and +asking such very funny things!"--then used her phrase--"it tickles me +to death." + +The piquancy of it delighted him, and he laughed delightedly, and for +some reason had a stronger sense of her rare beauty. Not yet, not yet +the truth, but nearer yet, even as such truth advances by the strangest +and most secret steps. + +"Tell me, though, Dora!" + +"Oh, how it can interest you I am puzzled to imagine! Pleasant enough +things, then. There are twelve of us there, all English, I am glad to +say. We never speak English, though--always French; and then there are +German and Italian days; they make us laugh very much." + +As icicles broken in the hand! + +Her laughter had caused the shades on her cheek to glow. He gazed at +her in sheerest admiration; felt a new stirring of his blood; felt his +breath quicken. She was close, close to him. The little breezes that +had attended her, and had gone as if asulk at his intrusion, came with +a sudden little fury to win her back again, and smote him full with all +the fragrance that she had, and tossed her scarf and tossed her skirt +against him. + +She drew back her skirt, using the hand that held the pansies she had +gathered. The action brushed his hand with hers and with her flowers. + +Not yet, not yet the truth, but almost come! He slipped his fingers +about her wrist, holding her hand mid-breast between them. "Give me +those flowers, Dora." + +She slower in approaching it, but suspicious again of some strange +element in the air, as a fawn that lifts a doubtful head to question a +new thing in the breeze. "You have one buttonhole already," she told +him, her voice not very easy. + +He looked down at Ima's wild rose in his coat. "That's nothing," he +said, and began to remove it whence it was pinned. + +He was clumsy, for his hand trembled--the other still had hers. He was +clumsy. Thoughts, thoughts, were at hammer in his brain--new to him, +fierce to him and, as from iron in a forge, striking a glow that glowed +within his eyes. + +She saw the glow, saw how his hand shook. "It is well fastened," she +said. + +He broke off the rose at its head, jerked it aside and drew down the +stalk. She suffered him to take her flowers, and very carefully then +he placed them where the rose had been--hers! hers! That she had +plucked! That she had held! He was at the truth and he looked at her. + +She almost there. + +The glow in his eyes was turned full upon her and she stepped back from +it. The secret thing the night had was full about her and she had +alarm of it. "I find it rather chilly standing here," she said, "--and +late. I must be going in." + +He watched her take the veil about her shoulders another turn about her +throat, and watched her move away a pace. He started after her as +though he burst through bonds that held him. He walked beside her, +moving his tongue in his mouth as though it were locked from words and +sought them; and he could hear his heart knock. + +So, without words--in silence that shouted louder than speech--they +came to where the drive bent towards the house. She paused, and he +knew his dismissal. + +His face was red, as a child reddens when control of tears is on the +edge of breaking. His voice, when he spoke, had a strained note as the +voice is caused to strain when only one thought can be spoken and a +hundred press for speech. And strange--as between them--the words at +last he found: "Dora, you'd hate a man--wouldn't you?--with +nothing--who just poked along and did nothing?" + +It was the door that should introduce her to the knowledge wherein he +struggled. But she was only surprised, not recognising it; and +surprised, relieved indeed. "Any one would," she said. + +He flung wide the door. "Ah! Do you suppose I am going to?" + + +IV + +Love is an instinct and is played by instinct. Struggling in the +knowledge, in the mystery, that had drawn him here and that now +engulfed him, he scarcely yet was aware that he loved, but by instinct +was put in command of all the cunning of the game. His question +fronted her with personal issue between them; it is the first, the +last, the essential strategy. + +"Why, Percival!" she said and stopped--saw the door wide; and he saw +the colour deepen where her colour lay. "Why, Percival, why ever +should I suppose it of you?" + +He could control his voice no more. The strained note went. He said +thickly: "But you'll begin to think it. In time you're bound to--if I +let you. And then scorn me. If I just idled here you're bound to +scorn me. Any one would--you said it." + +Nervous her breathing. "But you--you never could be like that, +Percival. I've always thought of you as doing things. Every one +thinks it. I have noticed how they do." + +All the distress he had suffered earlier in the day was back with him +now, joined in fiercest tumult with what caused his heart to knock. He +cried "They soon won't!" and cried it on a bitter note that made her go +an unthinking step towards what waited her. "Percival, they always +will," she said. "I always will, Percival." + +The redness went from his face. His own clear voice came back to him. +All, all his being braced from storm to his control. He breathed +"Dora! Will you?" + +The stress that had been his was hers. She found no words; she only +nodded--moved her lips for "yes" but made no sound. He had come slowly +to the truth, by blundering ways that sometimes brought him near and +sometimes went astray. She was suddenly come--and come, not of +herself, but of as it were a flame that his voice as he spoke, his +ardour as he bent towards her, seemed to communicate. She was suddenly +come, was a degree bewildered, wanted even yet some further light. She +only nodded. + +"Dora, you are going for a long time. I heard you tell--" + +She said very low: "For a year." + +"Dora! A year!" + +"I am to be a year away. It is the last time. It is to finish." + +"A year! A year! Oh, Dora, a year!" + +Her face was close to his, her lips a shade apart, her wide eyes lifted +to him. Rare, rare he had thought her; perfect he knew her. That +mystic thing the night had held, held them mute, magnetised, privy from +all the world, alone. They stood so close the air he drew had first +caressed her. They stood so close that her young bosom almost told him +how she breathed. Slowly, as he were drawn to it, he stooped towards +her; steadily, as she were held, she suffered his face to approach. +Their lips touched, stayed for a space--smaller, infinitely less, than +mind can conceive; wider, immeasurably more, as their joined spirits +reckoned time, and rushed through time in bliss of ecstasy, than mind +can reckon space. + +And then he kissed her. + +Crimson she flamed in the places of her colour--flaming and more +flaming and deeper yet their flame. Their sharp limitations drove her +driven white about them; from throat to flame and flame to brow as lily +was her hue. She did not move nor speak, and he, amazed before her +rareness, drew back a step. She might have been a statue, so still she +stood. She might not have breathed, nor thought, so motionless her +breast, her eyes so wide, so still her gaze. Only that glowing scarlet +on her cheeks, only her skin's transparency--soft, deep, as if beneath +it some jewel gave a secret light--declared her mortal and proclaimed +she lived. + +A space passed. She came from the trance in which she seemed to be. +She gave a little sigh. As if she had been struck, not kissed; as if +she had been robbed, not possessed. "Oh! Percival!" she said. + +And he: "Oh! Dora!" + +He sprung to her, took both her hands; clasped them in his and adored +her with his eyes; bent his head to them and raised them to his lips. + +"Oh, Dora, have I hurt you? Oh, Dora, I love you so!" + +"Let me go in, Percival!" + +He held her hands against his breast. "I could not help it! I could +not help it! I love you, Dora! I've always loved you! I suddenly +knew I'd always loved you!" + +She spoke so low he scarcely could hear her voice: "Percival, let me go +in!" + +"Oh, Dora, have I hurt you? Dear, dear Dora, you are all the world to +me. I love you so, I love you so!" + +The faintest movement of her head gave him his answer and gave him +ecstasy. + +"I have not hurt you? You are not angry? I knew--or I would not have +kissed you. Speak to me, dear Dora." + +She only whispered: "Percival, I would like to go in. I am afraid." + +He cried: "I know. You are so beautiful--so beautiful; not meant for +me to love you." + +"You are hurting my hands, Percival." + +He kissed her hands again--fragile and white and cold and scented, like +crushed, cold flowers in his grasp. He told her: "From the very first +I loved you--but could not know it then. From that day when I first +saw you! Look how I must have been born to love you--you'll not be +frightened then. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red I called you. Smile, darling +Dora, as you smiled when I told you in the muddy lane that day. Do you +remember?" + +She had no smile: still seemed aswoon, still scarcely breathed, as some +bewildered dove--captured, past fluttering--which only quivers in the +hands that hold it. + +"If only you can sometimes think of me. You will understand then and +think again perhaps, and know all my life is changed, and know that +everything I do I shall do for you. I'll not see you again. I'll not +be here when you come back." + +At that he felt her fingers move within his hands. + +"I cannot stay here now--now that I love you. I shall go." + +He felt her tremble, and she breathed: "Oh, why? Oh, where?" + +"How could I face you again and still be idling here? I don't know +where, Dora. I only know why--because I love you so. Anywhere, +anything to get me something that will give you to me!" + +She whispered "Percival!" and stopped as though she had not strength +for more. And he breathed "Dora!" as though he knew what she would say +and by intensity of love would draw it from her. + +She slowly drew her hands from his. She took them to her breast, and +faltered again--again as she were wounded, afraid, struck, threatened, +atremble at some fearful brink, robbed of some vital virtue: "Oh, +Percival!" and caught her breath and said "Oh, Percival, what is +it--this?" + +"It is love!" he cried. "Dora, it is love!" + +She gave a little sigh; she unclasped her hands; seemed to relax in all +her spirit; suffered her hands, like cold white flowers floating +earthwards, lovewards to float to his. + +"Tell me!" he breathed. + +Soft as her hands fell, "I always shall think of you," she told him. + +He besought her "Tell me!" + +She whispered "Always!" + +In a man's voice, out of a sudden and terrible review of his +condition--possessed of nothing, chained to do nothing--and of her high +estate: "Others will love you!" he cried. + +As they would nestle there and there abide, her fingers moved within +his hands. + +In a man's voice, full man as full love makes, "Tell me," he besought +her. + +Scarcely perceptible her answer came; scarcely her lips moved for +it--faint as the timid breeze ventured to the innermost thicket, soft +as the hushed caress of summer rain along the hedgerows, "I shall +always love you," she breathed. + +Shortly he left her. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +WITH AUNT MAGGIE IN FAREWELL + +I + +It was past eleven when Percival got back to "Post Offic." He had been +absent seven hours. He felt himself removed by thrice as many years +from the moment when he had flung away from Aunt Maggie to work off by +active exercise the feelings aroused in him when, to his demands that +he must be doing something with his life, she had prayed him only wait. + +Day then, night now, and he as changed. + +The mood he brought her was unlike any he had proposed should be his +case. On Plowman's Ridge before he saw Japhra he had imagined for his +return a petulant, a trying-to-be-calm scene in which he should repeat +his purpose that an end must be made of the purposeless way of life in +which she was keeping him. By Fir-Tree Pool, with wise Japhra +propounding how a man must encourage his spirit and defeat his flesh, +he had imagined himself gentle with dear Aunt Maggie; gently showing +her what restlessness had him, persuading her to his ends, or, of his +love for her, accepting her wishes. Now he was come back and neither +case was his. Day then, night now, and he as changed. Now he had +lived that hour with Dora in the drive; now he had kissed her; now had +heard her breathe "I shall always love you." Gone every thought of +petulant distress; gone Japhra's counsels--gone boyhood, manhood come! + +The change was stamped upon his face, figured in his air. Aunt Maggie +looked up eagerly as he entered. She had waited him anxiously. He +stood a moment on the threshold of the room and looked at her with +steady, reckoning eyes. She saw; and she greeted him fearfully. "Why, +Percival, dear, how very late you are," she said. + +He replied: "It took me longer to get back than I expected." + +His tone matched his aspect and the look in his eyes. Aunt Maggie's +voice trembled a little: "You must have been a long way, dear?" + +"A good many miles," he said, and came forward and went to his place at +the table where supper was laid, and sat down. + +"Are you very tired, dear?--you look tired." + +"No--no, thank you, Aunt Maggie." + +His voice was absent--or stern; and absently--or sternly--he looked at +her across the table. + +She caught her breath and hesitated, and began pathetically to try by +brightness to rally him from his mood. + +"At least you must be terribly hungry," she smiled. "Here comes Honor +with just what you like." + +A tray tanged against the door, and was borne in by Honor, uncommonly +grim of the face. + +"Now wasn't that clever of Honor!" Aunt Maggie went on. "Five minutes +ago--after waiting since seven--she said she knew you would be just in +time if she began to cook the trout then; and here it is ready, and +most delicious, I'm sure, just as you arrive." + +Honor's actual words had been: "Time and tide wait for no dangerous +delays, Miss Oxford, and I don't neither--not a single instant longer. +I'll put these troutses on now which ought to have been on at ten +minutes to seven, and I'll cook 'em, and cook 'em and cook 'em till I +drop fainting on my own kitchen carpet and till they're nasty black +cinders that will serve him right. Lost his way! lost his nasty bold +temper! It's no good talking different to me, Miss, not if your voice +was tinkling trumpets, it isn't!" She had burst in with her tray +prepared to repeat her wrath to Percival's face, but caught the +appealing look in Aunt Maggie's eyes, perceived that something was +seriously amiss with Percival, and exchanged her heat for the affection +he had won in her from the first moment, years before, of his +arrival--the sweetest bundle of shawls--at "Post Offic." + +"Cooked to a turn, Master Percival, dear," Honor said, uncovering +before him the steaming dish. + +"And only just caught," Aunt Maggie smiled. "Rollo brought them in +just before supper time." + +And Honor: "And want it you do, as I can see. Nasty pinched look +you've got, Master Percival." + +And Aunt Maggie: "And look at that beer, dear. You'd scarcely think it +was a new cask, would you? As clear as crystal." + +And Honor: "Ah, 'Pitch that cask about,' I says to the man when he +delivered it. 'Pitch that cask about, my beauty, and you can pitch it +back into your waggin', I says. 'Young master don't want to eat his +beer with a knife and fork, not if you do,' I says sharp." + +And Aunt Maggie: "You see what care we take of you, Percival, although +you leave us all day long." + +And Honor: "And now I'll just get your slippers down for you. Nothing +like slippers when you're tired. And then you'll be to rights." + + +II + +So these fond women, perceiving him amiss, strove, as women will, to +heal him with their sympathy; and reckoned nothing--as is woman's +part--that he nothing responded to their gentleness nor anything abated +his set and brooding air. The world may be chased up and down to find +men conspired to soothe a woman's brow and scarcely will disclose a +single case. Men weary or wax impatient of such a task. But every +household at some time shows women gently engaged against a bearish +man. It is the woman's part--womanly as we say: using a rare word for +a beautiful virtue. + +At another time--in the days before that evening's magic, in the life +that preceded his present only by that hour in the drive with +Dora--Percival had long been won from moodiness by their solicitude for +him. Not now! Those days were only a single hour gone; its events +sundered them from the present by an abyss that had a lifetime's depth, +a lifetime's breadth from marge to marge. New feelings were his and +they enveloped him against old appeals as a suit of mail against +arrows. New prospects held his eyes and they blotted out homelier +visions as the changed scene of a play is dropped across an earlier +background. He was not preoccupied and therefore unaware of the loving +sentences addressed to him. His case was this--that he was a new man, +and as a stranger, therefore, listening to affections that did not +concern him. That he found himself insensible to their appeal was not +that he loved Aunt Maggie less or had suffered abatement of the +affection he had for hot-tongued, warm-hearted Honor. None of these. +It was this only--that he loved another more; this only--that the fires +of his love had sprung out in a new place and there burned with heat +infinitely more fierce than the flame where formerly his affections had +warmed their hands. + + +III + +Such of his meal as he required--and that was what habit, not appetite, +demanded--he ate in silence. To silence also Aunt Maggie went, shortly +after Honor had left them. She attempted once or twice to continue to +persuade him from his mood--protested that he was eating nothing; +sought to rally him with little scraps of gossip, with questions +touching his afternoon. Of no avail. Presently she clasped her hands +together on the table before him, and only watched him, and only sought +to discover from his face what thing it was his face betided, and only +felt her fears increase. + +When he was done he pushed back his chair and she dropped her eyes, for +his were now upon her and had the steady, reckoning look she had +observed--and feared--when he regarded her for that moment at his +entrance. She could not endure the feeling that he watched her, and +watched her so. "You will go to bed soon, Percival," she said. "You +do look so tired." + +He replied: "I am not tired. I have something to ask you first, Aunt +Maggie;" and after a pause he went on: "Aunt Maggie, I was telling you +this afternoon that I thought I ought to be doing something. Well, +more than that I thought I ought to be doing something, and more than +merely telling you--because I know I was in a great state about it and +went off in a great state." + +She answered, "Yes, Percival?" + +"You said there was plenty of time for that." + +"Yes, Percival." + +"There isn't, Aunt Maggie." And he went on quickly: "there isn't +plenty of time to think about what I am going to do. I am not a boy +any longer. Even if I started to-morrow I should be starting late. +Every one at my age is doing something." + +His tone was firm and quiet but was kind. She said that which made it +take a harder note. + +"Percival, you need only wait," she said, "till you are twenty-one." + +She saw his face darken in a change as swift and chill as sudden shadow +along the sea. "Oh, that!" he cried. "That! I don't want to hear +that any more or ever again! Is that all you have for me?" + +She clasped and unclasped her hands on the table before her. He waited +several moments for her answer. Then he said: "And what am I to do +till then?" + +She told him: "Only wait with me, Percival." + +He said very quietly: "No, I will not wait. I will not stay with you. +I am going away." + +The stress that each suffered was broken out of them by his +announcement. The thought of losing him, the thought of how a word, +revealing her secret, would keep him, broke from her in her cry: "No, +no, Percival! Oh, Percival, no!" + +Her sudden voice and its anguish smote him to his depths in his own +stress as a sudden cry in the night that shocks the heart. He uttered +in a voice she had never heard--most hoarse, most atremble: "Oh, +understand! For pity's sake try to understand. I am so that I will +never sleep again--never again till I have earned my sleep. Oh, +understand that I am a man!" + +She saw his dear face, his handsome face, his face that she loved so +and was to lose unless she spoke, all twisted up as though he writhed +in pain. She cried: "Percival, don't look like that. I can keep you. +I cannot let you go." + +He looked at her with eyes that told his anguish of this scene and of +his spirit. "You cannot keep me," he said. "I am going." + +She breathed: "By telling you I can keep you." + +He said: "Tell me, then."' + +She began, her tongue heavy as a key is rusty that is to turn in a lock +closed eighteen years; "Rollo--" she began, and stopped. + +He had for a moment believed that she intended to tell him this matter +affecting his future that he knew must be delusion--some wonderful +plan, as wonderful as impossible, such as a woman leading Aunt Maggie's +retired life might have--whose delusion, having it before him, he could +at last show her. But at her "Rollo," disappointed, he broke out, "Oh, +what has old Rollo to do with it?" + +Her voice was making a stumbling effort to hold on at turning the key. +But his "Old Rollo" caused her to halt, afraid, as one turning a key in +very fact might halt and draw back at a footstep. + +He saw her face go grey with the hue of ashes. "Aunt Maggie!" he +cried, and got up quickly and went to her. "I don't mean to be unkind. +I must go. I cannot stay. But I'm not going angry--not running away. +I love you--love you, you know how I love you. Just think of it as +going on a visit. It's no more than that. I'm going with old +Japhra--that's not like going, being with him, is it?" + +She just said: "When, dear?" + +"Darling, in the morning. At daybreak." + + +IV + +She began to cry, and clung to him. But it was more than losing him +had made that ashy hue in her face that had wrung his heart. It was +realisation of a sudden thing that menaced her revenge--a thing +suddenly arisen in its long, long path whose end she now was reaching. +Thinking, when the hour came, the more dreadfully to strike Lady +Burdon, she had deliberately made possible and had encouraged the +friendship between Percival and Rollo. Had she gone too far? What +when she told Percival and he saw it was "Old Rollo" he was to +displace, "Old Rollo" upon whom he was to bring disaster--what if--? + +She dared not so much as finish that question. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +WITH EGBERT IN FREEDOM + +I + +In the morning when he came early to her room, she was easier and able +only to suffer her distress at losing him. Thoughts had come to her, +helping her; and helping her the more in that they were of a part with +the fatalism which had assured her at Audrey's death-bed that nothing +could go wrong in her scheme. His resolve to go away was surely, she +thought, fate's contribution to her success. Always she had planned +for twenty-one--when he should be of age, and qualified himself to +avenge his mother. Last night, in agony at losing him, she had nearly +robbed herself of that. Fate, in guise of her panic realisation of his +affection for Rollo, had interfered to stop her. Last night she had +thought it insupportable to be left without him. While she lay +sleepless--and heard her darling pacing his floor in the next +room--fate had again encouraged her heart by showing her that this was +well, not ill--that this was fate working for her; well that he should +now, in the last period, be separated from Rollo. + +Thus supported she was saved from the uttermost extremity of the +collapse that came upon her when fondly he kissed her as she lay in +bed, left her, returned to press her to him again.--"Think of it as a +visit, Aunt Maggie, only that. Just a visit to give these idle +whacking great hands something to do"--and then was gone. + +One or two--up thus early--who saw him go by and came to Aunt Maggie +when it was noised that he had gone away, told her how stern he +looked--how strange. Miss Purdie, early in her garden, had noticed it. +"Oh, Miss Oxford, if I had _known_! Oh, to _think_ he was going when I +saw him! Oh, and I _suspected_ something was wrong. There was +_something_ in his face I had _never_ seen there before. I thought to +myself 'Now _what_ is the matter with you, I wonder?' And I _stood_ +and _looked_ after him, and dropped one of my garden gloves and never +_knew_ I had lost it until I was back in the house and found I had only +_one_ to take off. Oh, when I _think_ of all his sweet ways and his +handsome face...." + + +II + +Stern he looked and strange, and stern his thoughts and difficult. His +plans ran to coming up with Japhra on the Dorchester Road and joining +him. Beyond?--he could supply nothing beyond. His urgent desire went +to being away from home, and for his own respect and for his mind's +ease working to earn his food. Beyond?--he could see nothing beyond. +His thoughts and all his heart and all his being went to his Dora, to +her exquisite beauty, to the rapture of their kiss, to the divine +ecstasy of her whisper, "I shall always love you;" beyond?--black, +black beyond, most utter black, most utter hopeless; emptiness most +utter, mock most shrill, most sharp. + +He laughed, poor boy; and "Fool! Fool!" cried, "abject fool!" He +groaned, poor boy, and "Dora! Dora!" cried, "oh! Dora!" He set his +teeth, poor boy, and braced his strength; threw up his chin and +clenched a fist, and "Somehow! Somehow!" cried, "Somehow!" + +Most to be pitied then, poor boy, as old friend wind, in whose path now +he came, knew and mocked, or might have known and surely +mocked--buffeting him with "Ha! Ha! Ha!" tossing his "Somehow! +Somehow!" from his lips and chasing it and tearing it as old friend +wind had heard resolves and mocked and tossed and chased and torn them +from end to end along its course since mankind first resolving came. + +But he was helped by that strong "Somehow!" as by resolve mankind--and +youth the most of all--is ever helped. More stern, not less, it made +him, but launched a shaft of light into the darkness of that +Beyond--showing the adventure, not the desert there; inspiring him that +somehow stuff was to be found there that somehow he would wrest to +himself, somehow shape and beat to win him fulfilment of all his hopes. + +Thus he was in brighter mood when presently he brought the white riband +of the Dorchester road into view, in mood bright enough to laugh when, +striking towards the spot where he proposed to pick up the van, he saw +on a gate there a lank figure, bundle over shoulder, that suggested to +him it could be no one but Egbert Hunt. He laughed--then had a tender +look in his eyes, for his thoughts, as he made along in the direction +of gate and figure, went to Rollo. + + +III + +On his way home, when he had left Dora on the previous night, he had +called in at Burdon Old Manor to bid Rollo good-by. Lady Burdon had +gone to bed. He found Rollo in the billiard room, Egbert Hunt marking +for him, and it was what had passed between them that had emphasised +the endearment in his tone when he had said "Old Rollo" to Aunt Maggie. + +Tender his look when he recalled how "Old Rollo," hearing he was going +away, had dropped his cue and stared at him in blank dismay, then +questioned him, and then had listened with twitching mouth when he had +cried, "Oh, Rollo, things are so steep for me, old man. I can't +explain. I must get out of this, that's all!" + +For the first time--and the only time--in all their friendship it had +been Rollo's to play the supporter. "Why, Percival, dear, dear old +chap," he had cried, "don't look like that. For God's sake, don't. +Whatever's wrong I can help you. We are absolute, absolute pals. No +one ever had such a pal as you've been to me--now it's my turn. Stay +here with us a bit, old man. Yes, that's what you'll do. Let's fix +that, old man. That will make everything right. Everything I've got +is yours--you know that, don't you, old man?" + +And when he had shaken his head and had explained that it was +work--work for his hands he wanted, and was going to find with Japhra, +Rollo had vented his feelings on Egbert Hunt with "What the devil are +you standing there listening for, Hunt? Get out of this! Didn't I +tell you to go? Get out!" And when they were alone, and when he had +seen that Percival was not to be moved, had revealed his affection in +last words that brought a dimness to Percival's eyes as he recalled +them. + +"Men don't talk about these things," Rollo had said, "so I've never +told you all you are to me--but it's a fact, Percival, that I'm never +really happy except when I'm with you. I've been like that ever since +we met, and in all the jolly days we've had together. You know the +sort of chap I am--quite different from you. I don't get on with other +people. I've always hated the idea of going to Cambridge this October +because it means mixing with men I shan't like and leaving you. You're +everything to me, old man. It's always been my hope--I don't mind +telling you now you're going--that when I settle down, after I come of +age--you know what I mean--it's always been my hope that we'll be able +to fix it up together somehow. I shall have business and things to +look after--you know what I mean--that you can manage a damn sight +better than I can. And I'll want some one to look after me--the kind +of chap I am; a shy ass, and delicate. And you're the one, the only, +only one. Just remember that, won't you, old man?..." + + +IV + +Percival was aroused from his warm recollection of it by the figure on +the gate hailing him. Egbert Hunt it was. "Good lord!" Percival +cried. "What on earth are you doing here--this time in the morning and +with that bundle?" + +"Coming with you," said Hunt. + +"With me! Do you know where I'm going?" + +Egbert Hunt pointed up the road where Japhra's van came plodding. "In +that. Heard you tell Lord Burdon last night. Heard you say that Mr. +Stingo's crowd was short of hands. The life for me. Fac'." + +Percival stared at him--a grown man now, lanky, unhealthy, white of +face. + +"Does Rollo--does Lord Burdon know? Did he say you might go?" + +"Told me to go to 'ell." + +Percival laughed. "You'll find it that--you frightful ass." + +"I'll be free," said Egbert darkly. "No man's slave I won't be any +more. Every man's as good as the next where you're bound, I reckon. +No more tyrangs for me. You're my sort, and always have been." + +The van was up to them and pulled up with Japhra's surprised hail of +greeting. Percival went to him where he sat on the forward platform. +"Japhra, here's a hand for one of your crowd--a friend of mine. Is +there work for him?" + +Japhra looked at Egbert with unveiled belittlement. "There's work for +all sorts," he said drily. "For him perhaps. Get up behind," he +addressed Egbert. "I'll let old One Eye have a look at thee. He wants +a hand." + +Percival swung up beside Japhra and smiled good morning at Ima, who had +come to the door. "Go on, Japhra." + +"That's a poor lot, that friend of thine," said Japhra, clicking his +tongue at Pilgrim. "How far dost thou come with us, little master?" + +"All the way, Japhra." + +Japhra looked at him keenly. "To Dorchester?" + +"Farther than that. I'm going to be third lad in your boxing booth, +Japhra. Go on; I'll explain." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +WITH JAPHRA ON THE ROAD + +I + +It was two years--near enough--before Percival came again to Burdon +Village. Egbert Hunt found work with old One Eye who had the Wild West +Rifle Range. Percival became "Japhra's Gentleman" (as the van folk +called him), living with Japhra and Ima in the van, and earning his way +in Japhra's booth. + +A tough life, a quick life, a good life; and he "trained on," as they +said in the vans of beast or man or show that, starting fresh, slipped +into stride and did well. He trained on. Little room for trouble or +for brooding thoughts. Up while yet the day was grey; stiff work in +boots and vest and trousers in taking down the booth and loading-up, +harnessing and getting your van away before too many kept the dust +stirring ahead of you. Keen appetite for the breakfasts Ima cooked, +eaten on the forward platform with the van wheels grinding the road +beneath. The long, long trail to the next pitch,--now with Ima as she +sat, one eye on the horse, the other on her needle, sewing, darning, +making; now plodding alongside with Japhra, drinking his quaint +philosophy, hearing his strange tales of men and countries, fights and +hard trades he had seen. Now forward along the long line of waggons, +now dropping back where they trailed a mile down the road; joining this +party or that, chaffing with the brown-faced girls or walking with the +men and listening to their tales of their craft and of their lives. +Sometimes the road from pitch to pitch was short; then the midday meal +would be taken at the new site and there would be an hour's doze before +the booths were set up and business begun. Usually the journey took +the greater part of the day--frequently without a halt--and work must +begin immediately on arrival; the boxing booth built up--first the +platform on which Percival and Japhra, Ginger Cronk and Snowball White +paraded to attract the crowd--a thing of boards and trestles, the +platform, that by sheer sweating labour must be made to lie even and +stable whatever the character of the ground; three uprights at either +end that sometimes must be forced into soil iron hard and sometimes +must be coaxed to hold firm in marshy bog. The booth itself to be +rigged then--the wooden framework that must be lashed and nailed and +screwed; the wide lengths of canvas eyeletted for binding together; +stakes for the ring to be driven in; seats to be bolted together and +covered--and all at top, top speed with a mouthful of nails and screws +and "Who in hell's got that mallet?" and "A hand here! a hand sharp! +Blast her! she's slipped again!" and many a bruised finger and always a +sweating back. And then sharp, sharp into the flannels, and out with +the gloves; and parade till the booth was full; and spar exhibition +rounds alleged to be for weighty purses; and fight all the challengers +from the crowd four rounds apiece, any weight; and top-up with a stiff +six rounds announced by Snowball White: "A sporting gentleman having +put up a purse for knock-out or win on points match between Ginger +Cronk, ten stun champion of the west,--who beat Curly Hawkins in eight +rounds, knocked out Alf Jacobs after a desperate ding-dong o' fourteen +rounds, defeated Young Philipps in five rounds, and Jew Isaacs in +sixteen,--and Gentleman Percival, a lad with a future before him, whom +you'll be proud to have seen, gentlemen, discovered this summer by +Gipsy Japhra, the man who held the lightweight champion belt for four +years in America and who has trained with all the great ring heroes, +bare-knuckle men, gentlemen, of a glorious Prize Ring period of the +past. You are requested to pass no remarks during the progress of this +desperate encounter, but to signify appreciation in the usual manner. +Gentlemen, Mr. Ginger Cronk, Mr. Gentleman Percival--TIME!--" And so +on; and winding up with "a remarkable exhibition in which Gipsy Japhra, +partnered by Gentleman Percival, will show the style and methods of the +old P. R. gentlemen"--and then back to the platform again, to parade, +to fill the booth, to fight--and so till the last visitor had left the +fair to night and to its hoarse and worn-out workers. + +A tough life, a quick life, a good life; ... and Percival trained on. +At first he had been considerably tasked by the rough and tumble, +ding-dong work in the boxing booth following the strenuous labour of +the day, with no time lost between pitch and pitch. Aching limbs he +had dropped on his couch when at last rest came, and tender face, +bruised from six or seven hours' punching, that even the soft pillow +seemed to hurt. But he trained on. In a few weeks it was tired to bed +but unaching, unhurt--only deliciously weary with the wearyness of +perfect muscles and nerves relaxed to delicious rest; early afoot, +keen, and sound, and vigorous; brisk, ready smiling to jump into the +ring for the last P. R. exhibition with old Japhra as for the first +spar with Ginger Cronk or Snowball White. "Thou art the fighting +type," wise Japhra had told him years before; and those exhibition +rounds with the old man were each of them lessons that brought him to +rare skill with his fists. + +While they sat together before their turn Japhra would instruct what +was to be learnt this time, and while they sparred "Remember!" Japhra +would call, "Remember! Good! Good!--Weak! Weak!--Follow it! Follow +it!--Speed's thy game!--Quick as thou canst sling them!--See how that +hook leaves thee unguarded!--Again!--All open to me again!--Again!--ah, +take it, then!" and _clip!_ to the unprotected stomach, savage as he +could drive it, would come old Japhra's left; and Percival go gasping, +and Ginger Cronk to the spectators: "With that terrible punch, +gentlemen, Gipsy Japhra knocked out Boy Duggan and took the +championship belt at Los Angeles. Put your hands together, gentlemen, +and give 'em a 'earty clap." When the round was ended Japhra would go +over it point by point. When they sat or walked together, at meals or +on the road, he was forever imparting his advice, his knowledge, his +experience. He waas never tired of teaching ... and Percival trained +on. + + +II + +There came a day when "Thou must go slow with me," Japhra said after +they had finished their round. "I have put skill to thy youth and +strength. Thou must go slow with me or the folks will see nothing of +the parts I am to show them." There came a day when he was given +demonstration--if he had cared to recognise it for such--that the van +folk knew him for a clever one with his fists. Foxy Pinsent supplied +it. + +In all the crowd of tough characters that made up Maddox's Royal Circus +and Monster Menagerie with its attendant booths Foxy Pinsent alone gave +him a supercilious lip or darkling scowl where others gave him smile +and welcome. Foxy Pinsent had an old grudge against him--as Japhra had +said--and lost no opportunity to rub it. The fact that "Japhra's +Gentleman" was in the way of becoming a rival attraction to his own +fame among the crowds that flocked to the fairs sharpened his spleen. +The ever increasing bad blood between the two factions--Maddox's and +Stingo's--gave him chance to exercise it. + +Percival came hot to Japhra one day: "Damn that man Pinsent, Japhra. +He's going too far with me. He's been putting it about the vans that I +am too much the gentleman to go with a Maddox man--that I said in his +hearing I refused to go with Dingo Spain to buy bread yesterday because +I would not be seen in his company by decent people." + +Japhra looked up at the angry face: "Let him bide. Let him bide." + +"I'm not afraid of him." + +"Nor I of adders, but I do not disturb their nests--nor lie in their +ways." + +On a day the reason came for Percival to cross the adder's way. Egbert +Hunt knocked over a bucket in which one of Pinsent's negro pugilists +was about to wash. The man used his fists, then his boots, on Hunt, +sending him back brutally used. Percival sought out the black, +outfought him completely, and administered a punishing that appeared to +him to meet the case. Then came Pinsent. + +"You've put your hands to one of my men, I hear--to Buck Osborn?" + +"An infernal bully," said Percival. + +"You've put your hands to one of my men!" + +"And will again if he gives me cause!" + +Foxy Pinsent came nearer, thin mouth and narrow eyes contracted in his +ring expression. "Watch me, my gentleman; my lads' quarrels are mine. +Watch out how you go your ways." + +Percival glanced behind to see he had room: "You can leave that to me. +I'll not have my friends knocked about." + +"It's you in danger of the knocking about, my gentleman! That fine +face of yours would take a bloody mark." + +Percival slipped back his right foot six inches and glanced behind him +again: "Try it, Pinsent." + +Foxy Pinsent noticed the action. He moved his left fist upwards a +trifle, then dropped it to his side and turned away with a laugh: "I +don't fight boys; I thrash 'em." + +"You know where to find me," Percival said. + + +III + +So and in this wise he trained on to the tough, quick, good life; and +in spirit developed as in body. The deeper he knew Japhra, the wider +became his comprehension of life. He had failed once in the struggle +with self, and that on the very night of Japhra's instruction of how +that struggle should be fought: he was training on now not to fail +again if ever the Big Fight should come. "What, art thou vexed again?" +Japhra would say when sometimes he fell to brooding. "Get at the +littleness of it--get at the littleness of it. It will pass. Remember +what endureth. Not man nor man's work--only the green things that fade +but come again Spring by Spring; only the brown earth that to-day +humbly supports thee, to-morrow obscurely covers thee; only the hills +yonder that shoulder aside the wind; only the sea that changeth always +but changeth never; only the wind on our cheeks here, that to-day +suffers itself to go in harness to yonder mill and to-morrow will wreck +it and encourage the grass where it stood. Lay hold on that when aught +vexeth thee; all else passeth...." + +He trained on. Trifle by trifle and more and more he received and +held, understood and stored for profit the little man's philosophy; +trifle by trifle, more and more, developed qualities that made for the +quality of self-restraint that ripened within him. Whatever his mood +there was always peace and balm for him in the van. Many signs +discovered to him that he was not merely an accepted part of Japhra's +life and Ima's but a very active part; the little stir of welcome told +him that--the little stir that always greeted him when he came on them +sitting together. + +They called him "Percival" now, at his desire. To Japhra he was still +sometimes Little Master; to Ima never. But in Ima's ways and in her +speech he noticed altogether a change in these days. The "Thou" and +"Thee" and "Thine" of her former habit were gone: she never appeared +now with naked feet, but always neatly hosed and shod. Gentle in her +movements too, and seemly in her dress, Percival noticed, and he came +to find her strange--a thing apart--in her rough surroundings; strange +to them and remote from them when she sat plying her needle, attending +to his hungry wants and Japhra's, or mothering some baby from a +neighbour's van. He came to think her--contrasted thus with all the +sights and sounds about her--the gentlest creature that could be; her +voice wonderfully soft, her touch most kind when she dressed a bruise +or nursed him, as once when he lay two days sick. She mended his +clothes; made some shirts for him; passed all his things through her +hands before he might wear them; and never permitted him clothes +soiled, or lacking buttons, or wanting the needle. + +He was leaving the van once to go into the town against which they were +pitched. She called him back. The scarf he wore was soiled, she said, +and she came to him with a clean one. + +He laughed at her: "It's absolutely good enough." + +"No, soiled," she said, and took it from his neck and placed the other. + +He playfully prevented her fingers. "I'm like a child with a strict +nurse--the way you look after me." + +She replied, smiling but serious: "It is not for you to get into rough +ways." + +"They're good enough for me." + +She shook her head. "You are not always for such." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +LETTERS OF RECALL + +I + +The first winter of this life Percival spent with Japhra in the van; +the second took him, for the first time since he had broken away, back +to "Post Offic." Ima left them, when the circus broke up in that first +October, to go to her doctor friend in Norfolk, there to continue the +education she had imposed upon herself. Egbert Hunt took her place, +and the three started to tour the country till Spring and the +reassembly of Maddox's should be round again. But winter on the road +proved inclement to Mr. Hunt's nature. A week of frost in early +December that had them three days snow-bound and on pinching short +commons decided him for less arduous ways of life. He left them for +London, his pockets well enough lined by his season's apprenticeship to +old One Eye; they had news of him once as a socialist open air speaker +in company with some organisation of malcontents of his kidney; once as +prominent in an "unemployed" disturbance and in prison for seven days +as the price of his activities. + +"He will know gaol a longer term ere he has done," was Japhra's +comment. "A weak, bad streak in him." + +Percival laughed. "Poor old Hunt. More bitter than ever against +'tyrangs' now, Japhra. He's been shaping that way since I first knew +him--often made me laugh with his outbursts." + +"Best keep clear of that kind," Japhra said. "The stick for such." + +They pushed North. Neither had a feeling for roofs or fireside that +winter. The tinkering and the Punch and Judy kept them in enough funds +scarcely to draw upon the season's profits. Japhra plied him at the +one; Percival took chief hand in the other. A tough life, a quiet +life, a good life. With only their two selves for company they talked +much and read much of the three fighting books that were Japhra's +library. Percival was almost sorry when Maddox's was picked up again +and Ima rejoined them. He welcomed the second winter when it came; +chance fell that it had him scarcely a month alone with Japhra when it +saw him leave the van, and homeward bound to Burdon. + + +II + +Two letters gave him this sudden impulse. Both were from "Post +Offic"--one forwarded thence--and seemed to have partnered one another +on a long and devious search before finding him. One was from Aunt +Maggie. The other he opened first and opened with hands that trembled +a little. Well he knew that regular, clear writing! He had only seen +it in notes to Rollo, invitations to tea, in the days gone by, but it +was as memorized to him as in him every memory of her was +graven--Dora's! + +His hands trembled that held this the first sign of her since he had +left her in the drive at Abbey Royal on that night eighteen months +before, and his breath ran quick. The first sign! He had urged her at +their parting he might write to her. She had desired he should not. +Letters at the French school might only come, it appeared, from +parents, or in handwriting authorised by parents, and only to such +quarters might be addressed. He had accepted the fate. Nay, well it +should be so, he had told her. He would not--could not, for he loved +her so!--see her again, be the time never so long, till somehow he had +won some place in the world; very well, not even write to her. Their +hearts alone should bind them: "For, Dora, you are to be mine. Somehow +I shall do it--not see you till I have. You will remember--that is +all, remember." + +How had she remembered? He broke the seal and held his breath to read. + +She wrote from Burdon House in Mount Street: explaining the address as +though he had not known Mrs. Espart had taken it on lease at the time +of Lord Burdon's death:-- + + +DEAR PERCIVAL, + +We returned here yesterday from the South of France, where we have been +with Rollo and Lady Burdon. Did you know that Mother has taken Rollo's +house here until he wants it and turns us out? I am writing for Rollo. +I think you will be distressed to learn that he has been very +ill--beginning with pneumonia. But we left him better, and they are +following us to London soon. He most urgently desired me to tell you +this, and that you must come and see him then. He says that he must +see you again; and, indeed, he is forever talking of you. As to that, +I must tell you that when I was with him we saw in an illustrated paper +some pictures entitled "Life among the Showmen;" and in one, on a tent +was to be seen "Gentleman Percival." From what Rollo told us, that was +your tent. He was very excited about it; and to me it was very +singular to have come upon it like that. + +Well, I have written his address on the back of this, and you must +certainly write to him or he will think that I have not told you and +that I side with Lady Burdon and Mother in estimating that you are +"very wild," which I do not. + +I address this to your home; but it is hard to know if it will ever +reach you. + +Yours sincerely, + DORA ESPART. + + +How had she remembered? No trace of any memory of love was in the +lines he carried to his lips and read again and many times again. He +reckoned nothing of that. He read what he had expected to find. He +read herself, as in the months that separated that magic hour in the +drive he had come again to think of her--as one as purely, rarely, +chastely different from her sisters as driven snow upon the Downside +from snow that thaws along the road; as one that he should never have +dared terrify by his rough ardour into that swooning "Oh, Percival, +what is it, this?" Realising that moment of his passion, he sometimes +writhed in self-reproach to think how violently he must have distressed +her: sometimes hoped she had forgotten it--else surely shame of how her +delicacy had been ravished at his hands would make her shrink at +meeting him again. So this letter that had no hint of memory of love +rejoiced and moved him to his depths. Unchanged from his boyish +adoration of her, it revealed her, and unchanged he would have her be. +Its precise air, its selected words, its stilted phrases, spoke to him +as with her very voice--"It was very singular to me;" "It is hard to +know:" as icicles broken in the hand! Snow-White-and-Rose-Red--and +frozen snow and frozen red! + +He was ardent and atremble in the resolve that he must get to London on +Rollo's return and make old Rollo the excuse to see her again--touch +her, perhaps; speak to her, ah!--then, and not till then, bethought him +of his second letter. From Aunt Maggie; and he drew it from his pocket +with prick of shame at his neglect of it. He had from time to time +written to Aunt Maggie. Her letters were less frequent; easier to +write to "Post Offic" than for "Post Offic" to write to him, ever on +the move. + +Three closely-written sheets came from the envelope. They contained +many paragraphs, each of a different date--Aunt Maggie waited, as she +explained, until she could be sure of an address to which to post her +letter. There was much gossip of a very intimately domestic nature, +each piece of news beginning with "I think this will interest you, +dear." Before he was through with the letter the recurrence of the +phrase, speaking so much devotion, caused a moisture to come to his +eyes. "I think this will interest you, dear"--and the matter was that +Honor burnt a hole in a new saucepan yesterday. "I think this will +interest you, dear"--and "fancy! fourteen letters were posted in the +box to-day." "I think this will interest you, dear"--and would he +believe it! "one of the ducks hatched out sixteen eggs yesterday." + +The more trivial the fact, the more Percival found himself affected. +He was touched with the profound pathos of Aunt Maggie's revelation of +how he centered each smallest detail of her remote and lonely life; he +was rendered instantly responsive to the appeal with which at the end +of her letter she cried to him to come home to see her--if only for a +night. "This will be the second Christmas that you have been away. +The days are, oh! so very, very long for me without my darling boy." + +He told Japhra that he must go--not for long, and if for longer than he +thought, at least the first of the new year would see him back. They +were in Essex. Urgent with this sudden determination that had him, he +took train for London on the next morning, and before midday was set +down at Liverpool Street Station. Holiday mood seized him now that he +had taken holiday. He counted again and again the sixty-five pounds +that, to his amazed joy,--he, who till now had never earned a +penny!--Japhra paid him for two seasons' wage and share. It seemed a +fortune--forced up the holiday spirit as bellows at a forge; and on the +way to Waterloo he ridded his burning pockets of a portion of it in +clothes and swagger kit-bag for this his holiday, and in presents that +brought parcels of many shapes and sizes into his cab--for Aunt Maggie, +for Honor, for Mr. Amber, for Mr. Hannaford, for all to whom his heart +bounded now that he was to see them again. + + +III + +In these delights he missed his train. Two hours were on his hands +before the next, and as he contemplated them a daring thought (so he +considered it) came to him. He took a hansom cab and bade the man +drive him to Mount Street,--through Mount Street and so back again. He +would see where she lived! + +"Drive slowly up here," he told the man when the cab turned into the +street for which he watched. "Do you know Burdon House?" + +It was pointed out ahead of him. "Set down there many a time. Lord +Burdon's 'ouse it was. Another party's got it now." + +Percival leant back, not to be seen--not daring to be seen!--and +stared, his pulses drumming, as he was slowly carried past. + +Might there have troubled him some vague, secret feeling of association +between himself and that brown, massive front of Burdon House with its +broad steps leading to the heavy double doors, with its tall, +wrought-iron railings above the area, with its old torch extinguishers +on either side the entrance, with its quiet, impassive air that large +old houses have, as of guardians that know much and have seen +much--brides come and coffins go, birth and death, gay nights and sad, +glad hours and sorry--and look to know more and see more? Might he +have felt, as he told Aunt Maggie he had felt at Burdon Old Manor, +"thinking without thinking, as if some one else were thinking," as he +passed those steps where one that he might have called Father often had +gaily passed, where one he might have called Mother had gone wearily up +and come fainting, dizzily down? + +He felt, nor was disturbed, by none of those. He only gazed, gazed as +he would pierce them, at all its solemn windows, riveted its every +feature on his mind; but only because it was where she must have +looked, because it sheltered her where she must be. It was a new +setting against which he might envisage her; he only thought of it as +that. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +MR. AMBER DOES NOT RECOGNISE + +I + +It was in dreams that night that vague, secret influences of his sight +of Burdon House came stealing about him--if such they were; he +attributed them to the disturbance of an event that greeted him within +a few hours of his gay arrival at "Post Offic." + +He had announced his coming by telegram. He took Plowman's Ridge on +leaving the train at Great Letham, old friend wind greeting him with +most boisterous Ha! Ha! Ha! and as he came down the slope two figures +broke from the little copse and came fluttering up the Downside towards +him--one slight with running tears, and outstretched, eager arms; the +other gaunt and grim, uncompromising of visage, but with eyes aglisten. + +"Aunt Maggie! Aunt Maggie!" + +"My boy! My Percival!" + +Her boy's arms went about her: for a space neither moved after that +first cry. He only held her--close, close to him; she only clung to +him, her face to his, and felt his dear face stop her flowing tears. + +He held her from him then at arm's length, the better to gaze at her; +and she overcame her foolish tears and told him: "How you have grown! +How handsome you have grown!" + +And Honor grimly, with grimness spoilt by chokey utterance: "Ah, +handsome is as handsome don't make fine birds!" + +"You've got it wrong, you frightful old goose!" cried Percival; and +there was Honor's bony cheek to be kissed, her bony hug to take. + +Then the disturbing even:-- + +Mr. Amber, Aunt Maggie told him, was dying. He had been told Percival +was coming and had begged to see him. There had only been a brief +interval of consciousness in the last twenty-four hours; Percival had +better go at once. + + +II + +Percival went immediately. The Old Manor had the deserted aspect he +remembered when, as a little boy, he used to seek Mr. Amber in the +library; and it was to the library he now was taken. Mr. Amber had +been carried there. He knew he was to die. He had begged to die in +the apartment he loved--among his books. + +There Percival found him. He lay on a bed that had been placed in the +centre of the room. He was asleep, breathing with a harsh, unnatural +sound. A nurse sent over from Great Letham attended him, and Percival +inquired of her: "I am Percival; has he been asking for me?" + +She shook her head: "Since this morning only for Lord Burdon. Before +that, frequently." + +Percival went on one knee by the bedside. The mild old face that he +had always known silvery and smiling seemed white as the pillow where +it lay, pathetically lined and hollowed. On a sudden the eyes very +slowly opened and looked full into Percival's bending above him. +Percival experienced a shock of horror at what followed. Burning +intelligence flamed into the dim eyes; the blood rushed in a crimson +cloud to the white face; the thin form struggled where it lay. + +"My lord! my lord!" Mr. Amber whispered; and "lift me--lying down +before my lord!" + +"Mr. Amber! I am Percival! You remember me!" + +The nurse raised him, and with practised hand the pillows also, so that +he reclined against them. "It is your friend Percival. Lord Burdon +will soon come, perhaps." + +He gave her no attention. He smiled at Percival in something of his +mild old way. "We are very weak, my lord," he said. "Very weak." + +"Mr. Amber! I am Percival! You remember what friends we were. You +will get strong, and we will have some more reading together--you +remember?" + +Mr. Amber still smiling, his eyes closed again. "On the ladders." + +"Yes--yes. On the ladders. You remember now--Percival." + +Mr. Amber's smile seemed to settle upon his face as though his lips +were made so. "Hold my hand, my lord." + +He began to slip down in the bed. The nurse eased his position. He +seemed back to unconsciousness again, his breathing very laboured. +Night had drawn about the room and was held dusky by the candles. +There stole about Percival, as he knelt, atmosphere of the memories he +had recalled in vain attempt to arouse Mr. Amber's recognition. Again +dusk here, and he with mild, old Mr. Amber. Again shadows wreathing +about the high ceiling, stealing from the corners. Again a soft +thudding on the window-pane, as of some shadow seeking to enter--death? +Again the strange feeling of "thinking without thinking as if some one +else were thinking"--and on that, worn out perhaps with his long day, +perhaps carried by some other agency, he went into a dream-state in +which vague, secret influences of his ride through Mount Street came +upon him. He thought he was in Mount Street again and come to Burdon +House, and that the door opened as he ascended the steps. He found the +interior completely familiar to him, and for some reason was frightened +and trembled to find it so. He went from familiar room to familiar +room, afraid at their familiarity as though it was some wrong thing he +was doing, and knew himself searching--searching--searching. What he +searched he did not know. He just opened a door, and looked, and +closed it and passed on. There were persons in some rooms--once Dora, +once Rollo, once Lady Burdon. They stretched hands to him or spoke. +He shook his head and told them "I am not looking for you," and closed +the doors upon them. He climbed the completely familiar stairs and +searched each floor. The fear that attended him suddenly increased. +He had a sudden and most eerie feeling that some presence was come +about him as he searched. He heard a voice cry: "My son! My son! We +have waited for you. Oh, we have waited for you!" Fear changed to a +flood of yearning emotion. He tried to cry, "It is you--you I am +looking for!" He could not speak, and wrestled for speech; and +wrestling, came back to consciousness of his surroundings. He was +streaming with perspiration, he found. He saw next that Mr. Amber's +eyes were open and looking at him, and heard him say, "Percival!" + +Had that been the voice in that frightful dream? + +"Mr. Amber! I knew you would know me!" + +Recognition was in the eyes, but they were filming. + +"Yes, he knows you," the nurse whispered. + +Quite firmly, firmer than he had yet spoken: "Hold my hand--my lord," +Mr. Amber said, and ended the words and ended life with a little +throaty sound. + +The nurse disengaged their hands. "But I am so glad he did just +recognise you," she said kindly. + + +III + +Old friend wind was in tremendous fettle that night. Percival battled +along Plowman's Ridge on his way back and had battled twenty minutes +when he cried aloud, venting his grief, and answering the nurse's +words, "He didn't recognise me!" + +And old friend wind paused to listen; came in tremendous gusts, Ha! Ha! +Ha! and hurled the words aloft and tossed and rushed them high along +the Ridge. + +"Something was wrong with me in there," Percival exclaimed. "Did I +speak sense to him? What was happening to me? Was I dreaming? What +was it?--oh, damn this wind!" + +Ha! Ha! Ha! thundered old friend wind, staggering him anew--Ha! Ha! Ha! + +An absolutely irrepressible party, old friend wind. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +DORA REMEMBERS + +I + +Percival was not the only one that in this period was disturbed by +uneasy dreams, by vague and strange half-thoughts, by "thinking without +thinking," as though some other influence were temporarily in +possession of the senses. Lady Burdon was thus disturbed; Aunt Maggie, +too. But of the three Aunt Maggie only knew the cause. If Lady +Burdon, if Percival, had brought their unrest to her for explanation +she might have explained it as she was able to explain her own--the +"fluttering" that very often came to her in these days of Percival's +visit home. She might have told them, as she told herself, that it was +occasioned for that the years were closing in now--the prepared doom +gathering about them all and they responsive to its nearness as +gathering storm gives vague unease, headaches, depression when its +emanations fall. + +For her own part Aunt Maggie had herself in hand again--was again +possessed by the certitude that nothing could go amiss with her plans. +It had supported her through all these long years. It had been shaken, +but had recovered again, by fear of Percival's affection for Rollo. It +tore at her frantically, like a strong horse against the bridle, now +that only a few months remained for its release in her revenge's +execution. In little less than a year Percival would be twenty-one. +She no more minded--relative to her plans--the proof of the fondness +still between him and Rollo shown in his leaving her to stay with Rollo +in town, than she minded--relative to the same purpose--his +determination to be with Japhra again when winter ended. She suffered +distress both at the one and the other in that they robbed her of the +object of her heart's devotion; she felt no qualm that either would +hinder her revenge. "Strange-like?" "Touched-like?" The villagers, +when she passed them without seeing them in these days, were more than +ever sure of that, poor thing; but she was more than ever sure--lived +in the past and in the near, near future and had scenes to watch there. + + +II + +Rollo's return to town was delayed longer than Dora had supposed in her +letter to Percival. It was not till February that his doctors and his +mother gave way to his protestations that he would never get fit if he +could not go and have a glimpse of old Percival while he had the +chance, and then it was only for a week--a passage through town to get +some things done and to pick up the Esparts for a spring sojourn in +Italy. + +Thus Percival was several weeks with Aunt Maggie before he left her for +Rollo--and Dora. Pleasant weeks he found them, reclaiming all the old +friends (save that one whose grave only was now to be visited) and in +their company, and in the new affection that they gave him for his +strong young manhood, retasting again the happy, happy time of earlier +days. There were jolly teas with the Purdies, brother and sister; +plump Mr. Purdie never tired of saying, with quite the most absurd of +his shrill, ridiculous chuckles, "Why, you've grown into a regular man +and I expected to see a swarthy gipsy with earrings and a red +neckcloth!", birdlike little Miss Purdie, more birdlike than ever with +her little hops and nods and her "Now _fancy_ you coming to take me to +the Great Letham Church Bazaar! I was _wanting_ to go. But you're +_not_ to be extravagant, Percival. At Christmas you were _dreadful_. +You _don't_ know the value of money!" And there were almost daily +visits to Mr. Hannaford, Stingo with him now till the road was to be +taken again, who found Percival a proper full-size marvel now, and +blessed his eighteen stun proper if he didn't, whose little 'orse farm +was developing amazingly, who displayed it and who discussed it with +Percival to the tune of leg-and-cane cracks of almost incredible +volume, and who placed at Percival's entire disposal a little riding +'orse, three parts blood and one part fire, that showed him to possess +a seat and hands that any little 'orse oughter be proud to carry, +"bless my eighteen stun proper if he didn't!" (Crack!) + +And there were thoughts of Dora ... who soon must be met and whom to +meet he burned (his darling!) and feared (his darling and his +goddess!--too rare, too exquisite for him, as tracery of frost upon the +window-pane that touch or breath will break or tarnish!). Thus he +thought of her; thus to help his thoughts often walked over to closed +Abbey Royal; thus never could approach the gates without the thought +that if, by some miracle, he met her there he could not dare approach +her. He would steal away at her approach, he knew. Watch her if, +unseen, he might unseen adore her--mark her perfect beauty, breathless +see her breathe; watch her poised to listen to some bird that hymned +her coming; watch her stoop to greet some flower's fragrance with her +own. Watch the happy grasses take her feet and watch those others, +benisoned and scented by the border of her gown; watch the tumbling +breezes give her path and only kiss her--see them race along the leaves +to give her minstrelsy. Speak to her?--how should he dare? + + +III + +What his condition then when at last in London he came face to face +with her? Rollo and Lady Burdon stayed their week at a private +hotel--Baxter's in Albemarle Street. He was immediately made their +guest (against Lady Burdon's wish, who desired now in the approach of +the consummation of her own plans--and Mrs. Espart's--to detach the +friendship she had formerly encouraged; but he did not know that). +Rollo met him at Waterloo station and took him direct to the hotel. +Eager to meet old Rollo again he was touched by the pathetic devotion +of Rollo's greeting, touched also at the frail and delicate figure that +he presented. The emotions were violently usurped by others when +Baxter's was reached and he was taken to the private sitting-room Lady +Burdon had engaged. + +"Here's mother!" Rollo cried, opening the door. + +Here also were Mrs. Espart and Dora. + +The elder ladies were seated. Percival greeted them and fancied their +manner not very warm. He had a swift recollection of the letter's +advice that they joined in estimating him "Very wild"; but while he +shook hands, while he exchanged the conventional civilities, his mind, +nothing concerned with them, was actively discussing how he should +comport himself, what he should see, when he turned to the figure that +had stood by the window, facing away from him, when he entered. + +"Never in London before--no," he said. "I have passed through once, +that is all." + +Then he turned. + +She had come down the room and was within two paces of him. Her dress +was of some dark colour and she wore fine sables, thrown back so that +they lay upon her shoulders and came across her arms. A large black +hat faintly shadowed the upper part of her face; her left hand was in a +muff, and when he turned towards her she had the muff nestled against +her throat. She gave the appearance of having watched him while he +spoke, reckoning what he was, with her face resting meditatively upon +her muff, her tall and slim young figure upright upon her feet. + +There was no perceptible pause between his turning to her and their +speaking. Yet he had time for a long, long thought of her before he +opened his lips. It took his breath. So still she stood, so serene +and contemplative her look, that he thought of her, standing there, as +some most rich and most rare picture, framed by the soft dusk that +London rooms have, and surely framed and set apart from mortal things. + +She dropped her muff to her arm's length with a sudden action, just as +a portrait might stir to come to life. She raised her head so that the +shadow went from her face and revealed her eyes, as a jealous leaf's +shade might be stirred to reveal the dark and dew-crowned pansy. She +had not removed her gloves and she gave him her small hand--that last +he had held cold, trembling and uncovered--gloved in white kid. She +spoke and her voice--that last he had heard aswoon--had the high, cold +note he thrilled to hear. + +"It is pleasant to see you again," she said. + +He never could recall in what words he replied--nor if indeed he +effected reply. + +Conventional words went between them before she and her mother took +their departure; conventional words again at a chance meeting on the +following day and again when the parties met by arrangement at a +matinee. His week drew to a close. As its end neared he began to +resist the mute and distant adoration which he had felt must be his +part when he had thought of meeting her again and which, without pang, +he at first accepted as his part now that they were come together. But +when the very hours could be counted that would see her gone from him +again he felt that attitude could no longer be endured. Insupportable +to pass into the future without a closer sign of her!--insupportable +even though the sign proved one that should reward his temerity by +sealing her forever from his lips. He nerved himself to the +daring--the very opportunity was hard to seek. Rollo, in the slightly +selfish habit that belongs to delicate persons accustomed, as he was +accustomed, to their own way, was ever desirous of having Percival to +himself alone. He saw plenty of Dora at other times, he said +(deliberately avoiding a chance of meeting her on one occasion); and +when Percival, not daring to do more, made scruples on grounds of mere +politeness, "But, bless you, she'll think nothing of it," Rollo said +carelessly: "She's made of ice--Dora. I like her all right, you know. +But she's not keen on anything. She's got no more feeling than--well, +ice," and he laughed and dismissed the subject. + +Had she not? It was Percival's to challenge it. + +The chance came on the eve of the morrow that was to see his friend's +departure for Italy and his own for a farewell to Aunt Maggie and so +back to Japhra again. The Esparts came over to dinner at Baxter's +hotel--came in response to Lady Burdon's private and urgent request of +Mrs. Espart. The week of Percival's visit had tried her sorely. Night +by night and every night, as she told Mrs. Espart, she had had that +dreadful nightmare of hers again--that girl to whom she cried "I am +Lady Burdon," and who answered her: "Oh, how can you be Lady Burdon?;" +to whom she cried "I hold," and, who answered her, "No, you do +not--Nay, I hold." + +Aunt Maggie might have explained it. Mrs. Espart laughed outright. +"That? Good gracious, I thought you had forgotten that long ago." + +"So I had--so I had. I never thought of it again from the day I told +you until last Wednesday night--the day Percival came to us. Since +then every night..." + +She paused before the last words and stopped abruptly after them. + +"Well, my dear! You're not putting down to poor Percival what must be +the fault of Mr. Baxter's menus, surely?" + +Lady Burdon said without conviction: "No--no, I'm not. Still, it began +then--and I don't like him now--don't care for Rollo to be so attached +to him now--and had words with Rollo about it--and perhaps that was the +reason and is the reason. Anyway, do come to dinner to-night--distract +my thoughts perhaps--I can't face that nightmare again. It's on my +nerves." + +Mrs. Espart permitted herself the tiniest yawn, but promised to come; +and came, bringing Dora. + + +IV + +So Percival's chance came, or so came, rather, his last +opportunity--for he ran it to the final moment. Announcement of the +Esparts' carriage brought their evening to an end, and he went down +with Rollo to see them off. Baxter's preserved its exclusiveness by +preserving its old fashions; the staircase was narrow, so the hall. +Mrs. Espart went first, then Rollo. Percival followed Dora. + +As she came to the pavement she turned to gather her skirts about her. +In the action she looked full at him. + +The end? + +He said: "Dora--do you ever remember?" + +Her skirts seemed to have eluded her fingers and she must make another +hold at them. He saw the colour flame where her fair face showed it, +swiftly, deeply scarlet in that shade on either cheek. He saw her +young breast rise as though that red flood drew and held it--saw her +lips part for words, and held his breath to catch her voice. + +"I have not forgotten," she whispered. + + + + +BOOK FIVE + +BOOK OF FIGHTS AND OF THE BIG FIGHT. THE ELEMENT OF COURAGE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +BOSS MADDOX SHOWS HIS HAND + +I + +Ima asked: "Of what are you thinking, Percival?" + +"Of when I shall leave you all--and how." + +She replied: "Strange, then, how thoughts run. It was in my mind also." + +Stranger how tricks and chances of life go! This trick and that--and +this was to be his last night with the van folk. That chance and +this--and within a few hours he was to be returned to Aunt Maggie, bade +good-by at the close of his visit scarcely four months since. This +trick and that, that chance and this, and he was to be put in the way +of winning Dora--a way that never had seemed so obscure, never so +impossible of attainment as when he came back to Japhra with her "I +have not forgotten," at once shouting to him that she loved him and +mocking him with the difference between her estate and his. + +Already the tricks and chances were afoot. He was alone with Ima upon +a rising bluff of common land. Considerably below them, so that they +looked down as it were from a cliff to a valley, the fair was pitched +and in full swing--that it was in full swing and he idle was the first +step in the freakish hazards that were to encompass him this night. + + +II + +A stifling evening had succeeded a burning day. Here on the bluff a +breeze moved cool and soft as it had been waftings from the dusky cloak +night dropped about them; below was heat and crowded life and clamour, +rising in the waving reek of the naphtha flares; in shouts of the +showmen; in shrill laughter from village girls at fun about the booths, +or horseplay with their swains; in ceaseless rifle-cracks from the +shooting-galleries--in drum-thumpings, in steam organs, in brazen +instruments; occasionally, high above it all, in enormous +_oo-oo-oomphs_ from the caged lions in the huge marquee that housed +Boss Maddox's Royal Circus and Monster Forest-bred Menagerie--a +tremendous sound, as Percival thought when it came booming across the +clamour, that was a brute's but that seemed, like some trump of protest +against the din, to make brutish the human cries and shouts it governed. + +Two crowds, leaving and entering, jostled one another at the entrance +to the Royal Circus and Forest-bred Menagerie; stretching on either +hand from where they pressed ran the minor shows under Boss Maddox's +proprietorship, forming a noisy, flaring street that ended, facing the +circus marquee, with "Foxy" Pinsent's Academy of Boxing and School of +Arms. Maddox's Royal Circus and Forest Bred Menagerie at one end, +Pinsent's fine booth at the other--between them Maddox's Living +Pictures, Maddox's Wild-West Shooting Gallery, Maddox's Steam +Switch-back and Aerial Railway, Maddox's Original Marionettes, Maddox's +Premier Boatswings, Maddox's Monster Panorama, Maddox's Royal Theatre +and Concert Divan, Maddox's Elite Refreshment Saloons, Maddox's +American Freak Museum, and all Maddox's smaller fry--coker-nut shies, +hoop-las, Living Mermaid, Hall of Strength, Cave of Mystery, Magic +Mirrors, and the rest of them; owned by Boss Maddox, financed by Boss +Maddox, or, if of independent ownership, having the Boss's favour and +acknowledging the Boss's ownership. + +No booths whose proprietors called Stingo Boss were open: and that was +one step in the tricks and chances of the day. + +The gaunt figure of Boss Maddox, watchful and urgent this night for the +very reason that the Stingo booths were closed, passed now along the +further side of lights towards Foxy Pinsent's pitch. Head bent towards +his left shoulder; hands clasped behind his back; uncommonly tall; +uncommonly spare--that was Boss Maddox anywhere. + +A further mark, as he moved through his little kingdom, proclaimed him +who he was and what he was. Frequent nods of his head he made in +response to hat touchings or greetings in the crowd; frequent stoppings +to exchange a few words with some figure that stepped into his +path--and broke away from others or pushed others aside to step there: +the local tradesmen these, or members of the local Borough Council, +anxious to be in with Boss Maddox and so to secure the considerable +patronage in victualling and provender he was able to distribute; or +anxious to let fellow-townsmen observe on what familiar terms they were +with the Boss, and concerned to know that he found his pitch to his +liking. A mighty man, the Boss in these days, who bought up his +pitches and paid handsomely for them a year in advance, who on a famous +occasion had fallen into dispute with a Borough Council, refused their +district the honour of his shows, and thereby--by loss of entertainment +and loss of revenue--had caused the Borough Councillors to suffer +defeat at the next election. Things like that were remembered up and +down the west of England; Boss Maddox in the result was reckoned a man +to be placated, to be done homage, and to have his interests preserved. +Only the old Stingo gang resisted him, and this day he had paid them +dear for their want of allegiance. + +His parade brought him at length to "Foxy" Pinsent's Academy of Boxing +and School of Arms. Foxy Pinsent had risen to be his lieutenant and +right-hand man in the management of his business, and Boss Maddox was +come to compare notes on how the Stingo crowd were taking their +set-back. + +Eight pugilists in flannels--two of them negroes--displayed themselves +upon the raised platform outside the Academy of Boxing and School of +Arms. Pinsent, in a long fawn coat reaching to his shoes, paced before +them, crying to the assembled crowds their merits, their prowess, their +achievements and their challenges. He swung a great bundle of boxing +gloves in his right hand and, amid delighted shouts of the spectators, +sent a pair flying to venturesome yokels here and there who pointed to +one or other of the eight stalwarts in acceptance of combat. + +As Boss Maddox pushed his way to the front the eight turned and filed +into the booth. He raised a hand. Foxy Pinsent tossed a last pair of +gloves to the crowd, came down the steps from the platform and joined +him. + +"How are they taking it, Boss?" + +"Pretty tough. Move round with me and let 'em see we're watching. In +a while I'm to have a word with Stingo and Japhra--you with me, boy." + +Foxy Pinsent spat on the ground. "We've fixed the ----s this time," he +said venomously. + + +III + +The fixing of the Stingo crowd had been Boss Maddox's culminating +stroke in the heavy hand he had pressed these many seasons upon those +who named Stingo Boss. The bad blood between the two factions of which +Japhra had told Percival years before had steadily increased with Boss +Maddox's increasing dominance and position. Waxing more and more +determined to crush under his rule the little knot of Stingo +followers--or to crush them out--Boss Maddox had this day given them an +extra twist--and they had made protest by refusing to erect their +booths. + +A new Fair ground had been marked out here since the last visit of the +showmen. A broad stream marked one boundary, bridged only by the +highroad bridge a mile up from the new ground. The new ground was +small. Maddox's would require it all, the Boss announced. Beyond the +stream was common land, free to all. "Yonder, you!" said Boss Maddox +to the Stingo crowd. "Yonder, you!" and pointed across the stream with +his stick. + +It meant going back a mile and a mile down again so as to come to the +common land. It meant worse than that, with a discovery that changed +the first demur to loud and bitter protest: "No bridge except the +highroad bridge? Then how were folk going to get over from the Fair +Ground? No bridge? What game's this, Boss?" + +"Your game," Boss Maddox told them in his stern and callous way. +"Naught to do with me that the Fair Ground's changed. Your game. Get +out and play it." + +The angry crowd went to Stingo and Stingo to Boss Maddox. Boss Maddox +could not refuse parley with Stingo, and gave it where the great pole +of his circus marquee was being fixed--his own followers grouped about, +enjoying the fun; Stingo's packed in a murmuring throng behind Stingo's +broad back. + +The interview was very short. "You're going too far, Boss Maddox," +Stingo said in his husky whisper. "This ain't fair to the boys. Grant +you the ground's too small. After your tent and Pinsent's there the +rest should fall by lot. That's fair to all. It was done on the road +Boss Parnell's time when you and me were boys." + +"It's not done in mine," said Boss Maddox, and his words called up two +murmurs--approval and mocking behind him, wrath before. + +Stingo waited while it died away, then went close with words for Boss +Maddox's private ear. "You've been out to make bad blood these three +summers, Maddox," he said. "Have a care of it. I'll not be answerable +for my boys here." + +His tone was of grave warning, as between men of responsible position. +But it was Foxy Pinsent, standing with Maddox, who replied to him. +"We'll drink all we may brew," Foxy Pinsent said, and sneered: "We're +not fat old women this side, Stingo." + +The flag of a temper kept in control but now burst from his command +came in violent purple into old Stingo's face. His huskiness went to +its most husky pitch, "By God, Foxy! I'll stuff it into ye, if need +be," he throated. + +He took a calmer and wiser mood back to his followers, joining with +Japhra in counselling a making the best of it across the stream +to-night and a deputation to Boss Maddox, when heads on both sides were +cooler, on the morrow. They would not listen to him. They would stay +where they were, they told him. They could not open their booths +here--they would not open them there; here, to assert their rights, +they would stay. What was Boss Maddox's game?--to rid himself of them +altogether?--they who had worked the West Country boy and man, girl and +woman, in this company before Boss Maddox was heard of? Were they +going to be turned adrift from it--from the roads they knew and the +company they knew? Not they!--not if Boss Maddox and his crowd came at +'em with sticks! Let 'em come! Ah, let Boss Muddy Maddox and his +crowd try 'em a bit further and the sticks would come out in their own +hands as they came in their fathers' in the big fight that sent the +Telfer crowd north in '30.... + + +IV + +So the Stingo vans remained where they had been driven up on the edge +of the Fair ground. The men for the most part shared their afternoon +meal in groups that sullenly discussed their hurt. Some broodingly +watched the erection of their rivals' booths. A few gathered about +Egbert Hunt, who had oratory to deliver on this act of oppression. The +winters Hunt had spent with "unemployed" malcontents had given a flow +of language to a character that from boyhood had shaped away from +honest work and towards hostility against authority. In the vans, +among men who sweated as they toiled, and worked in the main for their +own hands, he was commonly an object of contempt. To-day he found +audience. He had words and ranted his best--"Tyrang!" the burden of +it; rising, as he tossed his arms and worked himself up, to "'Boss' +Maddox is he? 'Oo appointed 'im boss over you or over me? 'Boss' +Maddox? Tyrang Maddox--that's what I name 'im." + +He observed a titter run round those who listened to him; turned to +seek its cause; with Tyrang Maddox found himself face to face; and +before he could make movement of escape was sent to the ground with a +stunning box on the ear. He shouted a stream of filthy abuse and made +to spring to his feet. Boss Maddox's hand pinned him down and Boss +Maddox's whip came about his writhing form in a rain of blows that, +when they were done and he had taken the kick that concluded them, left +him cowering. + +"Whose hand are you, you whelp?" Boss Maddox demanded. + +Egbert Hunt looked up at him. He was gasping with sobs of pain and +sobs of rage. He looked up, hate and murder in his eye, and pressed +his lips between his sobs. + +The whip went up. "Whose hand?" + +Egbert cowered back: "Old One-Eye's." + +"Keep to his heel. Cross my sight again and the same is waiting for +you." + +Boss Maddox stalked away. A crowd had gathered from all parts of the +camp, attracted by Egbert's screams. Egbert raised himself on one arm +and looked at the grinning faces before him. He got stiffly to his +feet, mumbling to himself, his breast still heaving with sobs. "Me, a +full-grown man, to be used like a dog! Cross his path!--ill day for +him when I do!" + +He went a few paces, walking parallel to those assembled. Suddenly he +turned to them, tears running down his face, and threw up his clenched +hands. "I'll put a knife in 'im!" he cried. "By God, I'll put a knife +in 'im!" + +The crowd laughed. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +IMA SHOWS HER HEART + +I + +Percival suggested to Ima that they should use in a stroll the leisure +evening that the trouble in the vans had given him. Some drink had +been passing as the day wore on, and the heat between the two factions +was not better for it. Here and there bickerings were assuming an ugly +note.--"Let's get out of it," Percival said. "Come along, Ima, up to +the top over there--Bracken Down they call it." + +It was close upon nine o'clock as they left the Fair. They picked +their way along the paths through the tall bracken that gave the place +its name--reaching a clearing in the thick growth, by mutual accord +they dropped down for a glad rest. + +Very still and cool here among the fern, the Fair a nest of tossing +lights, faint cries and that lion's trump of _oo-oo-oomph_ beneath +them; a remote place of silence, and silence communicated itself to +them until Ima broke it by her question "Of what are you thinking, +Percival?" and to his reply--that he thought of when he should leave +them all, and how--told him "Strange then how thoughts run. It was in +my mind also." + +Stranger how tricks and chances of life go! Looking back afterwards, +recalling her words, Percival realised how events had run from one to +another upon the most brittle thread of hazards. The trouble in the +vans had sent him out here with Ima; that was the merest chance; that +was the beginning of the thread. + +Very cool and remote here among the bracken. He had gone back to +silence after her last words. It was she who spoke again. + +"Are you weary of it?" she asked. + +He was lying at his full length, face downwards, his chin upon his +clasped fingers. She sat upright beside him, one knee raised and her +hands about it. + +He turned his cheek to where his chin had been and looked up lazily at +her: "Why, no, not weary of it, Ima. I like the life. I've been at it +a long time. When the day comes I shall be sorry to go." + +She was looking straight before her. "A sorry day for us, also," she +said. + +"Will you be sorry, Ima?" + +"Of course I shall be sorry." + +He gave a sound of mischievous laughter. Lying idly stretched out +there, the warm night and the unusual sense of laziness he was enjoying +stirred in him some prankish spirit, or some spirit of more warm +desire, that he had never felt in Ima's company. "Yet you are always +trying to get rid of me," he said; and he laughed again on that +mischievous note, and snuggled his cheek closer against his hands, and +felt that spirit run amicably through him as he stretched and then +released his muscles. + +She looked down at him, smiling. "Unkind to return my conduct so," she +said. "No, I have but reminded you you are not always for the rough +ways." + +He had watched her face as he lay there, seen how her hair, her brow, +her eyes, alone in all the shadow about Bracken Down caught the light +from where the light was starred across the sky, and how her lips +seemed also to attract it. Now when she looked down and smiled, it was +as if some gentle radiance were bent upon him, or as if Night, in +visible embodiment, gracious as Summer night, starred, tranquil, cool, +stooped to his couch. + +He got quickly to his feet, that spirit tingling now. + +"Going?" she asked, and the lamp of her face was turned up to him so +that he looked full into it. + +"No," he said, pronouncing the word as he had made his laugh--as if +some inward excitement pressed its escape. + +"No." He came in front of her, went on his knees and sat back on his +heels. That brought him close to her, facing her. + +"Ima," he said, "you've got six--seven stars on your face, do you know +that?" + +She smiled, unaware of his mood. + +Himself he was scarcely aware of it: "Well, you have, though," he said. +He approached a finger towards her and pointed, and almost touched her +while he spoke. "You have, though. Two on your hair--there and there. +One on your forehead--there. One in each eye--that's five. Two on +your mouth--one here, one there: seven stars!" + +"Foolish talk," she smiled. "We had a Romany woman once with us who +told fortunes. Just so have I heard her speak to village girls. +When--" + +His eyes betrayed him. Concern and worse leapt into hers. She thrust +out a hand to stop him, but he bent forward swiftly and strongly. +Urged by the spirit that laziness and the warm, still night had put +into him, that had led him on in mischief and that now suddenly +engulfed him--"Stars on your mouth!" he cried, and caught his arms +about her to kiss her. + + +II + +He felt her twist as she were made of vibrant steel and strong as +steel. His lips missed hers, and scarcely brushed her face. He tried +for her lips again, laughing while he tried, and pressed her to him and +felt her twist and strain away with a strength that surprised him while +he laughed. + +"Only a kiss, Ima! Only a kiss!" + +She was of steel, but he held her. She spoke, and the strangeness of +her words made him release her. "Ah, ah, Percival!" she gasped. "How +you despise me!" + +He let her go and she sprang away and upright, as a bow stick released. +He let her go, and stared at her where she stood panting fiercely, and +stared in more surprise when, checking her sobbing breaths, she spoke +again. + +In their struggle her hair had loosened and it fell, half-bound, in a +heavy cascade upon one shoulder and down her breast. The starlight +gleamed on it and on her dark face framed against it. She had a wild +look, as if her mild beauty had suddenly gone gipsy; her sobbing voice +had a wild tone, and he noticed the drop back to the "thee" long absent +from her speech: "Ah, this to happen!" she cried. "This! Ah, what a +thing I must be to thee!" + +The strangeness and the violence of her distress astonished him. What +had he done? Tried for a kiss? In the name of all the kisses snatched +from pretty girls--! "Why, Ima?" was all he could say. "Ima?" + +She dropped to the ground with a collapsed action as though, oppressed +as she was, standing were insupportable. She covered her face with her +hands, ceased her sobbing breaths; but he saw her trembling in all her +frame. + +Rising, he went to her, put a hand on her shoulder, and, at the +convulsive movements he felt, made deeper the contrition for his +careless act that her distress now caused him. "Ima, what have I done? +Only tried to kiss you in fun. A sudden, silly thing--I don't know +why--I never meant it--but only a kiss in fun." + +He waited a moment, grieved for her, half-vexed with her--then had his +answer and was faced with emotions as sudden and unexpected as when a +moment before, without premeditation, he had her struggling in his arms. + +She drew a deep breath and answered him. "That is it--in fun!" she +said. She threw out her arms across her raised knees--the palms +upward, the fingers curved in a most desolate action. "In fun!" she +said intensely. "I would to God--I would to God thou hadst done it in +passion." + +He came in front of her. "Tell me what it is I have done to you," he +said firmly. + +The intensity went from her voice. She spoke then and thenceforward +very softly, as if she were making explanation to a child, and in her +answer she used again the term that went with the days of the "thee" +and "thou" now returned to her. + +"Used me," she answered him softly, "used me as any wanton is to be +used, little master." + +He cried, "Ima! After all these years we have known each other--a kiss +in fun!" + +But she went on: "What maids are kissed in fun? That a man weds does +he use so? That the sisters of such as thou art does he so use? That +give him cause for regard does he so use? What maids, then?" and +answered herself, "Such as I am!" + +"Oh!" he cried, wounded with pity for her, "Oh, Ima--Ima, dear, don't +talk like that. What can you mean? I am sorry--sorry! Forgive me!" + +Her sad eyes almost smiled at him. "I have nothing to forgive thee," +she said. "It was but a foolish fancy that I had. Well that it should +be broken--ended that;" and she looked again across the dark bracken, +her arms extended upon her knees in that desolate pose. + +It wrung him with pity--his dear Ima! "But tell me!" he pressed her, +anxious to soothe her. "Tell me what you mean by fancy--by saying +'ended that!'" + +She answered: "That all I had tried should be broken suddenly--suddenly +as a star falls. I had not minded if I had been warned." + +"What have you tried, Ima?--I want to know--to show you how sorry I am." + +She was silent for a considerable space. When she began to speak she +spoke without pause, without modulations of her low tone, without +notice of the stammered exclamations that her words broke from him. + +"Hear me, then," she said. "The thing is no more mine--thou mayst know +it. To what shall I go back for when I first knew that I loved thee?--" + +"_Ima!_" + +"Why, from the first I knew it and began to try to fit me for thee. +Why went I to shut myself in roofs and walls, to learn hard books and +gentle ways and how to speak in thy fashion?--so thou shouldst not +scorn me, so I might make me to be seemly in thy sight--" + +"_Ima! I never dreamt--!_" + +"--Why have I gone my ways so--winter by winter leaving my father's +van? Because I loved thee since I first saw thee--" + +"Don't! Don't!" he cried. There was something completely terrible to +him in this avowal from a woman--immodest, shameful, horrible--that +must cause her violation of her most sacred feelings as they would be +violated were she thrust naked before him; that caused him agony for +her suffering, and agony that he should see it, as he would endure +agony for her and for himself if made to see her nudity. "Don't, Ima! +Don't! I understand--I see everything now. I ought to have known!" + +But she went on--it might have been some requiem she made to some poor +treasured thing now dead in her extended arms. She went on: "Because I +loved thee--ah, worshipped all thy doings, all thy looks--loved thee +with all the love that men and women love--as mothers love, as lovers +love, as friends love, as brothers love,--there is no love but I have +loved thee with it, and I have thought them all and loved thee with +each one the better to enjoy my love--" + +"_Ima!_" + +"--Why cried I 'this to happen!' Because by thy kiss I saw that I was +nothing to thee--and less than nothing. All my poor trying suddenly +proved of no avail. All my poor fancy that haply thou mightst turn to +me if I could be worthy of thee suddenly gone to dust that the winds +sport. Why cried I 'ended that!'--" + +She sighed very deeply. Her trembling had in some degree communicated +itself to him. He trembled for the shame he knew she must be +suffering, and for the effect upon him that her gentle, even voice had, +crooning its tragedy in the darkness of their remote and silent +situation, and for the effect upon him of that long sigh--rising and +then falling away to tiniest sound, as it had been the passing of some +spirit released to glide away across the bracken. + +"--Why cried I 'ended that'?" and then her long, sad sigh; and then: +"Because all is nought, little master;" and he saw her fingers extend +and her head bow a little.... + +She arose then, slowly, and he went back to give her room. Her hair +had slipped the last coil that held it, and was in a black sheen to her +waist before one shoulder and in a black sheen to her waist behind her +back. She began to loop it up with deft but tired fingers and looked +at him while she twined it. Her face was very kind to him; the stars +caught it, and he saw those stars upon her mild mouth that had tricked +him to his wanton act: they seemed to show her almost smiling at him. + +He asked: "Are we going now?" + +She smiled then, gently. "Nay," she said. "I have left my poor +secrets here--suffer me to go alone." Then turned and left him; and he +watched her form swiftly merging to the darkness--now high among the +bracken, now lower and lower yet, as though it were a deepening pool +she entered. Now gone. + + +III + +It seemed to Percival, left alone, as if some horrible and most +oppressive trouble had befallen him. This piteous thing had struck so +suddenly that for some moments he remained only numbed by it, as +numbness precedes the onset of pain from a blow. When the full meaning +returned to him, "Good God!" he cried aloud, "What a thing to have +happened!" and most tenderly--with increasing tenderness, with +increasing grief--he went through all she had revealed and how she had +revealed it. It was surely the most monstrous pitiful thing that ever +could be, her secret plots and strivings to fit herself for what she +yearned--tasking herself in "gentle ways," in speech of his fashion, in +hard books, in the life between walls and under roofs; he ached for her +in every bone as he thought of her thus schooling herself--for him. +"Oh, horrible, horrible!" he muttered, writhing for her to remember all +her little cares for him--her attention to his clothes, her concern +that he should not get into "rough ways"; horrible! horrible! now that +he knew their loving purpose. And then her revelation of it! He must +rise and pace, the better to endure the recollection of that. How +terribly she struggled in his arms! "God, what a beast a man can be!" +he cried. What agony must have wrung that cry, "Ah, Percival, how you +must despise me!" What agony that "This to happen!" What pain, what +bleeding of her heart, that lamentable ending--"Because all is naught, +little master!" Happy, happy time when first she used to call him by +that quaint endearment; in what travail, in what blackness, it had come +from her now! What had she done? Why fastened such a love upon him +whose love was utterly pledged away? Nay, the torment was What had he +done? What vile and brutal ends had he used to knock her to her +senses? What manner of sympathy had he given her when she lay bleeding? + +"I must go to her," he said abruptly; and at the best speed the +darkness would admit he twisted his way through the paths among the +bracken towards the distant nest of lights. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +PERCIVAL SHOWS HIS FISTS + +I + +He ran in two moods. First he was earnest above all things to hold her +hands and comfort her--to explain, to soothe, to endear. To hold her +hands and tell her how fond, how very, very fond he was of her, of how +they should be sister and brother, and the happiest and fondest sister +and brother that ever were. To thank her, thank her for all her sweet, +devoted ways. To tell her how good she was, how he admired her. That +was one mood. The other was a savage and burning anger at himself, +partly for his wanton act towards her, partly born of his agony of +discomfort at the revelation she had made. The moods were +intermingled. He yearned to comfort her for her suffering, he writhed +to think he had witnessed that suffering. He was in the one part utter +tenderness towards her--in the other flame, furious flame, most eager +for vent. + +The tricks and chances of life had fuel for the flame, not outlet for +the tenderness, as he came to the nest of lights. + +He went quickly to Japhra's van. It was end-on to him as he +approached; and as he came to the shafts he saw a group of men there +talking,--Japhra, Stingo, Boss Maddox. He supposed--and was confirmed +by the words he caught as he passed them--that they were discussing the +dispute. "I'll ask Pinsent," he heard Boss Maddox say, and saw and +heard him turn and call "Pinsent! Here, Foxy, where are you?" as +though Foxy Pinsent had been of the group a moment before. + +He passed quickly to the tail of the van and himself found Pinsent. +"Angry, my pretty duck?" Foxy Pinsent was saying. "Angry? Chuck! +chuck!" + +It was to Ima that he was saying it; and with his last words, lolling +against the entrance steps, he put out a hand to chuck her chin. She +stepped out of his reach, and in relief cried, "Ah, Percival!" as +Percival approached. + +Flame, furious flame most eager for vent! + +Choked for words by the flame's fierce leap and burn, "Clear out of +this!" Percival said. + +Foxy Pinsent turned his head slowly from Ima to Percival and looked +Percival coolly up and down with the foxy smile. He put his elbows +back to lean against the van, and very deliberately crossed one foot +over the other. "Go to hell, won't you?" he said mildly. + +It was a double smart he took to wipe the studied insolence from his +face and to plant venom there. Percival's open hand that struck his +mouth--a tough, vicious jolt with the arm half-crooked, a boxer's +hit--drove his head against the van; and his "Ah, curse you!" followed +the sharp smack and thud quick as if the three sounds--clip, thud, +hiss--belonged to some instrument discharged. + +He sprang forward, head back, hitting quickly with both hands, like the +rare boxer he was--feinted with his right, drove his left against +Percival's forehead, took a sharp _one-two!_ on mouth and throat, and +they were engaged, fighting close, fighting hard, and savage and glad, +and fierce and exultant, each of them, at last to spring their common +hate. + +In its suddenness and fury, in its briefness and the manner of its +check, the thing was like the sudden _woof!_ of flame of a spark to a +handful of gunpowder. There is the belch and blinding flash of heat, +then the thick cloud of smoke. There was the swift drum of blows, then +the rush of feet--Stingo, Japhra, Boss Maddox, men from here, men from +there, in that trap-door swiftness with which commotion throws up a +crowd--and the two were grasped and pulled apart and held apart, +struggling like terriers that have had the first taste of blood and to +collect the glut are gone blind to blows or authority. + +Stingo from behind threw his two immense arms about Percival and leant +with all his weight the better to lock them. Boss Maddox thrust his +tall form before Pinsent, and snatched a wrist and gripped it in his +long fingers. Japhra was at Percival's hands that tore at Stingo's. + +"Lay on here, some of you!" Boss Maddox called, struggling with +Pinsent's arm. "Get that other arm!--Dago! Frenchy! Jackson! +Darkie! Look alive with it! Drop it, Foxy! Drop it! What the +devil's up with you?" + +And Stingo's strained whispers, in jerks and gusts by reason of his +exertions: "Easy, Percival! Easy with it! Easy, I say! You can't +shift me, boy! Get that hand, Japhra! Get that hand!" + +Then the smoke clears and there remains only the acrid smell of the +burning, and the sense of heat. + +The two were dragged apart till a safe space separated them and they +fronted each other before the groups about them--their faces furious, +their bodies still, but their hands plucking at the hands that held +them as they made their answers. + +"Struck me!" Foxy Pinsent shouted. "Struck me! By God! I'll teach +him! I've been saving it up for him a long time. Let me go, Boss! +What's the sense of holding me like this? Struck me, the whelp, I tell +you! I've got to have him first or last! Let me go!" + +And Percival: "And more to give you, Pinsent! Teach me, eh? If I +could get!--Japhra! Stingo! It's no business of yours, this! Damn +your interference! Japhra! Japhra! Let go my hands!" + +They cooled a little as the hands still held them and their +explanations were demanded. Boss Maddox left Pinsent to other +constraint and came and stood in the little space between the two +groups, hands behind his back in the familiar posture, shoulders +slightly hunched, head on one side, and turning it this way and that as +Percival or Pinsent spoke. + +Presently he looked at Stingo. "That boy's right," he said, with a +jerk back at Pinsent. "He's been struck. He's Foxy. This can't end +here. He's got to have his rights." + +"He'll get 'em," Stingo said, with as much grimness as his huskiness +could convey. "He'll get 'em if I let this lot loose. Don't you let +him worry, Boss." + +Boss Maddox turned squarely on Pinsent. "Give it a rest till the +morning, Foxy. You boys can't fight in this darkness--not you two." + +Pinsent laughed: "I'm not going to fight him. I'm going to thrash him." + +"Let me go, Japhra! Boss, let's have hands off! It's our show--no one +else's." + +Boss Maddox went back to his first contention. "This can't end here, +Stingo," and Japhra answered him: "Nay, there's blood to be let, Boss. +We can't stop it--nor have call to." He released Percival while he +spoke, but kept a hand on him, and motioned Stingo's arms away. He +spoke in his slow habit, and with seeming reluctance, but there was a +glimmer of relish in his voice. "They've to settle it, Boss." + +"Will you fight him, Pinsent?" Boss Maddox asked. + +Pinsent shook off the clutches upon him. He came forward two +deliberate paces, and with great deliberation stretched himself, and +with great deliberation spat upon the ground. Then fixed his eye on +Percival. "If he likes to get out of it with a whipping," Pinsent +said, "I'll learn him the manners he wants with your whip and let him +off at that. If he's got the guts to stand up, I'll roast him till he +lays down." He thrust forward his body towards Percival and said +mockingly: "Which way? Which way, my pretty gentleman?" + +Percival's face was a white lamp in the dusky night. "Give us room!" +he said. + +Then Pinsent's voice lost its deliberate drawl and rasped out in a rasp +that showed his breeding and showed his hate: "I want light to serve +you up, my gentleman! Light and a pair of shoes! Christ! I've waited +too long for this to spoil it. I've a pattern to put on that pretty +face of yours--not in this dark. Where'll I fight him, Boss? Where?" + +"Along the road in the morning." + +Percival came up. "I'll not wait, Boss. You've heard him. I'll not +wait." + +Pinsent rasped: "Morning be withered! Now! Now, while I'm hot. +Where'll I fight him?" + +Boss Maddox peered at his watch, then looked across the booths. "Nigh +midnight--few left yonder. We'll be shut down in twenty minutes. At +one o'clock." + +And Japhra, a strange tremble in his voice: "In your tent, Boss. The +boys will want to watch this. Room there, and good light." + +Boss Maddox turned to Pinsent: "Good for you? The circus tent?" + +"The place for it," Pinsent said. "Sharp at one. Japhra, you and me +are ring men; come and settle a point." + +"Come thou to me," Japhra answered him sturdily. "Thou and I!--I knew +the ring, the knuckle ring, before thou sucked." + +"Come to the tent," Boss Maddox interposed. "Best settle there." + +Japhra took Percival a space away. "Lay thee down," he said. His +voice was frankly trembling now, and he pressed both Percival's hands +in his. "Bide by my words; bide by them. Lay thee down till I return +to thee. Forget thy spite against yonder fox. Ima!" + +She was at his side, her hands clasped together, her face white and +strained. + +"Forget him his spite, and what comes, Ima. While he lies, with a rug +and with his boots from his feet, bide thou there and read to +him--Crusoe, eh? Stingo and I will make for thee, master. I am not +long gone." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +FOXY PINSENT _V._ JAPHRA's GENTLEMAN + +I + +Visitors to the booths who had stayed late that night went home +complaining of the abruptness with which the shows were closed and of +the uncouth way in which showmen who had fawned and flattered for their +patronage suddenly seemed no more occupied with them than to bustle +them off the ground and set their faces townwards. + +But visitors were not in the line of communication that flashed that +amazing news around the camp: + +"Heard it?" + +"No!" + +"Foxy Pinsent's to fight Japhra's Gentleman in the marquee!" + +"What of it?" + +"What of it, yer muddy thick? What of it? Not a show--private! Had a +scrap and to fight it out!" + +"Eh? Fac'? No! When?" + +"One o'clock. When the ground's clear." And, with a nod at the +sightseers, "Get 'em out, mate! Get 'em out! Stars and stripes! What +a knock-out!" + +So, as the Fiery Cross among the Highland glens rushed with incredible +swiftness, leaving in its wake a trail of mad commotion, the message +flashed from mouth to mouth, booth to booth, van to van--received with +utter incredulity, grasped with wildest excitement, relished with a +zeal that caused every other thought and object to be abandoned, and +resulted in a tide of feverish agitation to be at leisure for details +and for the business that drove out naphtha flares and visitors alike +as it swept across the ground. For there was more in the fight than +the rare thrill of fight itself. It was accepted everywhere as the +meeting by champion of the two factions; and the bickerings of many +months, the final poison of that day's events, rushed a savage zest +into the appetites that waited the encounter. Foxy Pinsent was Boss +Maddox's party, coat off to put that Stingo crowd properly in its +place; Japhra's Gentleman was the Stingo following, girt at last to +collect a little on account for much outstanding debt. When, towards +one o'clock, the surging crowd outside the marquee made a sudden +movement forward and into the tent, it entered with rival cries, +taunts, faction jeers--and separated, as a barrier had divided it, into +two bodies that faced in mutual mock across the ring that had been +formed. + +They found preparations at the point of completion, done by half a +dozen principles that Boss Maddox had called in, who stood conferring +with him now on final arrangements--Stingo, with Ginger Cronk and +Snowball White of Japhra's booth; Foxy Pinsent, hands in the pockets of +his long yellow coat, with Buck Osborn and others of his Academy of +Boxing and School of Arms--Pink Harman, Dingo Spain, Nut Harris. At a +little distance Japhra stood with Percival. He had towels on his arm, +a sponge in his hand, and as the crowd took up their places he turned +and called a single word across the arena to the group within the ring. + +"Gloves?" he called. + +Pinsent answered him. Pinsent took his hands from the pockets of his +coat and curved up two brown fists. "There's no gloves between us," he +called back; and at his words the two groups of spectators drew as it +were one long breath of relish--"Ah-h-h!" that hardened to murmurs of +grim satisfaction, each man to his neighbour--"The raw 'uns!" "The +knuckle!" "The knuckle!" "The raw 'uns!" and broke into individual +bickerings, cries of derision, across the ring; and thence into a +sudden wordless shouting, one party against the other--a blaring vent +of old antagonism fermented by new cause that made the animals in the +menagerie cages at the end of the arena leap from uneasy slumber to +spring against their bars and join their chorus to a chorus brutish as +their own. + + +II + +To a renewed outburst of that clamour--the thing was on the tick of +beginning--Ima raised the flap that covered the entrance to the marquee +and stepped within. Simultaneously the shouting stilled with a sudden +jerk that left an immense silence--Foxy Pinsent had stepped into the +ring. + +She stopped as if the sudden stillness struck her; and she took in the +scene, her hands clasped against her breast. + +The ring had been contrived within the inner circle that forms the +working part of a circus arena. The canvas belt, some two feet high, +that surrounded this circle during a performance, had been taken up as +to the arc farthest from where she stood and brought forward to the +great pole of the marquee. The wide half circle thus bounded was made +the ring for the fight. Around the tent the lights above the seats had +been extinguished; the great lamp of many burners that encircled the +mast enclosed the ring in its arc of clear light. In the surrounding +dimness, as Ima paused and watched, were the high tiers of red-draped, +empty benches. Within the light's arc she saw the rival crowds on +either hand; straight before her the gap that separated the two +clusters and declared their enmity. At the centre front of each, +against the canvas that bounded the ring, was a little caving-in of the +throng where men in their shirt-sleeves knelt. Pinsent had just +stepped out from this knot on the one side: in the other she saw +Percival seated on her father's knee. A hundred men and more were +behind Pinsent, behind Percival forty or fewer; there was significance +in how each throng stood closely packed, refusing the accommodation +that the ample space between them offered--hatred was deep that +preferred the discomfort of jostling and tiptoe standing to easier view +at the price of mingling. Every face was beneath a peaked cap or +dented bowler hat and above a scarfed neck; a pipe in most caused, as +it were, a grey, shifting bank of smoke, cut flat by the darkness above +the lamp's reflection, to be swaying above the caps as though they +balanced it. Here and there were clumps of colour where women in +blouses of red or white clustered together. Sweat, for the place was +hot, glistened on this face and on that as if the grey, shifting bank +above them exuded drops of water. There was something very sinister, +very eerie, in the complete silence that for a moment held the scene; +and Ima started to hear a sound of breathing and of restless movement. +She looked around. On either hand of where she stood the menagerie +cages were banked. Dark or tawny forms were coiled or stretched there; +in one cage was a big wolf, head down, nose at the bars, that watched +the light as she watched it. + +She went quickly forward to where she saw her father. Impatient way +was made for her. Japhra was talking earnestly to Percival, and they +scarcely seemed to notice her. She slipped down beside them, her knees +against the canvas, and sat on her heels, her hands clasped at their +full extension. She had said she would not come. She had found she +must. While she had been with Percival waiting Japhra's return after +the scene with Pinsent he had begun the contrition he had come to her +to express. She suffered him nothing of it. "That is left where we +laid it among the bracken," she told him. "Let it abide there. Look +already what has come of it. If I had stayed with thee, this had not +happened." + +But her leaving him, and why she left, and his following her, and what +came then, were of the train of the tricks and chances that shaped for +him this day. + + +III + +Boss Maddox spoke. "They're going to fight," he said, taking up a +position against the mast and addressing the gathering in his dry, +authoritative way--"They're going to fight, and you can count +yourselves lucky to see it. If any one interferes--out he goes. +Everything's settled. If any one sees anything he don't think right or +according to rule he can go outside and look for it--keep his mouth +shut while he's going and go quick. Three minute rounds. One minute +breathers. Ten count for the knock-out. Stingo 'll stand here with +the watch. I'm referee. And I'm boss--bite on that. Come along, +Foxy." + +Pinsent, who had stepped over the canvas and strolled to the centre of +the ring as Ima entered, was still in the long yellow coat, still with +his hands in his pockets. He liked to have all those eyes upon him. +He liked to give pause and opportunity for the thought that this fine +figure standing here had fought in class rings and bore a reputation +that gentlemen in shirt-fronts had paid gold to see at battle. He +suffered usually a slight nervousness at the first moment of stepping +into those class rings: to-night and here he had an exultant feeling, +and he carried it with a most effective swagger. He knew Percival +could box. He had watched him spar in Japhra's booth. He knew, to +express his own thoughts, there 'd be a little bit of mixin' up at the +outset; but he knew, as only Japhra among them all also knew, that to +his own skill that had put him in a good rank of his weight he added +the experience, the craft, the morale of a score and more class fights, +and that such a quality is to be reckoned as a third arm against that +poor thing--a "novice." "A novice, Boss!" he had said to Boss Maddox +an hour before. "A novice--I lay there's more'n a few 'ud stop this +fight if they knew what I was fighting. 'Strewth! I'd not do it +myself but for what I've been saving up against the whelp!" + +What he had been saving up came poisonously to his mind as he stood +there, driving away even the flavour of the admiration he felt he was +receiving. At last the price for that "Foxy" he had been dubbed and +had endured. At last that price! Folk had come to the booths to see +Japhra's Gentleman, had they!--A price for that! That smack in the +mouth an hour ago!--A price for that! a big price and he would have it +to the full! + +The foxy smile contracted his mouth and eyes as he began to draw the +scarf from his neck, slipped the long yellow coat, and peeled a +sweater. A delighted cry went up from his supporters--good old Foxy +had done them the honour of appearing in his class ring kit! Japhra, +whispering last earnest words in Percival's ear, looked up at the cry, +and twisted up his face at what he saw. Naked but for the tight boxing +trunks and boxing boots, Pinsent declared himself a rare figure of a +fighting machine. Japhra knew the points. Pinsent threw out his arms +at right angles to his sides and drew a long breath. Japhra saw the +big round chest spring up and expand as a soap bubble at a breath +through the pipe--the cleft down the bone between the big chest +muscles; the tense, drumlike look of the skin where it swept into waist +from the lower ribs; the ridge from neck to shoulder on either side +where the head of the back muscles showed; the immense span of the +arms, rooted in great hitting shoulders that, at such length and along +such well-packed arms, would drive the fists like engine rods. He +scaled a shade over ten stone, Japhra guessed. Percival would be +little above nine-and-a-half; and in Pinsent's uncommonly long +legs--their length accentuated by the brief boxing-drawers--Japhra saw +a further and most dangerous quality in his armoury. He swung an arm +and side-stepped to his left as Japhra watched; and Japhra's lips +twitched. The left leg not slid the foot but lifted it and put it away +and down, more with the ease of an arm action than of a leg--as a +spider lifts and places; up, two feet away, the body perfectly poised +on the right; down, and in a flash the body alert upon it--down, and in +a flash the arm extended and back again with the stab of a serpent's +tongue. There went up a murmur of applause at the consummate ease of +the action, and Japhra turned to Percival with whispered repetition of +last words. + +"Thou seest that?" he whispered. "Thou must follow, follow; press him; +give him no rest. In-fighting, in-fighting, quick as thou canst hit!" + +Earnest anxiety was in his voice as he spoke and in his lined face that +was all twisted up so that every line became a pucker, as a withered +apple that is squeezed in the hand. + +"Now bide me a last time," he said. "He hath no bowels for punishment. +There is a coward streak in him--I have seen it. That thou must find +by following, following--quick as thou canst sling them. Good for thee +that he has chosen the knuckle. Thou hast used thy hands. That fox +yonder hath been too fine a swell these years to pull and carry, shift +and load as thou hast done. He will rue his choice when his knuckles +bruise; thine like stone. He will use his tongue on thee, mocking +thee. Pay no heed to that. He will use his ring tricks. Watch for +them. Up now! they are ready for thee. My life is in this fight, +little master--punish, punish, punish; give him no peace--it resteth on +that. All the luck!" + +He slipped Percival's coat, and Percival stepped across the canvas and +went where Pinsent waited him in the centre. He wore the dress in +which he boxed in the booth--white flannel trousers, a vest of thin +gauze, white canvas shoes with rubber soles. He carried his arms at +his sides, twisting up his fingers to make toughest those fists that +Japhra had said were like stone. He held his head high, looking +straightly at Pinsent; stopped within an arm's length of him and turned +his eyes informatively to Boss Maddox, then direct into Pinsent's again. + +His covered limbs joined with his few pounds' lesser weight to make him +appear the slighter figure of the two. "Going to eat him!" a voice +behind Pinsent broke out. + +"Going to muddy well eat him!" and Pinsent's mouth and eyes contracted +into their foxy smile at the words. + +"Ready?" from Boss Maddox. "All right, Stingo. Get along with it." + +"Time!" said Stingo's husky whisper; and, as a hand laid to the wire of +dancing puppets, the word jerked both figures into movement. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A FIGHT THAT IS TOLD + +I + +They tell that fight along the road to-day. Old men who saw it want +never a listener when the talk turns on boxing and they can say: "Ah, +but I saw Japhra's Gentleman and Foxy Pinsent back in Boss Maddox's +time." + +I tell it as it is told. + +Why (the old men say), why, this Japhra's Gentleman, mark me, he was +one of the quick-ones--one of the movers, one of the swift-boys, one of +the dazzlers, one of the few! He come in _tic-tac! tic-tac! +tic-tac!_--quicker'n my old jaws can say it: _Left-right! left-right! +left-right!_--like his two fists was a postman's knock. Pinsent never +see nothing like it. He was one of the class ones, this Pinsent--one +of the pretty ones, one of the sparrers, one of the walk-rounds, +talk-rounds, one of the wait-a-bits; never in no hurry, the class-ring +boys--all watching first to see what a man's got for 'em. He muddy +soon saw, Foxy! Foxy never see nothing like it. First along, he prop +this quick-boy off, an' prop him off, an' prop him off; an' catch him +fair and rattle him, an' smash him one and stagger him, an' side-step +an' shake him up; but still he come, and still he come, and still he +come; _tic-tac! tic-tac! tic-tac!_ ah, he was one of the quick-ones, +one of the dazzlers, one of the steel-boys. + +Pinsent never see nothing like it. He come back after the first round +thinking this was novice stuff--going all out like that from the +gong--and laughin' at the bustle of it, an' Buck Osborn an' Nut Harris +an' his boys laughin' back at him. Second round he come back an' give +a bit of a spit on the ground an' ease up his trunks an' look +thoughtful. Third round he step back slowly 's if he'd a puzzle to +think about,--third round I mind me Dingo, Dingo Spain, chip him +friendly while he pass the sponge over him, and Foxy turn on him like +he had the devil in his eyes. "What in hell's that to you?" he give +him. "Keep your grins in your ugly mouth," he give him, "lest you want +me to wipe it for you!" He was rattled some, that foxy one; not hurted +much--one of the tough ones, Foxy--but bothered by it an' not quite +sure what to make of it, like a man with a wops buzzin' round his +head--that was the like of it with that quick-boy comin' at him, an' +comin' at him, an' comin' at him. + +Ay, but he was one of the tough ones, Foxy--one of the lie-lows, one of +the shifty ones, one of the snaky-boys, one of the cautions! He went +out fourth round for to serve it up to that quick-boy with some of his +crafty bits. I like a bit o' craft meself. I was a Maddox man, me, +an' I set up a holler, an' we all holler, take my word, when we see +Foxy servin' of it up to that quick-boy like he lay hisself to do then. +Give his tongue to him a treat, he did. Walkin' out to him--tiptoe an' +crouchin' at him. "What, you're in a hurry, my gentleman!" he chips +him. "You'll make yourself hot, my pretty pet, if you don't steady +down," he chips him. "That's not lady's manners, runnin' about like +you've been," he chips him. + +That quick-boy come at him an' he slip a bit of craft on him quick as a +snake. Side-step, he did, that foxy one; an' duck an' say, "Where's +your manners?" an' rake his head across an' butt that quick-boy's +stomach so he grunts; an' up an' hook him one, an' follow him an' lash +him one, an' "Mind your manners, you bastard!" he says an' half across +the ring an' waitin' for him. Three times he butt him so, an' each +time hook him one, an' all the time lip-lippin' of him, an' us boys +hollerin' an' Stingo's boys hollerin' an' the animals in the cages +hollerin' back on us. Holler!--I mind me I was in a fair muck sweat +with it. + +Back he goes again, next round, that foxy one, an' "Why, dear, dear, +you've got some beauty-spots on your face, my pretty gentleman!" he +chips him. "Come an' let's paint 'em up a bit for you, my little +lady!" he chips him. Ay, that was a round, that one! That Japhra,--a +rare one that Gipsy Japhra--had been talkin' to that quick-boy whiles +he had him on his knee; an' when he comes in, an' that foxy one goes to +rake him with buttin' him again, he step back, that quick-boy, for to +cut him as he come out. I see the move--but that foxy one! All craft +that foxy one was--one of the snaky ones, one of the tough boys, one of +the coves! 'Stead o' swingin' through with his head, he swing up and +hook his left 'un with it, an' chin that quick-boy one, an' "Paint!" he +says, "There's paint for you, you dog!" an' lash him one where he had a +little mouse-lump over his eye; an' true enough, the paint splits +across an' comes streaky down that quick-boy's face. + +You'd ha' thought--I lay me I know what that foxy one thought. Blood +fierce went that foxy one when he see that blood, an' in he goes, +fierce after blood, for to finish it; leaved off his craft and went in +for to hammer him. He muddy soon goed back to craft again, Foxy! That +quick-boy shook his head an' run back; an' draws a breath an' meets +him; an' throats him one an' staggers him; an' draws a breath an' +follows him; an' pastes him one an' grunts him; an' _tic-tac! tic-tac! +tic-tac!_ an' follows him, an' follows him, an' follows him. Like a +wops he was--like a bull-tamer he was, an' that foxy one gets all +muddled with him, an' runs back puzzled with him, an' then catches hold +of hisself, an' stops hisself--I reckon he wondered where 'n hell he'd +be soon if he didn't--and puts in that duck an' butt craft again; an' +that quick-boy steadies for him like old Japhra bin teachin' of him; +an' when that foxy one swings across, that quick-boy smashes up under +him--_crack!_ like a stone-breaker with his hammer; an' that foxy one +come back to us with his mouth split, an' his chin red; an' while he +sit blowin' take a toof out; an' while he sit blowin' get it drip-drop +on his chest from where the blood run to his chin. + + +II + +But Percival had suffered under the punishment of these savage +encounters, and under the immense exertions of that unceasing +in-fighting to which Japhra had urged him. Back on Japhra's knee, +"I've dosed him, Japhra," he said. "He's taking all I can give him." +There was a sob in his quick breathing as he spoke, and he smiled +weakly and leant back against Japhra's shoulder. + +Japhra's eyes were sunk in his twisted face to twin points of +glistening light. His voice trembled, and his hand as he plied the +sponge. "He will not drink much more," he said. "Thou art hot after +that coward streak in him. I mark the signs of it. Keep up the dose, +master! Never such a fight--and never thy like! never thy like! +Follow him, son of mine--follow him! follow him! A last call on +thyself! Watch him where he sucks his tender knuckles." + + +Pinsent knew better than Japhra the tenderness of those bruised +knuckles of his: he knew too that he was housing an uneasy feeling +beneath his belt, born of the bewildering persistence of his opponent +and of the punishing fists which that persistence pressed upon him, +giving him no peace. He was sore; he had reached the point when blows +were beginning to hurt him--and that was a point beyond which he knew +it was dangerous for him to delay proceedings. + +Again! He came forward with a trick in his mind that he had seen and +that he had once playfully practised on Buck Osborn. Thought of it +helped him to his foxy smile that was a grotesque burlesque of itself +as he made it with his swollen mouth; but again!--again that +steel-springed fury was on him, following him, following him, following +him. Pinsent must needs use his fists to try to check its rushes; when +he effected a savage blow the jar at his knuckles made him wince. +Twice he went backwards round the ring--a third time and feinted a +stumble as he moved his feet. It made his chance. Percival, coming +too quick, ran full into him. He ducked, then drove up his head with +all his force beneath the other's jaw. + +The trick succeeded better than when he had seen it and marked it for +future use. Jarred to the point of unconsciousness, Percival staggered +back, his arms wide. At the exposed throat Pinsent drove his left fist +with all the driving power his body and legs could give it; with the +dull _wup!_ of a wet sheet beaten on stone Percival went his full +length and full length lay. + +"Time!" throated Stingo; and at the word the facing crowds, that as one +man had caught their breaths, went into two tumults of jostling +figures, tossing arms, and of brazen throats before whose thunders, +beating the air like thunder's self, Japhra, Ginger Cronk, Snowball +White, and One Eye bent their heads as they came rushing forward. + +"Time!" Japhra snarled at Pinsent. "Out of this, thou foul-play fox!" + +"Out you!" Pinsent shouted. He stood over the prostrate form, +breathing quick, one arm curved back as if it held a stabbing sword: +"Out you! Enough o' this! Private between him an' me now. Stand out +and let him up for me! Out!" + +"Boss! Boss!" Japhra called, and dropped on his knees by Percival, +dizzily rising on an elbow. "Boss! Boss! What's this? Order him +out! Have him out!" + +"Play fair!" "Fight fair!"--with cries and oaths the Stingo men pressed +to the canvas, shaking fists aloft; with cries and oaths and tossing +fists were answered. A Stingo man put his leg over the canvas and half +his body into the ring: a leg and flushed face struck out on the other +side. Then in a rush men broke across the canvas, poured into the +ring, and met in two raging, foul-mouthed banks that strained about the +boxers. + +Boss Maddox thrust his way forward. "Ge' back! Ge' back! I'll have +'ee out the tent, every man of 'ee! Ge' back! Ge' back! By God, I'll +have the lamp out!" And he fought his way back to the mast and +stretched his hand to the chain that released the extinguishers upon +the burners. + +A Stingo and a Maddox man, catching each the other's eye as the two +sides bayed and jostled, made private cause of the common brawl, and +closed with clutching hands. Another pair engaged, and now +another--whirled in that tossing mob, and flung the crowd this way and +that in their furious grappling, like fighting tigers in a stockade +breaking in pieces at their violence. + +Boss Maddox's iron throat like a trumpet across the din: "The light +goes! The light goes!" + +It flickered; savage hands tore at the fighters, savage feet kicked +furious commands; flickered again--and suddenly the immense clamour +went to a cry, to a broken shout, to peace. + +Pinsent pushed his way to the front. "Easy, Boss--I want that light. +I've a job to finish," he said; and in the laugh that went up, added, +"The boys 'll be all right." He threw his arms apart in gesture of +command. "Out o' the ring!" he cried. "You're robbin' me of it. +Gettin' his wits back! I'd ha' cut him out by now!" + +Three parts supporting Percival, Japhra with Ginger Cronk and the rest +had taken him back through the mob and supported him while they tended +him.... The tumult gave him five minutes, and he was sitting up as the +men returned growling to their places. He looked at Ima, crouching by +him, read the entreaty in her eyes, and answered it and at the same +time answered Japhra's trembling "How of it, master?" by shaking his +head. "No!" he said, "No!" and felt Japhra's arms tighten about him. + +Another heard him and pressed forward. It was Egbert Hunt, tears +running down his face. + +"You ain't going on?" he cried. "You ain't going on! Stop it, Mr. +Japhra! Stop this murder!" + +Japhra's left arm was about Percival's body, his right hand used the +sponge. Those near him for the first and only time heard him use a +coarse expression. As he were some tigress above a threatened cub, he +drew Percival closer to him and turned savagely up at Egbert's pallid +face. "Shut thy bloody, coward mouth!" he cried at him. "Men's work +here! Quit thee, thou whelp!" + +The ring was clear. Pinsent came out, sucking a fist. Percival got to +his feet, stood a moment, the blood that had dripped to his chest the +red badge of courage flying there--then walked forward. + +Somewhere in the crowd a woman's voice shot up hysterically: "God love +yer, Gentleman!" it shrilled--"Y're pluck! Pluck!" + + +III + +That foxy one (the old men say) he come out sucking his fistses that +were gone more like messy orindges than any fistses ever I see. He see +that quick-boy rockin' a bit on his feet where he stood, an' he spit +his fist out his mouth an' he run slap down at him for to knock him off +his legs by runnin' into him. He run at him hard as he could pelt, +that foxy one; an' that quick-boy stan' 's if he was dreamin' an' never +see nothin' of him. Ah, but that quick-boy could have fought if he was +asleep, I reckon me! He slip aside, squeeze aside, twist aside jus' as +that foxy one reach him; so quick he twist, us what was watchin' the +ground for to see him go there never see him move. I reckon that foxy +one never did neither. He muddy soon knowed, though, Foxy! He go +sprawlin' by, an' as he go that quick-boy clip him one an' help him go +an' stumble him. Round he come, that foxy one, savage with it; an' +that quick-boy dreamin' there again; an' rush him for to rush him down +again; an' this time that quick-boy, too tired for to shift by the look +of it, let him have it as he come fair under the eye, an' Foxy jus' +swing him one on the cheek, an' that shift him like he shift hisself +before; an' he clip that foxy one the other fist a clip you could ha' +heard far as yonder tree; an' clip that same eye again; an' us see the +blood run up into Foxy's peeper; an' that foxy one shake his head, an' +shake his head, like he was blinded with it. He shake a muddy lot +more, Foxy, afore he was through! He set in for to do the rushing +then, like that quick-boy had done first along; an' that quick-boy's +turn, dreamin' there, for to do the proppin' off. But he not rush like +that quick-boy rush. He shake his head an' have a go at him; an' that +quick-boy prop him off an' wait for him; an' he shake his head an' walk +round a bit, an' _ur!_ he go, an' rush at him; an' that quick-boy wake +hisself an' prop him off; an' he suck his fist an' wipe his eye, an' +_ur!_ he come again: and that quick-boy twist hisself an' give him +one--_crack!_ my life, his fistses was like stones, that quick-boy's! + +Ah, my word! my word! then they got at it. That old Japhra--a rare +one, that Gipsy Japhra!--sing out "Cut in! Cut in! little master!" and +that quick-boy gives a heave of hisself an' they meet, those two, +slapper-dash! slapper-dash! this way! that way! punchin', punchin'! an' +they fall away, those two, an' breathe theirselves, an' pant +theirselves; an' that foxy one has his mouth all anyhow an' fair +roarin' of his breath through it; an' his head all twisty-ways with +only one eye for watchin' with; an' they rush those two--my life! they +were rare ones! Hit as they come, those two--an' that put the stopper +on it. Like stones--_crack!_ like stones--my word on it, their fists +met, an' Foxy drop his left arm like it was broke at the elbow. Then +he takes it! Like a bull-tarrier!--like a bull-tarrier, my word on it, +that quick-boy lep' at him. _One!_ he smash him an' heart him, an' I +see that foxy one glaze in his eye an' stagger with it. _Two!_ that +quick-boy drive him an' rib him, an' I hear that foxy one grunt an' see +him waggle up his hanging arm an' drop it. _Three!_ that quick-boy +smash him an' throat him, an' back he goes, that foxy one; an' crash he +goes! an' flat he lies--an', my life! to hear the breathing of him! + +Life of me! there was never a knock-out like it; never one could do it +like that quick-boy done it! Never no one as quick as that quick-boy +when first along he come _tic-tac! tic-tac! tic-tac!_ left-right! +left-right! left-right! Never one could come again after he was bashed +like that quick-boy come. Never his like! One of the rare ones, one +of the clean-breds, one of the true-blues, one of the all-rights, one +of the get-there, stop-there, win-there--one o' the picked! + + +IV + +Quivering in silence the facing crowds stood while the count went. + +"Nine!" throated Stingo--scarcely a whisper. + +Stillness while perhaps five seconds passed. Then Boss Maddox opened +his hands towards the ring in an expressive gesture. + +Then men came rushing to Pinsent and shook him: "Up, Foxy! Up!" Then +Pinsent drew up his knees, groaned, and seemed to collapse anew. Then, +then the storm burst in a bellow of sound, in a rush of figures. All, +all of clamour that had gone before--of exultation, hate, defiance, +blood-want, rage--seemed now to bind up in two clanging rolls of +thunder that in thunder went, in thunder thundered back, and thundered +on again. Percival turned and saw Japhra running towards him, an arm's +length in advance of the mob that followed. He fell into Japhra's +arms, felt himself pressed, pressed to Japhra's heart, heard in his +ears "Never thy like! Son of mine, never thy like!" He knew a driving +mob behind his back, before, and all about him--heard curses, +grapplings, blows. Heard Japhra's cry "Up with him! Up!" felt himself +borne aloft and dimly was conscious that his bearers were staggered +this way and that by the flood that surged about them.... Sudden +darkness, and sudden most delicious air and sudden most delicious rain +was his next impression--they had got him outside the tent.... At his +next he was in the van, on his couch, smiling at those who bent above +him. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE STICKS COME OUT--AND A KNIFE + +I + +"How dost thou go?" Japhra asked. + +"Why, my face is sore," Percival said--"sore! it feels as if I had only +a square inch of skin stretched to cover the lot. I'm right as rain +otherwise. That was a fight, Japhra!" + +"Never its like!" Japhra answered him huskily--"never its like! Thou +art the fighting type, my son. Long ago I said it. This night hath +proved me!" + +Percival sighed most luxuriously. Pleasant, pleasant to be lying +there--bruised, tired, sore, but weariness and wounds bound up with +victory. He put up a hand and took Ima's fingers that touched his face +with ointment. "That's fine, Ima!" he smiled at her. "I saw you +crying. You oughtn't to have been there. Did you think I was done +for?" + +She shook her head; tears were still in her eyes. + +"Well, it's over now," he said affectionately. "Dry those eyes, Ima!" + +She gave a catch at her breath. "Well, I am a woman," she told him, +and her gentle fingers anointed his face again. + +Their caress assisted him into drowsiness. Without opening his eyes he +inquired presently: + +"What's all that row? There's a frightful noise somewhere, isn't +there?" + +Japhra, who was looking through the forward window into the early dawn +of the summer morning, turned to Ima and shook his head. She took his +meaning and answered Percival: "It rains heavily. There is a storm +coming up." + +He dropped into slumber. + + +II + +But the noise he had heard was heavier than the rain that streamed upon +the van's roof; there raged outside a fiercer storm than the +thunder-clouds massing up on the wind. It had been many seasons +brooding; it was charged to the point of bursting when the two factions +came shouting from the marquee after the fight. Swept up with arrogant +glee, the Stingo men paraded with hoots and jeers before the Maddox +vans. A stone came flying through the gloom and cracked against a tall +man's cheek. He stooped for it with a curse, sent it whistling, and +the crash of glass that rewarded his aim was the signal for a scramble +for stones--smashing of windows, splintering of wood. + +There came a wild rush of men from behind the Maddox vans. Japhra, +watching from his window, turned swiftly and took up the stout limb of +ash he commonly carried. He gave it a deft twirl in a tricky way that +spoke of the days when single-stick work figured at the fairs, and +looked at Ima with his tight-lipped smile. + +"The sticks are out!" he said grimly. "I knew it would end thus;" and +as he opened the door and dropped to the ground there came to him from +many throats the savage cry--glad to the tough old heart of him that +once had told Percival, "Ay, a camp fight with the sticks out and the +heads cracking is a proper game for a man"--of "Sticks! Sticks!"; and +one that came running past him toward the press shouted to him: +"Japhra? Good on yer! The sticks are out! The ----s ha' come at us +with sticks!" + +It was Snowball White. "This way with it, boy," Japhra told him as +they ran. "Thy stick thus--with a hand at each end across thy head. +Crack at a pate right hand or left when thou seest one--then back to +overhead to guard thine own again. I have been out with the sticks. I +know the way of it." + + +III + +Weight of numbers had told their tale when Percival got a glimpse of +the fierce work. + +"I'm fit--I'm absolutely fit, I tell you!" he had told Ima when, +awakened by the sounds that now had raged close to the Stingo vans, and +recognising them for what they were, he had shaken off her protests and +entreaties and had come to the scene. + +"Lie here while they're fighting us! Why, you'd be ashamed of me, you +know you would!" he had cried; but when he was outside, and had gone a +few steps in the rain that now was sheeting down, he was informed how +weak he was, and was caught and spun dizzily back by a sudden mob of +men driven towards him, and was held dizzy and fainting by the panting +breaths and by the reek of sweating bodies that wedged him where he +stood. + +He was packed in a mob of his Stingo mates, half of whom could not free +their arms for use and about three sides of whom the Maddox mob were +baying, driving them further and further back against the vans with +sticks that rattled on sticks and on heads like the crackling of trees +in a wood fire. Two forms, taller than the rest, upstood clearly--near +Percival old Stingo, hatless, blood on a cheek, and throating "Hut! +Hut, boys! Hut!" with each stroke he made; further away Boss Maddox, +pale, grim and iron of countenance as ever even in this fury, and using +his long reach to strike with deadly precision at heads half a dozen +men in front of him. + +The two were working towards one another, Percival could see, and a +sudden surge of the crowd brought him almost within reach of Boss +Maddox's stick. It was at that moment that he felt a jostling at his +ribs as of someone burrowing past him from behind, looked down and +recognised Egbert Hunt--shut in by accident and trying to escape, +Percival guessed. + +"Hullo! You're going the wrong way to get out," he told him. + +Egbert Hunt thrust up and filled his lungs as a diver might rise for +air. He peered in the direction of Boss Maddox, and went down again. +"I know which way I'm going," he said, and squirmed ahead--feeling and +thrusting with his outstretched left hand, his right in the pocket of +his coat. + +Stingo and Maddox met. Each stood high above those about them and each +had a cry of challenge for the other as their sticks joined. "Hut!" +grunted Stingo and slashed to Boss Maddox's shoulder. + +Percival saw the stick caught where it had slipped from its mark and +gone into the press; saw Boss Maddox shake himself for freer action and +the crowd give way from about him; saw him swing up his arm and poise +his stick a dreadful second clear above Stingo's unprotected head--then +saw him give an awkward stagger, saw the raised stick slip down between +his fingers, heard him grunt and saw him drop down and disappear as a +man beneath whose feet the ground had opened. + +There arose almost simultaneously, high above the din of sticks and +oaths, a scream of shocking sound and horrid meaning--"A knife! A +knife!" the scream shot up--"A knife! Some bastard 's used a knife!" + +It swept across the struggling men, stopped them, and was cried from +throat to throat as though through the night there jarred some evil +bird circling with evil cry: "A knife! A knife! Some one's knifed!" + +And then again that first voice screamed: "Boss Maddox's knifed! The +Boss is murdered!" + +And another, most beastly: "Christ! it's pourin' out of 'im. Boss! +Boss! 'Oo's done it on yer?" + +And a third: "Boss! Boss! God ha' mercy!--he's dead! dead!" + +And one that sprung up in panic and smashed a panic blow at the man +behind him: "Dead! Dead! Gi' us room, blast yer!" + +And one that sprung upright, held in his hand aloft that which caught +the dull morning gleam, and screamed "Here y'are! Here's what done it! +Blood on the haft!" + + +IV + +A thud of hoofs broke into the silence in which the crowd stood held. +A jingle of accoutrements; a sharp voice that called: "What's up? +What's wrong here? Who called murder?" a breaking away right and left +of the mob; and into the lane instinctively formed to where the body +lay a mounted constable rode, pulled up his horse and cried again: +"What's up? What's wrong here?" + +He was answered. Scarcely the fearful whisper "Police! Police!" had +run to the outskirts of the crowd, when one that had knelt sprung +raving to his feet, tossed aloft two hands dark with blood, and +shouted: "I called murder! There's murder here! Boss Maddox 's got a +knife in him!" His shouting went to a scream: "One o' they's done it!" +he screamed. "One o' they! One o' Stingo's bastards!" + +There had been mutterings of thunder and swiftly gathering darkness +that submerged the summer morning's gleam. Tremendous upon that +accusing scream there now broke out of heaven great reverberating rolls +of sound as of heaven demanding answer to that cry. The sheeting rain +burst with a torrent's fury--a great stab of lightning almost upon the +very camp; then pitchy black and thunder's roll again. + +To the Stingo crowd it gave the last effect to the mounting panic that +had mounted in them on successive terrors of "A knife!" "Boss Maddox's +knifed!" "Boss Maddox 's dead!" "Police! Police!" and "One o' they! +One o' they! One o' Stingo's bastards!" + +Murder had been done. The Blue Boys were out. With one of their own +number lay the guilt. There cried to them "Away! Away!", all the +instinct that, since first law came on the land, has bade roadmen, +gipsies, outlaws, take immediate flight from trouble. "Away!" it +screamed; and by common impulse there was a break and a rush to their +vans of the Stingo men; and in the pitchy blackness and in primeval +shudder at every roll of thunder, drenched by the streaming downpour, +lit as the lightning snatched up the cloak of night, there were panic +harnessing and panic cries: "One o' us! One o' us done it! D'yer see +the Blue Boy on his 'orse?--more of 'em coming! 'Old still!--still, +blast yer! Up wi' that shaft!--up! Hell take this buckle! Are yer +fixed? One o' us! One o' us!" + +A van, speedier ready than its neighbours, rolled off, its driver +flogging the horse from the forward platform. A blinding torch from +heaven flamed down about it. The constable, giving directions by the +prone figure--"He's not dead; knot those scarves together; lift, and +bind 'em so"--shaded his eyes from the glare; then jumped for his +horse. "Stop that van! None's to leave here! Stop 'em! stop 'em!" + +Away! Away!--thundering hoofs; rocking wheels; a van overturned, and +groans and curses; pursuers driven down or smashed at where they +climbed the steps; the constable surrounded by those who ran beside the +van he followed, dragged from his saddle, hurled aside, and his horse +sent galloping. + +Away! Away!--blindly into the night. + +And in the night, two miles afield, one that ran with streaming face +and labouring chest and that muttered "I done it on 'im--me, served +like a dog before 'em all--I done it on him, the tyrang!" + + +V + +Percival was changing his dripping clothes. Complete exhaustion had +him. The bruises on his face had hardened to ugly colours, and Japhra, +chiding him for having left the van, saw with concern an uglier colour +yet that burned behind the bruises and whose cause made his wet body +burning to the touch. + +"Bed for thee!--no changing!" he said; and was answered by Percival: +"Japhra! I saw him pitch and drop!" + +"I have helped bear him to his van.... I saw him struck." + +There had never left Percival's mind him that went thrusting past in +the press, right hand in pocket. His eyes questioned Japhra and were +answered by Japhra's. Then he said, "Egbert Hunt?" + +"Egbert Hunt." + +"What's going to happen now, Japhra?" + +Strange how tricks and chances go! All that day's chain of tricks, all +its train of chances, had brought Percival straight to the import of +Japhra's words. + +"This night hath ended this life, master. Stingo sells his stock and +back to his brother near thy home. To-morrow, new roads for me." + +Percival scarcely heard him. Japhra made an exclamation and caught him +in his arms. + +"Ima!" + +She came from where she had waited behind her curtain. + +"Help me here--then to Boss Maddox's van where they bring a doctor. +This night hath struck down this heart of ours." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +JAPHRA AND IMA. JAPHRA AND AUNT MAGGIE + +I + +The van brought Percival back to Aunt Maggie. + +Japhra and Ima, waiting the doctor's arrival, watched and tended the +signs of how, as Japhra had said, the night had struck Percival down. +From the moment of his collapse in Japhra's arms, his vitality no +longer withstood the strain to which it had been pressed. His mind +gave way beneath the attack of the events of the past hours; marshalled +now by fever's hand they returned to him in riot of delirium. "Don't, +Ima! Don't! ... No! No! I'm all right! I'm better standing! ... +Only a kiss in fun, Ima! O God, if I had only known! ... Murdered! +Where's Hunt? Murder! Poor old Hunt! ... In-fighting! I must get in! +If only I can stick out this round! ... Ge' back! Ge' back! What's +Boss Maddox yelling about? ... In!--I must get in! I will get in! ... +Ima! For me! O God, what a thing to happen! Only in fun! Only in +fun, Ima! ... Follow him! Follow him! I must get in at him...." + +When he was momentarily in silence Japhra looked a question at Ima. + +She answered quite simply: "I told him that I loved him." + +"And he?" Japhra said. + +She arranged the bedclothes, and with a fond touch smoothed back +Percival's hair; then looked at her father and smiled bravely and shook +her head. + +"I have known it these many days," Japhra told her. "I have watched +thee." He placed his hand on hers where it caressed Percival's +forehead. "What of comfort have I for thee?" he said. "My daughter, +none. He is not of us. Hearken to this thought, Ima. Heaven shapeth +its vessels for the storms they must meet. Some larger thing calleth +that grace of form and that rareness of spirit that he hath. What +profit then for us to sorrow?" + +Because he saw her crying, he repeated: "What profit?" + +"Well, I am a woman," she said. "My love is of a different sort from +thine." + +He stroked her hair. "My daughter, wouldst thou unlive the past?" + +She replied: "Nay, it is all I have." + +"So with me," he said. "This night endeth it. Thou and +I--henceforward we will be alone, remembering him--happy to have loved +him, happy that he hath been happy with us, happy to have been a port +where he hath fitted himself a little for what sea he saileth to." + +She pressed her father's hand. "As thou sayest," she said; and after a +moment, bending over Percival like some mother above her child: "What +awaiteth him?" she asked. + +"Some strong thing," Japhra said. "I know no more--that much I know +without mistake. From the first when he came to us with his quaint +ways and fair face I knew it. A big fight, as I have told him." + +As if she believed her father to have divination, "Will he win?" she +asked him. + +"He is the fighting type," Japhra replied. "Victory for him. This +night in the tent. To-morrow--whatever will. Though it be +death--always victory." + +She remembered that. + + +II + +The doctor, when he came, showed himself a tough gentleman--abrupt of +speech, of the type that does its rounds in the saddle--who said "Stiff +crowd, you! Regular hospital here. Cracked head in every van. Boss +Maddox--he's in a bad way. Now this young man. Make me fortune if you +stop." + +After examination: "Nursing," he said; "it's a case for nursing. He's +gone over the mark. Head--and hands, by the look of 'em! Not my +business that. Stiff crowd, you! Nursing. You'll have to watch it +pretty sharp. That girl's got a way with him. That's what he wants." + +"I am taking him home," Japhra said; "two days from here--if that be +wise." + +"Wisest thing. Get him out of this. Stiff crowd, you! I'll look in +again midday. Send you some stuff. Then you can move. He's badly +over the mark. Look after him." + +Thus, on the afternoon of that day, the train of tricks and chances had +Percival on the road towards Aunt Maggie and Burdon village. The +police, who had taken authority in the camp, made no objection to +Japhra leaving. They knew now the man they wanted; half the Maddox +crowd had heard Hunt's threat to stick a knife in Boss Maddox; the +blade found was scratched with his name; a score had seen him edging +through the press towards the Boss; there were not wanting those who, +their imagination enlarged by these hints, had seen the very blow +struck. Japhra might go, the police said, and Stingo Hannaford too. +The only wanted vans were those in flight that might have the fugitive +in hiding. So, while Boss Maddox, removed to the Infirmary, lay +between life and death, while the Blue Boys from the police station and +the tough boys from the vans scoured the country in thrill of man-hunt, +Japhra harnessed up the van and struck away towards Burdon. + +The patient ranged wide in his delirium during the journey--often on +his lips a name that once had fallen about him like petals of the +bloomy rose, sweet as they; that now struck like blows in the face at +her who ceaselessly watched him: + +"I know this house! Up the stairs! down the stairs! I'm tired, tired! +What am I looking for? What am I looking for? Not you, Dora!--not +you! ... You are Snow-White-and-Rose-Red! I love you, Dora! Why do +you look at me so strangely, Mr. Amber! ... Rollo! Rollo, old +man!--Rollo, what are you doing? She is running away from me! Let me +go, Rollo! let me go! ... In-fighting! I must get in! I will get in! +... Dora! Dora! How I have longed for you!..." + +She that watched him appeared to have a wonderful influence over him. +Of its own force it seemed to give her the quality of entering the +wanderings of his mind and satisfying him by answering his cries. + +"In-fighting! In-fighting!" he would cry. "I must get in! I will get +in!" + +And she: "You are winning! There--there; look, you have won! It is +ended--you have won!" + +"You are Snow-White-and-Rose-Red! Dora! Dora! My Dora!" + +And she, steeling herself: "I am here, Percival! Your Dora is here! +Hold Dora's hand! There, rest while I stay with you!" + +So through the hours. + +"Post Offic" was the evening of the second day distant. Japhra walked +all the way, leading the horse--movement steadier, less chance of +jolting, by leading than by driving, Japhra thought; and so trudged +mile on mile--guiding away from ruts, down the steep hills holding back +horse and van by force amain rather than use the drag that would have +jarred noisily. For the rest he walked, one hand on the bridle, the +other in his pocket, his whip beneath his arm, not with the keen look +and alert step that was his usual habit, but with some air that made +kindly folk say in passing: "Poor gipsies! They must have a hard life, +you know!" + +But it was that each step brought him nearer end of a companionship +that had gone with deep roots into his heart that made life for the +first time seem hard to this questioner. + +He would not smoke. "The reek would carry back on this breeze and +through the windows to him," he told Ima, come beside him while her +patient slept. + +She could never remember seeing her father without his pipe, and she +was touched by his simple thought. She slipped her hand into the +pocket of his long coat where his hand lay, and entwined their fingers. +"Ah, we love him, thou and I," she said. + +She felt his fingers embrace her own. He asked her quietly: "My +daughter, is it bitter for thee when he crieth Dora?" + +She answered him with that poor plea of hers. "Well, I am a woman," +she said. But after a little while she spoke again. "Yet I am glad to +suffer so," she told him. "Though he cries Dora, it is my hand that +soothes him when he so cries. He sighs then, and is comforted. It is +as if he wandered in pain, and wanted me, and finding me was happy. +Well, how should I ask more? Often--many years I have prayed he should +one day be mine, my own. It is not to be. But now--for a little +while--when he cries and when I comfort him, why, my prayer is +vouchsafed me. Mine then--my own." + + +III + +Aunt Maggie saw that wonderful influence Ima exercised over his +delirium. When Japhra had carried him up to his bedroom, and when Ima +was bringing "his things" from the van, he broke out in raving and in +tossing of the arms that utterly alarmed her and Honor, their efforts +of no avail. She called in panic for Ima. Ima's touch and voice +restored him to instant peace. "You must stay with me," Aunt Maggie +said, tears running down her face. "My dear, I beg you stay with me. +You are Ima. I know you well. He has often spoken of you. Oh, you +will stay?" + +Afterwards Aunt Maggie went down to thank Japhra for his agreement to +this proposal. He would put up his van with the Hannafords, he told +Ima--with Stingo, who would shortly be coming, and with Mr. +Hannaford--and would stay there, whence he might come daily for news +while Ima remained with Percival. + +Aunt Maggie had grateful tears in her eyes when she thanked him. +These, and those tears of panic when she called Ima's aid, were the +first she had shed since suddenly the van had brought her Percival to +her an hour before. Trembling but dry-eyed she had gone to him and +seen his dangerous condition; shaking but tearless had made ready his +bed. + +"Strange-like"? "Touched-like"? It was fate had ordered him back to +her, she told herself. Almost upon the eve--within four short months +of the twenty-first birthday for which she had planned--he was brought +back; and brought back, despite himself, by an agency stronger than his +own strong spirit. Fate in that!--the same fate that by Audrey's +death-bed had assured her that nothing would fail her, and that by a +hundred seeming chances had justified its assurance through the years. + +He was very ill. She was not afraid. Fate was here--and she told +Japhra he would recover. + +She found him in the van, his pipe alight again and staring in a +dullish way at the vacant places whence Percival's belongings had been +removed. He came down to her, and when she told him her belief he had +a strange look and a long look into her eyes before he answered. He +had marked the tearlessness that went curiously with her devotion when +he had brought her to Percival; he marked now some strange appearance +she had for him and some strange note in her voice when she told him +"He will recover." + +"Ay, mistress," he said. "Have no fear. He will recover." + +For her own part she marked also some strange look in the strangely +strong eyes that regarded her. + +She asked "But why are you so confident?" + +He noticed the "But." "Mistress, because his type is made for a bigger +thing than he has yet met." + +To that--meeting so strongly the truth she knew--she replied: +"Yes!--yes!" + +At her tone he came a sudden step to her. "Mistress, is it in thy +hands, this thing he must meet?" + +She, by the influence of this meeting, stood caught up and dizzy by +return to her in dreadful violence of that old fluttering within her +brain. + +Japhra in stern and sudden voice: "Beware it!" + +He thought her eyes questioned him and he answered them: "Why have I +from the first known some big thing waited him?--it was somehow told +me. Why beware?--I am somehow warned." + +She turned and began to go away. Come out of the fluttering, she could +not at once recall what had passed between her and this little man. + +Japhra put a quick hand on her arm: "Mistress, beware lest thou +betrayest him!" + +She remembered that. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A COLD 'UN FOR EGBERT HUNT. ROUGH 'UNS FOR PERCIVAL + +I + +Ima's nursing, as that doctor had said, brought Percival back from +where he had been driven beyond the mark by stress of events and put +him firmly afoot along the road of convalescence. Only one +circumstance arose to distress those days of his returning +strength--the news of Egbert Hunt. + +The assizes at Salisbury followed quick on the capture of the +fugitive--run to earth in a wood by the Blue Boys and the tough boys +and brought back like some wild creature trapped--soaked, soiled, +bruised, faint, furious, terrified and struggling, for prompt committal +by the magistrate. + +A newspaper reporter at the assizes wrote of him as having again that +appearance of some wild creature trapped when he stood in the dock +before the Judge. The case attracted considerable local interest. +There was first the fact that famous Boss Maddox had narrowly escaped +death at the prisoner's hand: there was second the appearance of a +noble lady of the county--Lady Burdon--as witness for the defence. + +Gossips who attended the trial said it was precious little good she did +the fellow. His conviction was a foregone conclusion. A solicitor +with an eye to possibilities who attended Hunt during the police court +proceedings learnt from him that he had been in Lady Burdon's service +from boyhood and (in his own phrase) promptly "touched her" to see if +she would undertake the expenses of a defence. Her reply was in a form +to send him pretty sharply about his business and (a man of some +humour) he thanked her courteously by having her subpoeaned on the +prisoner's behalf--mitigation of sentence was to be earned by her +testimony to the young man's irreproachable character during his long +years in her service. + +It was little of such testimony she gave. Angry at the trick played on +her (as she considered it), angry at being dragged into a case of +sordid aspect and of local sensation, she went angrier yet into the +witness-box for the scene made at her expense by the prisoner as she +passed the dock. The newspaper reporter who described him as +presenting the appearance of a wild animal trapped, wrote of him as +having a wolfish air as he glared about him--of his jaws that worked +ceaselessly, of his blinking eyelids, and of the perspiration that +streamed like raindrops down his face. As Lady Burdon passed him the +emotions of the public were thrilled to see his arms come suppliant +over the dock rail and to hear him scream to her: "Say a word for me, +me lady! Say a good word for me! Love o' God, say--" A warder's +rough hand jerked his cry out of utterance, and he listened to her +during her evidence, watching her with that wolfish air of his and with +those jaws ceaselessly at work. + +A cold 'un, the gossips said of her when she stepped down. The Judge +in passing his stereotyped form of sentence made more seemly reference +to her testimony. + +"The evidence," the judge addressed the prisoner, "of your former +employer--come here reluctantly but with the best will in the world (as +she has told us) to befriend you--has only been able to show that you +have exhibited from your boyhood upward the traits--sullenness of +temper, hatred of authority--that have led you directly to the place +where now you stand. It has been made very clear that this crime--only +by the mercy of God prevented from taking a more serious form--was +wilful, premeditated, of a sort into which your whole character shows +you might have been expected to burst at almost any period of your +maturer years. You will be sent away now where you will have leisure, +as I sincerely trust, to reflect and to repent.... Five years.... You +will go to penal servitude for that term." + +Most wolfishly the wolfish eyes watched the judge while these words +were spoken; quicker the working jaws moved, lower the poor form +crouched as nearer the sentence came. As a vicious dog trembles and +threatens in every hair at the stick upraised to strike, so, by every +aspect of his mien, Egbert Hunt trembled and threatened as the ultimate +words approached. "Penal servitude for that term"--as the dog yelps +and springs so he screamed and sprung: a dreadful wordless scream, a +savage spring against the dock, arms outflung. + +Warders closed about him; but he was at his full height, arms and +wolfish face directed at Lady Burdon. "You done it on me!" he +screamed. "You might ha' saved me! You--! You--cruel--! I'll do it +back on yer! Wait till I'm out! I'll come straight for yer, you an' +your--son! I'll do it on--" + +A warder's hand came across his mouth. He bit through to the bone and +had his head free before they could remove him. "I've never had a fair +chance, not with you, you--Tyrangs!--tyrangs all of yer!--tyrangs! +You're the worst! God help yer when I come for yer! Tyrangs! ... +Tyrangs!..." + +They carried him away. + + +II + +"Oh, five years!--Five years!" Percival cried when he read the news. +"Poor, poor old Hunt! Five years!" + +He was sitting comfortably propped in a big chair in the garden behind +"Post Offic," Aunt Maggie and Ima with him, and his weakness could not +restrain the moisture that came to his eyes. "Five years, Aunt Maggie! +He was one of my friends. I liked him--always liked him. He was +always fond of me--jolly good to me. When I think of him with his +vegules and his sick yedaches! Five years--poor old Hunt!" + +He was very visibly distressed. "Everybody is fond of you, dear," Aunt +Maggie said sympathetically. + +"That's just it!" he said--"that's just it!" and he threw himself back +in his chair and went into thoughts that were come upon him and that +her words exactly suited: thoughts that were often his in the days of +his sickness when he lay--was it waking or sleeping? he never quite +knew. They presented the cheery group of all his friends, all so +jolly, jolly good to him. Himself in their midst and they all smiling +at him and stretching jolly hands. But a gap in the circle--Mr. +Amber's place. Another gap now--Hunt. It appeared to him in those +feverish hours--and now again with new reason and new force--that +outside that jolly circle of friends there prowled, as a savage beast +about a camp-fire, some dark and evil menace that reached cruel hands +to snatch a member to itself and through the gap threatened him. +Within the circle the happy, happy time; beyond it some other thing. +Life was not always youth, then? not always ardour of doing, fighting, +laughing, loving? Menace lurked beyond.... What?... + +But those thoughts were swept away, and fate of poor old Hunt that had +caused them temporarily forgotten, by footsteps that brought up the +path three figures, of whom two were colossal of girth and bright red +of face--one striking at his thigh as if his hand held an imaginary +stick--and one that walked behind them lean and brown, with rare bright +eyes in a face of many little lines. + +"Why, Mr. Hannaford! Mr. Hannaford!" Percival cried delightedly. +"Stingo! Good old Japhra!--you've actually brought them!" + +They were actually brought; but in the alarming company of women +folk--of Aunt Maggie, of Ima, and of Honor, who now, the visit having +been expected, came out with a laden tea-table--the tremendous brothers +exhibited themselves in a state of embarrassment that appeared to make +it highly improbable that they would remain. First having shaken hands +all round the circle, colliding heavily with one another before each, +Mr. Hannaford declaring to each in turn "Warm--warm--bless my eighteen +stun proper if it ain't!" and Stingo repeating some husky throatings of +identical sound but no articulation; they then shook hands with one +another; then proceeded round the circle again; simultaneously appeared +to discover their mistake; collided with shocking violence; and finally +relapsed into enormous nose-blowings, trumpeting one against the other, +as it seemed, into handkerchiefs of the size of small towels. + +It was to abate this tremendous clamour that Aunt Maggie handed a cup +of tea to Mr. Hannaford, and it was without the remotest desire in the +world to have it there that Mr. Hannaford in some extraordinary way +found it on the side of his right hand and proceeded to go through an +involved series of really admirable juggling feats with it, beginning +with the cup and saucer and ending with the spoon alone, that came to a +grand finale in cup, saucer and spoon shooting separately and at +tolerable intervals in three different and considerable directions. It +was to cover the amazement of the tremendous brothers at this +extraordinary incident that Ima handed a piece of cake to Stingo, and +it was the fact that Stingo had no sooner conveyed it to his mouth than +he abandoned himself to a paroxysm of choking and for his relief was +followed about the garden by Mr. Hannaford with positively stunning +blows on the back that sent Percival at last from agonies of hopeless +giggling to peals of laughter which established every one at their ease. + +"Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" from Percival. "I'm awfully sorry--I can't +help it. Oh, Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" + +Impossible to resist it: "Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho!" thundered Mr. +Hannaford. + +"Oh, Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" shook Percival, rolling on his pillows. + +"He! He! He! He! He!" came Stingo, infection of mirth vanquishing +the contrariness of the cake-crumb. + +"Proper good joke!" bellowed Mr. Hannaford, not at all sure what the +joke was, but carried away by Percival's ringing mirth. "Proper good +joke! Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho!"; and was chorused in gentler key by +Japhra--for once--by Aunt Maggie and by Ima. + +"He! He! He! He! He! Looks as well as ever he did!" choked Stingo, +catching his brother's eye and nodding towards the invalid's chair; and +that as masterfully turned the laughter to practical use as the +laughter itself had turned dreadful embarrassment into universal +joviality. It was the chance for Mr. Hannaford to cry delightedly: +"Why, that's just what I was athinking, bless my eighteen stun proper +if it isn't!" the chance for the tremendous brothers to overwhelm +Percival with the affection and the joy at his recovery with which they +had come bursting; the beginning of highest good fellowship all round, +of stupendous teas on the part of the tremendous brothers, and at last +of explanation of the real project they had made this visit in order to +discharge. + +It took a very long time in the telling. On the part of Stingo there +was first a detailed account (punctuated by much affectionately +fraternal handshaking) of how he positively had settled down at +last--sold out of the show trade after and on account of the events in +which Percival and Japhra had shared, and henceforward was devoting his +entire energies to the cultivation of the little 'orse farm. There was +then from Mr. Hannaford, helped by a ledger that could have been +carried in no pocket but his, a description of the flourishing state at +which the little 'orse farm had arrived--"Orders for gentlefolks' +little carts' little 'orses apourin' in quicker'n ever we can apour 'em +out"--and in which it was monthly advancing more and more; and there +was finally a prolonged discussion in fierce whispers between the +brothers, interspersed with loud "Don't forget that's" and "Recollect +for to tell him this's." + +Then Mr. Hannaford turned to Percival, struck his thigh a terrible +crack with his ledger, and in a very demanding tone said, "Well, now!" + +"Well, I'm awfully--awfully glad," said Percival. "It's +splendid--splendid. By Jove, it really is a big thing. But what?--but +what--?" + +"What of it is," said Mr. Hannaford very solemnly, "that what we want +and the errand for what we've come is--we want you!" He turned to +Stingo: "Now your bit." + +"What of it is," responded Stingo with the huskiness of a lesson learnt +by heart and to be repeated very carefully--"What of it is, he's wanted +you, told me so, ever since you come over long ago with his late +lordship and showed what a regular little pocket marvel you was, but +didn't like for to have you until I'd settled down and taken my proper +place and given my consent--which I have done and which I do, never +having set eyes on your like and never wanting to. Now your bit." + +"What of it is," said Mr. Hannaford, bringing himself to the point of +these remarkable proceedings with a thigh-and-ledger-thump of +astounding violence--"what of it is, we're Rough 'Uns, Stingo an' me. +All right to be Rough 'Uns when it's only little circus 'orses and +circus folk you're dealing with--no good being Rough 'Uns when it's +gentlefolks' little carts' little 'orses, gentlefolks' little riding +little 'orses, and gentlefolks' little polo little 'orses. Want a +gentleman for to deal with the gentlefolk and a gentleman for to break +and ride and show for the gentlefolk. Want you--an' always have wanted +you, bless my eighteen stun proper if we ain't." (Thump!) + +Percival was white and then red as the meaning of all the mysterious +conduct of the tremendous brothers' errand was thus made clear to +him--white and then red and with moisture of weakness in his eyes: why +was everybody so jolly, jolly good to him? + +"Why, Mr. Hannaford--Stingo--" he began. + +But the tremendous brothers raised simultaneous shoulder-of-mutton +fists to stop him, and fell into hurried preparations for departure. +It was disappointment they feared. "Don't speak hasty!" Mr. Hannaford +thundered. "Think over it--don't say a word--keep the ledger--proper +good business in it--pay you what you like--make you a partner in +it--set you up for life properly to rights." He wrung Aunt Maggie's +hand. "Say a word for us, Mam! loved him more'n a son ever since--"; +in great emotion backed down the path taking Japhra with him; and in +tremendous excitement returned to wring the hand of Stingo who, after +opening and shutting his mouth several times without sound, at length +produced: "Set you up for life properly to rights--more'n that, too. +You're young. We're bound to pop off one day. No one to leave nothing +to. Rough 'Uns. You're young. Bound to go to you in the end. Rough +'Uns--" + +"O' course! O' course! O' course!" joined Mr. Hannaford, wringing +Stingo's hand in ecstasy and wringing it still as he led him down the +path. "O' course! That was a good bit. Never thought of it. Bound +to pop off! Bound to go to him!" + + +III + +"Tears in your eyes, Percival," Ima said, smiling at him as immense +trumpetings at the gate announced the Rough 'Uns' departure in a din of +emotional nose-blowing. + +"Well, dash it all, there always are, nowadays," Percival laughed. +"Everybody's so jolly, jolly good to me." + +He lay back with new and most wonderful visions before his eyes; set +his gaze on the dear, familiar line of distant Plowman's Ridge and +peopled it with the scenes of his new and wonderful prospects. His +hand in his pocket closed about letters received from Dora between that +night at Baxter's and the night of the fight. Black and impossible his +outlook then; limitless of opportunity now. Set up for life properly +to rights! by a miracle, nay, by a chain of tricks and chances--and he +ran through the amazing sequence of them--he suddenly was that! Dora +no longer immeasurably beyond him; Snow-White-and-Rose-Red possible to +be claimed. + +Aunt Maggie broke into his thoughts. "Are you glad, dear--about the +Hannafords?" + +"Glad! Aunt Maggie, I was just thinking I seem to be a sort of--sort +of thing for other people's plans. Old Japhra planned a fighter of me +and, my goodness! I had a dose of it. Here's old Hannaford always +been planning to have me with him, and here I am going sure enough!" +He laughed at an almost forgotten recollection. "Why, even you--even +you had a wonderful plan for me. Don't you remember? I say, it's in +hot company, your plan, Aunt Maggie. All come out right except yours. +You'll have to hurry up!" + +"Mine will come out right," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +ONE COMES OVER THE RIDGE + +I + +"Mine will come out right." But Percival's twenty-first birthday, that +was to have seen the consummation of Aunt Maggie's plan, came--and Aunt +Maggie held her hand and let it go. + +A double reason commanded her. Percival's coming of age arrived with +the Old Manor closed and Rollo and his mother far afield on that two +years' travel which Lady Burdon had long before projected for her son +to introduce his "settling-down." It were an empty revenge, Aunt +Maggie thought, that could be taken in such case; robbed of its sting, +sapped of all its meaning, unless it were delivered to Lady Burdon face +to face, as face to face with Audrey she had struck Audrey down. + +That was one reason that found Percival's twenty-first birthday gone, +and still the blow not struck. The other was in tribute to the fate +that had carried forward Aunt Maggie's plan through many hilly places +and that, fatalistic, she dared not hasten when the promised land drew +into sight. When she heard during the three months of Percival's +zestful life on the little horse farm leading to his birthday that +Rollo, before that birthday dawned, would be shipped and away on his +leisurely journey round the world, she was at first strongly tempted to +make end of her long waiting; at last to Audrey's murderer send +Audrey's son. Her superstitious reliance on fate prevented her. With +fate she had worked hand in hand through these long years. Vengeance +had been nothing had she taken it at the outset when Audrey lay cold +and still in the room in the Holloway Road. Under fate's guidance it +was become a vengeance now indeed--Lady Burdon twenty years secured in +her comfortable possessions; her husband by fate removed, and the blow +to be struck through her cherished son; a friendship by fate designed +suddenly to turn against her and drive her forth as she had driven +Audrey. Fate in it all, in each moment and each measure of it, and +Aunt Maggie had the fear that now to dismiss fate and anticipate the +hour that she and fate had chosen would be to risk by fate's aid being +dismissed. + +Fate gave her hint of it--gave her warning. She was in one moment +being told by Percival of Rollo's intended departure and long absence; +and seeing herself robbed, her plan for his twenty-first birthday +defeated, was urging herself with "Now--now. No need to wait +longer--now;" she was in the next hearing Percival's desolation at the +thought of losing "old Rollo" for so long--of their plans for closest +companionship during the few weeks that remained to them; and hearing +it, was warned by the same question she once before had asked herself +and dared not finish, much less answer then, and dared not finish now: +"What, when I tell him, if--" + +Fate in it. Fate warning her, Aunt Maggie thought. Fate threatening +her. Fate had been so real, so living a thing to her, its hand so +plain a hundred times, that she had come to envisage it as a +personality, an actuality--a grim and stern and all-powerful companion +who companioned her on her way and who now stooped to her ear and told +her: "Go your own way--if you dare. Seek to take your revenge now +without my aid and short of the time that you and I have planned--if +you dare. Abandon me and tell him now." Then the threat: "What, when +you tell him, if--" + +"Strange-like"? "Touched-like"? Thus, at least, she held her hand, +paying tribute to fate; thus when the birthday came, and Rollo and Lady +Burdon across the sea, and empty her vengeance made to seem if she then +took it, she turned to fate and asked of fate "What now?" + +"Strange-like"? "Touched-like"? Again to her ear that strong +companion stooped--not threatening now; encouraging, supporting.... + +"Why, Aunt Maggie," Percival cried, "you do look well--fit, this +morning. Fifty times as bright as you've been looking these past days. +Younger, I swear!" + +"Well, it is your birthday, dearest," she told him. + +"All very well! But every time we've mentioned my birthday, my +twenty-first--even last night--you've been--I've thought it has made +you sad, as if you didn't want me to have it!--growing too old, or +something!" + +For answer she only shook her head and smiled at him. But her reason +for the stronger air he noticed in her, for her rescue from her +depression of the days that led to his birthday, was that to her +question of "What now?" she was somehow assured that she had but to +wait, but to have a little more patience, and her opportunity would +come. Fate was shaping it for her; fate in due time would present +it.... + + +II + +Percival for his own part was also in some dealing with fate in these +days. As one that is forever feasting his eyes on a prized and newly +won possession, the more fully to realise it and enjoy it, so +frequently in these days he was telling himself "I'm the happiest and +luckiest beggar in the world!" and was marvelling at the train of +tricks and chances by which fate--luck as he called it--had brought him +to this happy, lucky period. + +Every human life falls into periods reckoned and divided not by years +but by events. Sometimes these events are recognised as milestones +immediately they fall; a death, a birth, a marriage, a new employment, +a journey, a sickness--we know at once that a new phase is begun, we +take a new lease of interest in life; not necessarily a better or a +brighter lease, a worse, maybe--but new and recognised as different. +More frequently the milestone is not perceived as such until we look +back along the road, see the event clearly upstanding and realise that +we were one man as we approached it and have become another since we +left it behind; again not necessarily a better or a happier man--a +worse, maybe; and maybe one that often cries with outstretched arms to +resume again that former figure. It cannot be. Life goes forward, and +we, once started, like draughtsmen on a board, may not move back. +Beside each event that marks a milestone we leave a self as the serpent +sheds a skin--all dead; some better dead; some we would give all, all +to bring again to life. It may not be. + +Percival in these happy, happy months as right-hand man to the Rough +'Uns on the famously prospering little horse farm often told himself +that his life had been--as he expressed it--in three absolutely +different periods. He found a wonderful pleasure in dividing them off +and reviewing them. Daily, and often more than once in a day, when he +had a pony out at exercise, he would pull up on the summit of rising +ground and release his thoughts to wander over those periods as his +eyes reviewed from point to point the landscape stretched beneath him; +his mind aglow with what it tasted just as his body glowed from his +exercise of schooling the pony in the saddle. Three periods, as he +would tell himself. The first had ended with that night when he came +to Dora in the drive. Everything was different after that. Then all +his life with Japhra and with Ima in the van--the tough, hard, good +life that ended with the fight. The third--he now was in the third! +Two had been lived and left, and in review had for their chief burthen +the picture of how, as he had said during his convalescence, every one +had been so jolly, jolly good to him. Two had been lived and had +shaped him--"a sort of _thing_ for other people's plans"; and what kind +plans! and what dear planners! and he, of their fondness, how happy a +thing!--to this third period that sung to him in every hour and that +went mistily into the future whose mists were rosy, rosy, rose-red and +snow-white, Snow-White-and-Rose-Red.... + + +III + +In the first few months, before Rollo and Lady Burdon took their +departure for the two years' travel, he was daily, in the intervals +from his work, with "old Rollo"; Dora often with them. Nothing would +satisfy Rollo for the few weeks that lay between Percival's beginning +of his duties with the Hannafords and his own start for the foreign +tour but that they must be spent at Burdon Old Manor, nothing would +please him to fill in those days but to pass them in Percival's +company. He made no concealment of his affection for his friend. Men +not commonly declare to one another the liking or the deeper feeling +they may mutually entertain. The habit belongs to women, and that it +was indulged by Rollo was mark in him of the woman element that is to +be observed in some men. It is altogether a different quality from +effeminacy, this woman element. Sex is a chemical compound, as one +might say, and often are to be met men on the one hand and women on the +other in whom one might believe the male or female form that has +precipitated came very nearly on the opposite side of the +division--women who are attracted by women and to whom women are +attracted; and men, manly enough but curiously unmannish, who are +noticeably sensible to strongly male qualities and who arouse something +of a brotherly affection in men in whom the male attributes ring sharp +and clear as a touch on true bell. + +There were thrown together in Rollo and Percival very notable examples +of these hazards in nature's crucibles. The complete and most +successful male was precipitated in him of whom Japhra had said long +days before: "I know the fighting type. Mark me when the years come. +A fighter thou." Qualities of woman were alloyed in him who once had +cried: "Men don't talk about these things, Percival, so I've never told +you all you are to me--but it's a fact that I'm never really happy +except when I'm with you." Strongly their natures therefore cleaved, +devotedly and with a clinging fondness on the weaker part; on the +bolder, protectively and with the tenderness that comes responsive from +knowledge of the other's dependence. + +"Men don't talk about these things--but I'm never really happy except +when I'm with you." That diffidence at sentiment and that +self-exposure despite it, made when Percival, off to join Japhra, +seemed to be passing out of his life, were repeated fondly and many +times by Rollo now that Percival looked to be back in his life again. +"Hearing me talk like this," he told Percival, "it makes you rather +squirm, I expect--the sort of chap you are. But I can't help it and I +don't care," and he laughed--"the sort of chap I am. You don't +know--you can't come near guessing, old man, what it means to me to +think you've chucked all that mad gipsy life of yours that might have +ended in anything, the rummy thing it was, and that kept you utterly +away from me; to think you've chucked all that and are settled down in +a business that really is a good thing, every one says it is, and any +one can see it. It means to me--well, I can't tell you what, you'd +only laugh. But I can tell you this much, that I do nothing but think, +and all the time I'm away shall be thinking, of how we'll both be down +here always now when I get back, and of all the things we'll do +together." + +They were riding as he spoke, their horses at a walk up the steady +climb of the down to Plowman's Ridge from Market Roding. His voice on +his last sentence had taken an eager, impulsive note, and as though he +had a sudden suspicion that it was betraying an undue degree of +sentiment he stopped abruptly, his face a trifle red. It was his +confusion, not any excess of sentiment, that Percival--quick as of old +in sympathy with another's feelings--noticed. He edged his horse +nearer Rollo's and touched Rollo with his whip. "Yes, we're going to +have a great, great time, aren't we?" he said. "I'm only just +beginning to realise it--great, Rollo!" + +The affectionate touch and the responsive words caused Rollo to turn to +him as abruptly as he had broken off. "I've planned it," Rollo said. +"I'm forever planning it. When I get back--fit--I'm going to settle +down here for good. I loathe all that, you know," and he jerked his +head vaguely to where "all that" might lie, and said, "London and that +kind of thing. I'm going to take up things here. I've never had any +interests so far. My rotten health, partly, and partly not getting on +with people, and I've let everything drift along and let mother make +all the programmes. That's how it's been ever since you went off. Now +you're back again and I'm keen as anything. I'm going to work up all +this property, going to get to know all the people intimately and help +them with all sorts of schemes. Going to run my own show--you know +what I mean, no agent or any one between me and the tenants and the +land. And you're going to help me--that's the germ of it and the +secret of it and the beginning and the end of it." + +Percival laughed and said: "Help you! You won't want any help from me. +I can see myself touching-my-hat-to-the-squire sort of thing as you go +hustling about the country-side." + +But Rollo was too serious for banter. "You know what I mean," he said. +"And you--you're going to be a big man in these parts, as they say, the +way you're going, before very long." + +They had gained the Ridge and by common consent of their horses were +halted on the summit. Rollo turned in his saddle and pointed below +them. "Percival, that's what I mean," he said, and carried his whip +from end to end along the Burdon hamlets. "That's what I think of. +Look how peaceful and remote it all looks, shut away from everything by +the Ridge. We two together down there, planning and doing and living--" + +Percival's gaze had travelled on from Burdon Old Manor where the whip +had taken it and over the Ridge into the eastward vale. He turned +again to Rollo, recalled by the stopping of his voice; and Rollo saw +his strong face bright and said: "You'll think me a frightful ass, +you'll think me a girl, but you know I get quite 'tingly' when I +anticipate it all. And not want your help!--Why, only look at that for +instance," and he laughed and put his hand against Percival's where it +lay before his saddle. The delicate white, the veins showing, against +the strong brown fist was illustration enough of his meaning. "And +you're not long out of an illness that would have outed me in two +days," he said. + +He saw the bright look he had observed shade, as it were, to one very +earnest. The symbol of their two hands so strongly different quickened +in Percival the appeal that he always felt in Rollo's company, that +went back to the early years of their play together, that was vital +part of this happy, lucky period, and that was warmed again in the +thoughts that came to him as he had looked over the eastward valley. +"Why, Rollo," he said earnestly, "it is good to think of. It is going +to be good. We two down there. It's wonderful to me how it's all come +out. It makes me 'tingly,' too, when I think of it--and of what it's +going to be. Help you--why, we two--" He pressed the brown fist about +the delicate hand. "There!--just like this good old Plowman's Ridge +that shuts us off from everybody! Nothing comes past that to interfere +with us." + +They were a moment silent, each in his different way occupied by this +close exchange of their friendship; and Rollo's way made him almost at +once put his horse about, concerned lest his face should betray his +feelings, and made him say with an attempt at lightness: "No, nothing, +with the good old Ridge to shut us off," and then, "Is that some one +riding up from Upabbot?" + +The direction was that where Percival's gaze had been. "Yes, it is," +Percival said. "I thought so. She's coming up. It's Dora." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +TWO RIDE TOGETHER + +I + +Often in these weeks the three rode together; seldom Percival and Dora +met out of Rollo's company. Brief moments while they waited him, brief +moments when he rode ahead of them, these were the most frequent of +their intimacies; more rarely came chance half-hours, and most rare of +all half-hours planned when she admitted they could be contrived. He +suffered nothing that their meetings should be thus fugitive and at +caprice, in main, of Rollo's moods and movements. That none as yet +should know their secret ministered to rather than chafed his ardour; +that, when their eyes met, their eyes spoke what in all the world only +they two knew, was of itself as darling a thing as when to all the +world she should be known for his alone. Then she would be his own, +but their secret the price of it; now he might not claim her, but ah, +their secret, theirs! + +So secret it was, and she so much her rare and chaste and frozen self, +that even between them it was hardly spoken. He never had lost his +first awe and wonder at her beauty; and it filmed all his intercourse +with her and all his thoughts of her as with a gossamer veil that, +forbidding rough movements, forbade him touch her with the close words +of his passion that might bruise her or give her alarm. More by signs +than ever by words they spoke their secret. Words carried them over +the passing subjects that any might discuss; signs revealed the secret +that was theirs alone. When they met the faintest deepening of her +colour shades would show it, when they parted came a last glance and +again those shades would glow; when he sometimes touched her hand, her +hand would stay and speak it; when he sometimes held her eyes, ah, then +their secret stirred! In those few half-hours when alone they came +together, meeting near the Abbey, riding through the lanes, then with +none to see them he would hold her hand and feel it tell him of their +secret while their lips told empty words. + +It was in these weeks, indeed, that he came to know he found it a +little hard to make conversation with her. That something of her +character was manifested in this difficulty he had no suspicion, nor +that in his solution of it her disposition was clearer yet revealed. +He found she was not greatly interested to hear of himself; then found +her most alert, and oftenest brought the little laugh he loved to hear, +the deepening he loved to see of those strange shades of colour on her +cheeks, by speaking to her of herself, or listening while of herself +she told him. At first he gave her glimpses of the van life with +Japhra on the road; her curiosity was not aroused. Something of the +famous fight he told her, and in vigorous passages of when the sticks +came out, and of the wild scenes that followed the crime of poor old +Hunt, whom she had known: he saw she was not greatly entertained. +Later, as events ran along, he gave them to her--told her of the day +when it was found that his increasing activities with the dear old +Rough 'Uns made it necessary he should live over there, no longer ride +daily to and fro from "Post Offic," and of how jolly, jolly good they +were to him and of the funny evenings in their company; told her of the +day when the Rough 'Uns had announced they thought it proper to +advancement of their business that a couple of hunters should be bought +for him so that he might ride to hounds and keep among the horsey folk +when the hunting season opened; told her of the day when he had from +Aunt Maggie the news that the affection between herself and Ima had +arranged that Ima was coming to spend the approaching winter--and +likely every winter--with her; all these he brought to Dora, but slowly +came to see they but little took her interest. + +The discovery no more gave him suspicion that she was at fault in +sympathy than of itself it vexed him, as one commonly might be vexed in +such a case. It was himself he blamed when, recalling how he had +talked and how little had been her response, he feared that he had +tired her by his enthusiasms or, as reproaching himself he termed them, +his meanderings. Clumsy he called himself, inept, dull-witted; and +pictured her, his darling and his goddess, his frozen, rarest, perfect +Snow-White-and-Rose-Red, and hated to have blundered all his dulness on +so rare and exquisite a thing. Glad, then, the finding that he could +entertain her by exercise of what a thousand-fold entranced himself--by +encouraging her to speak of herself, her doings, her reflections, just +as in the drive in that hour when first he knew he loved her she had +spoken of her school. Lightest and most prattling what she told, and +light and very passing what she thought; but spoken in her quaintly +precise mode of speech and in her cold, high tone, and bringing from +her her cold little laugh, and on her cold white cheek lighting those +flames of colour. When he watched her with others he saw her perfect +face set in its strangely still, aloof expression; when she spoke with +him, and spoke of herself, he was content only to listen so he might +see it light and sometimes see their secret make it flame. + +More than once while she so spoke and he so listened, "But I told you +that," she would say; "I perfectly recollect telling you." + +And he: "Well, tell me again;" and at the note of his voice she would +seem to catch her breath as though some sharpness checked her +breathing, and he would see their secret flutter in her eyes and see it +stain its signal like a red rose on her cheeks. + + +II + +It was by one definite step--not observed as such by him at the time +nor any significance in it apprehended--that they passed from this +stage of reserve on the matter between them and came towards its open +entertainment. The afternoon following Rollo's departure with Lady +Burdon on the long foreign tour marked the event, and Percival, meeting +Dora by chance, was in some loss of spirits at the fact. He found her +in very different case. Her mood was high. She had the air of one who +has made a success or who has escaped some shadowing mischief. He +could suppose no cause for such a thing or he would have said her +bearing signified relief, removal of some oppression, freedom from some +weight that had burdened her mind and that now, displaced, suffered her +mind to run up, made her tread lighter. + +"There's something different about you to-day," he told her; then, +while she laughed, and while he caught more glee than commonly he knew +in the little sound he loved to hear, found the exact expression for +the change he saw, and named the new step in their relations--"You are +as if you'd suddenly got a holiday." + +"Well, it is true that I somehow feel like that," she declared, "though +why I should, I am sure I cannot imagine." + +Yet dimly she knew, dimly in these later days had felt closing about +her the purpose of her training, and when Percival spoke of the two +years--the "frightfully long time"--for which old Rollo was gone, knew +it half unknowingly for the period of her holiday. Another, more +freely schooled than she, had known it clearly, had questioned, +revolved, examined the sudden lightness that was hers, had realised it +came of freedom from constant reminder of an end that seemed to wait +her, and had inquired of herself, Why then glad?--Is that end unwelcome? + +It was not hers so to examine; or examining, so to realise; or +realising, so to ask; nor asking, and being answered "Yes, unwelcome," +to think to make resistance and crush the end before it came. Not hers +whose schooling in her mother's hands had made for and had won the +stifling of such processes of thought; not hers who was caparisoned and +trained for certain purpose; not hers who had responded in faultless +beauty and in cloistered mind. Hers, if she stretched her hands and on +a sudden found that purpose walled about her, only to follow on between +the walls, not to break through them; to glance at them or run them +with her fingers and see them silk and proper to her life, not beat +against them, find them steel behind the silk, cry "Trapped! Trapped!" +and wildly beat for outlet. Hers, if she raised her eyes and saw her +purposed end far down the narrow way, only to accept and move towards +it, not to halt, doubt, fear; hers to glance, and know, and think it +meet and proper to her life, not start and shrink, cry "No! No! No!" +and seek escape while yet escape might be. + +So she was circumstanced; yet there remains, be restraint never so +firmly chilled into the bones, the purely primeval instinct of delight +in freedom; so she was trained, but scarcely yet had recognised +purpose, walls, or end. She only, as she told Percival, "somehow felt" +that she had holiday, and holiday her mood in the months that went. +Why she felt so, she was sure, as she said, she could not imagine; but +as the butterfly, content to live among the flowers of a hothouse and +never know itself prisoner, will airily toss aloft through the open +door yet scarcely think itself escaped, so, content to have remained, +but gaily floating free, blithe and new her mood when now they met. +Less frequent their meetings, the common excuse of Rollo being denied, +but ah, more fond! Fewer their secret exchanges, but ah, more dear! +Holiday her mood, and fluttering she came to him, and was swinging in +his ardour from her prison to his heart; from his heart to her prison, +swinging in his ardour, and had no more than glimpses--transient +tremors--of her prison's walls. + + +III + +He had her engaged in such a glimpse--a little fearfully suspicious +that there were walls about her--on a day when they were hunting +together. Mrs. Espart changed her earlier intention of returning to +town in the Autumn after Rollo and his mother had left. To encourage +her position in the country-side formed part of her own share of the +plans for the young people that were to crystallise when the return was +made to Burdon Old Manor, and she began to centre Abbey Royal in the +social round of the neighbourhood. Her daughter's betrothal to Lord +Burdon, when it was done and announced, should thus, as she schemed, +lose nothing that was possible to the stir it would make. She was able +to use the local Hunt as a prominent part of these intentions, did not +ride herself, but horsed Dora well, subscribed handsomely and was +gladly taken up by the Master in her suggestion of a bi-monthly meet at +the Abbey. + +Thus it was after hounds that Percival and Dora were given best chance +to meet. The Rough 'Uns' idea of mounting Percival for the field +proved successful to them as happy to him; Dora, in pursuance of her +mother's plans, had encouragement--and wanted none--rarely to miss a +meet. Hounds had run far on that day when she was caught by Percival +engaged in one of those transient glimpses of her state that sometimes +in these days came to puzzle her. He threw her into it, and that at a +moment most unlikely, for circumstances had it that she was +uncomfortable and out of temper. A bold fox carried the few who could +follow him--they two among them--to a point fifteen miles from the +Abbey before hounds ran into him. It was late afternoon, rain falling, +when Percival and Dora started to hack the long stretch home, and they +were little advanced on the road, and she feeling the wet, when she +pronounced her feelings by telling him petulantly: "You should not have +made me come on. I would have turned back long ago." + +But it had been a rare run, and he was beneath the vigour of it. +"Come, it was a great run," he said. "It was worth it, Dora." + +"Nothing is worth getting wet like this. You know how I hate getting +wet." + +She was much wetter, and would give him no words, before a new trial +necessitated that she should speak again. Her saddle was slipping, she +said, and when he alighted and found the girths had loosened and then +that she must get down: "No, I'll try it a little farther," she told +him very vexedly. "We're nearly there now. To move is hateful. The +wet is touching me right through." + +She gave him no answer to his "I'm awfully sorry, Dora;" but presently +said: "It's no good, I must get down, I suppose." + +He looked up at her as he stood to help her from the saddle. + +"You're angry, Dora?" + +"Well, of course I am angry." + +He acted upon an impulse that swept out her temper and put her to that +transient glimpse that vaguely showed her vague misgivings. He had +watched her as they rode in silence, watched the rain that swept +against her face run down her face that was like marble in her chill +and in her loss of temper. Cold as it her eyes that met his now, and +he had a sudden impression of her--all marble, all frozen snow, his +darling!--that seemed to embody all his every thought of her frozen +beauty and frozen quality since first he knew her, and that taxed +beyond his power the restraint that frozen quality ever had set upon +him. Beyond his power!--and as he brought her down he not released +her, almost roughly turned her to him; and with no word almost roughly +clasped her to him; and with "Dora!" kissed her wet face and held her +while startled she protested; and kissed again, again, again, again. + +"No, I will not let you go! No, you have been cold to me! No, you +shall not go! I have never kissed you since that once I kissed you. I +will kiss you now. No, I will not let you go. I love you, love you, +love you!" + +She bent her face away. He felt her panting in his arms and pressed +her to him; and with his hands could feel how wet she was, and with his +body felt her warm against him through her soaking clothes; and passion +of love broke from him in words, as passion of love he pressed upon her +face. + +"Turn your face to me, Dora. You shall. I have endured enough. Turn +your face to me--your wet, cold, sweet face that I love. Give me your +lips. Give me your lips. I will kiss your lips and you shall kiss me. +Put your arms round me. Dora, put your arms round me. Now kiss me, +kiss me-- Ah! I love you, I love you--my darling, my beautiful, my +Snow-White-and-Rose-Red. Keep your arms there, Dora, Dora, my Dora!" + +His voice had run hoarse and broken in his passion; now, when obedient +she gave him her lips, obedient clung to him--her will, her physical +discomfort and her natural impassivity burnt up as in a flame by this +sudden assault--deep his voice went and strong:-- + +"That is all done now--all those days when I have been afraid to touch +my darling, afraid to tell her every hour, every moment, how I love her +for fear of frightening her. You are in my arms, my darling, and I can +feel my darling's heart, and those days can never come again. You +shall remember when you see me how I have held you here. You shall +remember how you lie in my arms and that they hold you strongly, +strongly, and that it is your safe, safe place. Look up at me! Ah, +ah, how beautiful you are--your eyes, your lips, your cold, sweet face +with the rain all wet on it. Kiss me! Ah, Dora--we were meant to +meet, meant to love." + +She answered him more by the abandonment with which she lay in his arms +than by the faltering sentences in which she sometimes whispered while +they stood there. She was whispering, "I never meant you should think +I was afraid. Percival, I never meant you should think I did not want +to speak about our love. Only--" when she shivered violently, and he +chid himself for keeping her there, and for warmth's sake, he leading +the horses, they walked the last mile to the Abbey. Ardently then he +talked to her of future plans. He told her that late in the next year +it was arranged he was to go out to the Argentine with some ponies. A +big business was like to be established there, arising out of a sale to +a South American syndicate, and he was to arrange it and to select and +bring back ponies of a native strain for the development of a likely +type. When he returned--"This is why I am telling you, darling,"--the +good old Rough 'Uns had declared he should formally be made partner in +what had now become a great enterprise. "I shall claim you then, my +darling. I shall be able to claim you then." + +She surprised him--and, not aware of her reason, thrilled him--by +halting suddenly and clasping his hands that had been holding hers. +"Oh, don't leave me, Percival! Percival, don't go away!" + +He kissed her adoringly. "Do you love me so?" + +She clung to him and only said: "Don't leave me, Percival. Percival, +you must not," and while he sought to soothe her plea--and still was +thrilled to hear it--suddenly went into a tempest of weeping, changing +his tender happiness to tenderest concern. + +"Dora! Why, what is it? What is it, my darling? Tell me, tell +me--ah, don't, don't cry, don't tremble like that." + +She had not controlled herself to answer him when sound of wheels came +down the road, lamps through the gloom. She checked herself, and was +at her horse's head when there drew up a carriage sent from the Abbey +to meet her and bring her back in shelter from the rain. A groom took +her horse and, standing by the door as she entered, prevented +explanation she might have made--had she been able to explain. + + +IV + +Had she been able--for the thing that caused her sudden tears and +sudden plea was no more than a glimpse, one of those transient glimpses +of the walls, of the purpose, of the end of her training; differing +from other glimpses that sometimes came in that it caught her unstrung. +If it flickered again in the weeks that followed, it little more +disturbed her than sudden shadow across the garden disturbs the +butterfly passing among the flowers; a flicker of misgiving, a vague +disturbance--gone. The year's end took her away with her mother to +town. Succeeding Autumn that brought them back started Percival to the +Argentine. + +"I just miss everybody by going by this boat," he told Aunt Maggie, +sitting with her far into the night before his departure. "There's Ima +coming to you to look after you till I get back and not coming till +next week, so I just miss her; and old Japhra bringing her, so I miss +seeing him too; and then"--he paused for the briefest moment--"there's +Dora and her mother staying another fortnight abroad so I miss them; +and old Rollo and Lady Burdon due next month--I miss them all. It's +the rottenest luck." + +"They'll all be here for you when you get back," Aunt Maggie said. + +He paused again before he spoke. "Yes. That's where my luck's going +to be dead in. I could tell you something, Aunt Maggie," and he +laughed. "But I won't--yet. My luck--look here, tell old Japhra this +from me; tell him I'm coming back for--he'll understand--the Big Fight, +and going to win it!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +NEWS OF HUNT. NEWS OF ROLLO. NEWS OF DORA + +I + +The great Argentine trip--an affair of so much consequence in its +bearing on the development of pony-breeding as to attract the attention +of the "Field" in a series of articles that spoke in highest terms of +"Messrs. Hannafords' well-known establishment" and of "the far-reaching +effects of their new enterprise"--occupied six months. Six weeks--or +days--they seemed to Percival as they fled on the novelty and the busy +interests that attended him while in South America. Six years he found +them on the long voyage home in the steamer that brought him and the +purchases from native stock of whose blood "the far-reaching effects" +were to be produced; and twice and three times six years he declared to +himself he seemed to have been away as, in the closing hours of an +April afternoon, the train brought him in sight--at last! at last!--of +homeland scenes, of Plowman's Ridge along the eastward sky. + +Quite a little party was assembled on Great Letham platform to greet +him. The Rough 'Uns had driven over in two separate carts--one that +should carry him to Aunt Maggie and the other that should bear his +luggage--and they were there, their faces to be seen afar like crimson +lamps of their excitement, and Mr. Hannaford's leg-and-cane cracks +rising high above the din of escaping steam in which the train drew up, +and Stingo almost completely voiceless with huskiness for more than an +hour back. And Stingo had brought Japhra, arrived at the little horse +farm to take up Ima after her winter with Aunt Maggie; and Mr. +Hannaford had brought Ima, and they were there--Japhra with his tight +mouth twitching, and deep in his puckered face his bright little eyes +gleaming; and Ima, standing a shade apart, a tinge of colour crept +beneath her skin, and on her lips and in her eyes her gentle smile. To +complete the greeting there came shrill, ridiculous chuckles from a +stout, soft gentleman, and from his sister little hops and little +flutters and "_There_ he is! He'll _hit_ his head leaning out like +that! He's _browner_ than ever! Oh, _Percival_!" + +And "Percival!" from them all in all their different keys, and he among +them before the train was stopped, and turning from glad face to glad +face, and caught up in the midst of it with a sudden wave of the old +thought, like a knock at the heart, like a catch at the throat--"How +jolly, jolly good they all are to me!" + +Like a knock at the heart, like a catch at the throat, it took him, and +checked him a moment in his responses to the congratulations and was +mirrored in the flicker that went across his face. His eyes caught +Japhra's and it was the look of understanding he read there, he +thought, that brought Japhra to him for another word before he drove +away. In the station yard the traps were waiting. "You, longside o' +me--_partner_!" bellowed Mr. Hannaford and must shake Percival's hand +again for the meaning of that word. "Up behind, Ima, my dear. We'll +take _partner_ home while Stingo leaves that box at the farm and then +comes on with the rest of the luggage." + +Plump Mr. Purdie and birdlike little Miss Purdie had started to walk; +Stingo was throating "Come along, Japhra, come along, Japhra," in a +husky whisper that no one could hear but himself; Mr. Hannaford was +beginning the tremendous operation of hoisting himself up on one side +of the cart while Percival, a foot on the step, was about to swing +himself up on the other, when Japhra turned and came back to him. + +"Thy hand a last time, master!" + +"Hullo, what's this for?" Percival laughed; but saw Japhra's face +grave, and went on: "You caught my eye on the platform just now, +Japhra. I saw you knew how I felt. That's it, eh?" + +"Something of that," Japhra answered him. "Ay, a thought of that came +to me then." The note of his voice was as earnest as his eyes, and he +added, "Master, there was another matter to it that I saw." + +"Well, you were always the thought-reader," said Percival, and smiled +at him quizzically. "What was it, Japhra?" + +"That thou art out for something else than we know." + +"You could see that? Well, you shall know to-morrow." + +The earnest look in Japhra's eyes went deeper. "Comes it so soon?" + +"A few hours, Japhra." + +There came an impatient hail from Mr. Hannaford, settled at last in the +trap above them. + +"Well, press my hand to it," Japhra said; and as he held Percival's +hand, "press--let me feel thy grip, master. Something bids me to it. +Ay, thou art strong. Be strong in thine hour." + +As the trap swung out of the station yard Percival saw him still +standing there as though he still would speed that message. He turned +about in his seat to elude Ima in his chatter with Mr. Hannaford, and +they were not two miles upon the road before he was launched upon what +gave him need for strength. + + +II + +Strangers were rare in Great Letham. Every figure passed as they +rattled through the town was familiar to Percival. The turn into the +high road took them by one--a tall, straight man with something of a +stiff air about him, as though his clothes were uncomfortable--that +looked at them with a swift glance as they overtook him. + +"Hullo," said Percival. "That's a new face. Who's that?" + +"Why, that's a bit of news for you, _partner_," said Mr. Hannaford. +"Bless my eighteen stun proper if it ain't. There's two or three o' +them chaps about--'tecs." + +"'Tecs?--detectives? Why, what's up, Mr. Hannaford?" + +"There's been an escape from Dartmoor prison. Three of 'em in a fog. +And one--you'd never guess!" + +"Not old Hunt?" + +"Hunt sure enough, _partner_." + +"Hunt--good lord, poor old Egbert Hunt! And those chaps? After him? +Do they think he's here?" + +"They didn't know what to think," said Mr. Hannaford, and with a laugh +at them for their puzzlement went into explanation. A fortnight ago +the escape was made, it appeared. Two caught--one shot--but Hunt still +missing. Traces of him in four burglaries, and each one nearer this +way, and now the 'tecs here on the belief that he was making for the +country-side he knew. + +Percival met Ima's eyes and saw in them sympathy with the feelings +given him by this news. "I knew you would be sorry," she said. + +"Sorry!--why, Ima, it's awful, it's dreadful to me to think of poor old +Egbert like that. One of them shot--and he hiding, terrified, no +shelter, no food. When they catch him--I know what he is. He'll be +mad--do anything. They'll shoot him down, perhaps." + +She touched his hand and he was moved to catch hers that touched him +and saw the blood tide up into her face. He had seen much of her in +the winter following his illness when she had lived with Aunt Maggie. +They were brother and sister, he had told her in those days, and when +he had spoken of that night on Bracken Down before the fight: "Oh, it +is forgotten," she had told him. "Forgotten, and forgotten all the +foolish words I spoke. Nothing in them, Percival. Yes, you are my +brother. I am your sister. That is it." + +And now was sister. He did not notice that she caught her breath when +the blood came into her face as he took her hand, nor that she +disengaged his clasp before she spoke. Only that in her gentle voice, +"You must not let it upset you, Percival," she told him. "You are +coming back so happy. You must not let this spoil it." + +"But it does," he said. "It does. I can't enjoy myself--I can't be +happy while he's near here perhaps--those brutes after him. We'll have +to look out for him, Ima. You and I. He'll not be afraid of us. +We'll go all round the place together. He'll come to us if he sees us." + +"Yes--yes," she said, and seemed glad. + +"What does old Rollo say?" + +"Ah, Lord Burdon--Lord Burdon is longing to see you. Of Hunt I don't +know what he says. But of you--Percival, he's longing for you. He's +not been very well. He's kept to the house. He sent word how he had +looked forward to meeting you at the station but could not, and begged +you would go up to him as soon as ever you arrived. You must." + +"Why, of course I will," Percival said, and with recollection of +Rollo--and of Rollo longing for him--was temporarily removed from the +gloom that had beset him and returned to the anticipation of all that +awaited him. + +"I will, of course. He's not ill?" + +"He's ever so much stronger since he came back. Only a cold that keeps +him in. He has to keep well for the festivities, of course." + +Her reference was to the great twenty-fourth birthday celebrations--the +coming of age according to Burdon tradition--and Percival agreed +eagerly. "Why, rather! He'll want all his voice for the speeches! I +was afraid once I'd not get back in time. As it is, I've only just +done it. The nineteenth, next week, his birthday, isn't it?" + +"Next Thursday," Ima said, smiling to see him smile again. + +"Touch and go!" laughed Percival. "I might easily have missed it." He +turned to Mr. Hannaford. "Mr. Hannaford, you'll have to stay a bit +when we get home--have tea--and then drive me over to the Manor. We're +talking about Lord Burdon and the festivities. Great doings, eh?" + +"Why, great doings is the word for it," said Mr. Hannaford. "Bless my +eighteen stun proper if it ain't. Everybody invited a score o' miles +round. Going to roast a nox whole, marquees in the grounds, poles with +ribbons on 'em from the church to the Manor--" + +"From the church! What, is there going to be a service?" + +"Service!" said Mr. Hannaford. "Why, how's he going to be married +without?" + +Percival almost jumped to his feet. "Married! Is he going to be +married?" + +"What, don't you know, _partner_?" + +"I've not had letters for months. _Married_! Good lord, old Rollo +married! Why, that's tremendous. Ima, why ever didn't you tell me? +Married! Whom to?" + +Mr. Hannaford was enormously pleased at this excitement. "Give 'ee +three guesses, _partner_." + +Percival cried: "Why, I couldn't guess in a thousand. It fairly knocks +me. Old Rollo going to be married! Go on--tell me!" + +"Go on--guess," said Mr. Hannaford. + +"How can I guess? I don't know his London friends. I shan't even know +her name." + +"Well, you'll ha' left your memory where you left that string o' little +'orses if 'ee don't. Ever heard o' Upabbot?" He twisted round to wink +advertisement of his humour to Ima. "Got any sort of a glimmering +rec'lection of Abbey Royal?--why, Miss Espart!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +PRELUDE TO THE BIG FIGHT + +I + +Percival said in a quiet voice, "Put me down. Put me down--I'm going +to walk." + +"So you're no hand at guessing, partner. Own up to that," was Mr. +Hannaford's response. Then he cried, "Hi, what's up with 'ee? What be +doing?" for Percival had stretched a sudden hand to the reins and the +horse swerved sharply. "Whoa!" bellowed Mr. Hannaford, and dragged up +with a wheel on the brink of a ditch. "Might ha' had us out!" he +turned on Percival. "Bless my eighteen stun proper if 'ee mightn't!" + +It was a wild face that fronted him, blotchy in red and white as it +were freshly bruised. "Well, put me down!" Percival cried at him +fiercely. "Put me down when I ask you!" and as he slowly drew the rug +from his knees and put out a foot to the step he turned back on Mr. +Hannaford and flamed "I suppose I can walk if I want to?" and dropped +heavily to the road. His feet landed on the edge of the ditch. He +blundered forward and came with hands and knees against the hedge. The +stumble shook his hat from his head and he turned and went hatless past +the tail of the cart and a few paces down the road. + +Mr. Hannaford released with a rushing explosion the immense breath that +he had been sustaining during the whole of these proceedings. He +turned amazed eyes on Ima: "What's happened to him?" + +She sprang to the road. "Percival!" and followed him. + +He turned at the sound of her feet; and at the look on his face she +stopped. + +"Well?" he demanded. "Well? What is it now?" + +"You have left your hat," she said. "I will bring it to you." + +Some wit that came to her gave her these ordinary words in place of +questioning him, and he came back to her quickly. "I don't want my +hat," he told her. He looked up towards Mr. Hannaford. "I'm sorry I +pulled you up like that. I want to walk, that's all. I'm going along +the Ridge--to stretch my legs." + +"There's something wrong with 'ee," said Mr. Hannaford. "What is it, +boy?" + +"Nothing. I want a walk, that's all." + +Mr. Hannaford pointed across the Ridge. "There's a storm coming up. +Best ride." + +"I'll be home before that." He turned and went slowly towards a gate +that gave to the fields approaching the downside. Ima hesitated and +then went swiftly after him as he fumbled with the latch. + +"Percival, I will walk with you." + +He turned upon her a face from which the gentler mood was gone. + +"Oh, for God's sake let me alone," he cried, and passed through the +gate and left her. + + +II + +He found that he kept stumbling as he pressed along. + +He tried to give attention to lifting his feet but stumbled yet. He +found that he could not think clearly. He tried to take a grasp of his +thoughts and place them where he would have them go, but they persisted +in form of words that Mr. Hannaford had spoken, in swift gleams of +pictures that answered the words and then round about the words again. +"Ever heard o' Upabbot?" Ah, every well-remembered street of it arose +before his mind! "Got any sort of a glimmering recollection of Abbey +Royal?" Ah, he could scent the very flowers banked along the drive! +"Why, Miss Espart." Blankness then--some thick oppressive darkness +suddenly shutting down upon him; some bewildering, vaguely sinister +blanket of dread that stifled thought--then suddenly out of it and back +again to "Ever heard o' Upabbot?" + +The ground beneath him flattened abruptly under his feet. He stumbled +more violently than before, and was jolted to recognition that +Plowman's Ridge was gained. Of long habit he straightened himself to +meet the wind. It suited the unreal conditions that seemed to surround +him, it was a part of the dream in which he seemed to be, that +something that should have been here seemed to be missing. What? He +stood a moment looking dully about him. The question merged into and +was lost in the circle of thought that beset him as he followed his +right hand and turned along the Ridge. He had stumbled a full mile and +more when there struck his face that which informed him what had been +missing when first he reached the crest. Wind came against him, and he +realised there had been no wind where, ever and like an old friend, +wind ran to greet him. Aroused, he pulled up short. He had come far. +That was Little Letham lying beneath him, Burdon Old Manor in those +trees. Late afternoon gave before evening down the valley. Heavy the +wind and close. He turned his head and saw against the further sky +great storm clouds pressing down upon the Ridge. He raised his eyes +and saw a figure come towards him, crossing the Ridge and walking fast +from Little Letham, turning towards him as he gave a cry. + +"Dora!" + +He went forward some swift paces, the stumbling gone from his feet and +his mind sprung tensely out of its dull circling; then he stopped. She +too was halted. She had turned sharply about at his cry and was poised +towards him where she turned. There were perhaps twenty yards between +them, and the quickly deepening gloom admitted him her face whitely and +without clear outline through the dusk. He did not move, nor she. +There came from her to him a rattle of breeze, presage of the storm +that gathered, and he saw her skirts fan out upon it. There struck his +face a heavy raindrop, skirmishing before the gale, and he drew a quick +breath and went forward to her--nearer, and saw her faultless face and +felt the blood drum in his ears; nearer, and her clear voice came to +him and he could hear his heart. + +She said: "Percival!" + +"Dora, I have come back." + +Her face, that he watched with eyes whose burning he could feel, was as +emotionless as motionless she fronted him. It might have been frozen, +so still it was; and she a carven thing, so still she stood; and her +eyes set jewels, so still were they. His breathing was to be heard as +of one that breathes beneath a heavy load. When she did not +answer--and when answered he knew himself by her silence--"There is +only one thing I want to hear from you," he said. "Tell me it." + +Her voice was a whisper. "Oh, must you ask me that already?" + +He said stupidly: "But I have come back." + +She said: "O Percival, it is a long time." + +He had known her voice precise and cold--as icicles broken in a cold +hand!--as was its habit and as he thrilled to hear it. He had known it +faltering and atremble and scarcely to be heard when she was in his +arms. Now there was a new note in it that he heard. There was a weary +droop, as though she were tired. "But it is a long time," she said +again. "I asked you not to leave me." + +He was trembling. "Tell me what has happened." + +Her reply was, "I asked you not to leave me, Percival." + +"You and--" There was a name he had difficulty in saying. He turned +away and went a step, fighting for it among the scenes in which her +words surrounded it. Then came to her again and pronounced it. "You +and Rollo. Is it true?" + +"Yes, it is true." + +He said brokenly: "But I have held you in my arms. How can it be true? +I have kissed you and you have kissed me and clung to me. You have +loved me. I have come back for you. How can it be true?" + +Her face answered him. Beneath his words the crimson flamed as though +in crimson blood it would burst upon her cheeks--flamed in those +strange pools of colour where her colour lay, and drove her white as +driven snow about them--flamed and called his own blood as flame bursts +out of flame. He caught her in his arms. "You are mine! What has he +done to you? Mine, mine, what has he dared?" + +She struggled and pressed her face away from his that approached it. +"You must not! You must not! Percival, you must not!" + +"Ah, your voice, your voice tells me that you are mine!" he cried: and +cried it again in revulsion of triumph over the unthinkable torment +that had possessed him. "Your voice tells me!" and again in savagery +of heat at a thought of Rollo, "Mine--your voice tells me you are mine!" + +The colour was gone from her face. She was so white and so still in +his arms that he desisted the action of his face towards her, but held +her close, close. There came from her lips: "No, no! you must not. It +is wrong." + +"How can it be wrong? You say No, but your voice tells me. I have +come back for you, my Dora." + +"Ah, be kind to me, Percival." + +"How should I be unkind to my darling?" + +He felt a tremor run through her. "You must not call me that, +Percival. It should never have been. I thought you would forget." + +What, had he not triumphed then? Torment came ravening back at him +again like a wild thing, and with a sudden burst and clamour, shaking +him where he stood, old friend wind with that old hail--or mock?--of +ha! ha! ha! in his ears. He said intensely: "You thought I would +forget? While I was away you thought I would forget? Dora, you never +thought it!" + +She stirred in his clasp to disengage herself: "No, no--before that. +When we were together." + +He broke out: "Explain! Explain!" He let her from his arms and she +stood away from him, stress on her face. "Oh, there is something I do +not understand in this," he cried. "Explain--tell me." + +She told it him. "Percival, I was always to marry Rollo," she said. + +He stared at her. "How can you mean--always?" + +"I should have told you. I knew it." + +He pronounced in a terrible voice "Rollo!" Then he said thickly: +"What, when you were with me--in those days, those days! You knew it? +He had spoken to you then?" + +She caught her hands to her bosom in an action of despair. "No, no!" +she cried; and then, "Oh, how can I explain?" and then found the word +that helped her with force of a thousand words to name her meaning. +"It was--holiday," she said. + +He remembered it. He remembered, and its memory came like a lamp to +guide him. He said slowly, "When Rollo went--I remember you were +different. Dora, do you mean it was always arranged you were to marry +Rollo?" + +She said, "Always--always!" + +He cried, "But you loved me!" + +She wrung her hands at that, and cried in the most pitiful way, "I +thought you would forget. I don't know what I thought. It was +holiday. It should not have been. Oh, why must we talk of it?" + +"Dora, they are forcing you to marry him." + +"I was always to, Percival. I was always to." + +"You want to?" + +"Well, I was always to." + +Her voice was that of a child whose young intelligence by no means can +take a lesson. Sufficient to one such that the thing is so as he sees +it and cannot be otherwise; and to her sufficient--trained and schooled +and cloistered for that sufficiency--that, as she said, she was always +to. Ah, she had had holiday, but not enough to loose her; she had +tossed among the flowers, but had fluttered home at nights. Now the +mate she toyed with was knocking at her prison; she could see and could +remember, but she could not fly. Quickly after the end of their months +together, and very certainly after Rollo's return, she had discovered +what long she had dimly seen. Clearly the purpose and the walls and +the end of her training had been presented to her. Passively she had +accepted them. + +But how explain it? How explain what herself she did not know? She +looked from night that came stealing up the valley to his face that had +a shade of night. She heard the wind that now was in gusty beat +against them, and above the sound could hear his breathing. She could +only wring her hands and say again: "Percival, I was always to;" and +when he did not answer, "Let me go now, Percival." + +He answered her then. "You loved me. How can you do this? You loved +me. Why did you not tell me?" + +She cried as if she were distracted, "Oh, oh! I asked you not to leave +me. It was a long time. You were not here." + +He caught on to that. "I am here now. It shall not be. Dora, I am +here now!" + +"It is done," she said. "It is done!" + +He seemed for the first time to realise the complete abandonment, the +unresisting resignation to her fate, that was in her every word and +tone. His voice went very low. + +"Dora, are you going to marry him?" + +"I was always to." It was the beginning and the end of her will. "I +was always to." She had no question of it. + +He threw up his arms in wild despair at its repetition. "O my God! +What a thing to tell me! What a thing to be! Why? Why? Do you love +him? Is he anything to you? Why were you always to marry him?" + +She gave the reason her mother had never concealed from her. "He is +Lord Burdon. It was arranged long ago. My mother--" + +The sound he made stopped her. As if he had been stabbed and choked +his life out on the blow, "Ah!" he cried. "That is it. Because he is +what he is. If he were like me this would never have happened. If he +were not what he is it would be ended." + +She appealed "Percival! Percival!" wrung her hands and turned and went +a step. When she looked again she saw his face as none had ever seen +it, twisted in pain and dark with worse than pain. He was not looking +at her, but down upon Little Letham where Burdon Old Manor lay. She +approached him and spoke his name, touched him, but he did not move. + +She left him there and once looked back. He still stood as she had +left him. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE BIG FIGHT OPENS + +I + +There had been one years before that had cried, "You are Lord Burdon!" +and one that had received it, first in light mock at its folly, then in +bewilderment at its truth. There was one cried the same words at "Post +Offic" on this night and one, groaning in torment of spirit, that put +it aside as a jest untimely, then, convinced of it, got to his feet and +heard as it were the world shattering to pieces in his ears. + +The gathering storm had opened and was driving along the Ridge in its +first onset of rain when at last Percival turned where Dora had left +him, wrenched himself about as though his feet were rooted, and brought +to Aunt Maggie the dark and working face that had stared down upon the +Old Manor. Ima had told Aunt Maggie of his strange behaviour when he +had stopped the cart. When he arrived she was up-stairs in her room, +crying a little, wanting to be alone. Aunt Maggie, Ima's fears +communicated to her, awaited him alone in the parlour. He opened the +door fiercely and came in dripping from the streaming night. She gave +a little cry at sight of his face and rose and stretched her hands +towards him. The sudden peace in here, exchanged for the buffeting of +the night, reacted on the tumult of his mind and forced him to +discharge it. + +"O Aunt Maggie! Aunt Maggie!" he said. + +"My Percival! What is it?" + +He took both her hands that were extended to him; then was acted upon +anew by her loving eyes, and clasped her to him and she felt sobs +shaking his strong frame. + +"Percival! Percival! What has happened to you?" + +He let her go and dropped into a chair against the table, put his hands +to his head and while she saw his shoulders heaving she saw the +raindrops running through his fingers from his hair. She went before +him, and stretching her arms across the table encircled his wrists with +her hands. They were burning to her touch. "Percival, it is torturing +to me to see you like this. Tell me, tell me!" + +He took her hands. "Oh, I am in torture," he said, and she saw the +torture burning in his eyes. "Aunt Maggie, Aunt Maggie, I loved Dora. +I never told you. I was to tell you to-night. I had come back for +her." + +She felt a sense go through her as of a sword turned within her. + +"But Rollo!" she said. + +His hands crushed hers so that she had pain. "Yes, Rollo!" he said. +"I nearly went to him to-night. I shall go yet. Rollo! Rollo! +Rollo!" + +He ground the name between his teeth. The pressure of his hands on +hers became almost insufferable. She felt it as nothing to what shook +her brain. She was back at the bedside in the Holloway Road. She was +spun through the years of her waiting, waiting. She was fronted with +the torments when that for which she waited had seemed to be snatched +from her. There filled the room and stooped towards her the figure +that she envisaged as fate, that had stayed her hand, that she obeyed, +that had tried her, that had fought for her, that now was come to prove +itself fate indeed. + +In one part she was dizzy and overcome with the shaking at her brain; +in the other she was listening to Percival and worse beset at every +word. "I have seen her," he said, "I have seen her to-night. They are +forcing her to this. They have arranged it for years--arranged it! +Bought her and sold her because he is what he is. Aunt Maggie, she +loved me for myself. He comes in! he comes in! he comes in! and takes +her because he is Lord Burdon." + +The shaking at her brain pitched suddenly to a tensest balance like a +machine that rattles up to action then tunes to a level spinning. + +"He is not Lord Burdon!" she said. + +He was silent but he did not heed her. + +"He is not Lord Burdon!" + +At her repetition he moved quickly in his seat and relaxed his hands. +"Oh, why say that? Why say that?" + +"You are Lord Burdon!" + +He let her hands go and pressed his own again to his head. "Can you +only talk like that when you see me suffering?" + +She rose to her feet. "Percival! Percival, listen to me. It is true. +It is what I have kept for you these years. It is what I have meant +when I told you I had something for you. You are Lord Burdon!" + +He also stood. "Are you mad, Aunt Maggie? Are you mad?" + +She staggered back against the wall. While he stared at her as he +questioned her sanity, while she saw the look in his eyes as he asked +her, there came to her with a shock of sudden fear, as to one that has +released a wild and mighty thing and shudders to have done it, the +words Japhra had said: "Mistress, beware lest thou betrayest him!" + +He came swiftly to her and roughly caught her. "Are you mad? What is +this?" + +She recovered herself. "Do you know that box in your room?" + +The locked box was an old joke of his. "What has that to do with it?" + +"The proofs are there. You shall see." + +"Show me," he said, his voice not to be recognised for any he had +spoken with. "Show me!" + +She steadied herself against a chair, and steadying herself by all her +hand came against as she walked, went across the room to the stairs, he +following. There came at that moment a loud knock upon the outer door. +He went dazedly to it and stared with unattending eyes at one who stood +there, the light shining on his heavy waterproof coat that streamed +with rain. It was the strange man whom they had overtaken as the cart +came out of Great Letham. + +"The convict Hunt's been seen near by," said the man abruptly. "Me and +my mates thought it right to tell the village." + +Percival closed the door upon him without a word. "Show me," he +repeated to Aunt Maggie, and followed her to her room. + + +II + +He sat on the edge of her bed while she told him his story. He sat +motionless and with his face immobile. There was only one action that +betrayed he was under any emotion. His chin was forward on his hand, +elbow on knee. His fingers came across his mouth, and in the knuckle +of one he set his teeth. Blood was there when he drew his hand away. + +She finished: "It is all here, letters, certificates. Your mother's +letters, Percival, and your father's. They are all in order from the +first. There is one here to his grandmother and one to his lawyer +telling them of his marriage. He left those with her when he went +away. Then the letters from India." + +He drew his hand from his mouth, the blood on his fist. "Leave me +alone," he said. "Go away, Aunt Maggie, and leave me to look at them +alone." + +There was that in his voice which smote terribly across her spinning +brain and caused her to obey him. + + +III + +An hour he was occupied in reading the yellowed sheets whose heritage +he was; for long thereafter sat and stared upon them. These devoted +lines in that round hand were his mother's: his father's those ardent +passions in those bold characters; he their son. He felt himself a +shameless listener to penetrate these tender secrets; he felt himself a +little child that hears his parents' voices. Sometimes, in that first +mood, the blood ran hotly to his cheeks; sometimes, in that second, +there came sobs to his throat and great trembling. Memories of +thoughts, impulses, happenings that had been strange, returned to him, +crowding upon him; here was their meaning, their interpretation here. +In the library with Mr. Amber, "thinking without thinking as if I was +in some one else who was thinking," shadows about the room and a moth +thudding the window-pane--here the secret of it! In the library with +Mr. Amber and the old man's cry: "Why do you stretch your hand so, my +lord?"--here the answer! In presence of death with Mr. Amber, and +"Hold my hand, my lord"--here what had opened Mr. Amber's eyes. In +dreams in Burdon House, and searching, searching, and all the rooms +familiar, and a voice that had cried, "My son, my son! Oh, we have +waited for you!"--here, here, the key to it--here that voice in those +yellowed sheets--here, here, what he had searched, streaming from those +papers, tingling his skin, filling his throat as though from the faded +lines strong essences rushed and pressed about him. His mother!--he +spoke the word aloud, "Mother!" His father!--"Father!" Their son, "I +am your son!..." + +Of a sudden he was returned to the present. Of a sudden he was +snatched up from realisation of what had been, and what was, and +pitched into battle of what was now to be. Out of a churchyard, out of +a graveside where gentle thoughts arise, into the street, into the +business where the din goes up! So he was hurled, and as one that +gasps on sudden immersion in icy water, as one gripped in panic's hold +that comes out of sleep to sudden peril, so, as he faced the thing that +was come to him, he cried out hoarsely, knew horror upon him, and shut +his eyes and pressed his hands against them as though his lids alone +could not blind what picture was before him. In one instant fierce, +fierce, exultant triumph; in the next torment that reeled him where he +stood. In one instant himself that an hour before had stood looking +balefully down upon Burdon Old Manor; that had cried to Aunt Maggie: +"Rollo! Rollo! Rollo!" and knew it for a thrice-repeated curse; that +had cried: "I was going to him! I shall go to him yet!" and knew his +hands tingle and his brain leap at the thought; in the next, nay, +immediate with the flash and flame of it, Rollo that from childhood's +days had leant upon him; that he had brothered, fathered, loved; that +had cried to him--ah, God, God! how the words came back!--"Everything +I've got is yours--you know that, don't you, old man?" That had cried, +"I'm never really happy except when I'm with you;" that had said, "I +want some one to look after me--the kind of chap I am; a shy ass and +delicate." + +He dropped on the bed in the tumult of his torment. He writhed to his +knees and flung himself against the bed, his fingers twisting in the +quilt, his face between his outstretched arms. He had burned with fury +to face Rollo and crush him down. The weapon was in his hands. Ah, +ah, too strong, too sharp, too cruel! New thoughts brought him to his +feet. Strongly he arose and shook himself. What, was he weakening +toward a sentiment? "Everything I've got is yours"--but Dora taken +from him! "Everything I've got is yours!"--it was! it was! and Dora +with it! Always arranged because he was Lord Burdon! His darling sold +to Rollo and bought by Rollo because Rollo was what he was! And he was +not it! He was not it! This night, this hour he should know it! + +This night? There came to him the vision of Rollo he had had when they +told him Rollo could not come to the station to meet him but begged he +would go up to him directly he arrived. He had pictured old Rollo +coming to him with eager, outstretched hands. Rollo was waiting for +him now, expecting him every moment, would so come to him if he went, +would so come to him if he waited till to-morrow; and how would look +when he spoke and told? The years ran back and answered him. There +came to him clearly as yesterday that first visit to Mr. Hannaford's +when he had been flushed with excitement and praise at riding the +little black horse and had turned to see Rollo shrinking as he stood +away, distress and tears working in his face. So he would look now. +Then he had encouraged Rollo--as all through life thereafter he had +heartened him. Now? Now he was to strike the appealing face that then +and ever had looked to him for aid.... + +How do it? How do it? Why hesitate? Why hesitate? How strike him? +Why spare him? How break him? Why let him go? Like live wild things +the questions came at him and tore him; as one in direst torment there +broke from his lips "O God, my God!": as one pursued he burst from the +room, through the parlour where Aunt Maggie stretched hands and cried +to him, out into the night where tempest raged and blackness +was--fierce as his own, black as the thoughts he sought to race. + +Out, out, as one pursued! Away, away, to shake pursuit! And caught as +he ran, screamed at as he stumbled on, by all the howling pack that +gathered strength and fury as he fled. His feet took the Down; full +the tempest struck him as he breasted it; ah, ah, more violent the +furies fought within! Thunder broke sheer above him out of heaven with +detonation like a thousand guns; he staggered at the immensity of it; +on, on, for furious more what joined in shock of battle in his brain! +A sword of lightning showed him the Ridge and seemed to shake it where +it lay. He gained the crest and turned along it and knew in his ears +old friend wind in howling mock of ha! ha! ha! to see this fruitless +race. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +ALWAYS VICTORY + +I + +He came over against Burdon Old Manor and stopped and knew himself +where he had stood with Dora three hours before. His exertions had run +him to the end of his physical strength. He sank to his knees, and +there, like vultures swooping to their stricken prey, the torments he +had raced from came at him in last assault; there had him writhing on +the sodden ground.... + +In their stress, as a hand put down to touch him where he writhed, a +sudden recollection came--himself with Japhra by the van by Fir-Tree +pool; Japhra with a lighted match cupped against his face and Japhra's +words: "Listen to me, master. Listen to me--thy type runneth hot +through life till at last it cometh to the big fight. Send me news of +that. Send only 'The Big Fight, Japhra.' I shall know the winner." +Ah, here was the Big Fight, saved for him, growing for him through +these years and now released upon him! "I shall know the winner." He +crouched lower beneath the storm, and in his inward storm buried his +fingers in the sodden turf. "I shall know the winner"--ah, God, God, +which was victory and which defeat? To win Dora, to take all that was +his and she, his darling, with it, but against Rollo to use this +hideous thing: was that victory? To lose all, all, to let his darling +go, but to spare Rollo: was victory there? Was that victory with such +a prize? his Dora won? Yes, that was victory, victory! Was that +victory at such a price, Rollo spared, his darling lost? Could he bear +to see his darling go? Endure to live and know whose son he was? +Watch Rollo with his darling and keep his secret sheathed? Was victory +there? No, no, defeat--defeat unthinkable, impossible, not to be +borne! He sprang to his feet and another thought came at him and +gripped him. Japhra again: "Get at the littleness of it--get at the +littleness of it. It will pass." Ah, easy, futile words; ah, damnable +philosophy! Was littleness here? Was littleness in this? "Remember +what endureth. Not man nor man's work--only the green things, only the +brown earth that to-day humbly supports thee, to-morrow obscurely +covers thee. Lay hold on that when aught vexeth thee; all else +passeth." + +The Big Fight had him; in its agony he cried aloud, threw up his arms +and fell again to his knees. + + +II + +So Ima found him. + +When he had burst from the house, when Aunt Maggie had followed him and +cried after him into the night, when she had returned and for a while +wrestled with fear of what she had seen in his face, she went to the +little room that was set apart for Ima and in sharp agony, in dreadful +possession of that "Mistress, beware lest thou betrayest him," had +cried "Ima, Ima, go to him! go to him!" + +And Ima, taking Aunt Maggie's hands and staring in her face, "What has +happened to him? What has happened to him? I heard him in his room +alone. I knew something had happened to him." + +The other could only say: "Go to him, Ima! Go! He must not be alone!" + +She was at once obeyed; her voice and face, and nameless dread that had +been with Ima since Percival had left the cart and while she heard him +in his room, commanded it. + +"How will you find him?" Aunt Maggie asked. + +Hatless and without covering against the storm, Ima went to the outer +door. "He will be on Plowman's Ridge," she said. "I shall find him." + +Some instinct took her along the very path that he had followed. Some +fear put her to speed. Her heart that he had silenced on Bracken Down +and that never again she had permitted him to see, carried her to him. +She ran with her skirts taken in her left hand, gipsy again in her free +and tireless action, gipsy when at the summit of the Ridge instinct +directed her without hesitancy to the right, gipsy when in the +blackness she almost ran upon him and a second time revealed him what +he was to her. + +He cried, "Ima! Why are you here?" but carried his surprise no further. + +"Percival, what has come to thee?" + +"O Ima, leave me alone! leave me alone!" + +"Ah, let me help thee!" + +He cried, "None can--none can help me! Leave me! leave me!" Almost he +struck her with his frantic arms that pressed her from him. She +nothing cared, but caught them: + +"Ah, suffer me to help thee. Look how I have come to thee. I healed +thee once." + +Her voice, and memories of her touch when he had lain sick, acted upon +him. "Hold my hands, then. I must hold something. Hold them, hold +them! O Ima, I am suffering, suffering!" + +"That is why I am come. Your hands burn in mine and tremble." + +"Kind Ima!" he said brokenly. "Kind Ima!" and put her hands to his +face. + +She caught at her breath. There came a sudden lull in the storm as +though the wind paused for words she tried to make. + +"Some one is running to us," Percival cried, and took his hands from +her; stepped where approaching feet sounded and suddenly caught one +that ran into his arms. + +"Who are you?" Then peered and then cried, "Hunt!" + +The figure that he held panted for breath. "I'm going to him--me +lord," Hunt said, and laughed with the words. + +Percival went back a step and there came to Ima's ears his breathing, +heavy as Hunt's that laboured from his run. "What do you mean?" + +Again the laugh. "I heard, me lord. Like as I heard that odd bit in +the hall at the Manor years back and never forgot it that day to this." + +"How did you hear?" + +"I come to you. I come to you hiding, knowing you'd be kind as was the +only one ever kind to me. Hid in your bedroom back of the screen, you +not being there. Saw you come in and heard--" + +His sentence was broken in the savage hands with which Percival caught +his collar and shook him. "What did you hear? What? What?" + +"Leave off of me! You're choking of me." + +"What did you hear?" + +"Y're Lord Burdon. Not him--not that--" + +He was swung from his feet by Percival's grasp. "What now? What now, +Hunt?" + +"Leave off of me! Leave off! You're killing me." + +The grip relaxed, and Hunt shook himself free, and tossed his arms. +"What now?" he echoed, and had hate and dreadful laughter in the scream +his words made. "What now! I come out for him! For him and 'er as +put me away and as I told her in the dock I'd come. Straight for 'em I +come. Straight for 'em with the police after me. Stole this for 'em +and come to give it 'em." He drew from his jacket what gleamed in his +hand as he shook it aloft. "Come to shoot 'em like dogs as used me +like dogs, the bloody tyrangs. I've got better for 'em now. They can +go free--free! turned out! turned out! chucked into the street! kicked +out! Think of 'em! Think of 'em crying and howling and beggars and +laughed at and pointed at! That's what I'm going to give 'em. Into my +hand God Almighty what casts down the oppressors and the tyrangs has +delivered 'em! That's what--ar-r-r!" + +Percival was on him and threw him. His throat was in Percival's clutch +and his hands tearing at the hands that throttled him. + +"You are not!" Percival cried. "You are not. By God, you shall not!" + +In those wild words of Hunt's and what they meant--the world's mockery; +in that vile face and what it stood for--the world's cruelty, clearly +there came to him the answer that vainly in his torment he had sought. +Rollo face this? Rollo to this be subjected? Rollo suffer ejection +from home and name? Ah, now he knew which in the big fight had been +defeat and which was victory. "Rollo! Rollo! Rollo!" he had cried, +and cried it as a curse. "Rollo! Rollo! Rollo!" now beat in his +brain and in his grinding fingers and was pulse of the old protection +throbbing for his friend that ever had been more than brother to him. + +"Percival, you are killing him!"--Ima's fingers were on his, pulling +his grip. + +"Keep away! keep away!" he cried. "I'll have his life if need be!" and +to Hunt, livid and at last gasp: "You damned devil! You damned devil! +What are you going to promise me? How am I going to bind you? What am +I going to do with you?" + +There came gaspingly: "Promise--promise--oath to it." + +He relaxed his fingers, and as Hunt drew gasping breaths, "You damned +devil!" he cried again. "You damned fool. Did you not hear talk of +proofs? Nothing in them! Nothing in them! Can you hear that?" + +He was thrown on his side, he was grappled with by one whom fear of +death gave strength, his clutch was eluded and Hunt sprang free. + +"Nothing in them! What's your murder fingers for, then? Nothing in +them--what you say 'Mother' for, then? Nothing in them--what--keep +away! Keep off of me!" He whipped from his pocket what had gleamed in +his hand. "Keep off of me! I'll fire. By God, I'll let you have it +if you come at me!" + +_An' come at him, an' come at him, an' come at him_, as of Percival in +the fight the old men say. + +Quick and straight as he had leapt at Pinsent, now quick and straight +he leapt at Hunt. Quick and straight then to win victory, now quick +and straight in victory already gained. Quick and straight he leapt; +quicker the pistol spoke; without reel or stumble he pitched to earth. + +There came a scream of hideous sound from Hunt, and screaming still he +turned and fled, screaming was answered by a shout, and screaming ran +to the hold of tall men come out of the night in his pursuit and close, +yet very late, before he screamed. + +From Ima no cry nor sound. She cast herself beside the figure that lay +there, looked in its face and had no need for word or question; pressed +her lips to his and then cried only, "Little master! ah, ah, Percival!" + +She threw herself full length upon him where full length he lay. With +her body she shielded him from the immense rain, with her arms enfolded +him, put her mouth to his. + +So she lay scarcely breathing; so she held him--hers, her own. + + +There is a hill that stands in a chain of hills where the west country +stands towards the sea. A river streams below in a great mouth that +opens to sea and a wide flood that winds along the vale. No more than +a wide ribbon it looks from the hill, and the sea no more than the +sky's reflection. Here on a day the van stood, the horse tethered, and +Japhra with his pipe watching the remote valley. He turned his eyes to +Ima, knew the thoughts that had her, and touched her where she sat +beside him on the steps. All was known to them in these days and he +spoke of it. "My daughter, art thou still questioning it? Why, this +was the happy ending such as none could make it. How had he endured to +live and overthrow his friend? How live in silence and carry those hot +embers in his breast? Nay, nay, the fight came to him--that heart of +ours--and he took up the prize. A fighter I marked him when a child he +came to us. A fighter I knew him and a winner alway. Mark me what I +told thee once when he lay with us: Though it be death, always victory. +My daughter, what more happiness is there?" + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Happy Warrior, by A. S. M. Hutchinson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAPPY WARRIOR *** + +***** This file should be named 38325-8.txt or 38325-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/3/2/38325/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/38325-8.zip b/38325-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..640b9db --- /dev/null +++ b/38325-8.zip diff --git a/38325-h.zip b/38325-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f553b75 --- /dev/null +++ b/38325-h.zip diff --git a/38325-h/38325-h.htm b/38325-h/38325-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..096d803 --- /dev/null +++ b/38325-h/38325-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,20054 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of The Happy Warrior, by A. S. M. Hutchinson +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.t1 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 200%; + text-align: center } + +P.t2 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 150%; + text-align: center } + +P.t3 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 100%; + text-align: center } + +P.t3b {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 130%; + font-weight: bold; + text-align: center } + +P.t4 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 80%; + text-align: center } + +P.t4b {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 100%; + font-weight: bold; + text-align: center } + +P.t5 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 60%; + text-align: center } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; } + +P.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.footnote {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 80%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.capcenter { margin-left: 0; + margin-right: 0 ; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + font-weight: bold; + float: none ; + clear: both ; + text-indent: 0%; + text-align: center } + +IMG.imgcenter { margin-left: auto; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-top: 1%; + margin-right: auto; } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Happy Warrior, by A. S. M. Hutchinson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Happy Warrior + +Author: A. S. M. Hutchinson + +Illustrator: Paul Julien Meylan + +Release Date: December 17, 2011 [EBook #38325] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAPPY WARRIOR *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="img-front"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT="Frontispiece" BORDER="2"> +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THE HAPPY WARRIOR +</H1> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +BY +</P> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +A. S. M. HUTCHINSON +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +AUTHOR OF "ONCE ABOARD THE LUGGER——" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +WITH FRONTISPIECE BY +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +PAUL JULIEN MEYLAN +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +TORONTO +<BR> +MCCLELLAND & GOODCHILD LIMITED +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +<I>Copyright, 1912,</I> +<BR> +BY A. S. M. HUTCHINSON. +<BR><BR> +<I>All rights reserved.</I> +<BR><BR> +First Edition Printed, December, 1912<BR> +Reprinted, January, 1913 (three times)<BR> +February, 1913 (three times)<BR> +Reprinted, March, 1913<BR> +<BR><BR><BR> +Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Cushing Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. +<BR> +Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he<BR> +That every man in arms should wish to be?<BR> +—It is the generous spirit, who,...<BR> +Come when it will, is equal to the need...<BR> +Who, with a toward or untoward lot,<BR> +Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not—<BR> +Plays, in the many games of life, that one<BR> +Where what he most doth value must be won:<BR> +Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,<BR> +Nor thought of tender happiness betray.<BR> + —WORDSWORTH.<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +CONTENTS +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +BOOK ONE +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +<I>A NICE, SHORT BOOK, ILLUSTRATING THE<BR>ELEMENTS OF CHANCE</I> +</P> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%">CHAPTER</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0101">A PAGE OF THE PEERAGE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0102">A CHANGE IN THE PEERAGE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0103">INTO THE PEERAGE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0104">A FORETASTE OF THE PEERAGE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0105">MISREADING A PEERESS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0106">MISCALCULATING A PEER</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +BOOK TWO +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +<I>A BOOK OF THE SAME SIZE, ILLUSTRATING THE ELEMENT OF FOLLY</I> +</P> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0201">LOVE TRIMS WRECKERS' LAMPS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0202">LOVE LEADS AN EXPEDITION INTO THE UNFORESEEN</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0203">A LOVERS' LITANY</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0204">WHAT THE TOOO-FIRTY WINNER BROUGHT MRS. ERPS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0205">WHAT AUDREY BROUGHT LADY BURDON</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0206">ARRIVAL OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0207">ENLISTMENT OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +BOOK THREE +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +<I>BOOK OF THE HAPPY, HAPPY TIME. THE ELEMENT OF YOUTH</I> +</P> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0301">PERCIVAL HAS A PEEP AT THE 'NORMOUS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0302">FOLLOWS A FROG AND FINDS A TADPOLE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0303">LADY BURDON COMES TO "POST OFFIC"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0304">LITTLE 'ORSES AND LITTLE STU-PIDS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0305">THE WORLD AS SHOWMAN: ALL THE JOLLY FUN</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0306">JAPHRA AND IMA AND SNOW-WHITE-AND-ROSE-RED</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0307">BURDON HOUSE LEASED: THE OLD MANOR OCCUPIED</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +BOOK FOUR +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +<I>BOOK OF STORMS AND OF THREATENING STORM. THE ELEMENT OF LOVE</I> +</P> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0401">PLANS AND DREAMS AND PROMISES</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0402">FEARS AND VISIONS AND DISCOVERIES</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0403">A FRIEND UNCHANGED—AND A FRIEND GROWN</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0404">IMA'S LESSONS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0405">JAPHRA'S LESSONS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0406">WITH IMA ON PLOWMAN'S RIDGE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0407">ALONE ON PLOWMAN'S RIDGE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0408">WITH DORA IN THE DRIVE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0409">WITH AUNT MAGGIE IN FAREWELL</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0410">WITH EGBERT IN FREEDOM</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0411">WITH JAPHRA ON THE ROAD</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0412">LETTERS OF RECALL</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0413">MR. AMBER DOES NOT RECOGNISE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0414">DORA REMEMBERS</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +BOOK FIVE +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +<I>BOOK OF FIGHTS AND OF THE BIG FIGHT. THE ELEMENT OF COURAGE</I> +</P> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0501">BOSS MADDOX SHOWS HIS HAND</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0502">IMA SHOWS HER HEART</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0503">PERCIVAL SHOWS HIS FISTS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0504">FOXY PINSENT <I>v.</I> JAPHRA'S GENTLEMAN</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0505">A FIGHT THAT IS TOLD</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0506">THE STICKS COME OUT—AND A KNIFE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0507">JAPHRA AND IMA. JAPHRA AND AUNT MAGGIE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0508">A COLD 'UN FOR EGBERT HUNT. ROUGH 'UNS FOR PERCIVAL</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0509">ONE COMES OVER THE RIDGE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0510">TWO RIDE TOGETHER</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0511">NEWS OF HUNT. NEWS OF ROLLO. NEWS OF DORA</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0512">PRELUDE TO THE BIG FIGHT</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0513">THE BIG FIGHT OPENS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0514">ALWAYS VICTORY</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0101"></A> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THE HAPPY WARRIOR +</H1> + +<BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK ONE +</H2> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +A NICE, SHORT BOOK, ILLUSTRATING +<BR> +THE ELEMENTS OF CHANCE +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +A PAGE OF THE PEERAGE +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +This life we stumble through, or strut through, or through which we +creep and whine, or through which we dance and whistle, is built upon +hazard—and that is why it is such a very wobbling affair, made up of +tricks and chances; hence its miseries, but hence also its spice; hence +its tragedies, and hence also its romance. A dog I know—illustrating +the point—passed from its gate into the village street one morning, +and merely to ease the itch of a momentary fit of temper, or merely to +indulge a prankish whim, put a firm bite into a plump leg. Mark, now, +the hazard foundation of this chancey life. A dozen commonplace legs +were offered the dog; it might have tasted the lot and procured no more +pother than the passing of a few shillings, the solatium of a pair of +trousers or so. One leg was as good as another to the dog; yet it +chanced upon the vicar's (whose back was turned), enjoyed its bite, +jerked from the devout but startled man an amazingly coarse expression, +and hence arose alarums and excursions, a village set by the ears, +family feuds, a budding betrothal crushed by parental strife (one party +owning the dog and the other calling the vicar Father) and the genesis +of a dead set against the vicar's curate (who hit at the dog and struck +the priest) that ended in the unfortunate young man having to leave the +village. +</P> + +<P> +But all that is by the way, and is only offered to your notice because +commonplace examples are usually the most striking illustrations. It +is introduced to excuse the starting of this story with its least and +worst character. He figures but occasionally on these pages; yet by +this chance and by that he comes to play a vital part as the story +draws to an end; he comes, in fact, to close it: and therefore, out of +his place, he shall be the first to occupy your attention. +</P> + +<P> +Egbert Hunt his name. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +Miller's Field, Hertfordshire, an outer suburb of London and within the +cockney twang, was put into a proper commotion by the news that had +brought a title into its midst—had left a peerage as casually as the +morning milk at its desirable residence "Hillside," where Mr. and Mrs. +Letham (Lord and Lady Burdon as suddenly and completely as Monday +becomes Tuesday) made their home. The commotion chattered and clacked +in every household and in every chance meeting in the streets; but it +swirled most violently about Hillside and in Hillside, and its +brunt—if his own statement may be accepted—pressed most heavily upon +Egbert Hunt. +</P> + +<P> +Egbert, morose, a pallid and stoutish boy of fourteen years, +constituted the male staff at Hillside. This boy toiled sullenly at a +diversity of tasks, knives, boots, coals, windows: any soul-corroding +duties of such character, throughout the earlier hours of the day. In +the afternoon he fitted himself into a tight page-boy's suit that had +been procured through the advertisement columns of the "Lady," and +that, on the very day of its arrival, had been shorn of much of the +glory it first possessed in Egbert's eyes. +</P> + +<P> +Sunning himself proudly down the village street, the lad had been +greeted with a howl of "Marbles!" by the ribald companions he thought +to impress. +</P> + +<P> +"Marbles! They're buttons, yer silly toads!" the indignant Egbert had +cried. +</P> + +<P> +"Wot O! Marbles!" they jeered, and two of the round silver buttons +were wrenched off in the distressing affair that followed. +</P> + +<P> +Egbert carried them home in his pocket. The incident augmented the +hostile and suspicious air with which, from his childhood upwards, he +regarded the world. For this attitude the accident attending his birth +was primarily responsible. When he presented this morose disposition +to his mother's friends, Mrs. Hunt, in her softer moods, would instruct +them that his sourness—as she termed it—was due to the sudden and +unexpected discharge of a cannon during her visit to a circus, when +Egbert was but eight months on the road to this vale of tears. The +cannon had hastened his arrival (she never knew, so she said, how she +managed to get home) and the abruptness, she was convinced, was +responsible for his glum demeanor. By a dark process of reasoning, +wherein were combined retribution to the clown who had fired the cannon +and recompense to the child it had unduly impelled into the world, she +had named the boy Egbert, this being the title by which the clown was +announced on the circus programme. +</P> + +<P> +The story became a popular joke against the lad; to shout "Bang!" at +Egbert from behind concealment became a favourite sport of his grosser +companions. It rankled him sorely. For one so young he was +unnaturally embittered; his digestion, moreover, was defective. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +Upon the evening of the day on which his employers, Mr. and Mrs. +Letham, had been miraculously elevated to the style and title of Lord +and Lady Burdon, Egbert's hostility towards the world was at its +height. From half-past three onwards, callers followed one another, or +passed one another, over the Hillside threshold. Egbert was +bone-tired. It was close upon seven when kindly Mrs. Archer, the +doctor's wife, addressing him as he showed her out, inquired in her +gentle way after his mother and passed down the path with a "Well, good +night, Egbert!" +</P> + +<P> +"Good night, mum," Egbert muttered. He added in a lower but more +devout key, "An' I yope ter Gawd yer the last of um." +</P> + +<P> +The cool air invited him to the gate and he leaned wearily over it, his +bitterness of spirit increased by a boy who, spying him, cried, "Bang!" +as he passed, "Bang!" in retort to Egbert's tongue thrust out in hatred +and contempt across the gate, and "Bang! bang!" again, as the gathering +evening took him in her trailing cloak. +</P> + +<P> +Egbert drew in his tongue with a groan of misery and hate, of +indigestion and of weariness. An approaching footstep along the road +caused him to thrust it out again and to keep it extended, armed lest +the newcomer should be one of the bangers who irked his young life. +</P> + +<P> +It chanced to be his father, returning from work in the fields. Mr. +Hunt paused opposite his son and gazed for a few moments at the +outstretched tongue. At some pain to himself Egbert pressed it to +further extension: the boy was a little short-sighted and in the gloom +did not recognise his parent. +</P> + +<P> +"Tongue sore?" Mr. Hunt inquired, after a space. +</P> + +<P> +Recognising the voice, Egbert restored the member to his mouth. +</P> + +<P> +"Comes of tellin' a lie, so I've 'eard," said Mr. Hunt. +</P> + +<P> +Considerable sympathy was in his tone; but Egbert gave no more +attention to this view of retributive justice than he had vouchsafed to +the question preceding it. +</P> + +<P> +Father and son—neither greatly given to words when together—continued +to regard each other solemnly across the gate. Presently Egbert jerked +his head back at the house. "Heard about it?" he inquired. +</P> + +<P> +The news had long since permeated the village. Mr. Hunt said, "Ah!" +and taking a step forward, gazed earnestly at the house, first on one +side of Egbert's head and then on the other. His air was that of a man +who, the inmates suddenly having reached the peerage, rather expected +to see a coronet suspended from the roof or a scarlet robe fluttering +from a window; and as he stepped back he said, "Ah!" again, in a tone +that committed him, as a result of his observations, neither to +complete surprise nor complete satisfaction. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" said Mr. Hunt, and shifted the spade he carried from his left +hand to his right and waited. +</P> + +<P> +"Goin' to take me with 'em when they move to the 'Ouse o' Lords," +Egbert announced. "Told me so, dinner time." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hunt put the spade before him, and leaning on it gazed profoundly +at his son. "Ah! You'll wear one of them wing things side of yer 'at, +that's what you'll wear," he informed him. "Tall 'at." +</P> + +<P> +"Cockatoos they call um, don't they?" Egbert inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"That's right. Side of yer 'at," his father replied. "Tall 'at." +</P> + +<P> +Egbert appeared to ponder gloomily on the prospect. It was the habit +of this boy's sombre mind to suspect a hidden indignity in each change +thrust into his life. Seeking it in the cockatoos, he presently found +it. +</P> + +<P> +"Make me a Guy-forx again, I suppose," he said. "Same as these 'ere +buttons." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hunt took a step forward, and peering over the gate gazed down at +his son's buttons with considerable concern. +</P> + +<P> +The inspection finished, "Different in the 'Ouse o' Lords," he +consoled. "Expec' they'll all wear them wing things side of their 'ats +there. Call 'em same as they call you, that's what you can do. Tall +'ats." +</P> + +<P> +But this boy's pessimism was incurable. "I'll have the biggest, you'll +find," Egbert responded. "Else they'll give me two an' make a Guy-forx +of me that way." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hunt mentally visualised cockades the size of albatross wings on +each side of his son's hat. The picture made him unable to deny the +slightly outré effect that would be produced, and he began to move away. +</P> + +<P> +"Comin' in to see your mother to-night, I suppose?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +Egbert grunted. +</P> + +<P> +"Tongue still sore?" +</P> + +<P> +"Boilin'," said Egbert, and turning from the gate moved moodily towards +the house. +</P> + +<P> +At nine o'clock, following his usual Tuesday night privilege, he betook +himself down the village street to his parents' cottage. A further +word or two dropped by his mistress joined with kitchen gossip during +supper to enable him to supply something of the information for which +he found his mother impatiently waiting. +</P> + +<P> +"So you're goin' with 'em, I hear?" she greeted him. +</P> + +<P> +Egbert nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"Think you was goin' to prising, 'stead of to a lord's castle, one +would, judgin' by your face," Mrs. Hunt exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +"Goin' to wear one o' them wing things side of his 'at, that's what +he's goin' to wear," announced her husband. "Tall 'at." +</P> + +<P> +"An' oughter be proud," cried Mrs. Hunt. "Hold yer yed up, Sulky, do!" +</P> + +<P> +Sulky gave a stiff jerk to his bullet head. "Not goin' to the 'Ouse o' +Lords, after all," he answered his father. +</P> + +<P> +"'Ouse o' Lords! 'Ouse o' nonsense!" Mrs. Hunt exclaimed. "Goin' to +live in a castle, that's where you're goin' to live, young man. Down +in Wiltsheer; the cook told me all about it when I popped round this +afternoon." +</P> + +<P> +"Goin' to wear one o' them wing things side of 'is 'at, that's what +he's goin' to wear," pronounced Mr. Hunt doggedly. "Tall 'at. Tall +'at," he reaffirmed; but "In a castle!" Mrs. Hunt continued, heedless +of the interruption. "Burdon Old Manor, they call it, at a place +called Little Letham, which Letham is the family name of the family, +they giving their name to it as is very often the case, and a proper +castle it is, too, though called a Manor." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Hunt foamed out this information with a heat that increased as she +perceived the morose indifference with which Egbert accepted it. +Throwing herself into the third person, "Don't you 'ear what your +mother is a telling of you, Sulk?" she demanded. Her eye caught on the +wall behind Sulk's head a coloured presentation calendar depicting +Lambert Simnel at scullion's work in an enormous kitchen, and she took +inspiration. "A proper castle, your mother's telling you, where you'll +have scullings in the kitchen; that's what you'll 'ave, you nasty sulk, +you! Can't you say something?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll sculling 'em!" breathed Egbert, yielding to her request. He +scented in this new form of acquaintance some fresh trial and +indignity. "I'll sculling 'em!" he repeated. +</P> + +<P> +His fierce intention earned him at once, and earned him full, the thump +upon his head that his mother's excitement and his own gloom had been +conspiring to inflict ever since he entered the cottage; and he trudged +his way back to Hillside viciously embittered against every point of an +aching day: his mistress, her visitors, the approaching change in his +life, his mother, the "scullings." "Tyrangs!" said Egbert. He +stumbled over a stone as he pronounced the savage word and bit his +tongue most painfully. "Boil yer," said Egbert to the stone; and, +including the stone with the "tyrangs," as wearily he got him to bed, +"Boil um!" he said. "Tyrangs! Toads!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0102"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +A CHANGE IN THE PEERAGE +</P> + +<P> +This hazard foundation of life! As a stone tossed down a hillside +dislodges others and sets them rolling, themselves dislodging more till +the first light pitch will gather to a rumble where was peace, the +first stone cause to jump and shout many score that might have held +their place long after the thrower's idle hand was equal dust with the +dust of their descent—so it is with the lightest action that the least +of us may idly toss upon our small affairs. We cannot move alone. +Life has us in a web, within whose meshes none may stir a hand but he +pulls here, loosens there, and sets a wave of movement through a +hundred tangles of the coil. +</P> + +<P> +This hazard foundation of life! Egbert Hunt was made to lean wearily +over the gate that evening and the toads and "tyrangs" whose oppression +had cost him a bitter day were set in his path by a movement in the +web, leagues upon leagues of land and sea from Miller's Field. Life +has us in a web. In one remote corner an Afridi tribesman shot a +British officer: that was his movement in the meshes, and swift, swift, +the chain of tugs set up thereby acted upon a morose page-boy in +another remote corner, rendering him bone-tired through ushering the +visitors come to congratulate those who had stepped into the dead man's +shoes. +</P> + +<P> +This hazard touch even in the billet that the Afridi tribesman selected +for his bullet! In sheeting rain, behind a rock above a pass on the +northwestern frontier of India, Multan Khan—Afridi, one-time sepoy, +deserter from his regiment, scoundrel, first-class shot—snuggled his +cheek against his stolen rifle, hesitated for a moment between the +heads of three British officers, drew a line on one, pressed the +trigger; and, while he chuckled over his success, himself pitched dead +with a bullet through the incautious skull he had craned over the rock +the better to enjoy the fruits of his skill. +</P> + +<P> +Brief his pleasure but lusty the tug he had given the web. The news of +it reached London just in time to catch the final edition of the +evening papers as they went to press, just in time to supply a good +contents-bill for an uncommonly dull night. +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +PEER<BR> +KILLED IN<BR> +FRONTIER<BR> +FIGHTING<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +went flaming down the streets, substantiated in the news columns by a +brief message announcing Lord Burdon's name among the casualties of a +brisk little engagement in the Frontier Campaign. +</P> + +<P> +The morning papers did better with it, particularly that which Egbert +Hunt took in from the doorstep of Hillside. This paper's "Own +Correspondent" with the British force, eluding vigilance, had enjoyed +the fortune of getting among the party detailed for clearing the rocks +whence Multan Khan and his friends had made themselves surprisingly +unpleasant; and his long despatch, well handled in Fleet Street, +bravely headlined above: +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +Gallant Young Peer<BR> +Lord Burdon Killed in Sharp Frontier Engagement<BR> +Leads Dashing Charge<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +and nicely rounded off below with a paragraph written up from "cuttings +about Lord Burdon" in the newspaper's library, was distributed far and +wide on the morrow. The journalists dished it up, the presses hammered +it out, the carts, the trains, and the boys galloped it broadcast over +the country. To some it fetched tragedy (as we shall see); to others +idle interest; to Egbert Hunt a bone-aching day and cruel indignities +(as have been shown); to Mrs. Letham bewildering excitement. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0103"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +INTO THE PEERAGE +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +It made Mrs. Letham very excited. Mrs. Letham, coming upon it as she +idly turned over the newspaper at her breakfast, took a bang at the +heart that for the moment made the print difficult to read. +Recovering, she read it through, her pulses drumming, her breath +catching, her hands shaking so that the paper rustled a little between +them. She half rose from her seat, then read again. She read a third +time and now pursued the lines to that subjoined paragraph written up +from the "cuttings about Lord Burdon." +</P> + +<P> +"Lord Burdon, the twelfth Baron, was attached to the staff of General +Sir Wryford Sheringham, commanding the expeditionary force. He was a +lieutenant in the 30th Hussars and left England in October last with +General Sheringham when the latter went out to take command. Lord +Burdon, who only attained his majority in April last, was unmarried. +This is the first time since the creation of the Barony in 1660 that +the title has not passed directly from holder to eldest son; and about +Little Letham, Wilts, where is Burdon Old Manor, the family seat, the +expressions "Safe as a Burdon till he's got his heir," and "Safe as a +Burdon heir" have passed into the common parlance of the countryside. +The successor is of a very remote branch—Mr. Maurice Redpath Letham, +whose paternal great-grandfather was the eighth baron. It will be +noticed as a most singular event that the first break in a direct +succession extending over two hundred years should cause the new heir +to be found in the line of no fewer than four generations ago of his +house." +</P> + +<P> +When Mrs. Letham presently arose, she arose suddenly as if she forced +herself to move against spells that numbed her movements. She arose, +the paper clutched between her hands, and for a space she stood with a +dizzy air, as if her thoughts reeled in a giddy maze and perplexed her +actions. A jostle of visions—half caught, bewildering glimpses of +what this thing meant to her—spun through her brain, the mind shaping +them quicker than the mental eye could distinguish them, as one +half-stunned by a blow, dizzy between its violence and the onward +pressure of events. She put a hand for support upon the table before +her and felt, but did not think to end, the unpleasant shrinking of her +flesh communicated by her fingers scraping the wood where they bunched +the cloth beneath them. +</P> + +<P> +She was Lady Burdon...! +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +With that amazement singing in her ears, and recovered from the first +effects of her bewilderment, she went quickly to the door and excitedly +up the stairs. She was thirty-five; they called her pretty; and +certainly she made an attractive presence as she came to the threshold +of the room where she sought her husband. Her entry was abrupt: a +quick jerk on the door handle, the door wide open and she with a sudden +movement standing there, tense, animated, a flush on her cheeks, +sparkle in her eyes, and a high, glad, strange note in the "Maurice!" +that she cried. "Maurice!" +</P> + +<P> +"Con-found!" came the answer. "Conster-<I>nation</I>!" and illustrating the +reason of the words, a fleck of blood came through the snowy lather on +a chin in process of being shaved. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Letham—portly; forty; pleasant of countenance in a loose-lipped, +good-natured fashion; in a shirt and trousers before the looking-glass; +pain on face; finger firmly on the blood stain; razor in the other +hand—Mr. Letham peered short-sightedly into the mirror, made a very +squeamish stroke with the razor in the vicinity of the wound, and, +quickly over his concern, pleasantly addressed his wife. +</P> + +<P> +"'Morning, old girl. I say, you made me jump. Am I so fearfully late? +What's for breakfast?" +</P> + +<P> +He did not turn to face her. Viewed from behind, half-hitched trousers +and bulging shirt, he had a lumpish appearance, and it was the more +inelegant for the contortions of his arms and shoulders, characteristic +of a clumsy shaver. +</P> + +<P> +The spectacle caused Mrs. Letham a pucker of the brows that marred her +rosy animation. She said, "Maurice! Do turn round! I've something to +tell you." +</P> + +<P> +"M-m-m," murmured Mr. Letham, at very ticklish work with the razor. +</P> + +<P> +"Maurice!" +</P> + +<P> +"M-m-m—M-m-m. Beastly rude, I know. Half-a-second, old girl. This +is a most infernal job—" +</P> + +<P> +She interrupted him, "Oh, listen! Listen! In this paper here—" Her +voice caught. "In this paper—you are Lord Burdon!" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Letham, signalling amusement as best he was able, gave a kind of +wriggle of his back, held his breath while he made another stroke with +the razor, and expired the breath with: "Well, I'll buy a new razor +then, hanged if I won't. This infernal thing—" and he bent towards +the glass, peering at the reflection of the skin he had cleared. +</P> + +<P> +The door behind him slammed violently, and then for the first time he +turned. He had thought her gone—angry, as she was often angry, at his +mild joking. Instead he saw her standing there, one hand behind her in +the action with which she had swung-to the door, the other clutching +the newspaper all rumpled up against her bosom; and there was that in +her face, in her eyes, and in the tremble of her parted lips that made +him change the easy, tolerant smile and the light banter with which he +turned to her. "Only my silly fun, Nelly," he began. "What is it? +Some howler in the newspaper? Let's have a—" Then appreciated the +pose, the eyes, the parted lips; and changed nervously to: "Eh? Eh? +What is it? What's up?" +</P> + +<P> +She broke out: "Your fun! Will you only listen! It's true—true what +I tell you! You are Lord Burdon." Angry and incoherent she became, +for her husband blinked at her, and looked untidy and looked doltish. +"He's unmarried. I was trying only the other day to interest you in +what that meant. When his uncle died last August I spoke to you about +it—" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Letham, blinking, more untidy, more doltish: "Who's unmarried?" +</P> + +<P> +And she cried at him: "Young Lord Burdon! Young Lord Burdon is dead! +He's been killed in the fighting in India—" +</P> + +<P> +She stopped. She had moved him at last. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Letham laid down his razor—slowly, letting the handle slip +noiselessly from his fingers to the dressing-table. Slowly also he +lifted his face towards his wife, and she saw his mild forehead all +puckered, his eyes dimmed with a bemused air, his loose mouth parted: +she particularly saw the comical aspect given to his perturbation by +its setting of little patches of soap with the little trickle of red at +the chin. +</P> + +<P> +He put out a hand for the paper and made a slow step towards her. +"Eh?" he said—a kind of bleat, it sounded to her. +</P> + +<P> +"No! Listen!" she told him. "Listen to this at the end of the +account," and she spread the sheet in her hands. A little difficult to +find the place ... a little difficult to control her voice.... +"Listen!" and she found and read aloud, in jerky sentences, the +paragraph that had been made out of "cuttings about Lord Burdon." +</P> + +<P> +Almost in a whisper the vital clause "<I>...the successor is of a very +remote branch—Mr. Maurice Redpath Letham, whose paternal +great-grandfather was the eighth baron....</I>" +</P> + +<P> +And in a whisper, dizzy again with the amazement of it: "Maurice! Do +you realise?" +</P> + +<P> +His turn for bewilderment. He ignored her appeal. He did not heed her +agitation. He took the paper from her and she read that in his +eyes—preoccupation with some idea outside her range—that caused her +own to harden. She crossed and stood against the bed rail, and she +eyed him with narrowing gaze as he read Our Own Correspondent's +despatch. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor young beggar!" he murmured, following the story. "Poor, plucky +young beggar!" +</P> + +<P> +She just watched his face, comical with its dabs of drying soap, +reddening a little, eyelids blinking. She watched him reach the fold +of the paper, ignore the paragraph relating to himself, and turn again +to Our Own Correspondent's account. "Poor—poor, plucky young beggar!" +he repeated. +</P> + +<P> +She gave a little catch at her breath. He exasperated +her—exasperated! Here was the most amazing fortune suddenly theirs, +and he was blind to it! Often Mrs. Letham flamed against her husband +those outbursts of almost ungovernable exasperation that a dull +intelligence, fumbling with an idea, arouses in the quick-witted. They +are the more violent, these outbursts, if the stupid fumbling, fumbling +with some moral issue, conveys a reproach to the quicker wit. She was +made to feel such a reproach by that reiterated "Poor young beggar! +Poor, plucky young beggar!" It intensified the outbreak of +exasperation that threatened her; and she told herself the reproach was +unmerited, and that intensified her anger more. It was nothing to her +and less than nothing, this boy's death; but she had rushed up to her +husband the better to enjoy her natural joy by sharing it with him, and +ready, if he had met her excitement, to compassionate the fate of young +Lord Burdon. He greeted her, instead, only with "Poor young beggar! +Poor, plucky young beggar!" She caught her breath. Exasperation +surged like a live thing within her. If he said it again! If he said +it again, she would break out! She could not bear it! She would dash +the paper from his hands. She would cry in his startled face—his +doltish face: "What! What! What! What! Don't you see? Don't you +understand? Lord Burdon! Lady Burdon! Are you a fool? Are you an +utter, utter fool?" +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +He opened his lips and she trembled. It is natural to judge her +harshly, natural to misjudge her, to consider her incredibly snobbish, +cruel, common. She was none of these. Given time, given warning, she +would have received her great news, received her husband's reception of +it, gently and kindly. But life pays us no consideration of that kind. +Events come upon us not as the night merges from the day, but as +highway robbers clutch at and grapple with us before we can free our +weapons. +</P> + +<P> +Happily, for the first time since he had taken the paper, Mr. Letham +seemed to remember her. He glanced up, flushed, damp in the eyes, +stupidly droll with the dabs of drying soap: "I say, Nellie, did you +read this: +</P> + +<P> +"<I>The boy—he was absolutely no more than a boy—poked this way and +that on the little ridge we had gained, trying, whimpering just like a +keen terrier at a thick hedge, to find a way up through the rocks and +thorns above us. We were a dozen yards behind him, blowing and +cursing. 'Damn it! we've taken a bad miss in balk on this line!' he +cried, turning round at us, laughing. Next moment he had struck an +opening and was scrambling, on hands and knees. 'This way, +Sergeant-major!' he shouted....</I>" +</P> + +<P> +Portly Mr. Letham, carried away by the grip of the thing, drew himself +up and squared his shoulders. He repeated "'This way, +Sergeant-major!'" and stuck, and stopped, and swallowed, and turned +shining eyes on his wife (she stood there brooding at him) and +exclaimed: "Can't you imagine it, Nellie? Listen: '<I>This way, +Sergeant-major!' he shouted, jumped on his feet, gave a hand to his +sergeant; cried 'Come on! Come on! Whoop! Forward! Forward!' and +then staggered, twisted a bit on his toes, dropped. I saw another +officer-boy jump up to him with 'Burdon! Burdon, old buck, have you +got it?'...</I>" +</P> + +<P> +Portly Mr. Letham's voice cracked off into a high squeak, and he +lowered the paper and said huskily: "I say, Nellie, eh? I say, Nellie, +though? That's the stuff, eh? Poor boy! Brave boy!" +</P> + +<P> +With unseeing eyes he blinked a moment at his wife's face. Brooding, +she watched him. Then he turned to the washstand and began to remove +the signs of shaving from his cheeks, holding the sponge scarcely above +the water as he squeezed it out, as though a noise were unseemly in the +presence of the scene his thoughts pictured. +</P> + +<P> +And she just stood there, that brooding look upon her face. Ah! again! +He was off again! +</P> + +<P> +"And his grandmother," Mr. Letham said, wiping his face in a towel, +sniffing a little, paying particular attention to the drying of his +eyes. "I say, Nellie, his poor grandmother, eh? How she will be +suffering! Think of her picking up her paper and reading that! ... +Only saw him once," he mumbled on, brushing his thin hair. "Took him +across town when he was going home for his first holidays from Eton. +Remember it like yesterday. I remember—" +</P> + +<P> +It was the end of her endurance; she could stand no more of it. "Oh, +Maurice!" she broke out; "oh, Maurice, for goodness' sake!" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Letham turned to her in a puzzled way. He held a hair brush in +either hand at the level of his ears and stared at her from between +them: "Why, Nellie—" he began; "what—what's up, old girl?" +</P> + +<P> +She struck her hands sharply together. "Oh, you go on, you go on, you +go on!" she cried. "You make me—don't you understand? Can't you +understand? I thought that when I brought you this news you'd be as +excited as I was. Instead—instead—" She broke off and changed her +tone. "Oh, do go on brushing your hair. For goodness' sake don't +stand staring at me like that!" +</P> + +<P> +He obeyed in his slowish way. "Well, upon my soul, I don't quite +understand, old girl," he said perplexedly. +</P> + +<P> +"That's what I'm telling you," she cried sharply and suddenly. "You +don't. You go on, you go on!" +</P> + +<P> +He seemed to be puzzling over that. His silence made her break out +with the hard words of her meaning. "Do you really not understand?" +she broke out. "Do you go on like that just to irritate me? I believe +you do." She gave her vexed laugh again. "I don't know what to +believe. It's ridiculous—ridiculous you should be so different from +everybody else. It means to me, this news, just this: that it makes +you Lord Burdon. Can't you realise? Can't you share my feelings?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" he said, as if at last he understood, and said no more. +</P> + +<P> +"How can I work up sympathy for people I have never seen?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +He did not answer her—brushed his hair very slowly. +</P> + +<P> +"Nobody can say I should. Anybody in my place would feel as I feel." +</P> + +<P> +Still no reply, and that annoyed her beyond measure, forced her to say +more than she meant. +</P> + +<P> +"What are they to me, these Burdons?" +</P> + +<P> +"They're my family, old girl," Mr. Letham ventured. +</P> + +<P> +She did not wish to say it but she said it; he goaded her. "You've +never troubled to make them mine," she cried. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Letham had done with his hair. He struggled a collar around his +stout neck, examined what injury his finger nails had suffered in the +process, and set to work on his tie. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +V +</P> + +<P> +For a few minutes Mrs. Letham frowned at the solid, untidy back turned +towards her—the lumped shoulders, the heavy neck, the bulges of shirt +sticking out between the braces. She gave a little laugh then—useless +to be vexed. "You've never quarrelled with any one in your life, have +you, Maurice?" she said; and with a touch in which kindliness struggled +with impatience, she jerked down the bulging shirt, straightened a +twisted brace, said, "Let me!" and by a deft twist or two gave Mr. +Letham a neater tie than ever he had made himself. "There! That's +better! Have you?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +He told her smiling: "Not with you, anyway, Nellie." Little attentions +like these were rare, and he liked them. In his weak and amiable way +he patted the hand that rested for a moment on his shoulder, and he +explained. "You're quite right, of course, old girl. Of course I +realise what it means to you and I ought to have shared it with you at +once. I'm sorry—sorry, Nellie. Just like me. And about never making +them your family. I know you're right there. But you don't really +mean that—don't mean I've done it intentionally. You know—I've often +told you—we were miles apart, my branch and theirs; you do see that, +don't you, old girl? A different branch—another crowd altogether. I +don't suppose you've ever even heard of the relations who stand the +same to you as I stand to the Burdons. All the time we've been +married, long before that even, I've never had anything to do with +'em." He smiled affectionately at her. "That's all right, isn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +She was getting impatient that he ran on so. "Of course, of course," +she said indifferently. "I never meant to say that." And then: "Oh, +Maurice, but do—do—do think what I'm feeling." She entwined her +fingers about his arms and looked caressingly up at him. "Have you +thought what it means to us, Maurice?" +</P> + +<P> +He liked that. He liked the "us" from her lips. His normal +disposition returned to him; he smiled whimsically at her. "'Pon my +soul, I haven't," he said; and added, smiling more, "it's a big order. +By Gad, it's a big order, Nellie." +</P> + +<P> +She clapped her hands in her excitement and stood away from him, her +eyes sparkling. "Maurice! Lord Burdon! Fancy!" +</P> + +<P> +"It'll be a nuisance, I shouldn't wonder," he grimaced. +</P> + +<P> +She laughed delightedly. "Oh, that's just like you to think that! A +nuisance! Maurice! Think of it! Lady Burdon—me! It's a dream, +isn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's a bit of a startler," he agreed, smiling tolerantly down upon her +excitement. +</P> + +<P> +She laughed aloud. "But fancy you a lord!" and she looked at him, +holding him by both his arms and laughed again. "A startler! A +nuisance! What a—what a <I>person</I> you are, Maurice! Fancy you a lord! +You'll have to—you'll have to <I>buck up</I>, Maurice!" +</P> + +<P> +He turned away for a moment, occupying himself in fumbling in a drawer. +When he turned again to her, his face had the tail of a grimace that +she thought expressive of how repugnant to him was the mere thought of +any change in his life. "Well, there's one thing," he said. "It won't +be for long;" and he tapped his heart, that doctors had condemned. +</P> + +<P> +She knew that was only his characteristic way of joking, but a flicker +of irritation shadowed her face. She hated reference to what had often +been a spoil-sport cry of "Wolf! Wolf!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that's absurd!" she cried. "That's nonsense; you know it is. +Those doctors! Make haste and dress and come down. Make haste! Make +haste! I want to talk all about it. I want you to tell me—heaps of +things: what will happen, how it will happen. Now, do make haste. +I'll run down now and see to Baby." She had danced away towards the +door; now turned again, a laugh on her face. "Baby! What is he now, +Maurice?" +</P> + +<P> +"Still a baby, I expect you'll find, though I have been nearly an hour +dressing." +</P> + +<P> +For once she laughed delightedly at his mild absurdity; just now her +world answered with a laugh wherever she touched a chord. "His title, +I mean. An honourable, isn't it—the son of a peer? The Honourable +Rollo Letham! I must tell him!" She laughed again, moved lightly to +the door and went humming down the stairs. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Letham waited till the sound had passed. When the slam of a +distant door announced the unlikelihood of her return, he dropped +rather heavily into a chair and put his hand against the heart he had +playfully tapped. "Confound!" said Mr. Letham, breathing hard. +"Conster-<I>nation</I> and damn the thing. Like a sword, that one. Like a +twisting sword!" +</P> + +<P> +For the new Lady Burdon had been wrong in estimating any humour in the +grimace with which he had looked at her after turning away, while she +told him he must <I>buck up</I>. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0104"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +A FORETASTE OF THE PEERAGE +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +A worrying morning foreshadowed—or might have foreshadowed—to Egbert +Hunt the strain and distress of the afternoon whose effect upon him we +have seen. Normally his master was closeted in the study with the +three young men who read with him for University examinations; his +mistress engaged first in her household duties, then in her customary +run on her bicycle before lunch; shopping, taking some flowers to the +cottage hospital, exchanging the magazines for which her circle +subscribed. These occupations of master and mistress enabled Egbert to +evade with nice calculation the tasks that fell to him. This morning +the household, as he expressed it, was "all of a boilin' jump," whereby +he was vastly incommoded, being much harried. The three young men +thoughtfully denied themselves the intellectual delights of their usual +labours with Mr. Letham. "Lucky dawgs," said Egbert bitterly, hiding +in the bathroom and watching them from the window meet down the road, +confer, laugh, and skim off on their bicycles; his mistress—writing +letters, talking excitedly with her husband—did everything except +settle to any particular task. The result was to keep Egbert +ceaselessly upon "the 'op," and he resented it utterly. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +With the afternoon the visitors; the satisfying at last of the +excitement that had thrilled Miller's Field to the marrow since the +newspapers were opened. +</P> + +<P> +A little difficult, the good ladies thought it, to know exactly what to +say. +</P> + +<P> +Some, on greeting Mrs. Letham, boldly plumped: "My dear, I <I>do</I> +congratulate you!" At the other extreme of tact in grasping a novel +situation, those who cleverly began, "My dear, I saw it in the 'Morning +Post'!" a wary opening that enabled one to model sentiments on the lead +given in reply. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear, I <I>do</I> congratulate you!" "My dear, I saw it in the 'Morning +Post'!" and "Ho, <I>do</I> yer, thenk yer!" from bone-tired Egbert, +mimicking as he closed the door behind the one; and "Ho, <I>did</I> yer, +boil yer!" closing it behind the other. +</P> + +<P> +Between these forms, then, or with slight variations upon them, fell +all the salutations but that of Mrs. Savile-Phillips who, arriving +late, treading on Egbert's foot in her impressive halt on the +threshold, called in her dashing way across the crowded drawing-room, +"And where is Lady Burdon?" +</P> + +<P> +She was at her tea table, closely surrounded, prettily coloured by +excitement, animated, at her best, tastefully gowned in a becoming +dove-grey that fortuitously had arrived from the dressmaker that +morning and mingled (she felt) a tribute to her new dignity with a +touch of half-mourning for the boy her relationship to whom death with +a hot finger had touched to life. Thus Mrs. Letham—new Lady +Burdon—took the eye and took it well. This was the moment of her +triumph; and that is a moment that is fairy wand to knock asunder the +shackles of the heavier years, restoring youth; to warm and make +generous the heart; to light the eye and lift the spirit. Hers, hers +that moment! She the commanding and captivating figure in that +assembly! +</P> + +<P> +Her spirit was equal with her presence. Physically queening it among +her friends, psychically she was aloft and afloat in the exaltation +that her bearing advertised. Each new congratulation as it came was a +vassal hand put out to touch the sceptre she chose to extend. The +prattle of voices was a delectable hymn raised to her praise in her new +dignity. She was mentally enthroned, queen of a kingdom all her own; +and as she visualised its fair places she had a sense of herself, +Cinderella-like, shedding drab garments from her shoulders, appearing +most wonderfully arrayed; shaking from her skirts the dull past, with +eager hands greeting a future splendidly coloured, singing to her with +siren note, created for her foot and her pleasure. +</P> + +<P> +Consider her state. The better to consider it, consider that something +of these sensations is the lot of every woman when, on her marriage +eve, a girl, sleepless she lies through that night, imaging the +womanhood that waits her beyond the darkness. It is the threshold of +life for woman, this night before the vow, and has no counterpart in +all a man's days from boyhood to grave. How should it? The sexes are +as widely sundered in habit, thought, custom, as two separate and most +alien races. Love has conducted every plighted woman to this threshold +and has so delectably engaged her attention on the road that she has +reckoned little of the new world towards which she is speeding. Now, +on her marriage eve, she is at night and alone: her eager feet upon the +immediate moment beyond whose passage lies the unexplored. Love for +this space takes rest. To-morrow he will lead her blindfolded into the +new country; to-night, poised upon the crest to which blindfolded he +has led her, she stands and looks across the prospect, shading her +eyes, atremble with ecstasy at the huge adventure. Mighty courage she +has—a frail figure, barriers closing up behind her to shut forever the +easy paths of maidenhood; hill and valley stretching limitless before, +where lie lurking heaven knows what ravening monsters. But she is the +born explorer, predestined for this frightful plunge into the unknown, +heedless of its dangers, intoxicated by its spaciousness, amazingly +confident in Love's power and devotion to keep her in the pleasant +places. And Love—he the reckless treaty-monger between the alien +races—is prone, unhappily, to lead her a dozen entangling steps down +the crest, and there to leave her in the smiling hills suddenly become +wilderness, in the little valleys suddenly become abyss. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Letham had enjoyed that intoxicating moment upon the crest. +Something of its sensations were hers again now; but she found their +thrill a far more delectable affair. Again she was upon the crest +whence an alluring prospect stretched; but now she looked with eyes not +filmed by ignorance; now could have seen desert places, pitfalls, if +such had been, but saw that there were none. Or so she thought. +</P> + +<P> +Already, in the congratulations she was receiving, she was tasting the +first sweets, plucking the first fruits with which she saw the groves +behung. For the first time she found herself and her fortunes the +centre of a crowded drawing-room's conversation. For the first time +she enjoyed the thrill of eager attention at her command when she chose +to raise her voice. It was good, good. It was sufficient to her for +the moment. But her exalted mind ran calculating ahead of it, even +while she rejoiced in it. She had her little Rollo brought in to her, +and kept him on her knee, and stroked his hair; and once and twice and +many times went into dreams of all that now awaited him; and with an +effort had to recall herself to the attentions of her guests. +</P> + +<P> +As evening stole out from the trees, in shadows across the lawn and in +dusk against the windows, like some stealthy stranger peering in, her +party began to separate. A few closer friends clustered about her, and +the conversation became more particular. Yes, it would mean leaving +Miller's Field—<I>dear</I> Miller's Field; and leaving them, but never, +never forgetting them. Elated, triumphant, and therefore generous, +emotional, she almost believed that indeed she would be sorry to lose +these friends. +</P> + +<P> +As one warmed with wine has a largeness of spirit that swamps his +proper self in its generous delusions, so she, warmed with triumph, was +genuine enough in all her protestations. With real affection she +handed over kindly Mrs. Archer, the doctor's wife, who stayed last, to +the good offices of Egbert Hunt, and in a happy, happy glow of elation +returned to her drawing-room. This was the beginning of it! +</P> + +<P> +This the beginning of it! She drew a long breath, smiling to herself, +her hands pressed together; through the glass doors giving on to the +lawn she espied her husband, and smiling she went quickly across and +opened them. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Letham was coming in from work in the garden. He had a +watering-can in one hand, with the other he trailed a rake. He was in +his shirt-sleeves, and his face was damp with his exertions around the +flower-beds. "Hullo! All gone?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +The warmth of her spirit caused her to extend her hands to him with a +sudden, affectionate gesture: +</P> + +<P> +"All, yes. Maurice, you were an old wretch! You might have come in." +</P> + +<P> +"Simply couldn't, old girl. I had a squint through the window, and +fled and hid behind a bush. Thousands of you; it looked awful!" +</P> + +<P> +She laughed: "Miserable coward! I was hoping you would." +</P> + +<P> +"Were you, though?" he said eagerly. "I'd have come like a shot if I'd +known." +</P> + +<P> +That made her laugh again: he was always the lover. "Well, come and +have a talk now to make up," she told him. "Out here in the garden. +It's frightfully hot in this room." +</P> + +<P> +His face beamed. He put down the implements he was carrying, wiped a +hand on his waistcoat and slipped his fingers beneath her arm. "That's +a stunning dress," he said. +</P> + +<P> +She gathered up the trailing skirt and glanced down at it, well +pleased. "It is rather nice, isn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Fine! You look as pretty as a picture this evening, Nellie. I tell +you, I thought so, when I squinted in through the window." +</P> + +<P> +"That's because I'm so happy." +</P> + +<P> +"So am I." He pressed her arm to show why, and "Maurice! you are a +goose," was her gay comment; but for once his foolish loverlikeness +pleased her; her mood was widely charitable. +</P> + +<P> +They paced the little lawn in silence. She suddenly asked, "You don't +mind my being happy, do you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Mind! Good Lord!" and he pressed her arm again. +</P> + +<P> +"Being excited about—about it, I mean. It's natural, Maurice?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course it is. Of course it is, old girl." +</P> + +<P> +"But you're not—it doesn't excite you?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Letham was too honest, even at risk of disturbing this happy +passage, to pretend the untrue. "Well, that's nothing," he said. +"That's nothing. I'm so beastly slow. An earthquake wouldn't excite +me." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't believe it would," she laughed, then was serious. "But I'm +excited," she said abruptly. "Oh, I am!" She put up her face towards +the veiling sky—a dim star here and a dim star there and a faint +breeze rising—and she drew a deep breath just as she had breathed +deeply in the drawing-room a few moments earlier. "Oh, I am!" she +repeated. "Maurice! I want to talk about it." +</P> + +<P> +He was not at all conscious of the full intensity of her feelings; but +for such of it as he perceived he smiled at her in his tolerant way. +"Well, you say," he told her. "You do the talking." +</P> + +<P> +She was silent for a considerable space; her mind run far ahead and +occupied among thoughts to which she could not introduce him, for he +had no place in them. That he shivered slightly recalled his presence +to her. That his presence had been deliberately shut from among the +castles she had been building caused her one of those qualms which (if +we are kind) often sting us back from our worser self to our better +nature. And she was kind, alternating ceaselessly between the many +womanly parts she had and those other parts we all possess; only to be +pitied if the events now quickly shaping for her tempted her too much, +led her too far from the point whence kindness is recoverable. +</P> + +<P> +Recalled to him and to her womanliness, "Oh, your coat!" she exclaimed. +"You've been getting hot and you'll catch your death of chill. You're +dreadfully careless. Where is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"In the summer-house. But what rot!" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll get it." She slipped her arm from his hand and ran away across +the lawn. "There!" she said, returning. "Now button it up. Ah! +You're all thumbs!" +</P> + +<P> +She fastened it for him and turned up the collar. The action brought +her face close to his. "You're jolly good to me, Nellie," he said, and +his lips brushed her forehead. A kiss it had been, but she drew back a +step. "Not going to have you ill on my hands," she told him brightly. +Then she slipped a hand into his arm and resumed, "What are we going to +do—first? I want to talk about that." +</P> + +<P> +She had talked to him of it all the morning; but as if it were +undiscussed—anything to preserve these happy moments—"Yes, go on," he +said. +</P> + +<P> +She responded eagerly. "Well, we must write to Lady Burdon, of +course—Jane Lady Burdon, now, you said, didn't you? Not to-day. +Better wait a day—to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +"That is what I thought." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—yes—and then you will have to go to see her. By yourself. I +won't come at first." She gave a little sound of laughter. "I don't +think I shall much like Jane Lady Burdon, from what you told me this +morning." +</P> + +<P> +He asked her: "Good lord, why, Nellie? Why, what did I tell you? I've +only seen her once, years and years ago." +</P> + +<P> +"You made her out proud; you said she would feel this terribly." +</P> + +<P> +"That poor boy's death? Of course she would. She was devoted to him. +Look, he was no more than Rollo's age when his father died. She +brought him up. Been mother and father to him all his life. Imagine +how she'd feel it." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I don't mean that; feel us coming in, I mean. Proud in that way." +</P> + +<P> +It was an idea that another man, though he knew it true, would have +laughed aside. Mr. Letham's hopeless simplicity put him to a stumbling +explanation. "Ah, but proud's not the word—not fair," he said. "She +has pride; you understand the difference, don't you, old girl? A +tremendous family pride. She'll feel this break in the direct +descent—father to son, as it said in the newspaper, ever since there +was a Burdon. It is one of their traditions, at the bottom of half +their traditions, and they're simply wrapped up in that kind of thing. +I should think there never was a family with so many observances—laws +of its own." +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me," she said: and while they paced, he spoke of this family +whose style and dignity they were to take; and while he spoke, +sometimes she pressed together her lips and contracted her brows as +though hostile towards the pictures he made her see, sometimes breathed +quickly and took a light in her eyes as though she foretasted delights +that he presented. She had no romantic sense in her nature, else had +been moved by such traditions of the House of Burdon as, he said, he +could remember. That white roses were never permitted in the grounds +of Burdon Old Manor, that no male but the head of the family might put +on his hat within the threshold, that the coming of age of sons was +celebrated at twenty-four, not twenty-one,—she scarcely heeded the +legends attaching to these observances. "Rather silly," she named +them, and did not condescend a reply to her husband's weak defence, +"Well, they rather get you, you know, don't you think?" +</P> + +<P> +He spoke of the Burdon motto, the arrogant, "I hold!" that was of the +bone of Burdon character, so he said. "I remember my old grandfather +telling me lots about that," he told her. "It sums them up. That's +the kind they've always been: headstrong and absolutely fearless, like +that poor boy, and stubborn—stubborn as mules where their rights, or +their will, or their pride is concerned. Stubborn in having their own +way, and stubborn in doing or not doing simply because the thing's done +or not done in the traditions they're bred up in." +</P> + +<P> +He stopped and bent to her with "Yes, what did you say?" but only +caught her repeating to herself intensely and beneath her breath, "I +hold!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, it's rather fine, isn't it?" he said; and he went on: "Well, +that's just what I mean about old Lady Burdon. She'll have felt that +she was holding for her grandson, had held all these years, and now was +the one, the only one, to see the tradition break, the direct +succession pass. That's what I mean by saying she has pride and will +feel it. That time I saw her, as I was telling you this morning, when +that poor boy was about Rollo's age and I was doing a walking tour down +in Wiltshire and managed to get up courage to go to Burdon Old Manor +and introduce myself, I noticed it then. She was dividing all her time +between the boy and a quaint kind of 'Lives of the Barons Burdon' as +she called it, a manuscript life of each holder of the title, hunting +up all the old records and traditions and things with the librarian; he +was as keen on it as she. He..." +</P> + +<P> +"Where will she be now, do you think?" Mrs. Letham interrupted. "In +town?" +</P> + +<P> +"In town for certain. She'd be sure to be where she could always get +earliest news of the boy." +</P> + +<P> +"In the town house? Burdon House in Mount Street, you said, didn't +you? Have you ever been there? What's it like?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, never been in. A whacking great place, from the outside. That's +where she'll be all right, unless they've sold it." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Letham gave him a sudden full attention. "Sold it? Why should +they have sold it?" +</P> + +<P> +"The ancient reason—want of money," he replied lightly. +</P> + +<P> +She made no response nor responsive movement; yet some emotion that she +had seemed to communicate itself to him, for looking down at her, +half-whimsically, half-gravely, "I say, you don't think we've come into +untold wealth, do you, Nellie?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +She took her hand sharply from his arm. Much that he had said, though +she could not have analysed why, had caused her kinder self to ebb. +Now it left her. She answered him by asking him: "What of all those +names you told me? Tell me them again." +</P> + +<P> +"The property? The Burdon Old Manor property? Little Letham, and +Shepwell, and Burdon, and Abbess Roding, and Nunford, and Market +Roding: those, do you mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I mean those. How do you mean 'the ancient reason, want of +money'?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, that's all there is, though. The money is all out of the +estate. Nothing more." +</P> + +<P> +She said impatiently: "Well? All those villages?" +</P> + +<P> +"All those duties." he corrected her. "That's the Burdon way of +looking at it. What they make on Abbess Roding they lose on Market +Roding, so to speak. It's that 'I hold!' business again. They won't +sell; they won't raise rents when leases fall in; they never refuse +improvements that can possibly be afforded. The tenantry have been +there for generations. No Burdon would ever think of turning them off +or of refusing them anything; it wouldn't enter his head. That's why I +said Burdon House in Mount Street might be sold. It's unlikely, but I +remember there was talk of it in my grandfather's time. It belongs to +an older day, when they were wealthier. They'd sacrifice that, if need +be, though it would be like a death in the family; but anything rather +than the bare idea of interfering with the people they regard as a +trust." +</P> + +<P> +He spoke quite easily, never realising the intensity of her feelings. +"Oh, it's no untold wealth," he laughed. "You mustn't think that." +</P> + +<P> +She said after a little space, "Richer than we are, though?" and added, +comforting herself with an old truism, "What's poverty to one is wealth +to another." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, richer than we are. Good lord, yes, I hope so. I'm thinking of +years ago, anyway. Things may have changed. I'm telling you of when I +was a kid." +</P> + +<P> +She gave a little sigh of relief and she made a little laugh at the +mood she had permitted to beset her—that sigh we give and that laugh +we make when we shake ourselves from vague fears, or open our eyes from +disturbing dreams. Folly to be fearful! Life is a biggish field; easy +to give those fears the slip! The day is here, night ridiculous! She +laughed and turned smiling to her husband and proposed they should go +in. "I've got an extra special little dinner for you—to celebrate," +she told him. +</P> + +<P> +He pressed her arm against his side. "And I've got an extra special +little appetite for it," he said. "Makes me feel fearfully fit to see +you so happy." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I am," she replied, and sighed her content and said again "I am!" +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +The night ridiculous! But when night came it caught her unstrung, too +excited for immediate sleep, and visited her with vague resentments, +with vague but chilly fears. They came gradually. Long, long she lay +awake, visioning the gleaming future. Her Rollo trod it with her—its +golden paths, limitless of delights—her little son rejoicing into +manhood as he walked them. She was intensely devoted to her baby +Rollo, born two years before. Marriage had disappointed her; from its +outset, directly she began to realise Maurice, she accounted herself +robbed of all it ought to have given her. Motherhood had recompensed +her; from Rollo's birth she had begun to dream dreams for him. Now! +She got out of bed and went to his cradle and bent above him, most +happily, most adoringly, as he slept. It was there and so occupied +that the first vague, unreasonable fear came to disturb her night. It +was gone as soon as it had come, and it had neither shape nor meaning. +Yet its discomfort made her frown. She had frowned in the midst of +happiness when Maurice was telling her of Burdon traditions, and the +repetition of the action returned her mind to what had occupied it then. +</P> + +<P> +At once resentments began to stir. She found herself resentful of Jane +Lady Burdon, as drawn by Maurice; of the tenantry at Burdon Old Manor, +who were regarded as a trust—a greedy, expensive trust on his showing; +nay, of the Old Manor itself, if saturated in traditions such as he +described. Why resentful? At first she could not say, and worried. +Then the reason came to her. It was the feeling that this old lady, +not proud but having pride, a ridiculous distinction, this old lady, +these tenantry, those traditions would resent her. Resent her? She +could not get away from the thought, and it irritated her and tired +her. Yes, and rob her, and that irritated and tired her the more. She +began to desire sleep and could not sleep for these resentments. +Resent her? Rob her? She grew angry that she could not sleep, and +then suddenly calmed herself by deliberately setting herself to see how +grotesque such thoughts were. After all, what could they do, even +suppose they desired her hurt? It came to her, with a grim sense of +the humour of it, that their own motto was against them. "I hold!" It +was she who held! +</P> + +<P> +"I hold!" The old motto did its new mistress its first service. It +charmed her, at last, to sleep. Immediately, as it seemed to her, she +passed into dreams of her amazing happiness; and in their midst the +motto rose against her. In their midst the vague fear that had +troubled her while she bent over her Rollo—but vague no longer—became +definite and horrible. She was taunted, she was terrified by some +force that told her it was all untrue; that tortured her she was +befooled and did not hold and should never hold the amazement she +fancied hers. Terrified and struggling, "I hold!" she cried. It +became the delirium of her sleep. Again and again "I hold! I hold!" +and always from that force the answer, quiet but most terribly assured: +"No, you do not! Nay, I hold!" Horror and panic overcame her. She +was so nearly awake that she tried to awake but could not. "I hold! I +hold!" "No, you do not. Nay, I hold!" There was no escape, no +escape.... When at last her fevered brain broke out of sleep, she +awoke to hear her own voice cry it aloud in agony: "I hold!" and +shaking, unnerved, thanked God for young morning stealing about the +room, and none and nothing to rebuke or contradict that waking cry. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0105"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +MISREADING A PEERESS +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +We will give them their title now. +</P> + +<P> +Events fell out much as the new Lady Burdon had planned. On the day +following the news, the new Lord Burdon wrote a few sympathetic lines +to Jane Lady Burdon; two days later he received an acknowledgment from +the house in Mount Street. She would like to see him, Jane Lady +Burdon, wrote, but she would like a little time in which to accommodate +herself to her sad affliction. Perhaps he would arrange to call on +that day week; and meanwhile, if he could see Mr. Pemberton, they would +be spared much explanation relative to the sudden change. +</P> + +<P> +"Rather cold," was Lady Burdon's comment; but her attention was taken +by another letter brought in with Jane Lady Burdon's by Egbert Hunt, as +they sat at early breakfast, and overlooked in the excitement. "And +Mr. Pemberton—who is Mr. Pemberton?" she asked, but had opened this +other envelope while she spoke, taken the gist of its letter at a +glance, and herself answered her question, looking up with flushed face +and sparkling eyes. "He's the solicitor," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Lord Burdon nodded. "So he is. The name comes back to me." +</P> + +<P> +"This is from him—to you. It's all right. He says it's all right, +Maurice. He's the lawyer. He knows. He admits it." +</P> + +<P> +"Sounds as though he'd committed a crime. What does he admit?" +</P> + +<P> +She was very happy, so she laughed. "Listen!" and she read him the +letter in which, in stilted, lawyer like terms, Matthew Pemberton (as +it was signed) formally advised him of the death in action on the +northwestern frontier of India, and of his succession to the barony and +entailed estates. The firm of Pemberton, it appeared, had for many +generations enjoyed the honour of acting for the house of Burdon, and, +acting on Jane Lady Burdon's instructions, Matthew Pemberton desired to +propose an interview "here or at your lordship's residence, as may be +most convenient to your lordship." +</P> + +<P> +"Maurice!" Lady Burdon exclaimed, and handed him the letter; and when +he had read it, "There! There's no doubt now, is there?" +</P> + +<P> +He had frowned over it as though it troubled him. At her words he +looked up and smiled at her beaming face and patted her hand. "Why, +you never had any doubt, had you?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +She gave the slightest possible shiver; but with it shook off the +recollection that had caused it. "Oh, I don't know," she answered. "I +do believe I had; yes, I had. I couldn't realise it sometimes. There +was nothing—nothing to go on. Now there is, though!" And she touched +the letters that were the magic carpet arrived to wing her from the +delirium of that night toward the amazement that night had threatened. +</P> + +<P> +She exclaimed again, "Now there is!" and, pushing back her chair, rose +vigorously to her feet, casting aside forever (so she told herself) +that nightmare dream and animatedly breaking into "plans." Too +animated to be still, too excited to eat, gaily, and with a commanding +banter that rendered him utterly happy, she easily influenced her +husband, against his purpose, to bid Mr. Pemberton make the proposed +interview at Miller's Field, not Bedford Row. "'At your lordship's +residence,'" she laughed. "It's his place to do the running about, not +yours. And tell him—I'll help you to write the letter—tell him to +come the day after to-morrow, not to-morrow. Don't let him think we're +bursting with eagerness." +</P> + +<P> +"By gum, he'd better not see you, then," Lord Burdon said grimly. +</P> + +<P> +She gave him a playful pinch. "Oh, I'll do the high and haughty stare +all right," she told him, and she laughed again and ran gaily humming +to the Hon. Rollo Letham in the garden. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Pemberton, on arrival, proved incapable of much of that running +about, in the literal sense of the term, that Lady Burdon had +pronounced to be his place. +</P> + +<P> +"Here he is!" Lady Burdon said, watching through the drawing-room +window from where she sat, as a closed station-fly drew up before the +gate. "Here he is!" There was a longish pause before the cab door +opened, and then a walking-stick came out and tapped about in a +fumbling sort of way until it hit the step. A very thin leg came +groping down the stick, its foot poking about nervously as though to +make sure that the step was stable. "Good gracious!" Lady Burdon +exclaimed. "The poor old man!" +</P> + +<P> +She forgot the high and haughty stare premeditated for the interview, +and she crossed to the window, womanly and womanishly alarmed. The +knee above the trembling leg took a jerky shot or two at stiffening, +then stiffened suddenly and took the weight of a little wisp of an old +man, who swung suddenly out upon it, whirled half around as the gusty +breeze took him and, clutching frantically against the side of the cab +with one hand, with the other made agitated prods of his stick at the +road desperately far beneath. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, goodness!" Lady Burdon cried. "He'll kill himself! And that +idiot like a frozen pig on the box! Maurice!" But she was quicker +than her husband and, the high and haughty stare completely abandoned, +was swiftly from the room, down the path, through the gate, and with +firm young hands under a shaky old arm, just as the little old man, +unable to balance longer, was dropping stick and leg towards the ground +and in danger of collapsing tremendously upon them. +</P> + +<P> +She landed him safe. "The road slopes so frightfully here, doesn't +it?" she said. "I am afraid you are shaken." +</P> + +<P> +The little old man, very visibly shaken by the fearful adventure, +essayed to straighten his bent old frame. He raised his silk hat and +stood bareheaded before her. "You saved me from that," he said. "It +was very, very kind of you. I am clumsy and stupid at moving about." +</P> + +<P> +She was flushed by her run, the breeze was in her hair; she looked +pretty and she was quite natural. "Oh, I saw you," she smiled. "I +ought to have come before. Let me take your arm. The path is steep; +we are on the side of a hill, as you see." +</P> + +<P> +She swung open the gate with one hand and put the other beneath his arm. +</P> + +<P> +He seemed to hesitate, looking at her curiously. "Oh, I am all right +when I am on my legs," he said, with a little laugh. "Well, well—it +is very, very kind of you," and he accepted the aid she offered. +</P> + +<P> +"It is steep, you see,"—she smiled down at him,—"and rough. It ought +to be rolled, but we have the idlest gardener boy in the world. You +are Mr. Pemberton, aren't you? I am—I am Lady Burdon." +</P> + +<P> +He halted in his nice little steps and looked full up at her. "I am +very glad to know that," he said simply, and put himself again to the +task of making the house. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Pemberton was more than pleased; he was intensely relieved and +intensely happy. His thoughts, as he came down in the train to +Miller's Field, had caused his face to wear a nervous, a wistful, +almost an appealing, look. Bound up in inherited devotion to the noble +house whose service was handed down in his firm as the title itself was +handed down, he had feared, he had dreaded what manner of people the +tragic break in the famous direct succession might have brought to the +name he loved. Nothing could so well have reassured him as that most +womanly action of Lady Burdon when she ran to his assistance at the +gate; nothing could so well have affirmed the confidence with which he +turned to her husband, come to the door to meet them, as the simple +honesty of character imprinted on Lord Burdon's face and expressed in +his greeting. Both impressions were sharpened as they sat talking at +tea. Mr. Pemberton had come to talk business; he found himself drawn +by this sympathetic atmosphere into speaking intimately of the gay +young life whose cruel termination had caused his visit. +</P> + +<P> +Clearly he had been deeply attached to that young life; he speaks of it +in the jerky, disconnected sentences of one that does not trust his +voice too long, for fear it may betray him; and when he comes to his +subject's young manhood, after eulogy of childhood and youth, clearly +Lady Burdon is interested. She draws her chair a trifle towards him, +and with her elbow on the low tea-table, cups her chin in the palm of +her hand, the fingers against her lips, watches him and attends him +closely. Her throat and face are dusky, her wrist and hand are white +against them. Her eyes have a deep and kind look. She makes a gentle +picture. +</P> + +<P> +Encouraged by her sympathy, "He was a little wild," says Mr. Pemberton. +"I am afraid a little inclined to be wild.... Always so full of +spirits, you see ... eager ... careless, reckless perhaps, impetuous +... lovable—ah, me, very lovable.... +</P> + +<P> +"I was very fond of him, Lady Burdon," he says apologetically, "very +fond;" and he stumbles into an example of what he is pleased to call +the young man's impetuous carelessness. It is of his last months in +England, before he sailed for India, that this deals. Between June and +August, having leave from his regiment, he disappeared, it seems; was +completely lost sight of by his grandmother and his friends. Towards +the end of August he appeared again. "Not himself—not quite himself," +says Mr. Pemberton, shaking his head as though over some recollection +that troubled him, "and no explanation of his absence, and, when the +chance came—General Sheringham was a relation, you know—wild to get +out to this frontier 'show,' as he called it. +</P> + +<P> +"Typical of him," says Mr. Pemberton after a pause, and smiling sadly +at Lady Burdon. "Typical. A law to himself he would always be, and +not responsible to any one for what he chose to do. A Burdon trait +that; and he was a Burdon of Burdons." +</P> + +<P> +Lady Burdon asks a question, breaking into Mr. Pemberton's history for +the first time. "But that really is extraordinary, Mr. Pemberton," she +says. "Wouldn't Lady Burdon—wouldn't his grandmother—have felt +anxious during that disappearance, and wouldn't she have questioned him +when he came back?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not unless he seemed disposed to tell her. In a way—in a way, you +know, relations between them were a little difficult. Poor boy"—and +Mr. Pemberton gives a sad little laugh—"poor boy, he often came to me +in a great way, and her ladyship, too, has had occasion. He, on his +side, passionately devoted to her, hating to hurt her, but enormously +high-spirited, difficult to handle. And she, on hers, making all the +world of him and a little apt on that account to claim too much from +him, if you follow me. He sometimes chafed—chafed, you know; hating +to hurt her but restless of her control, her claim. Latterly she had +to be very tactful with him. No, she wouldn't have questioned him +unless he seemed disposed to tell her." +</P> + +<P> +They are interrupted here by the entrance of baby Rollo on his way to +bed, for it is getting late. "The rummiest little beggar," says Lord +Burdon, introducing his small son. "Not much more than eighteen +months, and solemn enough for an archbishop, aren't you, Rollo?" +</P> + +<P> +The solemn one, pale and noticeably quiet and far from strong looking, +justifies this character by having no smiles, though Mr. Pemberton +greets him cheerfully and says approvingly: "Rollo, eh? The Burdon +name. <I>His</I> name," he adds, and looks at Lady Burdon, who gives him a +gentle smile of understanding. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Pemberton looked after her very gratefully when she excused herself +to take the child up-stairs. The door closed, he turned to Lord +Burdon. "Nice—nice," he began in a stifled kind of voice, "to have a +little son growing up—to watch. We watched young Lord Burdon—that +poor boy—growing up—anxiously—so anxiously...." +</P> + +<P> +He gave a nervous little laugh. "When I say 'we' you've no idea with +what a terrible air of proprietorship the family is regarded by those, +like myself, attached to it for generations, by those dependent on it. +We looked so eagerly, so eagerly as the time drew on, to his coming of +age. He was wanted so." +</P> + +<P> +"Wanted?" Lord Burdon asked. "Wanted?" He pronounced the word +heavily, as though he had an inkling of the answer and was apprehensive. +</P> + +<P> +It started Mr. Pemberton on a recital that he spoke with seeming +difficulty and yet as though he had prepared it. It occupied longer +than either knew, and Lord Burdon, before it was finished, was sitting +sunk low in his chair, as though what he heard oppressed him. The +little old lawyer spoke of difficulties in connection with the estate; +the diminished rent roll; the urgent necessity for comprehensive +improvements essential to make the land pay its way; the long-urged +necessity for the sale of Burdon House in Mount Street, heavily +mortgaged and the interest an insupportable drain on the estate. It +led him to why they had looked so anxiously for the coming of age. +Everything that was essential was impossible, he showed, in the reign +of gentle Jane Lady Burdon, who felt that she held in sacred trust for +her grandson and would suffer no risks in raising of loans, nor +depredation of her charge by sale of the town property. He had no +eloquence, this devoted little lawyer, but he had earnestness that +seemed to him who listened to fill the room, as it were, with living +shapes of duties, demands, traditions of a great heritage that +marshalled before him and looked to him to be carried forward, as +soldiers to a leader. +</P> + +<P> +A change in Mr. Pemberton's tone aroused him. +</P> + +<P> +"He was wanted so," Mr. Pemberton said jerkily, and stopped. +</P> + +<P> +No response, and in a funny little cracked voice, "Well, he's dead," +Mr. Pemberton said. +</P> + +<P> +Lord Burdon raised his eyes, contracted with the trouble that had given +him that drooped, oppressed appearance while the other spoke, dim, +clouded as with looking at something that menaced; and their eyes +met—two very simple men. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Pemberton stretched out fumbling hands. He cried blunderingly and +appealingly, his mouth twisting: "It has affected me—this death, this +change. I am only an old man—a devoted old man. As we looked to him, +so now we look to you." +</P> + +<P> +"Look to me!" Lord Burdon said slowly. "Look to me! Good God, +Pemberton, I funk it!" he cried. "I funk it and I hate it. I'm not +the sort. I wish I'd been left alone. I wish to God I had!" +</P> + +<P> +There followed his words a silence of the intense nature caused by +speech that has been intense. In that silence, consciousness of some +other personality in the room caused Mr. Pemberton to turn suddenly in +his chair. He turned to see Lady Burdon standing in the doorway. She +was not in the act of entering. She was standing there; and for the +briefest space, while Mr. Pemberton looked at her and she at him, she +just stood, erect, her head a trifle unduly high, with estimating eyes +and with purposed mouth. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +V +</P> + +<P> +It had been an anxious Mr. Pemberton that came down to Miller's Field. +It was a reassured Mr. Pemberton that stayed there, but a gravely +disturbed Mr. Pemberton that went back to town. He knew Lady Burdon +had been listening, the look he had seen on her face informed him of +her displeasure with what she had heard, and he knew that in his first +estimate of her he had misread her. +</P> + +<P> +For he read her look aright. In her husband's cry—his weak, +contemptible cry—in what she had heard of the little lawyer's +statements and proposals—his tears and prayers of duties—she knew +hostility to her plans, to her dreams, to her pleasures. Her +estimating eyes that met Mr. Pemberton's inquired the strength of that +hostility; her purposed mouth was the mirror of her determination +against it. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0106"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +MISCALCULATING A PEER +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +The little clock that is perched high over the vast fireplace in the +library at Burdon House, Mount Street, marks a shade before ten of the +evening. Its delicate ticking joins with the fluttering of the flames, +and with the steady scratch of Mr. Librarian Amber's pen, to make the +only sounds in this dignified apartment with its high-bred air, that +has known many a Burdon and that shortly is to acknowledge another +bearer of the title and serenely give farewell to the lady seated +before the fire. +</P> + +<P> +A gracious lady of many sorrows, as the Vicar of Little Letham parish, +in a surprising flight, had named Jane Lady Burdon on the previous +Sunday—and rightly named her. Sorrow has companioned Jane Lady Burdon +before; now again is called whence it has lightly slumbered—walks hand +in hand with the gentle lady, is her bedfellow, crouches on the hearth +beside her as she sits, drooping slightly, in the high-backed chair, +fingers enlocked on lap, eyes dimly upon the flames. +</P> + +<P> +Lord Burdon, who has stepped into the dead boy's shoes—(Ah, Sorrow, +walk here and here with me. Look, Sorrow, where he used to sport and +run!)—has paid his visit that afternoon; sympathetic little Mr. +Pemberton, with his papers and documents, has occupied a part of her +morning. It has been a trying day for her. Her only desire now is to +be left alone with her thoughts. (Come away, come away, Sorrow, +Sorrow; and hold me close, and open me his prattling lips, his strong +young lips.) +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Librarian Amber—very conscious of Sorrow crouching there, but +busy, busy—is writing at a table behind the drooping figure in the +high-backed chair. The bald top of Mr. Amber's narrow head, nose hard +after his pen like a diligent bloodhound on a slow scent, shines +between the splendid yellow candles in their tall, silver holders that +light his work. Neat little packets of papers, neatly arranged, dot +the polished surface of the table, like islands set in a still, dark +sea about the greater island that is Mr. Amber's manuscript. On a +chair by Mr. Amber's side is a large, slim volume held by a gilt clasp +and lettered on its cover of white vellum: +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +Percival Rollo Redpath Letham<BR> +XIIth Baron Burdon<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +He is engaged, Mr. Librarian Amber, on that "Lives of the Barons +Burdon" of which Lord Burdon had spoken to his wife, walking in the +garden of Hillside. +</P> + +<P> +Then that little clock perched over the mantelpiece tinkles the hour of +ten. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you progress, Mr. Amber?" Jane Lady Burdon inquires gently. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Amber—constitutionally nervous—starts, drops his pen, grabs at it +as it rolls for the floor, misses it in the stress of a short-sighted +fumble, makes a distressed <I>Tch-tch!</I> as it rattles to the boards, +clears his throat, starts on one reply and, in the manner of nervous +persons suddenly interrogated, strangles it at birth and has a shot at +fortune with another. +</P> + +<P> +"I have almost got—I am just concluding the newspaper reports of the +fight, my lady. Very nearly at the end." He recollects a resolve to +be bright in order to cheer my lady, so he adds with a funny little +pop: "Almost done!" and then with a brisk little puff blows imaginary +dust from his manuscript. "Almost done! <I>Hoof!</I>" +</P> + +<P> +"I will read it over to-morrow, Mr. Amber, immediately after breakfast. +To-day is Friday. By Monday you should have finished, I think, and the +book will be ready to go into its place at the Manor. You will come +with me when I go down there next week, Mr. Amber, and we will put it +in its place together. I shall be glad to see it in its place before I +leave: all the Lives finished—our little hobby, Mr. Amber;" and her +gracious ladyship of many sorrows puts into the words the smile that +faintly touches her lips. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Amber, desperately agitated and pleased by this coupling of himself +with his dear mistress, takes from the warmth of his happiness courage +sufficient to introduce to her a matter that has been troubling him. +He gets awkwardly to his feet, a spare, stooping figure, mild of face, +little over fifty but looking more, frowns horribly at his chair for +the noise it makes upon the polished floor as he pushes it back, and +comes forward, twisting the fingers of his hands about one another. +</P> + +<P> +"My lady—yes, I will surely finish by Monday. Your ladyship will +forgive me—intruding myself—your ladyship speaks of leaving—I am—if +I may venture—so attached—I scarcely—" +</P> + +<P> +He is quite painfully agitated. His fingers, tightly locked now by +their twistings, present a figure of his halting sentences come to a +final tangle, an ultimate and hopeless knot. +</P> + +<P> +Her gracious ladyship of many sorrows smiles in her kind way. "Dear +Mr. Amber, you should know, of course. I have been thoughtless of you +in my sorrow. I am going to my sister in York, Mr. Amber—Mrs. Eresby, +you remember. Here nor the Manor is no longer my home, you understand. +Indeed, how should I stay in houses of sad memories only?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Amber murmurs "Ah—my lady!" and she continues: "I intend a last +visit to the Manor—to take leave of our dear friends, Mr. Amber, and +to collect a few—memories. I would go now, but I have first to meet +Lady Burdon. Lord and Lady Burdon will very kindly come here for that +purpose on Monday so that we may know one another for a few days." +</P> + +<P> +She pauses and smiles inquiringly as though to ask Mr. Amber if he is +now sufficiently informed. He blinks considerably, starts to work at +his hands again, and suddenly says with a mouth all twisted: "It will +be very—strange—to me to be parted from your ladyship." +</P> + +<P> +She extends a gentle hand towards his that twist and twist, touching +them softly: "Dear Mr. Amber. It has been the pleasantest friendship." +</P> + +<P> +He says stupidly and brokenly, "What will I do?" +</P> + +<P> +"You must go on living with the books," she tells him. "Why, what +would they do without you, or you without them? I will speak to Lord +Burdon. You must live on just the same in the Manor library where we +have been together so often—all of us. I shall like to think of you +there. It is my wish, Mr. Amber." +</P> + +<P> +She says gently, "There!" as he clutches her hand to his lips. "I will +go to bed now. I think I hear Colden coming for me," and as her maid +enters, she rises. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Amber tries for words. That twisting mouth forbids them, and he +turns to hold the door open. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you. Good night, Mr. Amber. Here is our kind Colden so +thoughtful for my sleep. I am ready, Colden. Yes, I will take your +arm. Good night, Mr. Amber." And as Mr. Amber stands watching, there +comes to him faintly across the great hall: "We'll rest a moment here, +Colden. A little trying, these stairs. Do you remember how he used to +take me up? He never missed a night when he was home, did he? Do you +remember how he made us laugh about this seat...?" +</P> + +<P> +Then Mr. Amber returns to the library, closes the door and eases +emotion by a trumpet blast upon his nose. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Amber took a seat before the fire. He was unsettled, he found, for +further progress that night upon the work that had engaged him at the +table. But his mind turned to it and from it to the eleven fine +volumes into whose company it would go, completing the lives of the +Barons Burdon that were the fruits of many years of loving +labour—result of "our little hobby." In memory he trod again those +happy days—saw himself installed librarian at Burdon Old Manor, a +bookish youth, weak-backed, weak-eyed, son and despair of a tenant +farmer; rehearsed again that youth's aimless, browsing years among the +books, acquiring strange and various knowledge from the shelves, +developing affections, habits, tastes that, as with tentacles, anchored +him by heart and mind to the house of Burdon. Mr. Amber moved +restlessly in his chair and came to the beginning of the great scheme, +propounded by her gracious ladyship, that was to become "our little +hobby," as immediately it became the purpose and enthusiasm of his +life. Well, it was done—or almost done. The results of desperately +exciting scratching about the library—among distressed old books, +among family trees, among deeds, letters, parchments, rolls, +records—were in eleven fine manuscript volumes—only the twelfth to +finish. +</P> + +<P> +A leisurely volume this twelfth, now lying on the table behind Mr. +Amber's chair. Written up during its subject's short life—dear and +most well-beloved to Mr. Amber every moment of it—the volume is as +naturally detailed as some of the earlier volumes are naturally +scrappy. Pettily detailed, perhaps. Mr. Amber starts with the precise +hour and moment—6:15-˝ A.M.—of the birth of the Hon. Rollo Percival +Redpath Letham; notes his colouring—fair; his weight at successive +infantile months—lusty beyond the average, it would appear; date of +his first articulate speech; date of first stumbling run across the +nursery floor—and suchlike small beer. His father's death is +chronicled ("cf. vol. XI, pp. 196 <I>et seq.</I>") and he is shown to be yet +in his third year when he becomes twelfth Baron Burdon.... Date of +measles.... Date of whooping cough.... First riding lesson.... +Preparatory school.... First holidays.... First shooting lesson.... +Puts a charge of shot into a keeper. It is all very closely detailed. +It is detailed so closely that a gap towards the end is made +conspicuous: and this is precisely that gap occupied by the +"disappearance" of which Mr. Pemberton had spoken in the drawing-room +at Hillside. The chronicle, that is to say, is brought very fully up +to the May in which, as it shows, my lord suddenly went down to Burdon +Old Manor from London, his grandmother being at Mount Street, and +thence for a long holiday. It jumps to October and at once begins +again to be remarkably detailed, "Our Own Correspondent's" account of +the frontier engagement waiting on the table there to conclude it. But +of this May to October period, covering the June to August of which Mr. +Pemberton had spoken, Mr. Amber, like Mr. Pemberton, for the good +reason that he knew nothing of how my lord occupied it, has nothing to +say. Let it be said. My lord was in that June secretly married in +London: a matter closely germane to this history, and now to be +examined. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0201"></A> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK TWO +</H2> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +A BOOK OF THE SAME SIZE, ILLUSTRATING +<BR> +THE ELEMENT OF FOLLY +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +LOVE TRIMS WRECKERS' LAMPS +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +On a May morning, then, love in his heart, purpose in his eye, +gathering in his careless hand the meshes that he is going to tug, +shaking the unconsidered lives they bind—Rollo Percival Redpath +Letham, twelfth Baron Burdon, "Roly" to his gay young comrades of the +clubs and messes, was set down at Great Letham by the express from +London. +</P> + +<P> +Great Letham marks the nearest approach of the railway to the +sequestered villages that touch their hats to the Burdon Old Manor +folk. It stands at the head of a country that rolls away on either +hand in down and valley. Roughly, Great Letham centres the high lands +that bound this prospect on its nearer side, and from its outskirts +there strikes away a great shoulder of down that thrusts like a massive +viaduct straight and far to join the further hills. From a distance +this natural viaduct admits to minds however stubbornly practical the +similitude of a giant's arm. Rugged and brown and scarred it lies, not +green in greenest summer; and the humped shoulder whence it springs, +and the great mounds in which it swells along its path, present it as a +mighty limb out-thrust to hold away the hills in which its fist is +buried. Plowman's Ridge, they call it; and afoot upon it, it is kinder +of aspect. Aloof, aloft, alone, the wayfarer stands here, and breathes +or breasts the ceaseless wind that saunters or like a live thing +thunders down its track; and has on either hand a spreading valley, +whence curls the smoke of scattered hamlets, uprise the spires, come +the faint sounds of creature life and gleam the fields, as spread upon +a palette, coloured in obedience to this and that design of husbandry. +</P> + +<P> +The railway skirts the eastward vale; along the tranquil westward slope +the Burdon hamlets sleep. Viewed from the Ridge, they are ridiculously +alike; ridiculously equidistant one from the next; ridiculously +tethered, as it were, along the foot of the Ridge—like boats along a +shore; ridiculously small to have separate names, but named in their +order outwards from Great Letham: Market Roding and Abbess Roding and +Nunford—linked by those names with the monastic ruins at Upabbot in +the eastward vale; Shepwell and Burdon and Little Letham. They are +tethered to the Ridge, and the Ridge is the most direct communication +between them. Visitors from village to village, or from Great Letham +to any, climb the slope and use the Ridge, rather than plod the winding +roads that, as twelfth Baron Burdon has often declared, "take you about +two miles from where you want to get before they let you loose to go +there." +</P> + +<P> +He struck out along the Ridge now. +</P> + +<P> +Burdon village was his destination; and as he pressed his way towards +it, putting up his face to snuff the familiar wind, speeding ahead his +thoughts to what he came to seek, twelfth Baron Burdon showed himself a +very personable young man. His tawny hair he wore closely cropped +about his strong young head; beneath a straight nose he grew a little +clump of fair moustache shaved bluntly away at the corners of a firm +mouth. At a bold right-angle his jaw came cleanly from his throat; and +his chin was thick and round, matching his open grey eyes to advertise +purpose and command. A Burdon of Burdons Mr. Pemberton had named him. +A high-spirited young man, vigorous, alert; very boyish in mind, very +dominant of character. A Burdon of Burdons. Through a long line the +bone of whose quality was their "I hold!" twelfth Baron Burdon +inherited a spirit that, when crossed, was quick to be unsheathed as +from their scabbards the eager swords of remote ancestors were +quick,—dangerous as they. "Enormously high-spirited, difficult to +handle," Mr. Pemberton had told new Lady Burdon. It was handling he +could not brook. The lightest feel of the curb threw up his head as +the fine-tempered colt's. Brow and lips would assume signs that spoke, +even to one unacquainted with him, the imperious resolve of mastery. +</P> + +<P> +He was in pursuit of mastery now. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +As he came abreast of Burdon he edged down the Ridge, making towards a +little copse that ran up from a garden behind the last cottage in the +village street, the nearest to Little Letham. In the roadway this +cottage displayed, suspended from its porch, the notice, painted in +white letters on a black board: +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +<I>POST OFFIC</I><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +(The painter had misjudged the space at his disposal but had added the +missing E on the back of the board, "Case," as he explained, "unnybody +be that dense as to turn her round to see what her do mean.") +</P> + +<P> +The cottage served in those days for the reception and distribution of +all the letters of the westward vale, a community little bothered with +correspondence; and "Post Offic" was conducted by a slight little woman +whom some called Postmum, some Miss Oxford. She was the daughter of a +former vicar of Little Letham; to twelfth Baron Burdon she was Audrey's +sister. +</P> + +<P> +Deep in the trees, as he approached the copse, the sharp white of a +skirt caught his eager eye. Taking a grassy path, he went noiselessly +down and presently was separated from his Audrey by the dense thorn +that hedged the tiny glade in which he found her. A basket of young +fern roots was beside her and she was stooped, her back towards him, +exploring in the undergrowth. +</P> + +<P> +He thought to steal up to her, and tried. The dense thorn locked him, +and she heard him and turned swiftly towards him. +</P> + +<P> +She was flushed with her stooping. Now a deeper flush rose beneath her +colour, sinking it in a warmer glow that stained her exquisitely from +throat to brow. The dark violet's shade was in her eyes; when her +colour abated, the pale rose's delicacy might have been shamed against +the fairness of her skin. She wore no hat; her soft brown locks +unruled the ribbon at her neck, and the breeze stirred her hair in +little waves about her temples. Her arms were bare where she had +thrust her sleeves beneath her elbows. She stood poised, as one might +say, upon the feet of surprise; and her lips were slightly parted, her +gentle bosom seeming to hold her breath as though she feared the +smallest sigh would waft away the sudden gladness that had caught it. +</P> + +<P> +She just whispered, "Roly!" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm caught in this da—infernal bush," Roly cried, struggling. +</P> + +<P> +"I wasn't to expect you for a week, you wrote." +</P> + +<P> +He began to writhe and wrench. "You needn't. I shall stay here +forever, I believe." +</P> + +<P> +She gave the merriest laugh: "You're simply fixed!" +</P> + +<P> +"Wait till I get at you!" He tried and was more firmly held. "I say, +what the <I>dickens</I> has happened to me?" +</P> + +<P> +She put her hands together, enjoying his plight as a child that bends +forward at a play. "You'll never get through there, Roly. You'll have +to go back." +</P> + +<P> +He wrenched and struggled: "Go back! There's a great spike or +something sticking into me!" +</P> + +<P> +His struggles broke a network of branches at his waist. A thorny bough +sprang loose and whipped beneath his chin, forcing up his head. +</P> + +<P> +"Good Lord! Look here, Audrey, I shall cut my throat and bleed to +death; or this dashed spike will come slick through my back in a minute +and impale me!" +</P> + +<P> +"Roly! If you knew how funny you look!" +</P> + +<P> +Her tone, the way in which (as it presented itself to him) she +"squirmed" with childlike glee, caused him to laugh the jolliest laugh. +No quality of hers attracted him as this fresh and innocent and +childlike happiness that was her first characteristic; in none he found +so great delight as in the fount of innocence through whose fresh +stream came all her thoughts and words like young things at play. +</P> + +<P> +He laughed the jolliest laugh: "Well, I've not come all the way from +town just to look funny. I tell you, it's serious. I've never +imagined such a fix. I'm dashed if I can move a finger now. Audrey, +if you've got a woman's heart that feels, you'll help me out. This +infernal thing under my chin—just move that and I'll show you how we +fight in the dear old regiment—<I>Damn!</I>" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it has cut you!" she cried, all concern as a moment before she had +been all glee. +</P> + +<P> +A step brought her face within a hand of his. She found place for her +fingers between the thorns of the bramble beneath his chin. She drew +the branch downwards, and the action caused her to bend towards him +until their brows and eyes and lips were level. She looked directly +into his eyes and he directly into hers; and each read there those dear +and ardent mysteries that love far better images than ever love can +voice. +</P> + +<P> +He no more than breathed, "Kiss me, Audrey." +</P> + +<P> +She waited for the smallest part of a moment. Entranced, enthralled, +they only heard a lark that was a speck above them send down a tiny +melody, and far upon the down a sheep-bell's distant note. Love's +thralldom and Love's music to his thrall. The oldest play that mortals +play; and never know befooled were often meeter than enthralled, nor +better an ass to bray than some hymn seem to rise in benison. She +kissed him tenderly upon the lips; gave the smallest sigh and breathed, +"Dear Roly!" +</P> + +<P> +Comic were the word for such a thing. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +Comic, and comic that which followed when he, released, was with her in +the glade and, seated by her, took her hands and bent her to his +purpose. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, listen to me, Audrey. Put both your hands in mine." +</P> + +<P> +She responded as he bade her, performing surely the most beautiful +action in the world as she gave her hands to his. All human life has +no act more beautiful than the weaker hand confided to the stronger, +nor any nearer Godhood than when strong hand takes the weak. +</P> + +<P> +He enclosed her hands within his own. "Listen to me, Audrey," he +repeated; and, as her hands had been her spirit, he possessed and drew +her spirit on. +</P> + +<P> +Yet comic is the word: for here—he planning, she agreeing—they made +the plans they thought should make all bliss, all happiness their own; +here, in fact, trimmed wreckers' lamps to shipwreck happy lives. He +had determined upon secret marriage with her, and had determined it as +the perfect solution of difficulties whose consideration was in some +degree creditable to him. For as he told himself, and told his Audrey +now, nothing prevented him from openly declaring his intention of +contracting a marriage that would cause a breach between himself and +his grandmother; nothing but the impossibility of enduring such a +breach; that was unthinkable. +</P> + +<P> +"Passionately devoted to his grandmother," Mr. Pemberton had told; "and +she, for her part, making all the world of him." It was precisely this +uncommon devotion between him and his dear "Gran" that drove him into +torment of perplexity when first his heart informed him life without +Audrey was insupportable. With utmost content he had surrendered +himself into the object of Gran's adoring pride and, as such, into her +control of her dear possession. As he grew older, that control had +sometimes come to irk a little. "He sometimes chafed—chafed, if you +follow me," Mr. Pemberton had said. But the quality of that chafing +required better understanding than even Mr. Pemberton could give it. +It was not at conflict of will between himself and Gran that Roly +chafed; he knew his own determined character well enough to know that +if he liked he could override her will as he overrode that of others +who thought to oppose him. Where he chafed was where his devotion to +her pricked him. He could not bear the thought of giving her distress; +and he would sometimes chafe when—at this, at that, at some impulse or +boyish fling of his—he thought her distress unreasonable; unreasonable +because it shackled him unfairly; because either he would submit to it, +or, taking his way, would suffer greatly, be robbed of his pleasure, at +thought of having caused it. +</P> + +<P> +But always, when the thing was over, be glad he had given way to her or +most desperately grieved he had pained her. He knew that he was +everything to her; how hurt her then? +</P> + +<P> +With such the measure of his love for her, such the devotion between +them, and such that devotion's price, what a situation was presented +for his perplexity when Audrey came to occupy his heart! She had been +his playmate in his childhood at Burdon Old Manor, she at the Vicarage. +When her father died, Gran had expressed her fondness for his daughters +by using her influence to procure the establishment of a post-office at +Burdon and persuading the elder sister to conduct it, thus keeping +them, as she had said, "near us." That was one thing; a head of the +house of Burdon's marriage into so humble a degree—and that her +Roly—he knew to be unthinkably another. She had great plans for great +alliance for him—at some future date. At some future date! At her +great age and at his extreme youth she could scarcely think of him as +man—always as boy. It was one of the things that sometimes chafed +him. But when, as had happened, the subject of marriage came up +between them, and he would laugh at her immense ideas of his value, she +would always end so pathetically: "But, Roly, how shall I bear any one +to come between us?" +</P> + +<P> +Rehearsing it all, "How—how in God's name?" he had desperately cried +to himself, "can I tell her of Audrey?" She whom he could never bear +to distress—how give her this vital hurt? She from whom—for the +suffering it would cause her—he could never endure to be parted, how +deliberately put her away? He would tell her his intention; how endure +what she would say, or not say? He would carry out his purpose and she +would leave him and must shortly die; and how endure her death in such +circumstances? Or, haply, he would prevail on her to stay with him; +and she, supplanted, jealous of Audrey and gentle Audrey fearing her. +And how endure that? +</P> + +<P> +No—to create such a breach insupportable, and insupportable life +without Audrey. What then? +</P> + +<P> +It came to him as complete solution, and as complete solution he +pressed it now on Audrey, that he would marry Audrey first, then after +a little while tell. The more he examined it, the more obvious, the +less impossible of failure it seemed. "Gran, dear," he imagined +himself saying, taking his opportunity in one of those frequent moments +when, out driving with her or sitting alone with her in the evening, +she loved just to sit silent, resting her hand on his,—"Gran, dear, +I've something to tell you. I've done something and done it without +telling you, so as to have you go on living with me like we've always +lived together. Gran, I'm married—Audrey, Audrey Oxford; you +remember, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +Imagining it, he could imagine her arms about him. "Gran, I'm +married"—easy and kind. "Gran, I'm going to marry, going to marry +Audrey Oxford"—cruel, impossible! +</P> + +<P> +The solution removed also an obstacle to their mating on Audrey's +side—her sister. Their courtship had been carried on against her +sister's disapproval. Maggie was twenty years older than Audrey, more +mother to her than sister, and sharp-tongued in the matter of Roly's +frequent visits, the more surely to avert the disaster in which she +believed they must end. +</P> + +<P> +"In time—it's only a question of time," she had once said to Audrey, +"he will forget you, turn to his own position and responsibilities in +life—leave you broken-hearted. How else can it end?" +</P> + +<P> +And Audrey in tears: "What if I tell you he has asked me to marry him?" +</P> + +<P> +"He has asked you that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie, he has." +</P> + +<P> +"Has he told Lady Burdon?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not yet, because—" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" +</P> + +<P> +And Audrey: "Oh, how can you say you love me?" +</P> + +<P> +And Maggie: "Audrey! Audrey!" +</P> + +<P> +And Audrey: "Maggie, I didn't mean that," +</P> + +<P> +And Maggie, steeling her heart: "But you think it: the first result of +him. You are girl and boy; you don't understand. Why, I, who would +die if you were to die, would rather see you dead than betrothed to +him. If it ended in marriage, it would end in misery." +</P> + +<P> +And later she had said to him: "If you break Audrey's heart, I will +never forgive you. That's a poor threat. I would find a way perhaps—" +</P> + +<P> +So there was Maggie stood in the way; and the solution found a way +round Maggie. And there was lastly all the clatter of his friends, all +the active disapproval of his elders; and the solution found an easy +way around that. He could not hurt Gran; he could not conciliate +Maggie; he could not face himself gossiped of, implored, advised, +reproved; and the solution offered an easy way around it all. Easily +winning Audrey to it,—her hands in his, his spirit possessing hers—he +came to details. He had examined and arranged everything. He had made +inquiries as to Registry Office marriages. They were both of age. +There was a residence formality: well, she was coming on a visit to a +girl friend in Kensington; he would take a room in a hotel in the +district. They would meet at the Registry "one fine day." Long leave +from his regiment was due. They would go on the continent—"all over +the place, the most gorgeous time"—and afterwards—easy as all the +rest was easy—Gran should be told. +</P> + +<P> +He ended: "Audrey—married!" +</P> + +<P> +And she: "Roly! ... Oh, Roly!" +</P> + +<P> +Comic were the word for such a thing. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +Comic the word; but if, instead, you choose to judge them and to +consider preposterous his arguments of the case between his Gran and +his Audrey and preposterous his solution of it, beg you remember that +life is going to be an impossible affair for us, a thing to drive us +mad, if we are going to judge it by the standard of the correct and +noble characters that you and I possess. By some means or another we +must stoop down to the level of our neighbours and try to judge from +there. Dowered with all the virtues, as you and I are, it is the +easiest thing in the world to be impatient with another's folly, to +despise him for it, to indicate how little moral courage will rid him +of its effects; nay, to go further, and to declare it inconceivable +that such blunders and follies and misbehaviours, as for example those +upon which Roly and his Audrey were now embarked, can really have been +committed. But that is a stage too far. We must not run our excusable +intolerance of folly to the length of calling impossible even the most +absurd actions, even the most incredible weakness of character. The +whole history of mankind results precisely from these absurdities and +these incredibilities. On the one hand, we should still and should all +be in Eden if it were not so; on the other, there is the distinctly +moving thought that you and I, faultless, are dependent for our +entertainment on exactly these impossibilities of character in others: +but for them we should never enjoy the delicious thrill of being +shocked, never (the thing is unthinkable) be able to thank God we are +not as others are. +</P> + +<P> +No, we must accept these impossible follies on the part of our +neighbours: but to understand them—nay, if we are too utterly high and +they too utterly low for that, then merely to pay the poor devils for +the entertainment they give us—let us try to see as they see, feel as +they feel, become naked as they are naked to the bitter chill of +cowardice, of temptation, of God knows what indeed that strikes them to +the bone. +</P> + +<P> +Let us try, and coming to these two, let it for Audrey at least be +excused that she was the gentlest thing and all unschooled in any +heavier book of life than the airy pamphlet that begins "I love;" with +"I love" continues; with "I love" ends; and never asks, much less +supplies, what "I love" means, or what demands, or whither leads, or +how is paid. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0202"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +LOVE LEADS AN EXPEDITION INTO THE UNFORESEEN +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +He married her—and wearied of her. Within two months of when he +called her wife—and pressed her to him and kissed her for the fondness +of that name, and chaffed her with "Wife" in place of Audrey at every +lightest word—within two months of that tremendous day he was +discovering himself checked and irritated by the vexations, the +hindrances, the deceptions imposed by secret marriage upon his former +free and buoyant way of life. Within three he was openly irked, not +hiding from her that his temper was crossed when, stronger and more +frequently, incidents arose to cross it. Within four months—and still +their secret undeclared—he was often neglecting her, often silent in +her presence for long periods; brooding; frowning at her where she sat +or where she walked beside him; leaving her in a storm; returning to +her in remorse; assuring himself he did not love her less, nay, rather +loved her more—<I>But</I>...! Every way he turned and everything she did +and all the things she did not do, brought him and bruised him against +the bars of which that <I>But</I> was made. +</P> + +<P> +All this most wretched and most pitiful, most excusable and most +inexcusable business may best be examined in the incidents that stood +out to mark its progress. Theirs was the oldest and most frequent of +human errors. They had jumped into the delights of the foreseen, and +behold! they found themselves in the swamp, in the jungle, in the +desert, in the whirlpool of the unforeseen. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +Audrey wrote and told Sister Maggie—a letter pledging her to secrecy, +posted on the very moment of departure for the Continent ("at our +wedding breakfast at the Charing Cross hotel, darling; and the train +just going") and breathing ecstasy of happiness, and breathing love all +atremble in its prayer for forgiveness. It informed Maggie that they +were to be Mr. and Mrs. Redpath until everybody was told; and "O, +darling Maggie, I shall not sleep until I get your letter—<I>Poste +restante</I>, Paris, dear—telling me you forgive me and how glad you are." +</P> + +<P> +Forgiveness was not to be discovered in the reply by the weeping eyes +that read it. "You have made a most terrible mistake," Maggie wrote. +"You say that you are happy, but you will find you can only be +miserable while you are living in deception." +</P> + +<P> +The wounding sentences were written in a firm, clear penmanship that in +itself was cold and bitter reprimand. As they appeared, so Audrey read +them. She did not know that they were written while the hand that made +them could be steadied from its trembling desire to send a message only +of devotion, only of prayer for Audrey's happiness, only of blessing. +The letter brought to Audrey's eyes the tears that Maggie hoped to +bring but ached to bring—forcing herself to be cruel in order to be +kind; also it brought belief that Maggie was and wished to be +estranged. It was never answered. Wisely intended, unwisely executed, +misread, it added to the record of human perversity another of those +immensely pitiful blunders that solely and alone are the cause of human +unhappiness. When Heaven holds its reassembly, Heaven, as we seek out +our loved, will surely ring with broken, loving greetings of: "I did +not know! I did not understand!" No more will need be said. All +tragedy, all sorrow is in those words; all tragedy, all sorrow removed +by them. +</P> + +<P> +Roly also had his letter. "If you cause her one single moment's +unhappiness—" and other wild words. He did not show it to Audrey. +Cause his darling unhappiness! He kissed away the tears her own letter +had brought and laughingly cheered her with an amusing account of an +incident in the hotel lobby. "We'll have to get out of this place, +Audrey. There's a man staying here and his wife that I know well. +Great pals of Gran's. I near as a toucher ran bang into them." +</P> + +<P> +It was the first glimpse of the Unforeseen. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +The first glimpse of the Unforeseen! At the moment neither recognised +it for such. At the moment it was merely "A dickens of a squeak. I +say, we'll have to look out for that kind of thing, old girl." Later, +and that before very long, incidents of the kind began to be realised +as the Unforeseen indeed. "That kind of thing" became, or seemed to +become, extraordinarily and exasperatingly frequent. What had promised +to be the fun of looking out for it became the strain of avoiding it. +</P> + +<P> +There came a day—in Vienna, an original item of their programme but +reached much earlier than intended owing to "That kind of thing's" +persistence—there came a day when signs of the strain were suddenly +evidenced, when, like a disturbed snake, unsuspected and sharply +alarming, the Unforeseen upstarted and hissed at them. Audrey had +struck up a pleasant hotel acquaintance, the matter of an hour's chat, +but related rather enthusiastically to Roly. At dinner that night she +pointed out her friend. "Right at the far end—look! By that statue +sort of thing. In pink, with that tall man; d'you see, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +He saw; and with concern she saw him set down the glass he was raising +to his lips and saw his face darken. He said: "Damnation! It's Lady +Ashington. It's maddening, this kind of thing. By God, it is. I'm +going. She'll spot me in a minute. I'm going." +</P> + +<P> +His violent words hurt her and frightened her. He got to his feet and +she made to rise also. That worsened the incident. "Stop where you +are," he said angrily. "Both of us getting up—making people look! I +can slip out behind here. Damn this business!" +</P> + +<P> +When she followed him to their room, she found his temper no better +that he had gone without his dinner. He had made arrangements, he told +her, for them to leave early in the morning, and he named their +destination. She tried to pretend not to notice his mood; but her +voice trembled a little as she said, "I've never heard of the place, +dear." +</P> + +<P> +He grunted, a little ashamed of himself: "I don't suppose anybody has. +I hope not. We must get off the beaten track. Badgered about like +this from pillar to post. It's getting on my nerves." +</P> + +<P> +She faltered, "I'm so sorry, Roly." +</P> + +<P> +Her tone pricked him. But these men hate above all things to feel in +the wrong when they are in the wrong. The effect of her humility was +to make him explain: "I don't know what possessed you, Audrey, 'pon my +soul I don't, to go palling up with that woman." +</P> + +<P> +Again she blundered. His reproach was so absurd that she laughed quite +naturally at it: "O Roly! how ridiculous! How was I to know you knew +her?" +</P> + +<P> +He turned on her, alarming her utterly. "You ought to have known!" +</P> + +<P> +Foolish, exasperating tears in her eyes: "How could I? How could I?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've told you—I've warned you; that's what I mean. I've told you +that every dashed soul I ever knew seems to be all over the Continent. +I've warned you to be careful. Asked you not to get in with people. +You absolutely don't care, seems to me. Perhaps you think it funny +dodging about like this—perhaps you enjoy it. Well, I don't. That's +enough. Let's drop the subject." +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +So and in this wise the miserable business jolted towards its climax; +deeper blunders at every step and every blunder additional to the load +that stumbled them into the next. Here was a young man that had taken +to himself pleasures, and lo! they were chains, rattling whensoever he +moved most grimly to remind him that now limits were imposed upon his +movements; that he who, by virtue of his rank, of the blood in his +veins, of his own high, careless, fearless air, that he who by virtue +of these was wont to look every man in the face more boldly than the +most of us, must now hide, dodge, shift, dissemble, or betray the +secret that, as to his torment he found, every day and every covering +deception made more impossible to discover to the world. +</P> + +<P> +Of all mankind's infirmities nothing than deception so quickly, so +deeply and so surely turns the quality of his behaviour; nothing so +cruelly tears, so acidly pierces his nerves; nothing so saps his +resolution, destroys his moral fibre. Honesty is sword and armour, +bread and wine; deception a voracious canker in the vitals, a clutch +out of hell dragging through fog of fear, through slough of sin, into +mire unspeakable. He was in its torments, he was writhing from them +into deeper blunders; he began to shudder at the thought of proclaiming +his marriage—yet. +</P> + +<P> +She saw his plight and, all unschooled in life, she contributed to the +disaster. Here was the gentlest creature, adoring and mated with an +impetuous mate that now was as a free beast trapped, goaded by the +sudden bars that caged him on every side, wildly seeking an outlet, +panicked at finding none. She searched her miserable pamphlet of "I +love," stained now with tears. It had nothing to give her. She read +into it that in marrying her Roly she thought to have brought him +nectar, and lo! it was a cup of poison she had given him, tormenting +him utterly. She blamed herself. Through wakeful nights she watched +him where he lay beside her—troubled often now in his sleep—and +sought and sought, fumbling her pamphlet, to know what amends she could +make him; and chid herself she was a burden to him; and would sit up in +the darkness and wring her poor young hands in her distracted grief. +</P> + +<P> +He noted the results that these distresses of her mind introduced to +her appearance and her behaviour. They did not aid the difficulties +with which he found himself beset. This was the beginning of the +period of neglect of her; of silence in her presence for long periods; +of brooding; of frowning at her where she sat or when she walked beside +him; of leaving her in a storm, returning in remorse; of assuring +himself he did not love her less, nay, rather loved her more—<I>But!</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +V +</P> + +<P> +At the end of August came their return to England, and immediately his +full realisation of the ghastly delusion of the idea that it were easy +to tell Gran—easy and kind—when the thing was done. Monstrous +delusion, ghastly folly! Why, the very fates were arrayed against it. +He returned to find Gran ailing, in bed. He went to the Mount Street +house, bracing his warped resolution to the pitch of telling her, and +it was to her bedroom he must go, and found her weak and stretching out +her arms to him and overjoyed—O God! so overjoyed!—to have her Roly +back. How tell her? Agony enough that she had no reproach for his +neglect of her through the summer, nor any that he was come now with +the news that he had run his leave to the last day and must at once +rejoin the regiment at Canterbury. Agony enough that she nothing +reproached, nothing questioned; unthinkable the agony of watching her +while he said, "Gran—Gran, dear, I'm married. Audrey, Audrey Oxford, +you know," and of hearing her poor lips falter, "Married? Married, +Roly? Audrey Oxford? Married, Roly?" +</P> + +<P> +Unthinkable! Impossible! +</P> + +<P> +But it was another blunder committed, another step deeper into the +coils, and he knew it for that when he left her, and ranged it with the +similar torments that possessed him: the mad initial folly; the blunder +of not proclaiming the marriage immediately he was married; the blunder +of each hour delayed during the weeks on the Continent. +</P> + +<P> +Now he was in the very jungle of the Unforeseen. Each step, every day, +lost him deeper in its fastnesses; and like one so lost indeed, its +dangers—encountered or suspected on every hand—preyed upon his mind, +robbed his remaining courage, lost him his moral bearings that remained +unwarped. His regimental duties kept him at Canterbury. He could not +have Audrey there. He took a tiny furnished flat in the neighbourhood +of Knightsbridge and there installed her, and there ran up to see her +as often as might be. And the inevitable began. The inevitable—the +chaff of his companions as to why he was forever "dodging up to town"; +the meetings with his friends and their "Roly, where the devil do you +get to these days?" the discovery that not only his men friends but his +larger circle of acquaintances—Gran's friends—were beginning to +gossip of his mysterious habits. The former put a man's interpretation +on his conduct, baited him that they would track him down "to see what +she was like." That thrice infuriated him: on Audrey's account; on the +fear that they might do it and disclosure be forced, to relieve her +from the horrible thing; and on the fact that what was implied was +detestable to his nature. The larger circle of his friends were not +more charitable, if more discreet. Gran, who was better again and had +gone for her health to Burdon Old Manor, sent letters that failed to +hide concern telling him of this, that and the other friend who had +written saying he denied himself to everybody, was frequently in town, +but never available and never to be found. Gran "hoped nothing was +wrong, dear;" but erased her suspicion with her pen, but not so well +that he could not read the words and picture the troubled thoughts that +wrote them. +</P> + +<P> +Ah! this was that grisly Unforeseen in shape new and most monstrous. +How meet it? How meet it? Just as he had shrunk from announcing his +intention of marriage because of the clatter of tongues and the +opposition that it would loose upon him, so now, but a thousand, +thousand times more, he shrank from the clatter that divulgement of his +secret would cause; from the resentment of his world at its befoolment +by him (as they would feel it); from the sneers and laughter at his +turpitude; from the apologies with which he must go round on his knees +to those he had deceived; from the interminable explanations he must +make. The Unforeseen in shape most monstrous! It rushed him as a host +of savage beasts that had snarled, that had threatened, that had come +at him singly and torn him but been whipped, but that now was on him in +the pack. How meet it? How meet it? God! What a lightsome, +harmless, innocent, mad, wanton, reckless thing he had done, and what a +turmoil he had loosed! +</P> + +<P> +Bitter days, these, in the Knightsbridge flat. That pamphlet of "I +love" all connoted now, written in tears, with what "I love" demands, +where leads and must be paid. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0203"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +A LOVERS' LITANY +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +Bitter days—but suddenly breaking to dawn. There came to him, on the +rack of this torment, a thought that tortured him anew, yet made for +healing. Audrey? Even if, as in his extremity he debated, he dared +all and defied all—snatched himself out of this hell by publishing his +position and crying to all concerned, "Now do and say your +worst!"—even if he so made an end of it, to what would he bring her? +How would she be received, suddenly proclaimed his wife when this ugly +crop of suspicion and gossip was at its height? He knew, or through +his distraught imagination he believed he knew; and he writhed to +picture her—his gentle, unversed Audrey—thus introduced to the +suspicious, uncharitable, malicious atmosphere that well he was aware +his world could breathe. "Comes from a post-office somewhere, or a +shop was it? Married at such and such a date—<I>so he says!</I>" +</P> + +<P> +Thus the gate was slammed anew upon his resolution and locked and +double-locked: the way must somehow be prepared for Audrey, the gossip +by some means made to die, before he declared her. And with that there +was unlocked and opened wide the gate that had barred up his love. +Imagining the world's treatment of her, he realised his own. +</P> + +<P> +It was in the tumult of these discoveries that he presented himself at +the Knightsbridge flat and greeted his Audrey with a fondness that made +her cry a little for happiness; she frequently cried in these days, not +often for happiness. His fondness continued at that dear level through +the evening. It emboldened her to urge again the step that she +believed the best of all the many plans she ceaselessly revolved for +curing the trouble she told herself she had brought upon him. She +urged him to tell Gran. "Do tell her, dear. It will end all your +worry. You're so worried, Roly. I see it—oh, how I see it! And I +only add to it because I'm not—because I don't—because I vex you in +so many ways. I know I do. You used to be so happy. You will be +again directly this is all over. Do tell her, Roly! Roly, <I>do!</I>" +</P> + +<P> +She had been seated on the floor, her head resting against him where he +sat in a great armchair. Now, in this appeal of hers, she was turned +about and on her knees, her hands enfondling his, her face lifted +towards him. +</P> + +<P> +He made a little choking sound, all his love for her surging; all his +treatment of her wounding him; the thought of what he would bring her +to if he took the course she urged filling him with remorse and with +pity for her. He said in a strangled voice: "I can't; I can't," and +stooping, he raised her to him so that they lay together in the big +chair, their faces close, his arms about her.... +</P> + +<P> +For a little space, except that she was crying softly, they were +silent—clasped thus, most dear to one another; and then proclaimed +that dearness in scraps of murmured sentences, the gaps filled up by +what their tones and their clasped arms instructed them.... +</P> + +<P> +Just murmurs, and dusky evening in the room—light, faint as their +tones were faint, and in the shadows (how else seemed the air they +breathed at every breath to thrill them?) spirits of true lovers that +were winged down as, let us believe, lovers' spirits may when mortals +love. +</P> + +<P> +Just murmurs. +</P> + +<P> +He said: "Audrey, Audrey, I've been so cruel—angry—thoughtless." +</P> + +<P> +And she: "No ... no." +</P> + +<P> +And she again: "Go to her, then, Roly. Don't tell, if you think +not.... Just be with her for a little.... You'll be happy then.... +Leave me alone a little, dear.... Not even write." +</P> + +<P> +And he: "Audrey! ... Audrey!" +</P> + +<P> +Her voice: "I shall be happy ... if only you are happy..." +</P> + +<P> +And his: "I have been mad ... mad to treat you so.... Forgive.... +Forgive." +</P> + +<P> +Her voice—and close, close, all those lovers' spirits to hear this +lovers' litany: "When you are happy ... I am happy." +</P> + +<P> +And his—and all these murmurs chorused from lover's wraith to lover's +wraith, as watchers handing flame from hand to hand to instruct heaven +love still is here: "Audrey! ... Audrey!" +</P> + +<P> +And she: "My dear ... my dear!" +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +Happy for her, happy for him, for all that have a smile and tear for +true love, to remember that from that moment never a hasty word or +thought passed between them. In that lovers' litany all such were +purged, the past wiped out as if it had never been. And, as if in +reward, into the night that surrounded Roly came a ray like a +miraculous rope thrown to one in a pit. +</P> + +<P> +The way must somehow be prepared for Audrey, he had said; the gossip +somehow be made to die before he could declare her. +</P> + +<P> +Sir Wryford Sheringham supplied the way. +</P> + +<P> +General Sir Wryford Sheringham had been his father's close friend, was +Gran's much-trusted nephew and her adviser in Roly's training. Gran +was sending him appealing letters in these days, imploring him to find +out what it was that was wrong with her dear Roly. Chance enabled him +suddenly to reply that, on the eve of his return to India, he was now +returning to take command of the Frontier Expedition that the +government of India had been saving up for a long time against three +Border tribes, and that he purposed taking Roly with him. He could +invent a corner to shove the boy into, he wrote; and she must not break +her heart nor shed a single tear except for joy that the chance had +come to get the boy away and to work. "Whatever it is he's been up +to," Sir Wryford wrote, "this'll pull him out of it and send him back +to you his father's son again." +</P> + +<P> +They walked into this last and supreme blunder as blindly as they had +gone into the first. Roly presented it as the opportunity more +wonderful than any that he could have invented to give this gossiping +the slip. When he returned ("loaded with medals, old girl," as, aflame +with excitement, he told her) it would all be forgotten; open arms for +him and open arms for her. +</P> + +<P> +Audrey's contribution to the folly was as characteristic. The news +struck her like a blow; but instantly with the shock came its anodyne. +He planned for her; every word of his rushing, thoughtless words was +drafted to scale of "Because I love you so;" though they had been +actual knives she would gladly have clasped such to her heart. +</P> + +<P> +Credit him that the night before the day on which he sailed he had a +sudden realisation of his madness. Credit him, at least, that now for +the first time in their misguided chapter, he saw a blunder before he +was irrevocably in it, and seeing it, tried to halt. He realised. He +told her it was impossible that he should leave her thus. He must +leave her in her right place. He must leave her with Gran. Gran was +in town to bid him good-by. He must—he would tell her that very night +of their marriage: in the morning take Audrey to her. +</P> + +<P> +But at that she broke down utterly—betraying for the first time the +flood and tempest of her agony at losing him and, while he strove to +soothe her, imploring him not to put upon her this last trial of her +strength. "I couldn't bear it, Roly!" she sobbed. "Roly, I couldn't +bear it!" Overwrought by the cumulative effects of the past months, +culminating in the sleepless agony of this last week and now in the +unendurable torture of good-by, she became hysterical at his proposal; +sobbed as if her reason were gone, shaking with dreadful spasms of +emotion that terrified him lest she would be unable to retake her +breath. His arms about her, and his loving pleadings, his earnest +promises to withdraw what he had said, joined with the sheer weariness +of her convulsive distress at last to relieve her. She passed into a +still, exhausted state and thence—utterly alarming him by her deathly +pallor and by the faintness of her voice—into imploring him in +whispers into the last, worst folly of all their pitiable blunders. +She could not be left, she implored him, with Gran—left alone with +her, left in such circumstances. "No, no! Roly, no! Together, Roly; +not alone, not alone!" And then she began to assure him of her +happiness if she might just wait here. "You can always think of me and +imagine me here: just waiting for you, and thinking of you and praying +for you; and not lonely, not unhappy. I <I>promise</I> not lonely; I +promise, <I>promise</I> not unhappy! You can't think of me like that if you +leave me with Lady Burdon. You don't know <I>what</I> may happen to me; how +she may feel towards me or what I might imagine she felt and what I +might not do. I <I>could</I> not—I <I>could</I> not!" +</P> + +<P> +Try to understand him that he suffered himself to be convinced against +himself. So placed; so implored; so loved and so loving; so shackled +by the train of blunders he had committed, a hundred times more wise, +more strong a man than twelfth Baron Burdon would have given way as he +gave way. This was their farewell, and not to rob its fleeting hours +more he agreed, and turned with her to rehearse the plans for her +comfort in his absence. The flat was taken for six months ahead. +"Back in four! Now I bet you any money I'm back in four!" There was +money banked for her. Finally he wrote and gave her two letters, one +addressed to a Mr. Pemberton—"One of the best, old Pemberton"—the +other to Gran. He began to say, "If anything happens to me," but went +on: "If ever you get—you know—down on your luck—that kind of +thing—or feel you'd like to make it known about us before I come back, +just send those letters—just as they are; you needn't write or take +them yourself. They explain everything, they ... oh, don't cry.... +Audrey ... Audrey!" +</P> + +<P> +Within a few hours he was gone. Within four months they were building +a cairn of stones above him to keep the jackals from his body. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0204"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +WHAT THE TOOO-FIRTY WINNER BROUGHT MRS. ERPS +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +Come to her in the month of January. Bridge those long weeks wherein +she lived from mail day to mail day—as one not strong that has a weary +mile to cover and walks from seat to seat—and come to her there. +</P> + +<P> +She was at this time not in good health, suffered much from headaches +and was oppressed with a constant fatigue. In this condition fresh air +without exertion had become very desirable to her, and she formed the +daily habit of long rides outside the leisurely horsed tramcars of +those days. Study of a guide acquainted her with their routes. She +had a particular one for each day of the week, counting from Saturday +to Friday, and arranged on a little plan by which (as she made believe) +each journey was part of a long journey whose end was Friday's ride, +whence she returned home to find the Indian mail. Not only fresh air +was obtained by this means, but a sense of actively advancing towards +the day that brought the letters, round which she lived. +</P> + +<P> +On an afternoon of this January her ride was from Holborn, through +Islington and Holloway, to Highgate Archway. On the near side of the +Holloway road, half a mile perhaps below the stopping place, there is a +group of houses approached by shallow steps that have resisted the +overpowering inclination of the district to become shops and instead +support their tenants by providing apartments. The car that carried +her had stopped here. She had learnt to eke out the amusement of these +rides by attention to all manner of little incidents, and—employed +with one such—was wondering if her car would restart before it was +reached by a newsboy who ran towards them from the distance, his pink +contents-bill fluttering apronwise before him. Some one was a terribly +long time over the business of alighting or entering. The newsboy won. +A few yards from where she sat above him he stopped to sell a paper and +to fumble for change. The halt caused his fluttering pink apron to +come to rest. +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +PEER<BR> +KILLED IN<BR> +FRONTIER<BR> +FIGHTING<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Had something actually struck her throat? Was a hand actually +strangling there? Could they see she was fighting for breath? Was the +car really rocking—right up so she could not see the street, right +down and all the street circling? Could others hear that shrill and +enormous din that threatened to split her brain? +</P> + +<P> +Through the tremendous hubbub and the dizzy rocking she got down. If +this strangle at her throat did not relax, if this dizzy whirling did +not cease, this immense din silence.... +</P> + +<P> +A curious voice, leagues away, said: "Yer've got ter pye fer it, +y'know." +</P> + +<P> +She put her fingers in her purse and held out what she could gather. A +figure that had been going up and down in front of her seemed to take a +tremendous sidelong sweep and vanished. She was left with a paper in +her hands and knew what she must do. But if this din, this giddy +circling.... +</P> + +<P> +It suddenly stopped. Everything stopped. There was not a sound, there +was not a movement. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +London stands stock still in the middle of a windy, crowded pavement to +open its evening paper and to peer at the stop-press space for only one +particular purpose. While she thus stood and peered (and suddenly knew +this icy silence was the gathering of an immense tide that was +coming—coming) a woman who wore an apron over a capitally developed +figure, and a rakish cloth cap over a headful of curl papers, opened +the door of the house immediately beside her (appearing with the air of +one shot at immense velocity out of a trap) and called "I! Piper!" +She then exclaimed nearly as loudly "Ennoyin'!" and then saw Audrey. +</P> + +<P> +This lady's name was Mrs. Erps, and she knew perfectly well, and +rejoiced to observe an example of, the peculiarity in regard to +London's evening paper that has been noted above. Mrs. Erps rolled her +solid hands in her apron and came down ingratiatingly. A model of +correctness. "Excoose me, my dear," she began, "Excoose me, wot 'orse +won the tooo-firty? My old man—Ho, thenks, I'm sure—Ho, gryshus!" +</P> + +<P> +Relating the incident later in the evening to a lady friend, and acting +it with considerable dramatic power: "'Ands me the piper she does," +said Mrs. Erps, "as natural as I 'ands this apring to you and then +looks at me jus' as if I mightn't had been there, and then she says in +a whissiper 'Oh, dear!' she says. 'O Gawd!' and <I>dahn</I> she goes +plump—dahn like that!" explained Mrs. Erps from the floor, very nearly +carrying her friend with her in the stress of dramatic illustration. +</P> + +<P> +But Mrs. Erps was more than a great tragedy actress; she was also a +kindly soul and there is to be added to this quality the genial warmth +aroused in her by the fact that the tooo-firty winner was Lollipop, +that Lollipop had cantered home at what she called sevings, and that +her old man was seving times arf a dollar the richer for the +performance. "Carry 'er in there," said Mrs. Erps in a very loud voice +to a policeman in particular and to a considerable area of the street +in general. "Young man, that's my 'ouse, and Mrs. Elbert Erps my nime, +and dahn in front of it the pore young thing's fell jus' as she was +'anding me this very piper wot 'ad come aht to see the tooo-firty +winner. 'Excoose me,' I says to 'er, 'excoose me—'" +</P> + +<P> +The policeman: "All right, mother. Now, then, you boys." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Elbert Erps, going backwards up the steps, hands beneath the arms +of that poor stricken creature: "There's a cleeng, sweet bed in my +first front, well-haired and wool blenkits, that lets eight and six and +find yer own, and could ask ten, and there she'll rest, the poor pretty +thing, dropped on me very doorstep, as yer might say, and standin' +there with the piper same as you might. 'Excoose me,' I says to 'er, +'excoose me—'" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Erps shot open her front door with a backward plunge of her foot, +the policeman closed it with a backward kick of his foot; and to the +continued recital in great detail of how it all happened, their burden +was carried to the first front and laid upon the cleeng, sweet bed, +well-haired, wool blenkits, eight and six and find yer own. +</P> + +<P> +They loosened her dress at her throat; beneath the constable's +direction made use of water and chafed her hands. "Marrit," said Mrs. +Erps, denoting the wedding ring. "Marrit, she is." +</P> + +<P> +Presently Audrey opened her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, <I>there</I> you are!" cried Mrs. Erps in high delight. "There you +are, my pretty. Safe and sahnd as ever you was. There you are! You +recolleck me, don't you, my love? Wot you gave the piper to? 'Excoose +me,' I says to yer, 'excoose me,' I says—" +</P> + +<P> +Audrey's eyes went meaninglessly from Mrs. Erps to the constable, her +eyelids fluttered above them and closed. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Stand</I> aht of it!" said Mrs. Erps to the constable in a very sharp +whisper. "<I>Stand</I> aht of it, frightenin' her. 'E won't 'urt you, my +pretty. 'E only carried of yer up. <I>Dahn</I> you went, yer know, right +dahn. Where's your 'usbing, my pretty?" +</P> + +<P> +Her lips just parted. She moaned "Oh, dear! O God!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Erps communicated to the constable: "Jus' 'er very words. <I>Dahn</I> +she went—" +</P> + +<P> +The eyes opened again. +</P> + +<P> +"Your 'usbing, dear, I'm askin'. 'Usbing. Ain't you got a ma, my +dear? Ain't you got a pa?" +</P> + +<P> +She said: "Dead ... dead ... Oh, dear..." +</P> + +<P> +"Orfing," communicated Mrs. Erps. +</P> + +<P> +"Rambling in her mind," said the constable. "Not answering you, she +wasn't." +</P> + +<P> +"You pop off, young man," commanded Mrs. Erps with sudden hostility. +"Ramberling! Didn't I ask her, and didn't she give answer back to me? +Ramberling! You pop off. I'll fine where she lives, and my old man +'ll come to the station if so need be. 'E ain't afraid of yer, so +don't you think it. Served on a joory, he has, before now. +Ramberling! I'm going to rub 'er pore feet. That's what I'm goin' to +do. Ramberling! She knows me as spoke 'er fair before ever you came. +'Excoose me,' I says to her, 'excoose me—'" +</P> + +<P> +The policeman, from the door: "Yes, I've heard that." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Erps, bending over the stairs: "Pop off! That's what I'm telling +you. Pop off!" +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Erps rubbed the "pore feet," put a hot bottle to them, covered the +poor, motionless form with two of the wool blenkits, called up her old +man when he came in; and in his presence and in that of the lady second +floor lodger and the young man first back lodger, trembling with +witnessed honesty, she opened the pretty dear's purse and searched her +pocket for any clue to her home. There was none. Mrs. Erps, having +counted the money in the purse, written down the amount and had the +paper signed by her old man, by second floor and by first back, bade +them pop off, and sat beside her patient with soothing words and +frequently a kiss to the reiterated "Oh, dear ... oh, dear ... O God!" +that came in scarcely audible sighs as from one numbed with pain and +utterly tired. +</P> + +<P> +So, only now and then sighing, eyes closed, she lay for close upon +three hours. Mrs. Erps stole away to cook up a nice bit of fried fish +for 'er old man, revisiting the first front at intervals, waiting to +hear that weary moan, and returning down-stairs increasingly troubled +with: "I don't like to hear her. Fair wrings my 'art, it does." +</P> + +<P> +A visit paid towards seven o'clock was better rewarded. Audrey opened +her eyes, looked full and intelligently at Mrs. Erps, standing there +with a lighted candle, and quite naturally addressed her. She +questioned nothing. She seemed fully to understand where she was and +why. In tones weak but quite clear and collected she made two +requests. Please let her stay here for the night and leave her quite +alone; she wanted nothing, just to be alone; and please send a telegram +for her. +</P> + +<P> +She dictated the message and it was sent—to Maggie, and with Mrs. +Erps' address added, and running: "Please come at once. He is dead. +Audrey." +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +Miss Oxford arrived in the early afternoon of the next day. All the +devotion of the years she had mothered Audrey, all the +longing—longing—longing of the past months for news, all the agony of +suspense in the train journey (the papers informing her as they +informed new Lady Burdon at Miller's Field), all a breaking heart's +distress was in the little cry she gave when she entered first front +and saw that strangely white, strangely impassive face lying on the +pillow. +</P> + +<P> +"My darling! Oh, my darling"—arms about the still form, tears raining +down. +</P> + +<P> +No responsive movement; just "Dear Maggie—dear Maggie." +</P> + +<P> +"Why did you never write?" +</P> + +<P> +"Dear Maggie..." +</P> + +<P> +There was no more of explanation between them. +</P> + +<P> +"Maggie, I want to be quite, quite still. Not to talk, Maggie darling. +Just hold my hand and let me lie here. Are you holding it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Audrey! Audrey! Yes—yes. In both mine." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't feel you." +</P> + +<P> +She seemed to feel nothing, to want nothing, and, though she lay now +with wide eyes, to see nothing. She just lay, scarcely seeming to +breathe. Once she said, in a very fond voice, "Yes, Roly," as if she +were in conversation with him. No other sound. +</P> + +<P> +After a long time Maggie told her: "Darling, I'm going to bring a +doctor to see you." +</P> + +<P> +No reply nor movement when Maggie released the hand she held and left +the room to seek Mrs. Erps. No interest nor response when the doctor +came, or while he examined her. He took Maggie aside. "She's very +young. How long has she been married?" +</P> + +<P> +"In June—the first of June." +</P> + +<P> +They spoke in whispers. When he was going, he repeated what he had +most impressed. "No fear of it happening so far as I can see. She +doesn't seem in pain. That numbness? Mental. Her mind is too +occupied. I don't think movement would bring it on; but don't move her +yet. We mustn't run risks. It would be fatal—almost certainly fatal +if it happened. Another shock would do it; nothing else, I think. +Well, there's no likelihood of shock, is there? You can guard against +that. See to that and you've no need to worry. She couldn't possibly +live through it in her present state. Otherwise—why, we'll soon be on +the right road and getting strong for it. I'll look in to-night." +</P> + +<P> +This was in the passage, and with Mrs. Erps in waiting at the front +door rehearsing in her mind: "As I was telling you when you come, +doctor, 'Excoose me,' I says to 'er, 'excoose me—'" But what Mrs. +Erps overheard caused her to let him escape and to say instead to Miss +Oxford, "Oh, the pore love! If any one makes a sahnd to shock 'er—not +if I knows it, they don't." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Erps knew quite well the meaning of that recurrent "it" in the +doctor's words. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +V +</P> + +<P> +But it was not in Mrs. Erps's power to prevent the shock that came. +</P> + +<P> +It came in direct train of action from that "Yes, Roly" that Maggie had +heard, separated from it by the days of high fever, the mind wandering, +that almost immediately supervened. As one that falls asleep upon a +resolution and wakes at once to remember it and to act upon it, so, the +fever releasing her to her senses, Audrey took up immediately that +which lay in those words of hers. +</P> + +<P> +She had fallen into a natural sleep that promised the end of her fever. +She awoke, and directly she awoke sat up in bed. She was alone. Only +the one thought was in her mind; she got up and began to dress. +</P> + +<P> +The resolution of her mind governed the extreme weakness of her body. +She was no more aware of her feebleness than one strung up in battle +notices a wound not immediately crippling. She knew exactly what she +must do. She found her purse on the mantelpiece and took it and left +the house without being noticed—or thinking to escape or to give +notice. Only that one thought occupied her; a few yards down the +street she met a cab and hailed it. "Burdon House, Mount Street," she +directed the driver. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Roly," had been when Roly, visiting her more clearly, more real +than any other figure about her during that numb and impassive period +when she desired to be quiet in order to talk with him, had told her to +go to Gran, to comfort Gran, and to be comforted. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +VI +</P> + +<P> +Old butler Noble admitted her. Events had caused old butler Noble to +be considerably shaken in his wits. A week ago the door would have +been closed to a young woman who asked for Lady Burdon and refused her +name. To-day, on the explanation, "The name does not matter. Lady +Burdon will be glad to see me," it was held open and the visitor taken +to the library. +</P> + +<P> +This was the second day of new Lord and Lady Burdon's visit for the +latter to make Jane Lady Burdon's acquaintance. Only that morning old +butler Noble had made the mistake of turning away a Miller's Field +friend who had called to see new Lady Burdon, carrying out a promise to +report how baby Rollo, left behind, was getting on. "Her ladyship is +seeing no one," Noble had informed her. The excellent Miller's Field +friend had been too overawed by his manner to explain exactly whom it +was she wished to see. She sent a note of explanation by messenger. +Noble delivered it to his mistress, who read it and sent him with it to +new Lady Burdon. The note was foolishly worded. New Lady Burdon, ill +at ease in this house, crimsoned to think it had been read. From the +outset, hostile and prepared for hostility, she had taken a sharp +dislike to this old man-servant; angry and mortified, she questioned +him and spoke to him as he was unaccustomed to be addressed. +</P> + +<P> +It was beneath the lesson of this incident that he admitted Audrey +without question. She was none of his mistress's friends. In the +first place he knew all such; in the second they did not call at the +impossible hour of half-past six in the evening, nor present the +strange appearance—white, not very steady, faltering in voice—that +she bore. +</P> + +<P> +He took the news of her arrival to new Lady Burdon. +</P> + +<P> +"Gave no name, do you say?" +</P> + +<P> +"She said your ladyship would be glad to see her." +</P> + +<P> +Lady Burdon hesitated a moment. She tingled with fresh hostility +against this man because she wondered whether he expected her to accept +that statement or to send him again for the name. She did not know and +hated him the more, and hated all the fancied resentment for which he +stood, because she did not know. +</P> + +<P> +Her mind sought a way out. She said with a little laugh: "Oh, I think +I know. Very well." +</P> + +<P> +She went to the library. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0205"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +WHAT AUDREY BROUGHT LADY BURDON +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +It was very dim in the library. Above the centre of the room light +stood in soft points upon a high chandelier. A fire burnt low within +the shelter of the great hearth. The rest was shadow. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Burdon came easily into the room, but in the doorway stopped; and +Audrey, who had made a forward movement, prepared words on her lips, +also stopped. There was something odd about this girl who stood there, +Lady Burdon thought, and her mind ran questing the cause of some +strange apprehension that somehow was communicated to it. There was +something wrong, Audrey thought; and she began to tremble. For a +briefest space, that was a world's space to Audrey's mind bewildered +and to Lady Burdon's mind suspicious, as they went hunting through it, +these two stood thus, and thus regarded one another. +</P> + +<P> +It was told of this library at Burdon House—Mr. Amber's "Lives" record +it—that in the days when gentlemen wore swords against their thighs, a +duel was fought here, that the thing went in three fierce assaults, +each ended by a bloody thrust on this side or on that, and that between +the bouts the rivals panted, sick with fatigue and hurt. +</P> + +<P> +Words for swords, and the first bout:— +</P> + +<P> +Lady Burdon closed the door. She went a step towards Audrey and said, +"Yes?" +</P> + +<P> +Audrey, with fumbling hands, swaying a little where she stood: "I +think—I came to see Lady Burdon." +</P> + +<P> +Odd her look, and odd her tone, and strange the trembling that visibly +possessed her. Lady Burdon was about to explain. Her mind came back +from its questing like one that cries alarm by night through silent +streets. "Beware!" it cried to her. "Beware!" and for her explanation +she substituted: +</P> + +<P> +"I am Lady Burdon." +</P> + +<P> +The first thrust. +</P> + +<P> +Audrey put a hand against a chair that stood beside her. The trembling +that had taken her when, expecting to see Roly's Gran, this stranger +had appeared, began to shake her terribly in all her frame. This Lady +Burdon? For the first time since her will had got her from her bed and +brought her here, she was informed how weak she was. A dreadful +physical sickness came over her and all the room became unsteady. +</P> + +<P> +Respite enough, and the second bout:— +</P> + +<P> +Lady Burdon demanded: "Who are you, please?" +</P> + +<P> +No reply, and that augmented her suspicion, and she came on again: "Who +are you, please?" +</P> + +<P> +Wave upon wave that dreadful sickness swept over Audrey and set her +brain aswim. Bewildered thoughts, like frantic arms of one that +drowns, tossed up upon the flood, and like such arms that gesticulate +and vanish, spun there a dizzy moment and spun away: This Lady Burdon? +... then this not Roly's house ... then what? ... then where? This +Lady Burdon? ... then all her life with Roly was dream ... had never +been ... none of her life had ever been ... what had been then? +</P> + +<P> +A third time: "Who are you, please? Why do you not answer me?" +</P> + +<P> +She made an effort. She said very pitiably: "Oh, how—oh, how can you +be Lady Burdon?" +</P> + +<P> +No wound—only the merest scratch, but increasing in Lady Burdon the +dis-ease that had come to her on entering the room and had heightened +at every moment. +</P> + +<P> +In her turn it was hers to give pause, but she engaged quickly for the +third bout. +</P> + +<P> +"I see you do not understand," she said. +</P> + +<P> +And Audrey: "Oh, please forgive me. No, I do not understand; I have +been ill. I am ill." +</P> + +<P> +"But I am afraid I do not understand you. I do not understand your +manner. If you will tell me who you are—what it is you want—I can +perhaps explain." +</P> + +<P> +But Audrey only looked at her. Only most pitiable inquiry was in her +eyes. Lady Burdon read their inquiry, that same "Oh, how can you be +Lady Burdon?" and the question and the silence brought vague, +unreasoning alarm in violent collision with her suspicions. Anger was +struck out of their conjunction. She said sharply: +</P> + +<P> +"You must answer me, please. You must answer me. What is the matter? +I am asking you who you are." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Amber's account of the duel says that one contestant drove the +other the length of the room and had him pinned against the wall:— +</P> + +<P> +Into Audrey's bewilderment, the dreadful sickness and the trembling she +could not control, these sharp demands came like numbing blows upon one +in the trough of the sea grappling for life. When Roly had come to her +as she lay stupefied and she had answered him "Yes, Roly," he had told +her clearly as if in fact he had stood beside her, what she should say +to Gran. She had come with the words prepared. They suddenly returned +to her now. +</P> + +<P> +The words she had made ready: "I am Audrey—" she said. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Amber's account of the duel says that the one contestant, having +his rival pinned, was too impetuous and ran upon the other's sword:— +</P> + +<P> +Lady Burdon said: "Audrey? Do you say Audrey? Are you known here?" +</P> + +<P> +And ran upon the other's sword:— +</P> + +<P> +"I am Audrey—I am Roly's wife." +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +As a dreadful blow sends the stricken, hands to face, staggering this +way and that on nerveless, aimless legs; or as a tipsy man, unbalanced +by fresh air, will blunder into any open door, so, at that "I am +Audrey—I am Roly's wife"—Lady Burdon's mind was sent reeling, +fumbling through a maze of spinning scenes—marriage? and what +then?—before it could fix itself to realisation. +</P> + +<P> +She stood plucking with one hand at the fingers of the other; and when +the whirl subsided and she came dizzily out of it her mind was leaden +and the first words she could get from it were none she wanted. +</P> + +<P> +Her voice all thick: "He was not married," she said. +</P> + +<P> +The reply, very gentle: "We did not tell any one." +</P> + +<P> +And to that nothing better than "Why?" +</P> + +<P> +"Roly did not wish it." +</P> + +<P> +Thick and heavy still: "Why do you come now?" +</P> + +<P> +And Audrey in a little cry: "Because he is dead!" +</P> + +<P> +Then Lady Burdon said dully: "You had better go," and at the +bewilderment that came into Audrey's eyes repeated more strongly: "You +had better go—quickly;" and then "Quickly!" with her voice run up on +the word, and her hands that had been plucking flung apart. +</P> + +<P> +Her mind was over its numbness and through the whirl of nightmare +meanings in that "I am Roly's wife;" and it came out of them as one +shaken by a fall and strung up for vengeance. Marriage! Impossible! +And she a fool to be frightened by it—at worst a horrid aftermath of +disgusting conduct. +</P> + +<P> +"Quickly!" she cried and then burst out with: "I see what you are—to +come at such a time—to this house of mourning—he scarcely dead—with +such a story—wicked—infamous—I know, I see now why you were +surprised to see me—an old lady you expected—grief-stricken—" +</P> + +<P> +She stopped, achoke for breath, and Audrey said: "Oh, please—please." +</P> + +<P> +Misgiving, that subtle, coward spy that spies the way for fear, cast +its net over Lady Burdon. The pleading, gentle air—no flush of shame, +no note of defiance hunted her mind back to its alarms. And Audrey +said: "He did not wish our marriage known;" and at "marriage" misgiving +turned and shouted fear to follow. +</P> + +<P> +She said slowly: "You persist marriage? There are proofs of marriage. +Where are your proofs?" +</P> + +<P> +The pleading look only deepened: "But I never thought—" Audrey said, +"—but I never thought—" She swayed, and swayed against the chair she +held. It supported her. "I never thought I would not be believed. +Lady Burdon will understand. I know she will understand. If I may see +her, please..." +</P> + +<P> +"If you were married—proofs." +</P> + +<P> +There was a considerable space before Audrey answered. Presently she +said very faintly: +</P> + +<P> +"I am very ill ... I am very ill ... I can bring proofs.... But she +will understand.... Please let me see her.... Please, please..." +</P> + +<P> +In advertisement of her state her eyelids fluttered and fell upon her +eyes while she spoke. Her voice was scarcely to be heard. +</P> + +<P> +Her condition made no appeal to Lady Burdon. The simplicity of her +words, her simple acceptance of the challenge to bring proofs, returned +Lady Burdon to that dull plucking at her hands; and presently she +turned and went heavily across the room and through the door, closed it +behind her and went a few paces down the hall—to what? At that +question she stopped, and at the answer her mind gave went quickly back +to the door and stood there breathing fast. What was shut in here? A +monstrous thing come to strike her down as suddenly as miracle had come +to snatch her up? And where had she been going? To publish it? To +impel the horrible fate it might have for her? To say to old Lady +Burdon and to Maurice: "There is a woman here who says she was married +to Lord Burdon?" To say what would spring into their minds as it tore +like a wild thing at hers:—"Yes, if marriage, a child ... an heir?" +At thought of how narrowly she had escaped the results of that action, +she trembled as one trembles that in darkness has come to the edge of a +cliff and by a single further step had plunged to destruction; and at +imagination of the bitterness, the humiliation that would be hers if +the worst were realised and she returned from what she had become to +worse than she had been, she writhed in torture of spirit that was like +twisting poison in her vitals. All her plans, all her dreams, all her +sweet foretasting sprang up before her, mocking her; all the +intolerable sympathy of her friends, all the secret laughter it would +hide, came at her, twisting her. +</P> + +<P> +Somewhere in the house a door opened and shut. She put a hand +violently to her throat, as though the shock of the sound were a blow +that struck her there. She found herself braced against the door, +guarding it; listening for footsteps, and strung up to keep away +whoever came. Silence! But the attitude into which she had sprung +informed her of the determination that had shaped unperceived beneath +the tumult of her thoughts. She was not going to fall beneath the blow +that threatened her! When she knew that, she was calmer, and set +herself to satisfy her fears. What was shut in here? A wanton.... +Wanton? Who never flushed, never railed, defied? A betrayed, then. +Well, what was that to her, and how was she concerned? A betrayed? +Who came with no story of betrayal that might or might not be, but with +assertion of marriage that was capable of definite proof or disproof? +Marriage? Impossible! A lie! Impossible? There came to her +recollection of that strange disappearance of which Mr. Pemberton had +told; was marriage the secret of it? There swept back to her that +vivid and hideous nightmare on the very night of the news when she had +cried "I hold!" and had been answered: "No, you do not—nay, I hold." +Was that foreboding? There flamed before her again the mock of her +plans, the humiliation of her downfall. She struck her clenched hands +together; and as if the violent action caused an assembly of her +arguments, she reduced her position to this: either the thing was true, +in which case it could be proved; or it was a lie, in which case no +consideration recommended her to do other than keep it to herself and +herself stamp upon it. +</P> + +<P> +That satisfied her and she reëntered the room to act upon it. +</P> + +<P> +Audrey was on her knees by the chair. The sight shook her +satisfaction. Wanton? Betrayed? A lie? +</P> + +<P> +Audrey turned towards her: "I have been praying," she said. She got to +her feet and came forward a step: "She is coming to see me?" +</P> + +<P> +Lady Burdon said: "I have told her. She will not see you." +</P> + +<P> +She was committed. She stood agonisingly strung up in every fibre, as +one that waits an appalling catastrophe. She saw Audrey wring her +hands and heard her moan "Oh ... Oh!" +</P> + +<P> +She heard her own voice say: "You can bring your proofs." She had, as +it were, a vision of herself opening the street door and watching +Audrey pass her and go down the steps and out of sight. She was only +actually returned to herself when she found herself, as one awaking who +has walked in sleep, striving to make her trembling hands close the +latch of the door. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0206"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +ARRIVAL OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +The driver of a four-wheeled cab, crawling down Mount Street, pushed +along his horse when he saw Audrey walking with very slow and uncertain +steps ahead of him. He drew into pace alongside her and began to +repeat: "Keb? Keb, miss—keb,—keb?" with a persistence and regularity +that suggested it was the normal sound of his breathing. +</P> + +<P> +She stopped and stared at him in a dazed way. He pulled up and went on +quite contentedly: "Keb?—Keb, miss—keb,—keb?" His voice and his keb +came presently into her realisation. There returned to her knowledge +of what she purposed. Her thoughts seemed to her to be drifting +shapes, and this one had floated away and she had been trying to reach +it—hanging there just above her—while she stared at him. She gave +him the address of the Knightsbridge flat and presently was driving +there and presently going up the stairs, very slowly, taking her key +from her purse, and then entering. +</P> + +<P> +The flat was in extraordinary confusion. She did not notice. The +woman who came daily to attend her wants had come twice to find her not +returned, and a third time with a gentleman friend (on tiptoe), taking +a stealthy and permanent departure an hour later with everything that +could be conveniently carried. The back of a drawer in a bureau had +not received this lady's attention. It contained all that Audrey had +come to seek: a box of carved wood, picked up on the Continent. Those +two letters Roly had given her for Mr. Pemberton and Gran were here. +Her mind had turned to them when she had realised the thing that had +never occurred to her: that she would not be believed. Here also was +her marriage certificate and all the letters Roly had written +her—before marriage and from India. +</P> + +<P> +She took up the box and began to retrace her steps. She had scarcely +got down the stairs when dizziness seized her again. The dreadful +sickness and the trembling that the shock of her first encounter with +Lady Burdon had caused her had been stamped out by the final blow that +made her wring her hands and cry "Oh ... oh!" and had sent her numbed +from the house and carried her numbed to this point. Her physical +senses had been drugged, just as they had been hypnotised by the +instruction to which she had answered "Yes, Roly." Now they were +suddenly released from the kindness of the drug. Dizziness—and while +all things spun about her—pain. It caught her with a violence so +immense that she believed her body could not contain it and would go +asunder. It drove her, as it seemed to her, through unconsciousness +and into a state in which she met it again with a quality in its +sharpness that she knew for death, as if she recognised death. It +dropped her back from where she had seen death, through the degree of +its first immensity, and down to a gnawing that told her it was +gathering force to rush up again and this time leave her there—gone. +In that respite she got to the cab. She would die at the next +onslaught—Maggie! If Maggie could hold her when it came! She did not +know the address in the Holloway Road; but knew it was there, and a +butcher's with a strange name—Utter—had caught her attention opposite +when she left the house. She tried to tell the driver, but her +condition overcame her speech. He saw her state and jumped down to +her, and she called tremendously upon herself and effected the words. +He more lifted than helped her in, and she continued to hold herself +until he got back to his box, then collapsed groaning. +</P> + +<P> +The cabman pulled up opposite the establishment of Mr. Utter and had +scarcely stopped his horse when from Mrs. Erps's house came Mrs. Erps, +plunging down the steps, and Miss Oxford, who stopped at the entrance, +not daring to come on. Mrs. Erps peered through the cab window and +then called back to Miss Oxford. "Told yer it was. Safe and sahnd!" +and began to tug at the handle and sharply addressed the cabman: "Ho, +ain't you got a nasty stiff door!" and cried through the window: "Why, +<I>there</I> you are, my dear! Popping off like you hadn't ought to, give +us a fair ole turn!" and flung open the door and said, "Ho, dear!" and +turned a frightened face to Maggie, come beside her. +</P> + +<P> +The open door revealed how Audrey was collapsed, and showed the hue of +ashes that her face had, and gave the groaning that came from her. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Oxford went to her. "Audrey! ... dying! She is dying!" +</P> + +<P> +By common understanding they began to try to carry her out. The cabman +leant over from his box and presently saw Mrs. Erps come backing out +with violent movements and suddenly had her fist shaken in his +surprised face. "'Old your old 'orse, carng yer!" Mrs. Erps cried +furiously. "Joltin' of us! 'Old your old catsmeat, carng yer!" She +plunged round to the further door, and through that they lifted her +whose groaning terrified them utterly, carried her up-stairs, and for +the second time she was laid on the cleeng blenkits, well haired, eight +an six and find yer own. +</P> + +<P> +All Mrs. Erps's breath—no policeman to assist her—was this time +required for the exertion. But when their burden was laid she voiced +the extremity to which it was clearly come. "'Ad er shock, she 'as," +said Mrs. Erps. "Some one's done it on 'er." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, bring the doctor," Miss Oxford cried. "Quick! Quick! Oh, my God +... my God!" +</P> + +<P> +She did what she could while Mrs. Erps was gone. She was praying, when +her prayer was so far answered that Audrey recognised her. "Maggie..." +and then "I am dying—forgive," and then caught up in her pains again +while Maggie cried: "Don't! Don't! It is for you to forgive me; you +will be all right soon—very soon." The pains drew off a little. +Audrey began to speak very faintly. "I went to Lady Burdon—" Very +feebly she told what had happened and Maggie, who had begged her, +"Darling, don't talk—don't worry," listened as one that is held +aghast. When the slow words failed, she did not at once realise that +Audrey's voice had stopped. Mrs. Erps and the doctor found her +kneeling by the still form with strangely staring, unweeping eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"She has had a shock," the doctor began. +</P> + +<P> +"They have killed her," Miss Oxford said. +</P> + +<P> +Bending over the patient he did not notice her words nor the intensity +of their tone; and there began to come very quickly a dreadful urgency +that caused agony of grief to override the agony of hate that had +possessed her. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +There was a thin, new cry went up in the room: and that was life newly +come. And there was heavy breathing with dreadful pause at each +expiration's end and then the straining upward climb: and that was life +fluttering to be gone. Longer the pauses grew and harsher the upward +breath. Loud the thin cry struck in, and as though it called that +fleeting life, and as though that fleeting life, in the act of +springing away, turned its head at the sound, Audrey opened her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +There seemed to be a question in them. Miss Oxford bent closely over +her: "A boy, my darling." +</P> + +<P> +She seemed to smile before she died. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0207"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +ENLISTMENT OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +That day of Audrey's death was in two minds at two breakfasts in +different quarters of London on a morning some while later. In the +Mount Street house Jane Lady Burdon, starting in an hour to make her +home with her sister in York, was reading to Lord and Lady Burdon a +letter just received from India. It was a sympathetic note from the +officer who had been with her Roly when he fell. "'His last words,'" +she read aloud with faltering lips, "'were: <I>Tell Gran to love Audrey</I>. +It was difficult to catch them, but I think that was it.'" +</P> + +<P> +Jane Lady Burdon laid down the letter and smiled feebly. "They have no +meaning for me," she said. +</P> + +<P> +And Lord Burdon: "Nellie! What's up, old girl?" +</P> + +<P> +Lady Burdon struggled with the dreadful agitation the words had caused +her. They had meaning for her. "<I>I am Audrey—I am Roly's wife.</I>" +</P> + +<P> +"So sad," she exclaimed, "so sad—excuse me—I—" She rose shakily and +went from the room. After two days of suspense she had thought that +hideous alarm defeated and disproved. What now? And what had she done? +</P> + +<P> +The other breakfast was at Mrs. Erps's—also immediately before a +journey. "No one," Mrs. Erps had said, "no one hadn't oughter travel +on a nempty stomach," and had forced Miss Oxford to the table before +the start for Little Letham and "Post Offic." "I know you've had +bitter trouble as loved the pretty dear meself ever since 'Excoose me,' +I says to 'er, 'excoose me,' as I've told yer. An' Gord alone knows I +know what trouble is, as 'ad twings of me own pop off in one mumf. But +you've got the living for to think of. Same as I 'ad my ole man, +you've got this blessed ingfang what never know'd a muvver's breast and +took to the bottle like nothing I never did see." +</P> + +<P> +And to the blessed "infang" reposing in her arms while she talked: +"Didn't yer, yer saucy sossidge? That's what you are, yer know—a +saucy sossidge. Ho, yes yer are. No use yer giving answer back ter +me, yer know. A saucy, saucy sossidge, wot I should cook up with +mashed if I had me way with yer, bless yer." +</P> + +<P> +Maggie scarcely heard; but there was one sentence of Mrs. Erps that +joined her thoughts: "You've got the living for to think of." Yes, she +had that—and the dead to revenge. "They have killed her," she had +cried to the doctor. Through the long night, when she knelt beside the +still figure, that thought had burned within her and refused her tears. +It grew to an intolerable agony that pressed upon her brain as though a +band of steel were there. She understood what had bewildered +Audrey—who it had been that had said "I am Lady Burdon." Her +imagination pictured the woman. An orgasm of most terrible hate +possessed her, increasing that dreadful pressure on her brain, and +suddenly something seemed to her to have given way beneath the pressure. +</P> + +<P> +Hate or passion of that degree never filled her again. She was +strangely quiet in manner when Mrs. Erps came to her in the morning, +strangely quiet at the funeral in Highgate Cemetery while Mrs. Erps +wept in loud emotion, and always quite quiet in mind. The child was +going to live, she was somehow fully assured of that, and she was not +going to give him up—her Audrey's child—as, if she spoke, she might +have to give him up. He was going to live with her at "Post Offic" and +take his mother's place; and one day.... They had taken Audrey from +her. One day she would return to them Audrey's son. "I am Lady +Burdon" had murdered Audrey. One day, when "I am Lady Burdon" was +secure and comfortable in her possessions, and had forgotten Audrey, +Audrey's son should avenge his mother.... +</P> + +<P> +Nothing could go wrong, Miss Oxford thought. She went through all the +proofs in the carved box. Nothing was wanting. One day she would hand +them to him—and then! +</P> + +<P> +She wrote to her friend, Miss Purdie, at Little Letham, who had been +taking care of "Post Offic" for her and told her—for the village +information—that Audrey had lost her husband, and, on the shock, had +died, in giving birth to a son. "I have called him Percival—his +father's name—Percival Redpath." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Look arter yerself," cried Mrs. Erps, as the train drew out of +Waterloo. "Look arter yerself. Can't not look arter him if yer +don't—and 'e 'll want lookin' arter, 'e will. 'E's going ter be a +knockaht, that's what 'e's going to be, ain't yer, yer saucy sossidge! +Sossidge! Goo'by, sossidge. Goo'by...." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0301"></A> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK THREE +</H2> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +BOOK OF THE HAPPY, HAPPY TIME. +<BR> +THE ELEMENT OF YOUTH +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +PERCIVAL HAS A PEEP AT THE 'NORMOUS +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +Young Percival was seven—rising eight—when he first saw Burdon Old +Manor. Miss Oxford had taken him for a walk, and they were in the +direction of the Manor grounds, a locality she commonly avoided, when +"There's a cart coming!" he warned her. He had lagged behind, +exploring in a dry ditch; and he raced up to her with the news, +catching her hand and drawing her to the hedge, for she had been +walking in the middle of the road, occupied with her thoughts. +</P> + +<P> +Percival had learnt to be accustomed to long silences in his Aunt +Maggie and to rescue her from them when need arose. They were +familiar, too, to all the villagers and to the "help" who was now +required for the domestic work of "Post Offic." Not the same but a +very different Miss Oxford had returned to "Post Offic" seven years +ago, bringing the news of poor, pretty Miss Audrey's loss of husband +and death, and bringing the little mite that was born orphan, bless +him. A very different Miss Oxford, for whose characteristic alertness +there was substituted a profound quietness, a notable air of absence, +preoccupation. It was held by the villagers that she had gone a little +bit strange-like. Her sister's death, it was thought, had made her a +little touched-like. The "help," a gaunt and stern creature named +Honor, who largely devoted herself to bringing up Percival on a system +of copy-book and devotional maxims which had become considerably mixed +in her mind, called her mistress's lapses into long silence symptoms of +an "incline," and in kindly, rough fashion sought to rally her from +them. Percival, nearest the truth, called them "thinking." When Aunt +Maggie lapsed into such a mood, he would often stand by her, watching +her face doubtfully and rather wistfully, with his head a little on one +side. Presently he would give a little sigh and run off to his play. +It was as though he puzzled to know what occupied her, as though he had +some dim, unshaped idea which, while he stood watching, he tried to +formulate—and the then little sigh: he could not discover it—yet. +</P> + +<P> +What was clear was that nothing ever aroused Aunt Maggie from her +strange habit of mind; and that at least is symptom of a dangerous +melancholy. What was plain was that her fits of complete, of utter +abstraction, embraced her like a sudden physical paralysis in the midst +of even an energetic task or an absorbing conversation; and that at +least is sign of a lesion somewhere in the faculty of self-control. +She divided her time between those periods of "thinking" and an intense +devotion to Percival; and the two phases acted directly one upon the +other. It was in the midst of loving occupation with the child, that, +perhaps at some look in his eyes, perhaps at some note in his voice, +abstraction would suddenly strike down upon her; it was from the very +depth of such abstraction that she would suddenly start awake and go to +find Percival or, he being near her, would take him almost violently +into her arms. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +In characteristic keeping with this habit, her action when now he ran +to her and drew her from the roadway with his cry, "There's a cart +coming! A cart, Aunt Maggie!" Her grey, gentle face and her sad eyes +irradiated with a sudden colour and sudden light that advertised the +affection with which, standing behind him to let the cart pass, she +stooped down to him and kissed his glowing cheek—"Would I have been +run over, do you think?" +</P> + +<P> +Percival was eagerly awaiting the excitement of seeing the cart come +into view around the bend whence it sounded. But he stretched up his +hands to fondle her face. "Well, I believe you would, you know," he +declared. "Of course they'd have shouted, but suppose the horse was +bobbery and wouldn't stop?" +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Maggie feigned alarm at this dreadful possibility. "Oh, but +you're all right with me," Percival reassured her. He had a quaint +habit of using phrases of hers. "I keep an eye on you, you know, even +when I'm far behind." +</P> + +<P> +She laughed and looked at him proudly; and she had reason for her +pride. At seven—rising eight—Percival had fairly won through the +vicissitudes of a motherless infancy. He had come through a lusty +babyhood and was sprung into an alert and beautiful childhood, dowered +of his father's strong loins, of his mother's gentle fairness, that +caused heads to turn after him as he raced about the village street. +</P> + +<P> +Heads turned from the cart that now approached and passed. It proved +to be a wagonette. Two women and a man sat among the many packages +behind. On the box-seat, next the driver, was a lanky youth, +peculiarly white and unhealthy of visage. Percival stared at him. In +envy perhaps of the sturdy and glowing health of the starer, the lanky +youth scowled back, and lowering his jaw pulled a grimace with an ease +and repulsiveness that argued some practice. Turning in his seat, he +allowed Percival to appreciate the distortion to the full. +</P> + +<P> +This was that same Egbert Hunt, whose power of grimace opened, as it +continues, our history. +</P> + +<P> +Percival directed an interested face to Aunt Maggie. "Is that a clown +sitting up there?" he asked her. He had accompanied Aunt Maggie into +Great Letham on the previous day, and had been much engaged by the +chalked countenance of a clown, grinning from posters of a coming +circus. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Maggie answered him with her thoughts: "I think they must be going +to the Manor, dear. I expect they are Lord Burdon's servants." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm sure he was a clown," Percival answered. But a few paces +farther up the road, stepping into it from a footpath over the fields, +a little old gentleman was met, whom Aunt Maggie greeted as Mr. Amber, +and who verified her opinion. +</P> + +<P> +"The family is coming down the day after to-morrow," Mr. Amber said, +"as I was telling you last week. Servants are to arrive to-day. I +think I saw them in the wagonette as I came down the path. And how are +you, Master Percival? I hope you are very well." +</P> + +<P> +Percival put his small hand into the extended palm. "I'm very well, +Mr. Amber, thank you. One of them was a clown, you know. He made a +face at me—like this." +</P> + +<P> +"God bless my soul, did he indeed?" Mr. Amber exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, he did," said Percival. "Just make it back again to me, will you +please, so I can see if I showed you properly?" +</P> + +<P> +But Mr. Amber declined the experiment. "The wind might change while I +was doing it," he said, "and then I should be like that always." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I shouldn't mind," Percival declared. +</P> + +<P> +"But I should," said Mr. Amber, and poked Percival with his stick. +</P> + +<P> +They were very close friends, Percival and this bent old librarian, +permanently located at Burdon Old Manor in those days and a constant +visitor at "Post Offic" for the purpose of enjoying the affection +displayed in his silvery old face as it watched the glowing young +countenance upturned to it. "But I should," said he; "and what would +they think of me in there?" +</P> + +<P> +Percival turned about. They had reached the boundary of the Manor +grounds and he pointed through the trees. "Is that where you live, Mr. +Amber?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I live in there. Look here, now, here's a nice thing! You're +growing up nearly as big as me and you've never been to see me. That's +not friendly, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but I've wanted to, you know," Percival cried. "We don't often +come this way, you see, do we, Aunt Maggie?" +</P> + +<P> +He bounded across the road to squint through the wooden paling that +surrounds the Manor park, and Mr. Amber gave a little sigh and turned +to Aunt Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"How Percival grows, Miss Oxford! And what a picture, what a picture! +You know, he recalls to me walking these lanes twenty years ago, with +just his counterpart in looks and spirits and charm—ah, well! dear me, +dear me!" And he began to mumble to himself in the fashion of old +people whose thoughts run more easily in the past than in the present, +and to walk around poking with his stick in a fashion that was his own. +</P> + +<P> +He referred to Roly, Aunt Maggie knew. "You never forget him, do you?" +she said gently. She also was devoted to a memory. "You never forget +him?" +</P> + +<P> +"No—no," said Mr. Amber, poking around and not looking at her. +"Certainly not—certainly not." +</P> + +<P> +Percival's voice broke in upon them, announcing his observations +through the fence. "I say, you've got a lovely garden to play in, you +know," he called. +</P> + +<P> +They turned from thoughts that had a common element to the bright young +spirit in whom those thoughts found a not dissimilar relief. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's not exactly my garden," Mr. Amber replied in his deliberate +way. "I live there just like Honor lives with you. She looks after +the cooking and I look after the books, eh? Would you like to see my +books?" +</P> + +<P> +"Picture books?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, yes, some have got pictures. Yes, there are pictures in some. +And fine big rooms, Percival. You would like to see them." +</P> + +<P> +Percival turned an excited face to Aunt Maggie, and Aunt Maggie smiled. +He took Mr. Amber's hand. "Thank you very much indeed," he said. "I +tell you what, then. I will see your books and then I think you will +let me play in your garden, please, if you please?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Amber declared that this was a very fair bargain. "Come in and +have some tea, Miss Oxford. Mrs. Ferris will be glad to see you. She +finds housekeeping very dull work, I am afraid, with only me to look +after." +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Maggie did not reply immediately. Percival looked at her +anxiously. He observed signs of "thinking," and thinking might be +fatal to this most engaging proposition. "If you possibly could, Aunt +Maggie!" he pleaded. +</P> + +<P> +But it was Mr. Amber's further argument that persuaded her. His words +acutely entered the matter with which she was occupied. "You know, +Percival must be the only soul in the countryside that hasn't seen the +Manor," he urged. "It was the regular custom for any one who liked to +come up in the old days. You recollect the Tenant Teas in the summer? +Why, it's his right, I declare." +</P> + +<P> +A little colour showed on her cheeks. "Yes, it is his right," she said. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +Percival was to enjoy another right before the day was out. The +decision to accept Mr. Amber's invitation once made, he had whooped +ahead through the Manor gates and flashed up the long drive at play +with a game of his own among the flanking trees. A noble turn in the +avenue brought him within astonished gaze of the house, and, very +flushed in the cheeks, he came racing back to his elders. +</P> + +<P> +"I say, it's a perfectly 'normous house you live in, Mr. Amber." +</P> + +<P> +"Aha!" cries old Mr. Amber, highly pleased. "I knew you would like it, +Master Percival!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, I call it a <I>castle!</I>" Percival declares. +</P> + +<P> +They turn the corner and Mr. Amber points with his stick. "Well, +you're not quite wrong, either. That part—the East Wing we call +that—you see how old that is? Almost a castle once, that. See those +funny little marks? Used to be holes there to fire guns through. What +do you think of that?" +</P> + +<P> +Percival's face proclaims what he thinks—and his voice, deep with awe, +says, "Fire them bang?" +</P> + +<P> +"Bang? I should think so, indeed!" +</P> + +<P> +"Who at?" +</P> + +<P> +"Aha! Strange little boys, perhaps. I'll tell you all about it, if +you'll come and see me sometimes." +</P> + +<P> +Percival announces that he will come every single day, and runs eagerly +up the five broad steps that lead to the great oak door, now standing +ajar, and halts wonderingly upon the threshold to gaze around the +spacious hall and up at the gallery that encircles it. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Maggie stops so abruptly and gives so strange a catch at her +breath that Mr. Amber turns to look at her. Following her eyes, and +reading what he fancies in them, "Why, he does make a brave little +picture, standing there, doesn't he?" Mr. Amber says. +</P> + +<P> +Her faint smile seems to assent. But she sees the child, framed in the +fine doorway, as his father's son surveying for the first time the +domain that is his own. +</P> + +<P> +They join him on the threshold and he turns to them round-eyed. "Why, +it's simply 'normous!" he declares. "Aunt Maggie, come and look with +me. It's simply 'normous." +</P> + +<P> +"Told you so!" cries Mr. Amber, vastly delighted. "Fine big rooms, I +said, didn't I, now?" +</P> + +<P> +"'Normous!" Percival breathes. "Per-feck-ly 'normous to me, you know;" +and after a huge sigh of wonder, pointing to the gallery, "What's that +funny little bridge up there for?" +</P> + +<P> +"Bridge!" says Mr. Amber almost indignantly. "Gallery, we call that. +Goes right around the hall, see? Except this end. Bridge! Bless my +soul, bridge!" For the moment he is really almost put out at this +slight done to a celebrated feature of the Manor, his concern betraying +the profound devotion to the house, the sense of his own incorporation +with it, that always characterises him when beneath its roof. That +devotion and that sense have deepened greatly during these years in +which the new Burdons have neglected the Manor and he, living in the +past, has grown to feel himself the custodian of the memories as he is +the author of the "Lives" of the house of Burdon. He has a trick, +indeed, as Percival comes to know, of speaking of "we" when he talks of +himself in connection with the Manor. He uses it now. "We are very +proud of that gallery, I can tell you. Do you know we've had—well, +well, never mind about that now. Come along, I'll take you all over +and up there, too. Come along, Miss Oxford. We'll find Mrs. Ferris +first." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Amber takes Percival's hand and starts up the hall; and then pulls +him up short again, but with an exaggerated concern this time. "But +here, I say, young man, what's this? Cap on! Good gracious, you can't +wear your cap here, you know!" +</P> + +<P> +Percival goes almost as red as the jolly red fisher cap he wears, and +pulls it off, much abashed. He explains his breach of manners. "I +always do take it off in a house. But this doesn't feel like a house +to me, you know; it's simply 'normous!" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, but that's a strict rule of ours here. No one but a Burdon may be +capped in the hall; a tradition we call it. There was a—a wicked man +came here hundreds of years ago and kept on his hat and they didn't see +his face properly and thought he was a good man; and the Lord Burdon +that was then came to speak to him, and the wicked man took out his +dagger and killed Lord Burdon. What do you think of that?" +</P> + +<P> +Percival seeks the proper touch. He asks: "With blug?" +</P> + +<P> +"Blug—blood!" Mr. Amber exclaims testily, a trifle injured that his +legends adapted to the use of children should lack conviction. "Why, +bless my soul, of course there was blug—blood. Blug—dear me—blood!" +and he puts so fierce an eye round where they stand, as if expecting a +stain to ooze through the floor and corroborate him, that Percival +draws back in haste lest he should be standing in the pool. +</P> + +<P> +That makes Mr. Amber laugh and he pats Percival's golden head and +concludes. "So ever since then, you see, we never let any but a Burdon +wear his hat in the hall here. It would be a sign of coming disaster +to the house, the tradition says." +</P> + +<P> +He turns to Aunt Maggie. "My lady was very particular about it," he +says. "She made a great point of observing all the traditions." +</P> + +<P> +Jane Lady Burdon, though she has been dead these four years, is always +"my lady" to Mr. Amber, as Roly remains to him "my lord" or "my young +lord." Aunt Maggie, standing a little aside, looking at Percival, +replies in her quiet voice: "I know—I remember. They are not so +foolish—traditions—as some people think, Mr. Amber." +</P> + +<P> +He nods his head in very weighty agreement, then turns again to +Percival who, gazing round, discovers a new amazement. "But <I>two</I> +fireplaces!" Percival cries. +</P> + +<P> +"Big as a small room, too, aren't they?" says Mr. Amber, important and +gratified again. "Now, look at that! There's another story for you!" +He leads Percival to one vast hearth, high over which the Burdon arms +are carved in oak. "See those letters around there? That's our motto. +That's the Burdon motto: 'I hold!' That was the message a Burdon sent +to the king's troops when Cromwell's men—another wicked man, +Cromwell—were trying to get in. 'I hold!' he told his messenger to +say—just that, 'I hold!' and afterwards, when Cromwell was dead and +another king came back, the king changed the Burdon motto to that. 'I +hold!' Fine? Eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"I hold!" breathes Percival, mightily impressed. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, I tell you—I tell you," cries Mr. Amber, "there's a story in +every inch of this house. Better stories than all your picture books. +I'll just tell Mrs. Ferris about tea and then we'll go round. I know +all the stories; no one knows them like I do." And he toddles off to +Mrs. Ferris, absorbed in his lore and congratulating himself upon it, +and Aunt Maggie and Percival are left alone. +</P> + +<P> +It is then that Percival enjoys his second right of that day. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Maggie calls him to her. "Put on your cap again a minute, +Percival—just for a minute." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but I mustn't, Aunt Maggie." +</P> + +<P> +She takes the cap from his hand and holds it above his clustering curls. +</P> + +<P> +He protests. "Mr. Amber said so, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"What did he say, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"Only Burdons, Aunt Maggie." +</P> + +<P> +She placed the cap on his head and took his face between her hands and +kissed him. She looked up, and all about the hall, and high to where, +around the gallery, portraits of bygone Burdons looked steadily down +upon her; and her lips moved as if she spoke some message that she +signalled with her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Whoever are you talking to, Aunt Maggie?" +</P> + +<P> +She put her hands on his shoulders as he stood sturdily there, the +jolly red fisher cap on the back of his head, a puzzled expression in +his face, and she held him a pace from her. "Say the motto, Percival, +dear—the Burdon motto. Do you remember it? Say it while you have +your cap on—out loud!" +</P> + +<P> +"Is it a game, Aunt Maggie?" +</P> + +<P> +"Say it quickly, dear—out loud!" +</P> + +<P> +"I hold!" says Percival, clear and sharp. +</P> + +<P> +In the gallery behind him there was a sound of movement. He turned +quickly and saw a man's figure step hastily away. +</P> + +<P> +"Some one was watching us, Aunt Maggie." +</P> + +<P> +But Aunt Maggie was gone into her "thinking." +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +There followed for Percival the most delightful two hours. There was +first a prodigal tea in the housekeeper's room, where motherly Mrs. +Ferris set him to work on scones and cream and strawberry jam, and +where, as the meal progressed, he gladly gave himself over to Mr. +Amber's entrancing stories of Burdon lore, while Aunt Maggie and Mrs. +Ferris gossiped together. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Ferris confirmed the arrival of servants in advance of Lord and +Lady Burdon and gave some details of the visit. Her ladyship had +written to say they expected to stay about a month. They came for the +purpose of seeing if the fine air, for a holiday of that length, would +pick up Rollo. "An ailing child," said Mrs. Ferris. "Just the +opposite of that young gentleman, from all accounts," and she nodded +towards the young gentleman, who beamed back at her as cheerfully as a +prodigiously distended mouth would permit. "A lazy-looking lot," Mrs. +Ferris thought the servants were, and ought to have come earlier, too, +for there was work to be done getting the house ready, Miss Oxford +might take her word for it—all the furniture and the pictures in +dusting sheets—made her quite creepylike to look into the rooms +sometimes. Not right, she thought it, to neglect the Manor like these +were doing. She knew her place, mind you, but she meant to have a word +with her ladyship before her ladyship went off again. +</P> + +<P> +But the rooms had no creeps for Percival when at last the tea was done, +the jam wiped off, and the promised tour of inspection started. He put +a sticky hand confidingly into Mr. Amber's palm and breathed "'Normous! +Simply 'normous to me, you know," as each apartment was discovered to +him; and stood absorbed, the most gratifying of listeners, while Mr. +Amber, comfortably astride his hobby, poured forth the stories and the +legends that had gone into his cherished "Lives" and that he had by +heart and could tell with an air which called up the actors out of +their frames and out of the very walls to play their parts before the +child. Yet once or twice he stopped in the midst of a recital and +stood frowning as though something puzzled him, and once for so long +that Percival asked: "Are you thinking of something else, Mr. Amber?" +</P> + +<P> +"Eh?" said Mr. Amber. "Thinking? I'm afraid I was. Let me see, where +was I?" But he turned away, leaving the story unfinished; and as they +walked from the room Percival said politely: "I don't mind if you were, +you know. I only asked. Aunt Maggie does it and I just run away and +play." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Amber pressed his old fingers closer about the young hand they +held. "Don't run away when I do it," he said. "Just wake me up. It +keeps coming over me that I've done all this before—held a little +boy's hand and told him all this just like I hold yours and tell you. +Well, that's a very funny feeling, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"'Strordinary!" Percival agreed in his interested way; and Mr. Amber +was caused to laugh and to forget the stirring in his mind of +recollections buried there twenty years down. Twenty years is deep +water. It was to be more disturbed, causing much frowning, much "funny +feeling," before ever it should clear and show the old librarian, +looking into the pool of his own mind over Percival's shoulder, +Percival's reflection cast up from the depths. +</P> + +<P> +The tour finished in the library. "Now this is the library!" announced +Mr. Amber at the threshold, much as St. Peter, coming with a new spirit +to the last gate, might say: "Now this is Paradise." +</P> + +<P> +"Now this is the library. This is my room. Now, we'll just wipe our +feet once again—sideways, too—that's right. And I think our fingers +are still a little sticky, eh? that's better—<I>there</I>!" +</P> + +<P> +"'Normous!" breathed Percival. "Simply 'normous, to me, you know." +</P> + +<P> +No dust sheets here, everything mellow with the deep sheen of age +carefully attended. Tier upon tier of books, every hue of +binding—dark red to brown, brown to deep blue, deep blue to white—and +all, however worn, however aged, exquisitely responsive to Mr. Amber's +soft chamois leather. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Amber waved a proud hand at them. "I expect you'll live a long +time before you see another collection like this, Master Percival. And +I know every one of them—every single one just like you know your +toys. In the pitch dark—in the pitch dark, mind you—I could put my +hand on any one I wanted without touching another. What do you think +of that, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +Percival has no better thought for it than the old one. +</P> + +<P> +"'Normous!" he declares. "Simply 'normous to me, you know, Mr. Amber!" +</P> + +<P> +"And the care I take of them!" Mr. Amber continues, as pleased with his +audience as if Percival were the librarians of the House of Lords, the +Bodleian and the British Museum rolled into one. "You wouldn't find +enough dust on those books, <I>anywhere</I>, to cover the head of a pin!" +He points to the highest and furthest shelves: "You'd think there might +be dust right up there, wouldn't you? Well, you just choose one of +those books—any one, anywhere you like." +</P> + +<P> +"To keep for my own?" +</P> + +<P> +"Keep! Bless my soul, no! Keep! Dear me! dear me! No, just point to +a book." +</P> + +<P> +"That one!" says Percival, stretching an arm. "That one in the corner!" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Amber accepts the challenge with a triumphant rubbing together of +his hands. "That brown one, eh? Very well. That's a rare +volume—Black Letter—Latimer's 'Fruitfull Sermons'—London, 1584. +Now, you see." He trots excitedly to a high, wheeled ladder, runs it +beneath the "Fruitfull Sermons," climbs up shakily, fetches down the +volume and presents it for Percival's inspection: "There! Run your +finger over the top of it; that's where dust collects. Ah, not that +finger; got a cleaner one? That'll do. Now!" +</P> + +<P> +It is getting dusk in the library, so Mr. Amber clutches the small +finger that has rubbed over the "Fruitfull Sermons," and they go to a +deep window where young head and old peer anxiously at the pink skin. +</P> + +<P> +"Not a speck!" Mr. Amber cries triumphantly. "Not a speck of dust! +What did I tell you?" +</P> + +<P> +And Percival, holding the finger carefully apart from its fellows: +"'Strordinary! Simply 'strordinary to me, you know!" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Amber climbs laboriously up the steps again, and seats himself at +the top, and starts dusting all around the "Fruitfull Sermons," and +completely forgets Percival, who wanders about for a little and then, +hearing a sound, goes to the door. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +V +</P> + +<P> +Here was the white-faced youth, our Egbert Hunt, who had grimaced at +him from the box of the wagonette. The white-faced youth stood on the +further side of the passage, paused beneath a window by whose light he +seemed to be examining a small phial held in his hand. +</P> + +<P> +Percival ran forward: "Hallo! Are you a clown, please?" +</P> + +<P> +The white-faced youth bit a pale lip and stared resentfully: "Do you +live here?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I don't," Percival told him. "I've been having tea with Mrs. +Ferris." +</P> + +<P> +The white-faced youth developed the sudden heat characteristic of +Egbert Hunt in the Miller's Field days. "Well, don't you call me no +names, then," said Egbert Hunt fiercely. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not," Percival protested. "You made a face at me when you were +driving in the road, and I thought you were a clown, you see." +</P> + +<P> +Egbert Hunt breathed hotly through his nose. "Saucing me, ain't you?" +he demanded. +</P> + +<P> +Percival had heard the expression in the village. "Oh, no," he said in +his earnest way. "I thought you had a funny face, that was all." +</P> + +<P> +His engaging tone and air mollified the sour Egbert. "I've got a sick +yedache," said Egbert. "That's what I've got—crool!" +</P> + +<P> +Percival looked sorry and sought to give comfort with a phrase of Aunt +Maggie. "It will <I>soon</I> go," he said soothingly. +</P> + +<P> +"Not mine," Egbert declared. "Not my sort won't. I'm a living martyr +to 'em. Fac'." He nodded with impressive gloom and took three +tabloids from the phial he held in his hand. "Vegules," he explained; +and swallowed them with a very loud gulping sound. +</P> + +<P> +"What are you, please?" Percival inquired, vastly interested. +</P> + +<P> +"Slave," said Egbert briefly. +</P> + +<P> +"But you're not black," argued Percival, recalling the picture of a +chained negro on a missionary almanac in Honor's kitchen. +</P> + +<P> +"Thenk Gord, no!" said Egbert piously. "White slaves are worse," he +added. +</P> + +<P> +"And were those slaves in the carriage with you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Tyrangs," said Egbert Hunt. "Tyrangs and sickopants of tyrangs." +</P> + +<P> +Percival started a question; then, as a sound came: "That's my Aunt +Maggie calling me. Good-by! I hope your poor head will soon be +better." +</P> + +<P> +Egbert smiled the wan smile of one not to be deluded into hope: "You've +been kind to me," he said. "I like you. You ain't like all the rest. +What's your name?" +</P> + +<P> +"Percival. I really must go now, if you please. My Aunt Maggie—" +</P> + +<P> +He started to run in the direction of Aunt Maggie's voice; but Egbert +recalled him with a very mysterious and compelling "H'st!" and wag of +the head. +</P> + +<P> +"Was that your Aunt Maggie in the hall with you just now?" Egbert +inquired. +</P> + +<P> +A sudden recollection came to Percival. "You mean before tea? Was +that you?" +</P> + +<P> +"What she make you put your cap on for, and say 'I hold'? That was a +funny bit, that was." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, I don't know," said Percival. "Was that you up on the bridge?" +</P> + +<P> +Egbert did not answer the question. "You ask her," he said, "an' tell +me. Odd bit, that was." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I will," Percival agreed. "I say, I must go. What's your name, +if you please?" +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Unt. Run along; you're a nice little chap; I like you." +</P> + +<P> +"I like you, too," said Percival, very interested in this strange +character. "I'm sorry I thought you were a clown. Good-by, Mr. Unt. +I say, there is my Aunt Maggie! Isn't this a 'normous house?" and he +scampered brightly to the sound of Aunt Maggie's voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Abode of tyrangs," said Mr. Hunt, moving swiftly in the opposite +direction. "Boil um!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0302"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +FOLLOWS A FROG AND FINDS A TADPOLE +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +The acquaintance with slave Egbert was very shortly renewed. The +afternoon of the Friday that was to see the arrival of the Burdons at +the Old Manor brought also a threshing-engine up the village street—a +snorting and enormous thing that fetched Percival rushing to the gate +and drew him after it and kept him in charmed attendance until "Post +Offic" was half a mile behind. Here the engine stopped, and the men +who accompanied it setting themselves to a deliberate meal, Percival +turned himself into a horse that had escaped from its stable and was +recaptured and began to trot himself home. +</P> + +<P> +He was in the lane that strikes out of the highroad towards Burdon Old +Manor when his quick eye caught sight of a frog in the grass-grown +hedge-side and "Whoa!" cried Percival and changed from escaped horse to +ardent frog-hunter. The sturdiest frog, it proved to be, a big, solid +fellow and wonderfully nimble at great jumps when Percival was found to +be in pursuit. He pressed it hotly; it bounded amain. He laughed and +followed—it was here—it was there—it was lost—it was found—it was +gone again. He grew stubborn and vexed in the chase. A frown stood on +his moist brow. He began to breathe hotly. The frog perceived the +change. It lost its wits. It dashed from cover, made with wild bounds +across the road, was closely followed, and lived to tell the frightful +tale by intervention of a shout before it, a stumble behind it, and the +barest pulling up of the Manor wagonette within a yard of fallen +Percival. +</P> + +<P> +Lord Burdon jumped out and lifted Percival in his arms before the +frog-hunter was well aware of what had happened. "Not hurt, eh? +That's all right! You young rascal, you—you might have been killed. +Haven't you got ears? What are those great flappers for, eh?" and Lord +Burdon tweaked a flapper and laughed jovially. "What were you doing, +eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"I was chasing a frog," said Percival, rubbing his ear and using his +elevation on Lord Burdon's arms to have a stare at the little boy and +the pretty lady in the wagonette. +</P> + +<P> +"A frog! Why here's a frog for you. Come and look at my frog in the +cart here." +</P> + +<P> +Lord Burdon carried him to the body of the wagonette. "Here's my frog! +tadpole, rather. Rollo, look here. You're only a little tadpole, +aren't you? Look what this fine air is going to do for you. Look at +this great lump of a fellow. That's what you've got to be like!" +</P> + +<P> +The little tadpole smiled shyly. Tadpole was an excusable description. +Rollo Letham at nearly ten might have passed for younger than Percival +at rising eight. He was very thin, pale, fragile; his head looked too +big for his delicate frame; his eyes were big and shy, his mouth +nervous. +</P> + +<P> +"A shame!" said Lady Burdon, smiling. "You're not a tadpole, are you, +Rollo? But this is a splendid young man!" And she stretched a kind +hand—nicely gloved—across the cart to Percival. +</P> + +<P> +Lord Burdon raised him to meet it. Bare knees, well-streaked with mud +and blood, came into view. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, your poor little knees!" Lady Burdon cried. +</P> + +<P> +Percival caught Rollo's eye fixed in some horror on the wounds. "I cut +them every day!" he said bigly, and shot a proud glance at the tadpole. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, they're terrible. They must be washed. Bring him in, Maurice. +We'll wash him, as we've nearly killed him, at the house." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, do! Yes, please do!" Rollo whispered, and his mother patted his +hand, pleased at the animation of the thin little face. +</P> + +<P> +Lord Burdon hesitated: "Take him to the Manor? Why, that may be miles +from his home, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose we can send him back in the trap, can't we?" Lady Burdon +said, a trifle disagreeably. "You're a regular old woman, Maurice. +Lift him in next to Rollo. You can see how Rollo takes to him, I +should have thought." +</P> + +<P> +"Didn't want to be had up for kidnapping, you know," Lord Burdon +responded cheerfully. "Would be a bad start in the local opinion—eh?" +And he laughed with the appeal and the apology with which he always met +his wife's waves of impatience. "Shove up, Rollo! In you get, +frog-hunter! Heavens! What a lump. All right. Drive on!" +</P> + +<P> +"Gee up!" cried Percival, highly entertained, and chatted frankly with +Lady Burdon as the wagonette bowled along. To her questions he was +nearly eight, he told her; he would have another birthday in a short +time; Honor gave him a sword at his last birthday and his Aunt Maggie +gave him a trumpet. "You may blow my trumpet, if you like," turning to +Rollo. "Honor says it is poison to blow it because I've broken the +little white thing what you blow through. But I blow it all right." +</P> + +<P> +Rollo flushed and smiled and put a thin little hand from beneath the +rug and took Percival's muddy fist and held it for the remainder of the +journey. Boy friends who did not laugh at him were new to him. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Oxford's little boy," Percival explained to further questions. +"I live at the post-office, and we've got a drawer <I>full</I> of stamps +with funny little holes what you tear off." +</P> + +<P> +Lady Burdon turned to her husband: "Ah, I know now. You remember? You +remember the vicar telling us about Miss Oxford when we first came down +here? Well, she's to be congratulated on her nephew. I'm glad. He'll +be the jolliest little companion for Rollo." +</P> + +<P> +Lord Burdon remembered. "Yes—this will be her sister's child. +Orphan, poor little beggar." +</P> + +<P> +And Lady Burdon: "We'll be able to have him up with Rollo as much as we +like, I've no doubt. Look how happy they are together," and she smiled +at them, chatting eagerly. +</P> + +<P> +Percival was twisting and bending the better to see the occupants of +the box-seat. A form that seemed familiar sat beside the driver. +"Why, that's Mr. Unt!" Percival cried brightly, and as the familiar +form turned at the sound of its name, "How's your poor headache, Mr. +Unt?" he asked. "Much better now, isn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Unt's pallid face became slightly tinged with embarrassment. "The +young gentleman spoke to me at the Manor Wednesday, me lady," he +apologised. "Had come up to take tea with Mr. Hamber." He profited by +the touch of his hat with which he spoke to draw his hand across his +forehead; a sick yedache clearly was still torturing there. +</P> + +<P> +"His headaches are terrible," Percival explained. "I thought he was a +clown, you know. I saw him driving in this carriage with tyrangs." +</P> + +<P> +Egbert's back shivered. "Parding, me lady," said he, turning again. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Burdon laughed. "Hunt," she told Percival. "Not Unt. He speaks +badly." +</P> + +<P> +"You know, his headaches—" Percival began; and she added more +severely: "He is a servant." +</P> + +<P> +"He's my servant," Rollo said. "Hunt looks after me when I go out. I +hate nurses, so I have him. He'll be yours too, if you'll come and +play with me. Both of ours. May he, mother?" +</P> + +<P> +"You can tell Miss Oxford that some one will always be there to keep an +eye on you if she will let you come and play," Lady Burdon replied to +Percival. +</P> + +<P> +"So now he is yours and mine," cried Rollo, squeezing the hand he held. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you very much," Percival said. "Of course, if his headache is +very bad we won't have him, because he will like to lie down." +</P> + +<P> +He spoke clearly; and a tiny little tremble of Egbert's back seemed to +advertise again the gratitude that sympathy aroused in him. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that's nothing," Rollo declared. "He pretends." +</P> + +<P> +The poor back drooped. "Tyrangs," Egbert murmured and furtively edged +a vegule to his mouth. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +In the dusk of that evening Percival went bounding home, immensely +pleased with his new friends and with the new delights in life they had +discovered for him. He had nice clean knees and a bandage on each—a +matter that caused him considerable pride. He had gladly promised to +come to see Rollo again on the morrow, and he would have stayed much +longer into the evening had not Lord Burdon (as Lady Burdon said) +"begun to fidget" and to persist that Miss Oxford must be getting +nervous at this long absence. +</P> + +<P> +"His aunt will naturally be glad when she knows where he has been," +Lady Burdon had exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +Lord Burdon gave the smile that she knew came before one of his +annoying rejoinders. "That won't make her wild with joy while she +doesn't know where he is, old girl." +</P> + +<P> +She was irritable. The vexation of having to leave London, which she +enjoyed, for Burdon which she felt she would hate, was settling upon +her. She looked at him resentfully. "That is funny, I suppose?" she +inquired. "You are always very funny, aren't you?" and she gave orders +for Hunt to take Percival home. +</P> + +<P> +Down the road Percival chattered brightly to Egbert, holding his hand. +"I jump like this," he explained, capering along, "because I pretend +I'm a horse. Then if you want me to walk quietly you only have to say +'whoa!' you see." +</P> + +<P> +"Whoa!" said Egbert very promptly. +</P> + +<P> +Percival's legs itched to jump out the animation that events had +bottled into him. "Did you say 'gee up'?" he presently inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Egbert. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," said Percival, and with a little sigh repeated "oh!" +</P> + +<P> +Egbert felt the appeal. "Fac' of it is, that jumping jerks me up." +</P> + +<P> +"Got another sick headache, have you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Crool," said the living martyr to 'em. +</P> + +<P> +Percival took another phrase of Aunt Maggie: "You must be thor'ly out +of sorts, I think." +</P> + +<P> +"Got one foot in the grave, that's what I've got," Egbert agreed. +"Fac'." +</P> + +<P> +Percival peered down at Egbert's legs. "Which one, please?" he +inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"Figger o' speech," Egbert told him, and explained: "Way of saying +things." He added: "Go off in the night one of these days, I shall;" +and commented with gloomy satisfaction: "Then they'll be sorry." +</P> + +<P> +Percival asked: "Who will?" He visioned Egbert running by night with +one foot embedded in a tombstone, and he was considerably attracted by +the picture. "Who will?" he repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"Tyrangs!" said Egbert. "Too late to be sorry then. Fac'." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I should be dreffly sorry," Percival assured him. +</P> + +<P> +"Believe you," said Egbert, "and many thanks for the same. First +that's ever said a kine word to me, you are; and I'll be grateful—if +I'm spared." +</P> + +<P> +He looked at his watch and then down the lane. "Think you could get +home safe from here? Fac' is I'm behind with my vegules and left them +in my other coat." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes," Percival agreed. "This is just by the corner, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then," said Egbert, halting, "you see, if I don't take 'em fair, +can't expec' them to treat me fair, can I?" +</P> + +<P> +Percival assented: "Oh, no." +</P> + +<P> +"Sure you'll be all right?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes. I'll be a horse, you see. Just say 'gee up!' will you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Gee up!" said Egbert. +</P> + +<P> +"Stead-<I>ey</I>!" cried Percival, prancing. "Stead-<I>ey</I>! Goodnight!" and +bounded off. +</P> + +<P> +"Nice little f'ler," commented Egbert; and hurried back to the vegules. +</P> + +<P> +Where the lane turned to the village, horse Percival was made, as he +declared, to shy dreff'ly. He galloped almost into the arms of two +figures that stepped suddenly out of the dusk. "Oh, Percival!" Aunt +Maggie cried and kissed him. "Oh, Percival, where <I>have</I> you been?" +</P> + +<P> +"Say 'whoa!" cried Percival. "Say 'whoa!' Aunt Maggie. I'm a horse—a +white one, you know." +</P> + +<P> +Two heavy hands pressed the white horse's shoulders, stilling its +plunges. "You're a bad little boy, that's what you are," Honor +exclaimed, "running off and frightening your Auntie, and not caring nor +minding. Don't Care comes before a fall, as I've told you many times +and—" +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Pride</I> comes before a fall," corrected Percival. "You've got it +wrong <I>again</I>, Honor," and Honor's flow was checked with the suddenness +that had become the established termination of attempts to reprove +Percival since he had learnt the right phrasing of her store of +confused maxims. +</P> + +<P> +She took his hand while she pondered doubtfully upon the correction, +and with Aunt Maggie holding the other, he skipped along, bubbling over +with his adventures. "I've got bandages on both my legs, Aunt +Maggie—oh, and Hunt has got one of his legs in the grave, just fancy +that! I've been having tea with Rollo; and Lady Burdon put on these +bandages and she wants me to go and play with Rollo every day. <I>Do</I> +let me, Aunt Maggie. I say, you are squeezing my hand most dreffly, +you know." +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Maggie relaxed the sudden contraction of her fingers. "Lady +Burdon—yes?—tell from the very beginning, Percival dear." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, she said 'Promise to tell your Aunt Maggie I will come and ask +her to let you be Rollo's little friend and'—Aunt <I>Maggie</I>! You're +<I>hurting</I>!" +</P> + +<P> +She recollected herself again and patted the small fingers. "Tell from +the very beginning, dear. How did you meet them?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you understand, I was catching a frog—" +</P> + +<P> +"Post Offic" was reached, supper was swallowed, his merry head +beginning to droop and nod, while still he excitedly recounted all his +adventures. He was almost asleep when Aunt Maggie undressed him and +put him to bed. +</P> + +<P> +She sat a long time beside him, watching him while he slept. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0303"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +LADY BURDON COMES TO "POST OFFIC" +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +In the morning Lady Burdon came with Rollo to make her request that +Percival might spend much of his time at the Old Manor as Rollo's +playmate. In these seven years since the amazement at Miller's Field, +this was but her third visit to the estate, her first for the purpose +of staying any length of time, and the first that had seen Rollo with +her. Two days had been spent here when Jane Lady Burdon had been +brought to rest in Burdon churchyard; three when Mr. Maxwell, the +agent, had been troublesome and importunate in the matter of expensive +alterations on the property. Lady Burdon had come down then "to have +an understanding with him;" as she expressed it—"to see for herself." +The result had been as unfortunate for Mr. Maxwell (to whom she had +shown some temper) as it had been augmentative of the dislike she had +always felt for the property and its greedy responsibilities. The +result had been to filter over the countryside from Mr. Maxwell that +she was the controlling partner in the new representatives of the +house; that hers was the refusal to take up the urgently needed +irrigation scheme; hers the scandal (as it became) of neglect to carry +out improvements in the cottages over at Abbess Roding; hers the crime +(as it was held) of the selling-up over at Shepwall that entailed +eviction of tenants old on the land as the house of Burdon itself. +</P> + +<P> +On the other hand the result had been to return Lady Burdon to the +Mount Street life with at least a temporary stop put to the Maxwell +whinings and at least a lighter drain from the Mount Street expenses. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Oxford had not seen her on either of these visits. Miss Oxford +had only smiled in an odd way when she heard of the behaviour that had +set the countryside clacking. The better Lady Burdon flourished, the +more Lady Burdon exercised the prerogatives of her usurped position, +the riper she ripened for the blow, when there should be returned to +her the son whose mother she had murdered; that was the entertainment +Miss Oxford nursed through these years, living so gently and so +quietly, "thinking" so much, poor dear. +</P> + +<P> +"Strange-like?" "Silly-like?" Or dreadfully sane? For Miss Oxford's +own part, she knew only one thing of her mental condition. At very +rare intervals there seized her a state that was related to and that +recalled the tremendous pressure in her brain when she had knelt, +consumed with hate and desire for vengeance, by Audrey's death-bed. It +took the form of a sudden violent fluttering in her brain, as though a +live, winged thing were beating there, beating to be free. The +pressure that came by Audrey's death-bed had ended in a snap—in +something giving that left her extraordinarily, tinglingly calm, +possessed by the plan and certainty of revenge to be taken by Audrey's +son—one day. The fluttering, the winglike beating ended of its own +volition, and outside any command she could put upon it—sweeping up +all her senses in its beating, only leaving to her the terror that it +would end—in what? Sometimes it came in just the tiniest flutter, +without cause and gone as soon as come, just arresting her and +frightening her like a swift shoot of pain in a nerve. Sometimes in +the briefest flutter but with cause; such a case had been when Percival +told her of his meeting with the Burdons and she had caused him to +exclaim by clutching his hand. Once of much longer duration and of new +effect, and with revelation to her of the end it threatened. That was +when, a few days ago, she had stood alone with Percival in the great +hall of Burdon Old Manor. It was the fluttering that had bade her make +him put on his cap and cry 'I hold!' and she had been informed that if +it did not stop—if it did not stop!—if it did not stop! she would +scream out her secret—run through the house and cry to all that Lady +Burdon was— +</P> + +<P> +It had stopped. The beating wings ceased. She was returned to her +quiet, gentle waiting. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +It always took the same form—the presentation of a picture. +</P> + +<P> +"They're coming! They're coming!" cried Percival, bursting into the +parlour with tossing arms, aflame with excitement, hopping on lively +toes, to announce Lady Burdon and Rollo. "They're coming, Aunt +Maggie!" and he was away to greet them at the gate. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Maggie was at the table where post-office business was conducted. +The open door gave directly on to the garden path; and she heard voices +and then a step on the threshold and bent over the papers before her; +and then a pleasant tone that said "Good morning, I am Lady Burdon," +and immediately the beating wings, wild, savage, whirling, and she +transported from where she sat to watch herself in the picture that the +fluttering always brought. +</P> + +<P> +Immense beating of the wings, the sound drumming in her ears; seven +years rolled up as a stage-curtain discloses a scene, and she saw the +room in the Holloway road, herself kneeling there and Audrey's voice: +"... and then said 'I am Lady Burdon' ... O Maggie! O Maggie! ... and +I said 'Oh, how can you be Lady Burdon?' ... Maggie! Maggie!" The +beating wings drove up to a pitch they had never before reached. +Through their tumult—buffeted, as it were, by their fury—and from the +scene in which she saw herself, she looked up and saw Lady Burdon +smiling there, and heard Lady Burdon's voice: "Good morning, I am Lady +Burdon." Again, as in the great hall with Rollo, if it did not +stop!—if it did not stop!—if it did not stop! she must cry out: "You +are not! You said that to Audrey and killed her! Now—" +</P> + +<P> +</P> + +<P> +And again, and this time when the terrible fluttering had almost beaten +itself free and she had formed her lips to release it, it suddenly +stopped. As at the bedside, seven years before, she fell from paroxysm +of passion to unnatural calm, so now she was returned to her normal, +quiet self, content to wait, and she said quite quietly: "Percival told +me to expect you." +</P> + +<P> +Lady Burdon advanced pleasantly. "Ah, and I hope he also remembered to +tell you of my apologies. I am afraid we kept him with us much too +long last night." +</P> + +<P> +She looked around the room with the air of one willing to chat and to +be entertained, and Miss Oxford, murmuring there was no occasion for +apology, advanced a chair with: "Please sit down, if you will. This is +very humble, I am afraid. It is only the post-office, you know; and +only a toy post-office at that." +</P> + +<P> +She was quite herself again. Through this interview, and always +thereafter when she met Lady Burdon or thought of her, she was invested +with the calmness that had come to her by the death-bed. She knew +quite certainly that she had only to wait. She was not at all anxious. +She knew she could wait. She only feared—now for the first time, and +increasingly as the attacks became more frequent—that an onset of that +dreadful fluttering might descend upon her and might not go before it +had driven her to wreck the plan for which she waited—Percival, not +she, to avenge his mother. +</P> + +<P> +The fear caused in her a noticeable nervousness of manner. Lady Burdon +attributed it to natural embarrassment at this gracious visit, and that +made her more gracious yet. Miller's Field would have perceived in +Lady Burdon, as she sat talking pleasantly, a considerable change from +the Mrs. Letham it had known. She was very becomingly dressed. She +had grown a trifle rounder in the figure and fuller in the face since +Miller's Field gave her good-by, and that advantaged her. Her olive +complexion was warmer in shade, healthier in tinting than it had been. +The walk from the Manor had touched her freshly, and she had been +pleased by the respectful greetings of the villagers. Rollo, +completely in love with Percival, was brighter than she had ever known +him. She had hated the idea of burying herself down here for a month; +but she was beginning to entertain an agreeable view of taking up her +neglected position and dignity in this pleasant countryside. She was +very happy as she faced Miss Oxford: her happiness and all that +contributed to it made her very comely to the eye; and she was aware of +that. +</P> + +<P> +She spoke enthusiastically of Percival. "Such a splendid young man. +Such charming manners." She spoke most graciously of knowing all about +Miss Oxford and of how plucky of her it was to take up the post-office. +She said smilingly that Miss Oxford was not to take advantage of the +post-office by keeping herself to herself as the saying was; and when +Miss Oxford replied; "You are kind; we have no society here, of course; +with the one or two families the post-office makes no difference; we +are all old friends; with you, it is different;" she said very +winningly: "Not kind, in any case—selfish. It is Percival I am after. +We have taken so much to him. He and my Rollo have struck up the +greatest friendship, and that is such a pleasure to me. Rollo as a +rule is so shy and reserved with children. He has no child friends. +It will do him a world of good if Percival may play with him. Percival +will be the making of him." +</P> + +<P> +She smiled in confident and happy belief of her words, and Miss Oxford +smiled, too. It was not for Lady Burdon to know—yet—that Percival +was being brought up to be not Rollo's making but his undoing. +</P> + +<P> +But Miss Oxford only said that the friendship would be capital for +Percival also, since Lady Burdon permitted it. "There are no boys here +in Little Letham that he can make close companions," she said. "We +seem short of children—except among the villagers. I think Mrs. +Espart's little girl at Upabbot over the Ridge is the nearest." +</P> + +<P> +Lady Burdon nodded. "Mrs. Espart—yes, I am to go over there. She +left cards, thinking we had arrived. Abbey Royal, she lives at, +doesn't she?" +</P> + +<P> +"Abbey Royal, yes. One of our show places, you know. What Percival +would call 'normous," and Miss Oxford related the "'normous; simply +'normous to me, you know," of Percival's visit to the Manor. "We came +to 'enormous' when I was reading to him shortly afterwards," she said, +"and he exclaimed: 'I know! 'Normous, like Mr. Amber's house!' Mr. +Amber showed him round." +</P> + +<P> +"He is the sweetest little fellow," Lady Burdon laughed. "And reading +to him—I was going to ask you about that—about lessons, I mean. Does +he do lessons? Rollo's education has been terribly neglected, I am +afraid. I thought it would be so nice if he could join his new friend +in them while he is here." +</P> + +<P> +"Percival goes every morning to Miss Purdie—you would have passed her +cottage—next to the Church." +</P> + +<P> +"Capital," Lady Burdon said. "I will arrange for Rollo." +</P> + +<P> +"She will be delighted. Having Percival has already lost her a chance +of another pupil. Mrs. Espart was going to send her little girl over +daily, but didn't like the idea of the post-office little boy." +</P> + +<P> +"Ridiculous!" Lady Burdon cried. "I will tell her so." She turned at +the sound of much scrambling and laughter in the doorway. "Ridiculous! +Rollo, you are going to do lessons with Percival. Now won't that be +jolly, darling?" +</P> + +<P> +But it was Percival who was first in and came bounding to them with: +"Aunt Maggie! Aunt Maggie! Rollo has got a pony of his own in London +and rides it! Well, what do you think of that?" +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Maggie thought it splendid and was introduced to Rollo, and +"suddenly seemed to lose her tongue," as Lady Burdon told Lord Burdon +at lunch. "Hugged Percival as though she hadn't seen him for a year +and scarcely looked at Rollo. Jealous, I believe, at the difference +between their stations. Funny, that kind of jealousy, don't you think?" +</P> + +<P> +But it was not jealousy that had silenced Aunt Maggie and caused her to +clutch Percival to her breast. At sight of him with Rollo, and of Lady +Burdon smiling at him, that fluttering had run up in her brain, and she +had clasped Percival to restrain herself while it lasted. It had gone +while she held him; but she had almost cried: "Do you dare smile at +him? He is Audrey's son! Audrey's son!" +</P> + +<P> +Percival wriggled from her embrace and she heard Lady Burdon say to +Rollo: "Well, why not a pony here?" and heard her laugh delightedly at +the excited roar the suggestion shot out of Percival. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder if there is anywhere here we could get a pony for Rollo?" she +heard Lady Burdon say, and heard the question repeated, and made a +great effort to come out of the shaken state in which the fluttering +had left her. +</P> + +<P> +"Over at Market Roding you might get a pony," she said dully. "There +is a Mr. Hannaford there. He has ponies. He supplies ponies to +circuses, I have heard." +</P> + +<P> +Lady Burdon kissed Percival good-by at the gate. "Lord Burdon shall +take you over with Rollo to this Mr. Hannaford," she told him. "That +Miss Purdie's cottage? We are going to look in on our way. Run back +to your Aunt Maggie. She is tired, I think." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, she's thinking, you know," said Percival. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Burdon laughed. "Thinking, is she, you funny little man? Of +what?" +</P> + +<P> +And Percival, in his earnest way: "Well, I don't know. It 'plexes me, +you know." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0304"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +LITTLE 'ORSES AND LITTLE STU-PIDS +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +The pony was obtained from Mr. Hannaford and lessons were arranged with +Miss Purdie. +</P> + +<P> +It was the happiest party that occupied the wagonette on that drive to +and from Mr. Hannaford's farm at Market Roding. Lord Burdon, Rollo, +Percival—each declared it that evening to have been the very jolliest +time that ever was. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, we have had a jolly day, haven't we, old man?" Lord Burdon said +to Rollo when he kissed him good night. Lord Burdon had worn a shabby +old suit and had told the boys stories till, as he assured them, his +tongue ached; and had walked with them about Mr. Hannaford's farm, with +Percival prancing on one side and Rollo quietly beaming on the other. +In London, in the life that Lady Burdon directed at Mount Street, such +careless, childish joys were impossible. Not since the day he had +spent with Rollo at the Zoölogical Gardens, when Lady Burdon was at +Ascot, had he so completely enjoyed himself—and not a doubt but that +the bursting excitement of young Percival was responsible for the far +greater joviality of this day at Mr. Hannaford's. +</P> + +<P> +"Did I tell you about when they came to the ditch while we were walking +over the farm?" Lord Burdon asked Lady Burdon. "That little beggar +Percival—" +</P> + +<P> +Lady Burdon looked at him over the book she was reading. "Not a sixth +time, <I>please</I>, Maurice," she said. "I'm really rather tired of +hearing it," and Lord Burdon assumed his foolishly distressed look and +for the remainder of the evening sat smiling over the jolly day in +silence. +</P> + +<P> +The jolliest day for Rollo! He had been the quiet one of the party +because to be retiring was his nature, but when Percival shouted and +when Percival jumped, Rollo's heart was in the shout and Rollo's spirit +bounded with the jump. He had never believed there could be such a +friend for him or so much new fun in life. Hitherto his chief +companion had been his mother, his constant mood a dreamy and shrinking +habit of mind. Vigorous Percival introduced him to the novelty of +"games," showed him what mirth was, and what vigorous young limbs could +do. The jolliest day! He fell asleep that night thinking of Percival; +in his dreams with Percival raced and shouted; awakened in the morning +with Percival for his first thought. +</P> + +<P> +And of course it was the jolliest day for Percival. "I never had such +fun, you know," Percival declared to Aunt Maggie. "I rode the pony all +alone and Mr. Hannaford said I was a Pocket Marvel; so I should like to +know what you think of that?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hannaford, indeed, was mightily pleased with Percival. Mr. +Hannaford was an immensely stout man with a tremendously deep voice and +with very twinkling little eyes set in a superbly red face. He wore +brown leather gaiters and very tight cord-breeches and a very loose +tail-coat of tweed, cut very square. From his habit of never removing +his bowler hat in the house even at meals, the common belief was that +he slept in it, and he punctuated his sentences when he spoke, and +marked his alternate strides when he walked, by tremendously loud +cracks of a bamboo cane against a gaitered leg. It was his frequent +habit when he desired emphasis to bless what he termed his "eighteen +stun proper," and he caused Rollo to giggle by his trick of calling a +horse "a norse." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hannaford received his visitors by raising his hat as far from his +head as any one had ever seen it, by giving three terrific cracks of +his cane against his leg, and by extending to Rollo and Percival in +turn a hand of the size of a small shoulder of mutton. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you've come to the right place for a little 'orse, me lord, +bless my eighteen stun proper if you haven't," Mr. Hannaford declared. +"And 'll want a proper little 'orse for your lordship's son, moreover," +continued Mr. Hannaford, after another tremendous leg-and-cane crack +and looking admiringly at Percival. +</P> + +<P> +Percival was quick with the correction. "Oh, I'm not his son. I'm +only a little boy, you know. I can ride, though, because sometimes I +pretend I'm a horse all day long; so I should like to know what you +think of that?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hannaford was hugely delighted, and having begged his lordship's +pardon for the mistake, gave it as his deliberate opinion that a young +gentleman who could pretend he was a norse all day long was a Pocket +Marvel. +</P> + +<P> +The Pocket Marvel performed a prance or two in order to show that this +estimate of him was well merited, and they proceeded to the stables, +Mr. Hannaford, as they walked, making clear, to the tune of astonishing +leg-and-cane cracks, the reasons why the right place for a little 'orse +had been selected by his lordship. +</P> + +<P> +"There's money in little 'orses," said Mr. Hannaford. (Crack!) "And +I'm one of the few that know it." (Crack!) He broke off, stared towards +the house, face changing from its superb red to astonishing purple, and +to a distant figure roared "Garge!" in a voice like a clap of thunder. +"Garge! Fetch that pig out of the flower beds! You want my stick +about your back, Garge; bless my eighteen stun proper if you don't." +</P> + +<P> +"Pardon, me lord," begged Mr. Hannaford, bringing his stick back to his +leg from where it had flourished at Garge, and continuing: "There's +more demand for little 'orses than anybody that hasn't given brain to +it would believe, me lord. Gentlefolks' little girls want little +'orses and gentlefolks' little boys want little 'orses; gentlefolks' +little carts want little 'orses, young gentlemen want little polo +'orses, and circuses want little trick 'orses. Where are they going to +get 'em?" inquired Mr. Hannaford, and answered his question with: +"They're coming to me." (Crack!) +</P> + +<P> +"Capital!" declared Lord Burdon, who was finding Mr. Hannaford a man +nearer to his liking than any he had met within the radius of Mount +Street. +</P> + +<P> +"Capital's the word," agreed Mr. Hannaford. "Bless my eighteen stun +proper if it isn't!" (Crack!) "It will take time, mind you, me lord. +I'm doing it in stages. Stage One: circus little 'orses. I rackon I'm +level with Stage One now. Started with circus little 'orses because I +was in the circus line once and my brother Martin—Stingo they call +him, me lord—is in it now. Proper connaction with circus little +'orses I've worked up. They come to me when they want a circus little +'orse, bless my eighteen stun proper if they don't." (Crack!) "Stage +Two: little gentlefolks' little 'orses—just starting that now, me +lord. Stage Three: gentlefolks' little carts' little 'orses. Stage +Four: young gentlemen's little polo 'orses. What I want," declared Mr. +Hannaford with a culminating crack of tremendous proportions, "is to +make people when they see a little 'orse think of Hannaford. +Hannaford—little 'orse; little 'orse—Hannaford. Two words one +meaning, one meaning two words; that's my lay and I'll do it, bless my +eighteen stun proper if I won't!" (Crack!) +</P> + +<P> +"'Pon my soul it's a big scheme," said Lord Burdon, highly entertained +and beginning to realise that this was no common man. +</P> + +<P> +"Correct!" Mr. Hannaford assured him, and confided with a terrible +crack: "I call it a whopper. One of these days Stingo will settle down +and join me and there'll be no more holding us than you can hold a +little 'orse with your finger and thumb." +</P> + +<P> +"Settle down?" Lord Burdon questioned, greatly interested. "Younger +than you, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"Three and a half minutes," returned Mr. Hannaford, and added, "Twins," +in reply to Lord Burdon's exclamation of surprise. "Not much in point +of time, but very different in point of nature. Wants settling down; +then he'll be all right. You'll see Stingo in a minute, me lord; he's +here," and Mr. Hannaford pointed to the line of sheds they had reached. +"On a visit," he explained; and added with a heavy sigh: "Here to-day +and gone to-morrow; that's Stingo." +</P> + +<P> +He unlatched a door. "This way, me lord. Only wooden stables at +present; brick, and brick floors, that's to come. This way, my young +lordship. This way, little master; don't you be a little 'orse now, +else maybe we shall make a mistake and tie you up in a stall." +</P> + +<P> +The interior was dim. Restless movements announced the presence of +several little 'orses, and presently was to be seen a line of plump +little quarters, mainly piebald, one or two more sedately coloured. +</P> + +<P> +"Gentleman to buy a little 'orse," announced Mr. Hannaford; and +immediately a face that was the precise replica of his own appeared +from over the side of a partition. +</P> + +<P> +"Well he's come to the proper place for a little 'orse," announced the +face in a very husky whisper and disappeared again. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, just my very words!" declared Mr. Hannaford with high delight. +"Just my very words, bless my eighteen stun proper if it wasn't! Step +out, Stingo. Lord Burdon, over from Burdon, with his young lordship +and a—" Mr. Hannaford stopped and stared around him. "Why, +wherever's that young Pocket Marvel got to?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm here!" Percival called excitedly. "I'm stroking this dear little +black one and he knows me; so I should like to know what you think of +that?" He came dancing out from the stall of the little black one, his +face blazing with excitement, and simultaneously the replica of Mr. +Hannaford's face appeared again and a replica of Mr. Hannaford's figure +advanced towards them. +</P> + +<P> +"Proud!" declared the replica in a strained whisper, and raised his +hat. "You're doing well," he whispered to Mr. Hannaford. "You're +doing uncommon well." He extended his hand and the brothers shook +hands, very solemnly on the part of the replica, with beaming delight +on the part of Mr. Hannaford. +</P> + +<P> +"Steady down, boy; steady down and join us," Mr. Hannaford earnestly +entreated, holding Stingo's hand and gazing into his face with great +fondness. But Stingo slowly shook his head, and turning to Lord Burdon +again, raised his hat and after many severe throatings managed a husky +repetition of "Proud!" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hannaford heaved an astonishingly loud sigh, pulled himself +together with a leg-and-cane crack that caused all the little 'orses to +start, and addressed himself to business. Little master, he declared, +had a proper eye for a proper little 'orse. The little black 'orse +that little master had stroked might have been specially born for his +lordship's purpose; picked up at Bampton fair last spring, a trifle too +stout and not quite the colouring for a circus little 'orse and trained +to be the first of Stage Two: little gentlefolks' little 'orses. +</P> + +<P> +Concluding this recommendation, Mr. Hannaford put his head outside the +stable and roared "Jim!" in a voice that might have been heard at +Little Letham; Stingo put his head out and throated "Jim!" in a husky +whisper that nobody heard but himself; and presently there appeared a +long, thin youth wearing a brimless straw hat that was in constant +movement owing to an alarming habit of twitching his scalp. +</P> + +<P> +"Fix him up and run him out," commanded Mr. Hannaford, jerking a thumb +at the little black 'orse; "and keep your scalp steady, me lad, else +you'll do yourself a ninjury." He glared very fiercely; and Jim, +touching an eyebrow which a violent twitch had rushed up to the point +that should have been covered by the brimless straw hat, took down a +bridle and approached the little black 'orse with the air of one who +anticipates some embarrassment. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hannaford's stables looked on to a small enclosed paddock, much cut +about with hoofs and marked in the centre by a deeply trodden ring, +around which, as he explained, the little 'orses were put through their +circus paces. +</P> + +<P> +Rollo shyly held his father's hand; Stingo revolved slowly on his own +axis the better to keep a surprised eye on Percival, who pranced and +bounded with excitement; and presently the little black 'orse, with +tossing head and delighted heels, was produced before them. +</P> + +<P> +"Now!" said Mr. Hannaford, patting the little black 'orse with one hand +and extending the other to Rollo. "Up you come, my little lordship. +Nothing to be afraid of. Only his fun that. Steady as a little lamb +when you're on his back—perfectly safe, me lord," he assured Lord +Burdon. +</P> + +<P> +But Rollo hung back, nestling his hand deeper into his father's and +flushing with nervous appeal into Lord Burdon's face. His riding in +the Park did not accommodate the natural timidity of his nature to the +adventures of a strange mount, and less so to the doubtful prospects +that the spirit of the little black 'orse appeared to offer. Lord +Burdon understood, and patted Rollo's hand. "Not feeling quite up to +it, old man? Well, we'll ask Mr. Hannaford to send the pony over to +the Manor, and try him there, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"Blest if you ain't right, me young lordship," declared Mr. Hannaford +tactfully. "Never be hurried into trying a new little 'orse. That's +the way. Jim shall bring him round for you, me lord, first thing in +the morning. Walk him up the field, Jim, to let his lordship see how +he moves." +</P> + +<P> +Jim clicked his tongue, the little black 'orse bounded amain, and +Percival, who had been watching with burning eyes, could control +himself no longer. "Oh, let me!" Percival cried. "Just one tiny +little ride! Lord Burdon, <I>please</I> let me! I <I>'treat</I> you to let me!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, you can't ride," Lord Burdon objected playfully. +</P> + +<P> +"I could ride him <I>anywhere</I>!" Percival implored. "He knows me. Just +look how he's looking at me. Oh, please—<I>please</I>!" and he ended with +a shout of delight, for Lord Burdon nodded to Mr. Hannaford and Mr. +Hannaford swung Percival from the ground into the saddle. +</P> + +<P> +"Shorten up that stirrup-iron, Jim," said Mr. Hannaford, stuffing +Percival's foot into the stirrup on his side. "Catch hold this way, +little master. Stick in with your knees. That's the way. Run him +out, Jim." +</P> + +<P> +The straw-hatted youth made a clutch at the bridle, the little black +'orse jerked up its little black head, and Percival jerked up the +bridle and cried: "Let go! let go!" and kicked a stirruped foot at the +straw-hatted youth and cried: "He <I>knows</I> me, I tell you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Pocket Marvel," commented Stingo huskily, watching the struggle. +"Pocket Marvel, if ever I saw one." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, that's just the very words that I called him, bless my eighteen +stun proper if it isn't!" cried Mr. Hannaford in huge delight; and +simultaneously the straw-hatted youth, with a terrible cry and a +tremendous jerk of the scalp, received a pawing hoof on his foot and +relaxed his hold on the bridle. +</P> + +<P> +Away went the little black 'orse and away went the Pocket Marvel +bounding in the saddle like an india-rubber ball; shouting with +delight; losing a stirrup; clutching at the saddle; saving himself by a +miraculous twist as the little black 'orse circled at the top of the +field; bumping higher and higher as the little black 'orse came gamely +trotting back to them, and finally shooting headfirst into Mr. +Hannaford's arms, as Stingo caught the bridle and the little black +'orse came to a stop. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hannaford placed Percival on his legs and he stood by the little +black 'orse's side, breathless, flushed, the centre of general +congratulations and laughter, from the deep "Ho! Ho!" and terrible +leg-and-cane cracks of Mr. Hannaford to the silent signals of +appreciation indicated by the rapid oscillation of the brimless straw +hat on the astonishing scalp movements of Jim. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm afraid I got off rather too quickly, you know," he announced. +</P> + +<P> +"Not a bit of it!" Mr. Hannaford declared stoutly, rubbing that portion +of his waistcoat into which Percival's head had cannoned. "You got off +same as you stuck on; like a regular little Pocket Marvel, bless my +eighteen stun proper if you didn't." +</P> + +<P> +The Pocket Marvel went crimson with new pride and excitement. He made +to turn eagerly to the little black 'orse again; and there occurred +then an incident of which he thought nothing at the time, nor for many +years, but which secreted itself in that strange storehouse of the +brain where trivialities permanently root themselves and whence they +stir, shake off the dust and emerge, when the impressions of far +greater events are obliterated. As he stretched a hand to the bridle, +he caught a glimpse of Rollo's face. Distress not far removed from +tears was there. The boy was concealing himself behind his father. +His sensitive nature caused him to feel that the laughing group, when +it turned attention to him, would to his detriment compare him with +this bold young junior; he shrank from that moment. +</P> + +<P> +Percival turned away from the little black 'orse and ran to him. "Now +it's your turn, Rollo. You see, he knew me from the beginning, and +that's why he liked me to ride him. Now you try. I promise you I +shall run by his side and then, you see, he'll know you're a friend of +mine." +</P> + +<P> +He took Rollo's hand and drew him forward. "Sure you'd like to, old +chap?" Lord Burdon asked, and Rollo said; "Oh, yes," and mounted by +himself, as he had been taught in London. +</P> + +<P> +"There you are!" cried Percival, beaming up at him and clapping his +hands with delight. "There you are! Now, then!" And he set off +running alongside as he had undertaken, as the little black 'orse broke +into a trot. Once in the saddle, Rollo abandoned his fears and rode +easily. The little black 'orse outpaced Percival's small legs, and +Percival came running back and took Lord Burdon's hand and watched with +eager eyes and squirmed with delight. +</P> + +<P> +"He doesn't bump like I did, you see," he said. "Look how he turns +him!" and he freed his hand and clapped and shouted: "Well done, Rollo!" +</P> + +<P> +"'Pon my soul, Percival, you're a devilish good little beggar," said +Lord Burdon; and a similar thought was in the minds of the brothers +Hannaford when, the pony purchased, they watched the wagonette drive +from the farm. "I shall save up and come with my Aunt Maggie and buy +one too," Percival declared, giving his hand to Mr. Hannaford over the +side of the trap. "In my money-box I've got three shillings already; +so I should like to know what you think of that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Pocket Marvel, that little master," commented Mr. Hannaford, as the +wagonette turned out of sight. +</P> + +<P> +Stingo made three husky attempts at speech and at length whispered: +"Thought he was the young lordship when I first saw 'em." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hannaford beamed with delight and extended his hand. "Why, that's +just what I thought!" he declared; "bless my eighteen stun proper if it +wasn't. Steady down, boy, steady down and join us." +</P> + +<P> +But Stingo's handshake was limp, and he shook his head slowly. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +Then there were the lessons with Miss Purdie. Very considerably less +satisfactory, these, than the tearing excitements that the pony +provided, yet having plenty of fun for Percival's eager young mind, and +increasing along a new path the intimacy between the two boys. Rollo +was the more advanced; but his grounding! "Your grounding," as Miss +Purdie would cry, "is shoc-<I>king</I>! Grounding is <I>everything</I>! <I>Look</I> +at this sum! <I>What</I> is seven times twelve, sir? ... then <I>why</I> have +you put down a six? How <I>dare</I> you laugh, Percival? You are <I>worse</I>! +Rollo, it's <I>no</I> good! You must begin at the <I>beginning</I>. Grounding +is <I>everything</I>!" +</P> + +<P> +Terribly frightening, Miss Purdie, when swept by her little storms. +Rather like a little bird, Miss Purdie, with her sharp little glances +from behind her spectacles. "<I>Don't</I> put your tongue out when you +write, Percival! What would you think of me, if I moved my tongue from +corner to corner every time I write, like that? <I>Don't</I> laugh at me, +sir!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it comes out by itself," Percival expostulates, "and I don't +even know that it is out, you know; so I should like to know what you +think of that?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think any thing <I>about</I> it," says Miss Purdie, with a stamp of +her little foot. "That <I>stu</I>-pid question of yours! <I>How</I> often have +I told you not to use it?" +</P> + +<P> +Very like a little bird, Miss Purdie, with her sharp little glances, +with her nimble little hops to and fro, and with her perky little +cockings of the head on this side and the other as she encourages an +answer. +</P> + +<P> +"Now the grammar lesson and I hope you've both prepared it. Gender of +nouns. Masculine, Govern-<I>or</I>. Feminine?" +</P> + +<P> +"Govern-<I>ess</I>," venture the boys, a trifle apprehensively. +</P> + +<P> +"Good boys! Masculine, Sorcer-er. Feminine?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sorcer-<I>ess</I>," says the chorus, gathering courage. +</P> + +<P> +"Masculine, Cater-<I>er</I>. Feminine?" +</P> + +<P> +"Cater-<I>ess</I>," bawls the chorus, thoroughly enjoying itself. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Not</I> so loud! Masculine, Murder-<I>er</I>. Feminine?" +</P> + +<P> +"Murder-<I>ess</I>," howls the chorus, recklessly delighted. +</P> + +<P> +"Good boys! Now be careful! Prosecutor? Take time over it. +Masculine, Prosecut-<I>or</I>. Feminine?" +</P> + +<P> +"Prosecutr-<I>ess</I>!" thunders the chorus, plunging to destruction on the +swing of the thing; and "Oh, you <I>stu</I>-pids! you <I>stu</I>-pids!" cries +Miss Purdie. "You intol-er-able <I>stu</I>-pids!" and the unhappy chorus +hangs its head and cowers beneath the little storm it has let loose. +</P> + +<P> +Delightfully appreciative, though, Miss Purdie, when the "break" of ten +minutes comes and when the boys gorge plum-cake and milk and make her +positively quiver with recitals of the terrible gallops on the pony; +and delightfully concerned, too, when, as happens once or twice, Rollo +is discovered to have a headache and is made to lie on the sofa in a +rug and with a hot-water bottle, while the lessons are continued with +Percival in fierce whispers and hissed "<I>stu</I>-pids." Delightfully +inconsequent, moreover, Miss Purdie, who at the end of an especially +exasperating morning, when Hunt is heard with the pony outside the +gate, will suddenly cry: "Well, <I>go</I> away then, you thorough little +<I>stu</I>-pids; <I>go</I> away!" and will drive them to the door and then at +once will go into ecstatics over the pony and hurry Percival in for +sugar, and quake with terror while the pony nibbles it from her hand, +and stand and wave at her gate while they go flying down the road, one +in the saddle, the other gasping behind. +</P> + +<P> +Delightfully appreciative, Miss Purdie, and they learn to love her for +all their terrible fear of her. +</P> + +<P> +Percival, Miss Purdie finds, is the more affectionate—also the more +troublesome. Rollo takes his cue from Percival and acts accordingly. +"You are the ringleader!" cries Miss Purdie, stabbing a forefinger at +Percival on the fearful morrow of the day on which truant was +played—whose morning had seen Miss Purdie running between her house +and her gate like a distressed hen abandoned by her chickens; whose +afternoon had seen the alarm communicated to Burdon Old Manor and to +"Post Offic"; and whose evening had discovered the disconsolate return +to the village of two travel-stained and weary figures. "<I>You</I> are the +ringleader in everything, and I don't know whether you ought to be more +ashamed or <I>you</I>"—and she turns from the ringleader to stab her finger +at the ring, as represented by Rollo—"or <I>you</I>, for allowing yourself +to be led away by one so much younger." +</P> + +<P> +"I've told you," protests Percival, "I've told you again and again we +got lost; so I should like to know what you think of that?" +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Don't</I> use that <I>abom</I>-inable phrase, sir! If you hadn't gone +off—tempted Rollo to go off—you wouldn't have got lost, would you?" +</P> + +<P> +Percival beams at her in his disarming manner. "Well, you see, we saw +a fox and went after it and kept on seeing it and <I>then</I> found we were +lost; so I should like—" +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Don't</I> argue. I tell you, you are the <I>ring</I>-leader!" +</P> + +<P> +She pauses and glares. "I should like to tell you," says the +ringleader, still beaming, "about a very funny thing we saw. We saw—" +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Stand</I> in the corner!" cries Miss Purdie. "<I>Stand</I> in the corner! +You are incorrigible!" and she turns to Rollo with "Geography, sir!" in +a voice that causes him to tremble. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +Certainly Percival is the leader. He has the instinct of leadership. +It is to be noted in the carriage and in the demeanour of his vigorous +young person. A sturdy way of standing he has: squarely, with his +round chin up, his head thrown back, his knees always braced, his arms +never hanging limply but always slightly flexed at the elbows as though +alert for action, his eyes widely opened, his gaze upwards and about +him with the challenging air of one who expects entertainments to arise +and would be quick to greet them. He is rarely still; he is rarely +silent. A brisk way of movement he has; a high young voice; a +compelling laugh with a clear note of "Ha! Ha! Ha!" as though the +matter that tickles him tickles him with the boniest knuckles wherever +he is ticklish. He has the instinct of leadership. When he is with +Rollo and an affair arises, he does not suggest a plan of action; he +immediately acts. On their rambles, when an obstacle or an emergency +is discovered, it instantly arouses in him a reflex action by which +vigorously, and without estimate of its difficulties, it is attacked. +"You are so thoughtless, Percival, so thoughtless!" Aunt Maggie cries +when he explains a mired and dripping state with "I jumped the ditch +and found I couldn't jump." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, but I wanted to get across, you see," Percival explains. +</P> + +<P> +"If you had looked first you would have seen you couldn't get across." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, but I <I>did</I> get across!" +</P> + +<P> +"You didn't; you fell in, you stupid little boy." +</P> + +<P> +"But I got <I>across</I>," beams Percival; and Aunt Maggie undoes her +scolding by kissing him. She has marked this impetuous and determined +spirit in him; and she knows it for the "I hold" spirit that is his by +right of birth; one day he will present it to Lady Burdon. +</P> + +<P> +He had the instinct of leadership. At first, in the excursions with +Rollo, he unconsciously expected in Rollo a spirit equal to and similar +with his own. At first, when he ran suddenly, or suddenly took a great +jump, or set off at a quick trot towards some distant excitement, he +expected to find Rollo at his side and was surprised to turn and find +him hanging back, timid or tired. Very shortly he accepted the +difference between them and emphasized that he was leader. It became +natural to him that, with the action of starting to run or of storming +a stout hedge, he should give to Rollo a hand that would aid him along +or pull him through. It became natural, when a difficult place was +reached, to release the hand with a little confident movement that +implied "Stay;" to rush the obstacle; somehow to scramble to the +further side, and then turn and cry directions and encouragement, +ending always with "I'll catch you, you know; you'll be all right." +</P> + +<P> +And as the weeks went on, the complement of this hardy spirit became +natural to Rollo. Percival put out the hand of aid; the hand that +desired aid was always ready. Rollo's hand acquired the habit of +relying on Percival for physical support; his mind came to depend on +Percival for moral benefit. However they were employed, he took his +note from his leader. If Percival chose to be idle at their lessons, +Rollo also would be inattentive and mischievous. On the days when +Percival was immense in his promises to work hard, Rollo would +sedulously apply himself. Percival led; he followed. Percival called +the tune; Rollo danced to it. Percival stretched the hand; Rollo took +it. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0305"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +THE WORLD AS SHOWMAN: ALL THE JOLLY FUN +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +The stay at Burdon Old Manor came to an end; it had been so productive +of health and happiness in Rollo, he became, as years went on, so much +more and more devoted to Percival, that it was made the beginning of +regular visits. The Manor continued to doze for the most part under +the care of Mrs. Housekeeper Ferris, with Mr. Librarian Amber's library +the only room that had no dust sheets about the furniture; but there +were periodic openings: always a visit at Easter before the London +season began, always a visit in August reaching into October when the +London season was ended. +</P> + +<P> +The visits marked the fullest times of Percival's life, as they marked +the happiest of Rollo's; but life was steadily and joyously filled for +Percival in these days, and he with a zest for it that carried him +ardently along the hours. +</P> + +<P> +The years were passing; he grew apace. It was a period, the villagers +told one another, of rare proper weather: the winters hard with all the +little hamlets tethered along Plowman's Ridge sometimes cut off for +days together by heavy falls of snow; the springs most gentle and most +radiant, escaping with a laugh from Winter's bondage and laughing down +the lanes and up the hedgerows and through the fields, where every +mother, from earth that mothered all, was fruitful of her kind; the +summers glorious, with splendid days joining hands with splendid days +to form a stately chain of sunshine through the warmer months. +</P> + +<P> +Rare proper weather with the energy of its period in every hour, and +Percival that energy's embodiment. He grew properly, the villagers +said, and knew without a second glance what figure it was that went +scudding along the Down in the young mornings, and knew without a +second thought whose voice came singing to them as they stooped in +their fields or trudged behind their herds. He grew lustily; lissom of +limb, as might be seen; eager and finely turned of face, having an air +and a wide eye that caused chance tourists to turn and look again; very +big of spirit, as those knew who had the handling of him. +</P> + +<P> +"He's getting that independent there's no doing a thing with him," +stormed Honor one day, coming with Percival (both very red in the face) +to lay a passage of arms for arbitrament before Aunt Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Percival! And Honor is so kind to you!" +</P> + +<P> +"I know, I know; but she tries to <I>rule</I> me, Aunt Maggie!" +</P> + +<P> +"And ruling you want," Honor cried, "as your Aunt Maggie well knows. +Spare the pickle and spoil the rod!" +</P> + +<P> +"You've got it wrong!" said Percival with scornful triumph, and after +he had stalked away, his head thrown up in an action that Aunt Maggie +well remembered in Roly, she sought to placate Honor with thoughts that +were frequently coming to her in those days. "He is getting big, +Honor. I think we forget how he is growing. We mustn't keep him in +too tightly." +</P> + +<P> +Then there was Miss Purdie. "To my face!" cried Miss Purdie, +fluttering into "Post Offic" one afternoon, "to my face he called the +sum a <I>beastly</I> sum—the sum, mind you, I had set him myself! A +<I>beastly</I> sum!" and then completely spoilt the horror of it by sighing +and winding up, "but he is such a <I>sweet</I>. So lovable! So merry!" +</P> + +<P> +"He's growing, you see," joined Aunt Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Of <I>course</I>, he is," agreed Miss Purdie. "It's just his spirit. He's +so <I>manly</I>!" and she gave herself a little shake and said: "Oh, I like +a <I>manly</I> boy!" +</P> + +<P> +Still, the truculence of character that had brought her warring down to +"Post Offic" remained to be settled. Moreover, the boy's mind was +developing outside the range of Miss Purdie's primers and exercise +books. "He wants <I>Latin</I>," said Miss Purdie. "He wants <I>algebra</I>. He +wants <I>Euclid</I>!" and the ladies decided that his tuition had better be +handed over to Miss Purdie's brother, who could supply these +correctives. They shook hands on it and agreed that Mr. Purdie should +take over the duties on the morrow. On the doorstep Miss Purdie +repeated the necessity with terrible emphasis: "He wants <I>Latin</I>! He +wants <I>algebra</I>! But I shall miss our lessons together! Oh, dear, how +I shall miss them!" +</P> + +<P> +She hurried home with little sniffs which she strove to check by +repeating very fiercely: "He wants <I>Latin</I>!" +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +Percival took up with immense zest the new freedom from petticoat +control and the new regimen of lessons. He liked the new subjects; and +it was notable in him that he carried into the exercise of his tasks +the same quickness and determination with which he entered upon—and +completed—all pleasanter affairs that came to his hand. Mr. Purdie, +for his part, was enchanted. Mr. Purdie was plump and soft, with +lethargic ways and pronounced timidity of character. In his youth Mr. +Purdie had been called to the Bar. A very small legacy came to him +thereafter, and his lymphatic nature led him at once to abandon town +life, to go to sloth at his ease with his sister at Burdon village. He +was vastly attracted by Percival. Very shortly after their +introduction as master and pupil, he came to Aunt Maggie with the +suggestion that Percival might spend with him some leisure as well as +the school-hours. "A boy can be taught in his play as well as his +work," he announced in his pompous manner. "At Percival's age, and as +he grows, there are things in which only a man can guide him." He gave +one of his shrill, absurd chuckles: "And I think Master Percival likes +me. Eh, Percival?" +</P> + +<P> +Percival eyed him doubtfully. He could not see stout and soft Mr. +Purdie contributing much entertainment to his rambles. "Well, if you +bring your tricycle, we might have some fun," he admitted. +</P> + +<P> +Ah, these were the happy days. Happy, happy time! There was fun in +alarming Mr. Purdie during their walks by taking him across fields that +had fierce cows; by climbing trees with the plump tutor imploring +beneath; by pretending to go out of depth when bathing in Fir-Tree +Pool, with the plump tutor beseeching from the bank like an agitated +hen that has hatched ducklings. There was particular fun in the +tricycle. +</P> + +<P> +The tricycle was an immense affair of remote construction, having the +steering-wheel attached by a bar behind and manipulated by handles on +either side of the seat that required almost as much winding as a +clock—"twiddling" Percival called it—when the machine was to be +deflected from a straight passage. Percival's legs were too short for +the treadles, Mr. Purdie's too soft for propulsion up even the gentlest +incline. Tricycle excursions took, therefore, the form of laborious +pushing, with inordinate perspiration on the part of Mr. Purdie, until +the brow of a hill was gained, when Percival would balance upon the +steering wheel bar, Mr. Purdie in considerable trepidation on the seat, +and away they would go with delighted shoutings from Percival—legs +dangling, hands clutching the plump tutor's coat—and anguished +entreaties of "Steady! steady! Don't touch my arms! Don't touch my +arms!" from Mr. Purdie, back-pedalling tremendously, clutching at the +brake, winding at the handles. Then the laborious ascent of the next +slope, Mr. Purdie dripping at every pore, Percival crimson in the face +and carrying on a long argument: "If you'd only <I>work</I> when we get near +the bottom and not use that rotten brake, we'd get halfway up and not +have this awful <I>pushing</I>!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, kindly do not push <I>me</I>," says Mr. Purdie, very hot. +</P> + +<P> +Happy, happy time! Disaster came on the day on which there entered Mr. +Purdie's eye the fly that he always dreaded. Mr. Purdie in the seat +was back-pedalling with immense caution down Five Furlong Hill; +Percival on the steering bar behind was peering ahead round the plump +tutor's ample girth and at intervals urging: "Now let her go!" +</P> + +<P> +It was the fly that let her go. Whack! came the fly into Mr. Purdie's +eye. "Whoa!" cried Mr. Purdie. "Bother! dear me! Whoa!" Up went Mr. +Purdie's knees in the twitch of pain; up came his hand to his tortured +eye; round went the released pedals; forward shot the tricycle. +</P> + +<P> +"Hurrah!" cried Percival. "Well done! Ripping of you!" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Purdie, between agony of his eye and terror for his safety, gave a +shrill cry of dismay; took a grab at the brake and a grab back at his +eye; received two terrible blows on the backs of his legs that fumbled +wildly for the whizzing treadles, and barked out: "Brake! Brake! Fly +in my eye!" +</P> + +<P> +"Which eye?" Percival shouted, enjoying the speed enormously. +</P> + +<P> +The alarmed tutor bundled his words in a heap the better to get them +out and arrest the catastrophe that threatened. +</P> + +<P> +"Catchabrakeandontbesilly! Catchabrakeabekilled!" +</P> + +<P> +They whizzed! +</P> + +<P> +Percival bawled: "We don't want the brake! I can't reach the brake! I +like it! We're simply whizzing! Mind your legs!" His cap was gone. +His hair fluttered in the rushing wind. His face was crimson with +excited glee. His clear laughter on its strong note of "Ha! Ha! Ha!" +rose high above the rattling of all the machine's vitals and the cries +of the agonised bearer of the fly. He clung tightly to the podgy waist +and shouted: "Ha! Ha! Ha! We're whizzing! We're whizzing!" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Purdie took another six hammers on his legs and struck a note of +new alarm. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm blind, you know! I can't see! I can't steer!" +</P> + +<P> +"A straight road!" Percival bawled. "Look out, though! A corner +coming!" +</P> + +<P> +"How can I look out? Draggle your legs on the ground!" +</P> + +<P> +"Twiddle to the left!" Percival bellowed. "Ha! Ha! Ha! Twiddle, Mr. +Purdie, twiddle!" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Purdie twiddled frantically; the tricycle outraced his efforts. +"Look out for yourself!" from Percival, and with a loud and exceeding +bitter cry from Mr. Purdie, the machine plunged at the hedge, planted +Mr. Purdie very firmly into the midst, shot Percival firmly on top of +him, took a violent somersault across the ditch that skirted the hedge, +and poised itself above them. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Purdie's last despairing cry cut sharply across Percival's peals of +laughter—then the crash. The fluttering beat of wings as a cloud of +chaffinches, terrified by this amazing avalanche, burst from the floor +of the wood beyond the hedge, then peal on peal of laughter again from +Percival. +</P> + +<P> +In muffled tones from the depth of the hedge: "It is a miracle we are +not killed. Where are you, Percival?" +</P> + +<P> +Percival checked his mirth sufficiently to reply: "Well, I don't know +<I>where</I> I am! My head is down here, but where my legs are I don't +know." +</P> + +<P> +"One of them is under me and hurting me terribly. Move, please." +</P> + +<P> +Between the peals of laughter: "I can't move, Mr. Purdie. I'm +practically standing on my head, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know anything about it. My face is almost in something highly +unpleasant—a dead bird, I think. Please stop that laughter and try to +do something. The odour here is most noisome." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, but I can't stop laughing. Did you see us shoot?" +</P> + +<P> +"Please try to control yourself. I did not see us shoot." +</P> + +<P> +A mighty effort causes Percival's head and shoulders to come up with a +jerk; Mr. Purdie feels the weight of pupil and tricycle removed from +his back, and there follows another crash and further yells of laughter. +</P> + +<P> +In muffled agony from the hedge: "Now what has happened?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm bothered if I haven't fallen again! I've fallen out, +though." +</P> + +<P> +Out of the depths: "Percival! Percival! Don't be such a silly little +boy! Pull me out!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm all mixed up in this awful trike, you know. Now, I'm up!" +</P> + +<P> +"Pray pull me, then. I am retching with this noisome smell." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, there's nothing to pull!" cries Percival, plunging round the +tremendous stern that sticks out of the hedge. "Your trousers are +simply <I>tight</I>!" +</P> + +<P> +Out of the depths: "Tch! Tch! Push me sideways, then." +</P> + +<P> +The mammoth stern is pushed sideways and hauled backways, and presently +begins to rise, and presently the stout tutor is ponderously disgorged +from the hedge, and staggers forth with grunts and moans, and collapses +on the roadside, feet in ditch, very bedraggled and unfortunate looking. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't think I'm laughing at you," Percival says. "I'm really very +sorry for you. But you're not hurt, you know. Let me rub you down +with leaves." +</P> + +<P> +"I am terribly shaken. Do not touch me for a few minutes, please." +</P> + +<P> +"Is the fly still in your eye?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know where the fly is." +</P> + +<P> +"Your trousers are awfully torn." +</P> + +<P> +"Be silent, please. I am dazed." +</P> + +<P> +He remains dazed when at last they begin to trudge home, the wrecked +tricycle left for a cart. But at the top of the hill that plunged them +to disaster, the infectious spurts of laughter at his side challenge +his self-esteem and he sets out to sound his reputation in Percival's +regard. +</P> + +<P> +"I think I steered rather well, considering I couldn't see." +</P> + +<P> +Percival is always generous: "Splendidly! Oh, dear, I'm aching with +laughing!" +</P> + +<P> +"I was only afraid for you, Percival." +</P> + +<P> +"We whizzed, you know! We simply whizzed!" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Purdie glances back down the hill and shudders to have whizzed it. +"Were you laughing all the way down?" +</P> + +<P> +"Anybody would laugh at a whizz like that." +</P> + +<P> +The plump tutor has a close acquaintance with one person who would not. +The remark pricks him and he finds a comforting answer. "Only very +silly people laugh at danger." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I didn't know it was danger," said Percival; and Mr. Purdie +first looks at him thoughtfully and then gives one of his shrill, +absurd chuckles. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +Happy, happy time! There were the visits to Mr. Hannaford, always made +on a whole holiday because an early start was necessary, where the +little 'orse farm was progressing famously and where Percival was made +quite extraordinarily welcome. Terrible leg-and-cane cracks would +announce in which quarter of the farm Mr. Hannaford was to be found, +and Percival would discover Mr. Hannaford watching a little circus +'orse at exercise, or watching the builders at work in the brick +stables that were slowly displacing the line of sheds, and watching all +the time to the accompaniment of bellowing instructions punctuated by +leg-and-cane cracks of astounding volume. +</P> + +<P> +Percival would plant himself squarely by Mr. Hannaford's side in Mr. +Hannaford's position—legs apart, head thrown back—and would eagerly +follow the proceedings until Mr. Hannaford suddenly would observe him +and would cry in a voice the whole farm might hear: "Why, it's the +little Pocket Marvel! Bless my eighteen stun proper if it ain't! +However long a you been there, little master?" +</P> + +<P> +Percival, beaming all over his face and putting his small hand into the +tremendous shake of Mr. Hannaford's shoulder of mutton fist: "Only +about ten minutes, thank you, Mr. Hannaford. Don't you mind me, you +know. I like watching." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, and I've got something for you to watch," Mr. Hannaford would say. +"Now you come over here with me. Got that little lordship with you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not come back yet," Percival would reply, capering along, tremendously +happy. "How are you going along, Mr. Hannaford? Properly?" +</P> + +<P> +"Properly to rights! Look at that now!" And with a terrible +leg-and-cane crack Mr. Hannaford would pause before the new stables and +call Percival's attention to some new feature that had arisen since his +last visit. "Names on the doors, d'you see? 'Crocker's' on that door, +'Maddox's' on this door. Do a deal in little 'orses with Crocker's +circus; take your gross profit; set aside share of expenses; set aside +wear and tear; set aside emergency fund; take your net profit; build +your stable; call it Crocker's. Same with Maddox: deal, gross, share, +wear, emergency, net, stable—call it Maddox! What d'you think of that +for a notion?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, I call it jolly fine, Mr. Hannaford," Percival replies. "I call +that a proper notion. Reminds you how you did it, doesn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, that's just exactly what it does do!" cries Mr. Hannaford, +enormously delighted. "Just the very notion of it, bless my eighteen +stun proper if it ain't! Now you come along over here." And Mr. +Hannaford would leg-and-cane crack, and Percival would trot and +chatter, over to another marvel, where a similar performance would be +gone through, owner and spectator tremendously happy, and both +profoundly serious. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hannaford would usually propose lunch after this. Mr. Hannaford +permitted no women in his establishment; but the long, low-roofed +dining-room in the old farmhouse was kept at a shining cleanliness, and +the meal was invitingly cooked, by a one-armed man of astoundingly +fierce appearance and astonishingly mild disposition, who answered to +the names of Ob and Diah accordingly as Mr. Hannaford preferred the +former or latter half of the Obadiah to which the one-armed man was +entitled, and who had left the greater part of his missing arm in the +lion's cage he had attended when travelling with Maddox's Monster +Menagerie and Royal Circus. +</P> + +<P> +Three places were always set at the table when Percival visited. One +for Mr. Hannaford at one end, one at the other end for brother +Stingo—"in case," as Mr. Hannaford would say—and one on Mr. +Hannaford's right for Percival. There was a tremendous silver tankard +of ale for Mr. Hannaford, a similar tankard for Percival—requiring +both hands and containing milk—and always, when Mr. Hannaford raised +the dish-cover, there developed from the cloud of steam a plump chicken +which Mr. Hannaford called chick<I>un</I> and Percival chick<I>ing</I> and which +they both fell upon with quite remarkable appetites. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's a most astonishing thing to me," Percival would say when +the cover went up, and the chicken settled out of the steam. "Most +amazing! You know I like chicking better than anything, and every time +I come you just happen to have chicking for dinner! Most amazing to +me, you know!" +</P> + +<P> +And Mr. Hannaford would lay down the carving knife and fork and stare +at the chicken and say: "Well, it is a chickun again, so it is, bless +my eighteen stun proper if it ain't!" and would give a tremendous wink +at Ob in order to enjoy with him the joke arising from the fact that +directly Percival was sighted on the farm a messenger was sent to Ob to +prepare the meal that Percival liked best. +</P> + +<P> +Then they would eat away, and pull away at the colossal tankards, and +Percival would always make a point of saying: "Stingo not home?" +</P> + +<P> +A long pull at the tankard and a heavy sigh from Mr. Hannaford: "Not +just yet, little master. Still restless, I'm afraid. Still restless." +</P> + +<P> +And Percival, in the old phrase and with the air of a grandfather: +"Well, he'll settle down, you know. He'll settle down." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, that's just what I say!" Mr. Hannaford would exclaim, immensely +comforted. "Settle down—of course he will! Just what I'm always +telling him, bless my eighteen stun proper if it ain't!" +</P> + +<P> +Always the same jolly lunch, always the same mingled seriousness and +jolly fun, always the same jokes. Percival did not know that much of +it was carefully planned by Mr. Hannaford that he might enjoy the +fullest relish of the Pocket Marvel's visit. There was the great +chicken joke, there was also the killing joke for the production of +which by Percival Mr. Hannaford would dawdle lunch to an inordinate +length. +</P> + +<P> +At length it would come: "Nothing I can have a ride on, I suppose, Mr. +Hannaford?" Percival would say with careful carelessness. +</P> + +<P> +"Never a norse fit for it," Mr. Hannaford would reply, equally off-hand. +</P> + +<P> +A heavy sigh from Percival: "Oh, dear! Sure, I suppose?" +</P> + +<P> +"Certain! Got a little brown 'orse—but there, you'd never ride him." +</P> + +<P> +"I bet I would! I bet I would!" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hannaford, looking terribly fierce and in a very violent voice: +"Bet you wouldn't!" +</P> + +<P> +"Try me, then! Only try me!" +</P> + +<P> +And Mr. Hannaford would bounce up and seize his cane, and they would +rush off, and the saddle would be put on the little brown 'orse, and +Percival would mount him and gallop him and cry "You see! You see!" +And Mr. Hannaford would pretend huge amazement and declare that +Percival was a proper little Pocket Marvel, bless his eighteen stun +proper if he wasn't. +</P> + +<P> +Once or twice Stingo would be there, and then the jolly fun would be +jollier than ever; and in the evening Mr. Hannaford's gig with the big +black mare would come around and the brothers would labour up into the +seat and Percival would squeeze in between them and they would let him +drive and he would pop the mare along at a lashing speed and there +would be the highest good-fellowship. He would be set down at the top +of Five Furlong Hill—nothing would induce Mr. Hannaford to come into +the village where women might be met. "Well, good night, Mr. +Hannaford; good night, Mr. Stingo. Thank you most awfully for all your +kindness to me. I hope I'll come again soon." +</P> + +<P> +The brothers would usually wait until he reached the turning to the +village; setting up, the one a husky shout, and the other a terrible +bellow, in reply to the faint "Good night!" that came to them through +the dusk. +</P> + +<P> +"I never in all my life took to nothing, not even a little 'orse, like +I have to that little master," Mr. Hannaford would say. "Never seen +such a proper one, never." +</P> + +<P> +And Stingo, with painful huskiness: "Ought to ha' been a little +lordship!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, that's just exactly what I say," Mr. Hannaford would reply, +enormously pleased. "Bless my eighteen stun proper if it isn't!" +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +Happy, happy time! There were the visits to mild old Mr. Amber in the +library at Burdon Old Manor. Strongest contrast, the delights here, to +those enjoyed among the little 'orses. Strongest contrast, mild old +Mr. Amber with his stooping shoulders and his gentle ways, to +tremendous Mr. Hannaford with his lusty back and his vigorous habits. +</P> + +<P> +But the same eager welcome: "Well, well, Master Percival, this is +indeed a pleasant surprise! And we are just sitting down to our +tea—and I declare Mrs. Ferris has sent us some strawberry jam! Now if +that isn't too fortunate I don't know what is!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's awfully jolly," Percival agrees. "Mrs. Ferris makes very +nice strawberry jam, doesn't she?" +</P> + +<P> +In the act of pouring tea, mild old Mr. Amber sets down the pot and +emphasises with his glasses. "My dear sir—my dear Percival, she makes +the very best strawberry jam! Mrs. Ferris has made that strawberry jam +for forty years—to our certain knowledge, for-ty years." +</P> + +<P> +Percival's rounded eyes show his appreciation of this consistent +industry. "Must have made a lot," is his comment. +</P> + +<P> +"Tons," says Mr. Amber. "My dear sir—my dear Percival, I should +say—tons." He stabs the glasses at his listener. "And every berry, +sir, every single berry, wet season or dry, from our own gardens!" +</P> + +<P> +It always comes back to that with Mr. Amber. The old Manor, the House +of Burdon, is his world and his life, and he is mightily jealous you +shall know their quality. +</P> + +<P> +There is generally a little interlude of this kind in the course of the +visit. Its effect stays for a few minutes, Mr. Amber slowly repeating +to himself "every berry—every single berry, sir," in the tone of one +impressively warning against any challenge of his statement; and then +he simmers down and recollects that his visitor is the Percival who +occupies a large portion of his heart. He likes to take Percival's +hand. He likes to feel that warm young grasp within his own chilly old +palm. He likes to lead the boy and feel those sturdy young fingers +twitch to the excitement of what tales he can tell or what treasures he +can show. +</P> + +<P> +"Now what have we got to show you in our shelves this evening? Nothing +much, we fear. Oh, yes, we have, though! Those folios—we've +rearranged them so as to fill the ninth and tenth in this tier. That +was your suggestion, wasn't it? I agree, you know, I quite agree. +It's an improvement." +</P> + +<P> +"Keeps them stiffer," says Percival, head on one side, rather proud. +</P> + +<P> +"Just exactly what it does! Keeps them stiffer. Lessens the strain. +We ought to have thought of that, Percival. We reproach ourselves +there, you know." +</P> + +<P> +There is a tinge of the self-reproach in his voice, and Percival +hastens with: "Of course you would have done it yourself, as you said, +but you get into your ways, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, we do," agrees Mr. Amber, very comforted. "That's just what it +is—we get into our ways." +</P> + +<P> +At other times when Percival comes to the library, there is no answer +to his knock on the door. He turns the handle very gently; pokes in +his head very quietly; peers all about the apartment; cannot see Mr. +Amber; enters very cautiously; and presently espies him perched high +aloft on one of the wheeled book-ladders, sitting cross-legged, +catalogue on knee, pencil in hand, brow puckered in mental labour. +</P> + +<P> +Then Percival closes the door behind him, so that there shall be +scarcely the faintest click, and gives a tiny cough and says: "Very +busy, Mr. Amber?" +</P> + +<P> +"'M-'m," says Mr. Amber, wagging his head, waving the pencil and +frowning horribly. "'M-'m!" +</P> + +<P> +Percival tiptoes with enormous caution to the other ladder; wheels it +to a shelf where he has found entertainment; selects his book; perches +himself; and for an hour or more the two, each on his ladder, the child +and the man, the lissom young form and the withered old figure, sit +high among the books, entranced among the worlds that books discover. +</P> + +<P> +"'M-'m!" says Mr. Amber at intervals, frantically waving. +</P> + +<P> +"Only coughed," explains Percival. "Only that choking, you know. It—" +</P> + +<P> +"'M-'m! 'M-'m!" and they bury themselves again. +</P> + +<P> +That is the usual course. Once or twice there have been conversations +across the room from the tops of the ladders. Percival has looked up +from his book to find Mr. Amber turned towards him and regarding him +with eyes that do not appear to see his smile of greeting. "Mr. Amber, +is there anything funny about me that you look at me so?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Amber will start as though he had been dreaming. "Funny? Eh? +Why, no, Percival; nothing funny at all." +</P> + +<P> +"If it is my boots, they are quite clean. I gave them twelve wipes +each, like you told me." +</P> + +<P> +"It's not your boots." +</P> + +<P> +Silence between them. +</P> + +<P> +"Funny us two sitting up here like this, like two mountains in the sea. +Rather jolly, isn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"It recalls to me," says Mr. Amber, "another little boy who used to sit +up there just as you sit.... In this dim light ... there are ways you +have, Percival..." +</P> + +<P> +Silence again. Twilight gathering in the corners of the vast room. A +moth softly thudding the window-pane. There is something in the +atmosphere that seems to hold Percival. At "Post Offic" he likes the +lamps to be lit when dusk draws down; here there is a feeling of +gentleness about him, with curious half-thoughts and with half-familiar +gropings and stretchings of the shadows. "Thinking without thinking, +as if I was in some one else who was thinking," he has described it to +Aunt Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +"Your voice, too," says Mr. Amber suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +Percival knows what is in Mr. Amber's mind. "Thinking of your young +lordship, aren't you, Mr. Amber?" +</P> + +<P> +"He used to sit there," Mr. Amber replies. "In this dim light ... +seeing you there..." +</P> + +<P> +Silence again. Twilight wreathing from the corners across the ceiling; +shadows grouping and moving in new fantasies; soft thuddings of the +moth as though a shadow beat to enter. +</P> + +<P> +Percival stretches a hand, and against the window's light perceives a +shadow he has watched drift caressingly about his fingers. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Amber, little above a whisper, peering through the gloom: "Why do +you stretch your hand so, my lord?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm touching a shadow that's come right up to me;" and then Percival +realises the last words, and laughs and says: "You called me 'my +lord!'—you did really, Mr. Amber!" +</P> + +<P> +"God bless me!" says Mr. Amber, shaking himself—"God bless me, we are +getting the shadows in our brains. Come down and watch me light the +lamps." +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +V +</P> + +<P> +Happy, happy time! Best of all when the family is at the Old Manor and +when the friendship with Rollo can be taken up where it was left, to be +deepened and to be discovered more than ever fruitful of delights. The +boys are older now. Childish games are done with; very serious talks +(so they believe) take the place of the chatter and the "pretending" of +earlier days: they discuss affairs, mostly arising from adventures in +the books they read; there has been a general election, and they agree +that the Liberals are awful rotters; there has been one of the little +wars, and they kindle together to the glory of British arms and wish +they might be Young Buglers and be thanked by the general before the +whole regiment like the heroes of Mr. Henty's books. +</P> + +<P> +Percival calls the tune, starts the discussions, constructs the +adventures. Rollo follows the lead, leaning on the quicker mind just +as he relies on the stronger arm and the speedier foot when they are on +their rambles together. It is Rollo who throws the acorn that hits the +stout farm boy driving a milk cart beneath them, as they perch in a +tree. It is Percival who scrambles down responsive to the insults of +the enraged boy, and takes a most fearful battering that the stout +boy's stout arms are able to inflict. +</P> + +<P> +"I ought to have fought him," Rollo says half-tearfully, with shamed +and shuddering glances at the bloody handkerchief held to the suffering +nose, the lumped forehead and the blackened eye. "He said the one that +hit him. It was my shot." +</P> + +<P> +Percival, in terrible fury, muffled from behind the handkerchief: "How +could you fight him? Dash those great clodhopping arms of his! A mile +long! I'll have another go at him, I swear I will." +</P> + +<P> +It is Rollo who cries: "Percival, it will kill us!" when the ram they +have annoyed comes with a fourth shattering crash against the boards of +the pigsty to which they have fled for safety. It is Percival who +cries: "Run, when he sees us!" whips over the palisade, springs across +the field, and takes the tail-end of an appalling batter as he hurls +himself through the far gate. +</P> + +<P> +"How ever could you dare?" Rollo asks, joining him in the road. "Has +he hurt you frightfully?" +</P> + +<P> +"How could you have escaped?" says Percival, limping. "He'd have got +you in that sty. I knew I could beat him. Dash the brute, it stings! +There's the kind of stick I want! I'll teach him manners!" +</P> + +<P> +It is Rollo who gives an appealing look at Percival when Lord Burdon +starts them in a race for sixpence. It is Percival who whispers as +they run: "We'll make it a dead heat." +</P> + +<P> +"It was awfully decent of you, Percival," Rollo exclaims, as they go to +spend the prize at Mrs. Minnifie's sweet shop. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it's rotten beating one another when people are looking on," +Percival replies. "I vote for lemonade as well, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +It is the spirit between them that had its first evidence on the day +when the visit was made to Mr. Hannaford to purchase the little black +'orse. Then Rollo hung back while Percival jumped to ride; then +Percival brought him forward, encouraging him, to taste the fun. So +now, as the years sunder their natures more sharply, and as affection +more strongly bridges the gulf, the more sharply does the one lead, the +other follow; the more naturally does the one support, the other rely. +</P> + +<P> +Everybody notices it: Aunt Maggie, who only smiles; Lady Burdon, who +says: "Rollo, Percival's a regular little father to you, it seems to +me. Don't let him rule you, you know. Remember what you are, Rollo +mine." Even Egbert Hunt notices it. Mr. Hunt is still attached to +Rollo's person. Sick yedaches trouble him less frequently; but his +hatred of tyrangs has deepened with the increasing tenure of his +servitude. He spends less of his wages on vegules; much of it on +socialistic literature of an inflammatory nature; but he never forgets +the sympathy of Percival in the vegule days, and he is strongly joined +with all those who, meeting the boy, have a note stirred by his sunny +nature. +</P> + +<P> +"Always does me good to see you," Mr. Hunt says one day. "Something +about you. He'll never be a slave who works for you." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, who's going to work for me?" Percival inquires. +</P> + +<P> +"The point!" says Mr. Hunt with impressive gloom. "The very point." +He fumbles in his pocket and produces thumbed papers, just as he +fumbled and produced vegules at an earlier day. "It's in the +lowlier"—he consults a paper—"in the lowlier strata that you find the +men a man can follow, but the men that can't lead owing to the heel of +the tyrang. It's the Bloodsuckers we got to serve." He indicates the +paper: "Bloodsuckers, they call 'em here." +</P> + +<P> +"Silly rot," says Percival. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, you're young," Mr. Hunt returns. "You're young. You'll learn +different when they begin to sap your blood for you. You're a higher +strata than me, Master Percival. Benificent influence of education, +you've had. But you're under the Bloodsuckers. Squeeze you out like +an orindge, they will, and throw yer away. Me one day, you another." +He indicated the paper again. "There's a strong bit here called +'Squeezed Orindges.' Makes yer boil." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm boiling already," says Percival. "It's a jolly hot day. If you +don't like being what you are, I wonder you don't be something else." +</P> + +<P> +"No good," Mr. Hunt tells him. "Out of one tyrang's heel and under +another. We've got to suffer and endure, us orindges, until the day +when they are swept away like chaff before the wind." +</P> + +<P> +Percival is rather interested: "Well, who's going to sweep them? and +sweep whom?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" says Mr. Hunt darkly. "Who? Makes yer boil." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I shouldn't worry, Hunt," says Percival, in the old "Have you +got one of your poor sick yedaches?" tone. "I shouldn't, really. I +feel angry sometimes, but you've only got to have a game of something, +you know. There's Rollo! Come on down and help us to build that raft +on Fir-Tree Pool. We'll have a jolly time. Rollo! Hunt's going to +help us, so we can get that big plank down now! Come on, Hunt!" +</P> + +<P> +He bounds away towards Rollo, and Mr. Hunt, watching before he starts +to follow, says: "Ah, pity there's not more like you! You ought to ha' +been one of them." He scowls horribly in the direction of Lady Burdon, +who is waving to the boys from the door. "One o' them, you ought to +ha' been. Makes yer boil!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0306"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +JAPHRA AND IMA AND SNOW-WHITE-AND-ROSE-RED +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +And there were three new friends who contributed to this happy, happy +time and who came vitally to contribute to later years. There were +Japhra and Ima, who lived in a yellow caravan that was sometimes +attached to that Maddox's Monster Menagerie and Royal Circus with which +Mr. Hannaford traded in little 'orses; and there was Dora, whose mother +was that Mrs. Espart of Abbey Royal at Upabbot over the Ridge who—as +Miss Oxford had told Lady Burdon—did not send her little girl to +lessons with Miss Purdie because of the post-office little boy. +</P> + +<P> +Percival first met Japhra and Ima on a day not long after the end of +Rollo's first visit, when—his playmate gone—he was temporarily a +little lonely. He came upon them by Fir-Tree Pool, stepped through the +belt of trees that surround the pool and halted in much delight at the +entrancing sight his eyes gave him. +</P> + +<P> +Here was a yellow caravan with little curtained windows, a thing most +pregnant of mysteries to eight-years-old. A big white horse, +unharnessed from the van, was cropping the turf. There was an iron pot +hanging above a jolly fire of sticks. On the steps of the van a girl +of about Percival's own age sat knitting. She was olive of face, with +long, black hair; her legs were bare and they looked very long, +Percival thought. By the fire, astride of a felled tree trunk, was a +little man with a very brown face that was marked like a sailor's with +many puckered little lines. He had a tight-lipped mouth with a short +pipe that seemed a natural part of it, and he wore a long jacket and +had a high hat of some rough, brown fur. He was reading a book; and as +Percival stood watching, he put a finger to mark his place and looked +up slowly as though he had known Percival was there but wished to read +to a certain point before interrupting himself. +</P> + +<P> +He looked up and Percival noticed that his eyes, set in that brown, +puckered face, were uncommonly bright. "Welcome, little master," said +he. "All the luck!" +</P> + +<P> +"Hullo!" said Percival. "Excuse me staring. This is funny to me, you +know." +</P> + +<P> +"Quiet, though," said the little man, his eyes twinkling; "and that's +the best thing in life." +</P> + +<P> +Percival came up to him, vastly attracted. "Do you live in that van?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's where I live, little master—Ima and I." +</P> + +<P> +Percival stared at the girl on the steps, who stared back at him and +then smiled. "Ima? That's a funny name," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Maybe she's a funny girl," said the little man, twinkling more than +ever. +</P> + +<P> +Percival took it quite seriously. "Well, her legs are long," he said +appraisingly. +</P> + +<P> +"They can run, though, little master," said the girl. She had a +curiously soft voice, Percival noticed. But he was rather puzzled with +it all and remained serious. "Is your name funny, too?" he asked the +little man. +</P> + +<P> +The little man's tight lips were stretched in what Percival came to +know for his most advanced sign of amusement. He opened his lips very +slightly when he spoke, and the short pipe that seemed to grow there +did not appear at all to incommode his speech. "Why, try it for +thyself," said the little man,—"Japhra." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I've not heard it before, you know," said Percival politely. +"You don't mind my asking questions, do you?" he added. "This is +rather funny to me, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, I'm a questioner myself, little master," the little man assured +him. "I'm questioning always. I go through life seeking an answer." +</P> + +<P> +"What for?" asked Percival. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, that's the question, little master," said the little man. "What +for? Who knows?" +</P> + +<P> +Percival regarded him with the same puzzled air that he sometimes gave +to Aunt Maggie. "Well, if you don't mind," he said, "what are you, +then?" +</P> + +<P> +Far from minding, Japhra seemed to like it. Twinkling away: "Why, +that's another question I ask and cannot answer," said he. "What is +any man? One thing to one man and one thing to another—a riddle to +himself, little master. But I can unriddle thee this much: Wintertime +I am a tinker that mends folks' pots and pans; Springtimes I am +Punch-and-Judy-man that makes the children laugh; Summertimes I am a +fighter that fights in the booths. I have been prize-fighter that +fights with the knuckle; cattleman over the sea; jockey, and wrestler, +and miner, and preacher once, and questioner since I was thy size; +there's unriddling for thee." +</P> + +<P> +"It's a good lot," said Percival gravely. "What are you just now, +please?" +</P> + +<P> +"Or a bad lot," said Japhra. "Who knows?—and there's the question +again! No escape from it." He looked solemn for a moment and then +twinkled again. "Just now a fighter, little master. To-morrow I join +Boss Maddox's circus for the summer with my boxing booth." +</P> + +<P> +"Boss Maddox!" cried Percival. "Why, Mr. Stingo goes with Maddox's +circus. Do you know Mr. Stingo?" +</P> + +<P> +"None better," said Japhra. "I am of Stingo's crowd, as we say. Dost +thou?" +</P> + +<P> +"I know him very well," Percival declared. "I know his brother best. +They call me a Pocket Marvel, you know; so I should like to know what +you think of that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, I think that's what thou art," said Japhra. "A rare one. There +were fairies at thy christening, little master." +</P> + +<P> +"What for?" asked Percival and asked it so seriously that Japhra +twinkled anew and replied: "Why, there's the question again. What for? +Why that sunny face they have given thee? and those fine limbs? and +that straight back? What for? There's some purpose in it, little +master." +</P> + +<P> +He looked strangely at Percival as though behind his twinkling he +indeed questioned these matters and found, as he had said, a question +in all he saw. But when he saw how mystified he held Percival, he +stopped his searching look and asked: "Any more questions, little +master?" +</P> + +<P> +He had kept his finger on the open page of his book all this time; and +Percival pointed and said: "Well, what are you reading, if you please?" +and was told "Robinson Crusoe." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, I'm reading that!" cried Percival in much delight. +</P> + +<P> +"Then thou art reading one of the only three books a man wants," said +Japhra. "There's 'Pilgrim's Progress'—" +</P> + +<P> +"I've read that too! In Mr. Amber's library—" +</P> + +<P> +"And there's the Bible." +</P> + +<P> +"And that as well!" cried Percival. +</P> + +<P> +"Why," said Japhra—not twinkling now, but grave—"why, then, thou hast +read the beginning and end of wisdom. Crusoe and Pilgrim and +Bible—those are the books for a man. I read them and read them and +always read them new. They are the books for a questioner, and thou +art that amain. And they are the books for a fighter, and that is thy +part. I have unriddled thee so far, little master. I know the +fighting type. Mark me when the years come. A fighter, thou." +</P> + +<P> +He placed a blade of grass in "Robinson Crusoe" and put the volume +beneath his arm. He got up and took Percival's small hand in his horny +fist. "Come thou and see my van, little master," said he. "We are +friends—thou and I and Ima here." And then he twinkled again. "And +why? What brought thee whom the fairies attended and that has read the +books and is the fighting type? What brought thee here? Why, there's +the question again!" +</P> + +<P> +It was the beginning of Percival's chiefest friendship of them all. In +the rare proper seasons that followed one another through this the +happy, happy time, the van came more and more frequently Lethamwards. +Summertimes it was away with Stingo's crowd in Maddox's Monster +Menagerie and Royal Circus. But Wintertimes it would come tinkering, +and sometimes remain a week or more snow-bound, and Springtimes +Punch-and-Judying through the Burdon hamlets; and these were happy, +happy times indeed. There was all Japhra's lore, all his dimly +understood "questioning" to hear; and all his stories of his strange +and varied life; and all his reading aloud from his three books, who +could read them and put a meaning into them as none other could. And +there was the boxing to learn, with Percival a very apt and eager pupil +and Japhra insistent that it was a proper game—the only proper game +for a man. And once every summer there was the visit of Maddox's +Monster Menagerie and Royal Circus to Great Letham, where +Percival,—introduced by Japhra, sponsored by Stingo,—was made +enormously welcome by rough, odd van folk who were of "Stingo's crowd." +He learnt the sharp and growing difference between Stingo's crowd and +Boss Maddox's men. Boss Maddox was boss and of increasing wealth and +weight: attracting showmen to his following from many parts of the +country and incorporating them in his business, but unable to win the +allegiance of the little knot of independents who called Stingo "Boss," +and hating them for it. Rough, odd men who made an immense deal of +Percival and had rough, odd names: Old Four-Eyes, who wore spectacles +and had a Mermaid and a Mummified Man; Old One-Eye, whose left eye was +gone and had a Wild West Rifle Range; Old 'Ave One, who was given to +drink ("'Ave one, mate?") and had the Ring 'em where Yer Like—A Prize +fer All; and the rest of them. Percival never mixed with the Maddox +crowd but once, when he boxed, and to the immense delight of Japhra and +all the Stingo men, defeated, a red-haired, skinny youth of his own +age, whom Boss Maddox was introducing to the public as the Boy Wonder +Pugilist. "Looks like a fox to me," Percival said aloud, when he first +saw the Boy Wonder. The Boy Wonder heard, and the men who stood about +heard and laughed; there certainly was a foxy look about the Juvenile +Wonder's cunning face with its red head. The Wonder furiously resented +the remark and the laughter; expressed a desire to shut Percival's +mouth; succeeded in shutting one of his eyes, but was certainly beaten. +</P> + +<P> +He became Percival's first enemy—and chance set aside the first enemy +for further use. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +Ima, when the van came Lethamwards, was Percival's first girl friend, +and chance had use also in store for her. She was a strange, quiet, +very gentle thing, but one that could run, as she had told him, and +bold and active stuff for any ramble. With odd ways, though. +</P> + +<P> +"Ima, you do look at me an awful lot," Percival told her in the early +days, catching her large eyes fixed upon him. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, thou art not like other boys I see," she told him; and a little +while after she asked him, "Dost thou know little ladies with white +skins like thine, little master?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm brown!" said Percival indignantly. +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head. "But little ladies?" +</P> + +<P> +"I know one," said Percival. "White! Well, you'd stare if you saw +her, Ima. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red, I call her," and in his tone was +something akin to the mingled admiration and awe with which small +schoolboys speak of their cricket captain. +</P> + +<P> +She was silent for a moment; then, "Well, tell me, little master," she +said. +</P> + +<P> +It was of Dora that he told her. +</P> + +<P> +When Lady Burdon had returned that call paid on her by Mrs. Espart from +Abbey Royal she had been as greatly captivated by Dora as she had been +taken by Dora's mother. She found in Mrs. Espart a curiously cold and +high-bred air that appealed to her—being a quality she was at pains to +cultivate in herself—and appealed the more in that it very graciously +unbent towards her. Its unbending was explainable by the quality that, +for her own part, she presented to Mrs. Espart—that of her rank and +station. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Espart had been married in her teens, brought from school for the +purpose, by a mother whose whole conception of duty in regard to her +daughters was wealthy marriage, and who had fastened upon it in this +case in the person of Mr. Espart—a nice little man, an indifferently +bred little man, but a most obviously well-possessed little man. The +girl was hurriedly fetched from her finishing school, whirled through a +headachy fortnight of corseting and costuming, and put in Mr. Espart's +way and then in his possession with the docility of one educated from +childhood for such a purpose. Used as a woman who never had realised +there was a life beyond the cloisters bounded by lessons in deportment, +in the nice languages and the nice arts; as a wife who never yet had +been a child but always a young lady, Mrs. Espart discovered that she +was mated with a vulgarian, Mr. Espart that he had married, as he +expressed it, "a frozen statue." She thought of him and despised him +as the one; he thought of her, feared her, and adored her as the other. +The chill she struck into his mind communicated itself in some way to +his bones, and very shortly after he had bought Abbey Royal—her +command being that he should nurse the local political interests, +enrich the Party from his coffers and so win her the social status her +sisters had—he began to shrivel and incontinently died—frozen. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Espart proceeded to bring up the child born of this marriage +precisely as she had herself been brought up,—in narrow cloisters, +that is to say, in dutiful obedience and for the ultimate purpose of +suitable marriage. She repeated in Dora's training the training she +had received from her own mother, its object the same, with this +difference—that whereas in her case that object was a wealthy match, +in Dora's—Mr. Espart having made wealth unnecessary—it was position. +Time was absurdly young for any plans when Mrs. Espart first met Lady +Burdon, but plans had crossed her mind when she drove out to leave +cards at the Manor: she had heard of Rollo. She made Lady Burdon very +welcome when Lady Burdon came. +</P> + +<P> +Dora was two years younger than Rollo, Lady Burdon found. When, on the +occasion of this visit, she was brought to the drawing-room—a +strikingly pretty child in a curiously unchildish way—she already +showed marks of the machinery that ordered her life. She was curiously +prim, that is to say, of noticeably trained deportment; curiously +self-assured and yet not childishly frank; curiously correct of speech +and with a dutiful trick of adding "Mamma" to every sentence she +addressed to her mother. +</P> + +<P> +She was her mother's child; similarly trained; similarly developing. +"A very well brought-up child," as Lady Burdon afterwards commented to +her husband, and noted in her also the strong promise of the beauty +that later years were to realise. She was to be notably tall and was +already slim and shot-up for her years; she was to be notably fair of +complexion and showed already a wonderful mildness and whiteness of +skin, curiously heightened by the little flush of colour that warmed in +a sharply defined spot on either cheek. Lady Burdon rallied her once +during their conversation—the subject was French lessons, which it +appeared she found "Terribly puzzling, Lady Burdon, do I not, Mamma?" +and her face responded by a curious deepening of the red shades, her +cheeks and brow gaining a hue almost of transparency by contrast. +</P> + +<P> +It was that quality and that characteristic that made Percival—meeting +her when she was brought over to tea with Rollo—call her, as he told +Ima, Snow-White-and-Rose-Red. +</P> + +<P> +The name was from his fairy book, and to his mind fitted exactly this +fragile and well-behaved and reserved Miss who he thought was the most +beautiful thing he had ever seen. It fitted her more surely yet when +he came to know her when she was fourteen and just returned, Rollo also +having come to the Manor, for her first holidays from the highly +exclusive school to which she was sent. +</P> + +<P> +By then the friendship between Lady Burdon and Mrs. Espart had grown to +closest intimacy. They met, and Dora and Rollo met, intimately in +London; and Abbey Royal was rarely closed when Burdon Old Manor was +opened. Mrs. Espart had suffered to lapse that attitude towards the +little post office boy which Lady Burdon had termed "ridiculous." She +never liked, and certainly never encouraged, Percival, but she accepted +him as undetachable from Rollo, whom by now she encouraged greatly in +friendship with Dora, and it was thus that Dora at rare intervals +contributed to these days of the happy, happy time. +</P> + +<P> +At fourteen she was actively advanced in her first term at the +exclusive school by the machine that was shaping her. Strikingly now +she promised, as always she had hinted, what should be hers when full +maidenhood was hers. The singular fairness of her complexion was the +grace that first struck the observer; and with it was to be noticed +immediately the curious shade on either cheek that flushed to a warm +redness when she was animated, and, flushing sharply within its +limitations, sharply threw into relief the transparent fairness of her +skin. Her head, small and most shapely, was poised with the light and +perfect balance of a flower on its stem. Her features were small, +proportioned as a sculptor would chisel the classic face—having the +straight nose, the delicate nostrils, and the short upper lip of high +beauty. Her eyes were well-opened, strangely dark for her fair +colouring, well-lit, with the light and shade and softness of dew on a +dark pansy when the sun first challenges the flowers at daybreak. Her +abundant hair, soberly dressed in a soft plait that reached her waist, +was of a dull gold that in some lights went to burnished brass. She +was poised upon her feet with the flower-grace of her head upon her +throat. She was of such a quality and an air that you might believe +the very winds would divide to give her passage, afraid to touch and +haply soil so rare a thing. +</P> + +<P> +Percival in these days went beyond even his first wonder at her. He +had never believed there could be such a beautiful thing, and at their +meetings he was very shy—regarding her with an admiration that was +very apparent in his manner. He, certainly, if not the winds, had in +her presence a feeling of necessity to be gentle with so rare and +strange a thing. He could class her nowhere except with +Snow-White-and-Rose-Red; and to him that was her meetest +class—belonging to a different race and to be indulged as an honoured +guest should be; permitted to have caprices; expected to be strange. +</P> + +<P> +She came occasionally to tea at the Old Manor. The boys would take her +then for a walk in the grounds—sometimes further afield. Percival, +never free from the wonder she caused in him, always had much concern +for her on these occasions. He constantly inquired if they were not +going too far for her; he would always propose they should turn back if +they came to a muddy lane. It happened once that a lane desperate in +mud could not be avoided. He showed her the drier path against the +hedge, but this was so narrow as to require some balancing to keep it. +</P> + +<P> +"You must hold my hand," he said. +</P> + +<P> +To shake hands with her had always been a matter of some diffidence. +Now he was to support her while she picked her way. He took her little +gloved hand in his. It lay warmly within his grasp; and concerned lest +he should hurt so delicate a thing, he let it rest in his palm, passing +his fingers about her wrist where there was bone to feel. +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me if I hurt you," he said. "I'm trying not to—and not to +splash"—and he trod carefully, above his boot soles in the mire. +</P> + +<P> +She told him: "You're not, thank you. These lanes are wretched. I +hate them." +</P> + +<P> +Much of her weight was on him. There was a perfume about her person, +and it came to him pleasantly: he had never walked so close to her +before. The soft plait of her hair was about her further shoulder, +hanging down her breast. With her free hand she held her skirt raised +and closely against her legs for fear of brambles in the hedge. +Percival looked at her daintily-shod feet, picking their way, and he +gave a funny little laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"What are you laughing at?" she asked him. +</P> + +<P> +"My boots—and yours. You must have funny little feet." +</P> + +<P> +She half withdrew her hand. +</P> + +<P> +"I think you are the rudest boy I have ever met," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I didn't mean to be rude," Percival declared. +</P> + +<P> +She told him in her precise way: "You are rude, although you are nice +in some ways. I think I have never known any one stare at me so +frightfully as you stare. I have seen you often staring." +</P> + +<P> +Percival gave for explanation: "If I stare, it's because I've never +seen any one like you." +</P> + +<P> +She gave the slightest toss of her chin. +</P> + +<P> +He went on: "Do you know what I call you? I call you +Snow-White-and-Rose-Red." +</P> + +<P> +He saw the blush shades on her cheek very slightly darken. It sounded +a pleasant thing to be called. But she said: "It sounds stupid; what +is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"From a fairy tale. Don't you know it?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care about reading." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you like doing best of all?" +</P> + +<P> +"I think I like going for drives—and that;" she half slipped and +added, "I simply hate this." +</P> + +<P> +"I've got you perfectly safe," Percival assured her. +</P> + +<P> +She said nothing to that, either of doubt or thanks; and they finished +the lane in silence. But when dry ground was reached and she withdrew +her hand, she thanked him prettily. With Rollo—who had no wonder of +her and whom she saw more frequently—she was on easy terms; and now +the three walked back to the Old Manor more companionably than was +usual with them. When Dora left, she surprised Percival by thanking +him again; she surprised him more by showing him a little mark on her +hand he had held and playfully protesting his grasp had caused it. +Thereafter when they met she had a smile for him. +</P> + +<P> +He liked that. +</P> + +<P> +She came to be very frequently in his mind, though why he did not know. +Once he came to Aunt Maggie with a dream he had had of her. "The +rummiest dream, Aunt Maggie. I dreamt I was chasing her, and chasing +her, and calling her: 'Snow-White! Snow-White! Rose-Red! Rose-Red!' +and every time I nearly caught her Rollo came up and caught hold of me, +and away she went. And fancy! I fought Rollo! Aren't dreams absurd?" +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Maggie put her hand to her forehead. "Was that the end, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, the end was more absurd than ever. Although I tried, I couldn't +hit Rollo—simply couldn't. He hurt me, but I couldn't do anything, +and he threw me down and went off with Dora. Doesn't it show how +ridiculous dreams are? Fancy dear old Rollo being stronger than me! +Is your head hurting, Aunt Maggie?" +</P> + +<P> +"Just a shoot of pain—it's gone now." +</P> + +<P> +While he described his dream, and while she pictured it, one of those +flutterings had run up violently in her brain. It passed, but left its +influence. "Absurd!" she agreed. "If ever you did quarrel with him—" +</P> + +<P> +Percival laughed. "I never could, in any case." +</P> + +<P> +"Are you very fond of him, Percival?" +</P> + +<P> +Rollo was returning to London that day. "I simply hate his going +away," Percival said. "I wish to goodness he lived here always. He +wishes it, too." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0307"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +BURDON HOUSE LEASED: THE OLD MANOR OCCUPIED +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +It happened that within a very short time of that wish it was granted. +Burdon House in Mount Street was let; Burdon Old Manor was permanently +occupied. +</P> + +<P> +This began in a visit that Lady Burdon, very decidedly out of temper, +paid to Mr. Pemberton at the office in Bedford Row. Relations between +Lady Burdon and the little old lawyer had radically altered since that +occasion of their first meeting at Miller's Field. Mr. Pemberton, who +in these years had relinquished to his son all the business save the +cherished Burdon affairs, had long been aware that the misgivings which +had clouded his first happy impression of Lady Burdon had been the +juster estimate of her character. He had perceived the dominance she +exercised over her indulgent husband; he had accepted, after what +protest he dared, that the management of the estate was in her hands. +He had foreseen the fruits of the wilfulness of a woman thrown out of +balance by the sudden acquisition of place and possessions; it was +because these fruits were now being plucked that he preferred to keep +the Burdon affairs in his own hands. He could not bear the thought of +handing over to his son this honoured trust in shape that would cause a +lifting of the eyebrows: "Father, I've been going through the Burdon +papers. I say, they seem in a precious bad way ... I don't +understand...." +</P> + +<P> +He could not endure the thought of that. +</P> + +<P> +On this day when Lady Burdon came angrily—and defiantly—to Bedford +Row, the position was raised very acutely between them. +</P> + +<P> +"I know—I know," Mr. Pemberton was saying. "But, Lady Burdon, you +must perceive the possibility—nay, in the circumstances, the extreme +probability—that though Lord Burdon countenances in the smallest +particular all you find it necessary to spend—and on the property not +to spend—he yet may not appreciate the state of affairs—the +imperative necessity that a halt be called. I have written to him +frequently. The replies come from you." +</P> + +<P> +She parted her lips to speak, but he had already had sufficient taste +of her mood to make him hasten with: "I know. I know. Lord Burdon has +told us both that he hates business and that he likes to encourage you +in the pleasure you find in it. That is admitted, Lady Burdon. We +have no quarrel there. My point is—how far is Lord Burdon to be +suffered to indulge his dislike? how long is he to be kept in +ignorance? I think no longer. That is why I purpose making a call on +him. I purpose it, again, because I believe Lord Burdon's +influence—when he understands—may join with mine to move you, where +mine alone causes you annoyance." +</P> + +<P> +He indicated the papers that littered the table. "You see the +position. I tell you again—I tell you with all the seriousness of +which I am capable—that the crash is as near to you as I am near to +you sitting here. I tell you that it is not to be averted unless for a +period—a mere few years—Burdon House is given up. It will let +immediately on a short lease. There, alone, will be more than +relief—assistance. It will save you much that you now find +necessary—there is the relief of the whole situation." +</P> + +<P> +She broke out: "It would never have come to this but for the cost of +this irrigation scheme on the Burdon property. That is your +doing—yours and Mr. Maxwell's. I tell you again I was amazed—amazed +when I heard of it." +</P> + +<P> +"And I have reminded you, Lady Burdon, that when I approached you in +the matter you desired not to be troubled with it. I had often and +often urged it upon you. This time you said it was to be left entirely +to our discretion—Maxwell's and mine." +</P> + +<P> +"I shall repudiate the contract. The work is not begun. You can get +out of it as best you can." +</P> + +<P> +He said very quietly, "That is open to you—of course." He paused and +she did not speak, and he went on. "You would have no case, I think. +The authority is too clear. But I do not mind saying I would try to +get out of the contract or—. Our firm could not be involved in a +lawsuit against the house we have served these generations." He +dropped his voice and said more to himself than to her: "No—no. Never +that!" He looked up at her and assumed a cheerful note: "You have to +think of your son, you know, Lady Burdon. What is he to come into? +This irrigation scheme will be the making of the property—the land +cries for it. If you can cut off the Burdon House establishment for a +few years, young Mr. Rollo will have reason to bless you when in +process of time he assumes the title. If you decide—" +</P> + +<P> +She rose abruptly: "I must be going." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Pemberton hobbled after her down the stairs to attend her to her +carriage. A bitter wind was blowing. The coachman was walking the +horses up and down. The footman who waited in the doorway, rugs on +arm, ran into the street and beckoned to him. Lady Burdon watched the +carriage, tapping her foot on the ground and frowning impatiently. A +large piece of pink paper came blowing down the pavement, somersaulting +along in a ridiculous fashion—heels over head, heels over head, +grotesquely like a performing tumbler. +</P> + +<P> +"Cold!" said Mr. Pemberton, briskly, rubbing his hands together. "Very +cold!" +</P> + +<P> +She made no reply. She was much out of temper. She was considerably +beset. She was stiffening with an angry determination against +abandoning her life in town. She was freshly aroused against Mr. +Pemberton for his devoted loyalty to her husband's house—he had stung +her by the manner of his acceptance of her threat to repudiate the +contract; and by his reference to Rollo—he had hit her there. +</P> + +<P> +The tumbling paper—a newspaper contents bill she could see—flung +itself flat a few yards from them, throwing out its upper corners as it +came to rest, for all the world like an exhausted tumbler throwing out +his arms. The carriage drew up. +</P> + +<P> +With a foot on the step: "You need not call on Lord Burdon till I have +written to you—to arrange a date," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Pemberton replied: "I certainly will not. I will await your +letter, Lady Burdon." +</P> + +<P> +She settled herself in her seat, drawing her furs about her. He was +certainly a doddering old figure as he stood there—shrunken in the +face, bent in the body, his few white hairs tumbled in the wind. +</P> + +<P> +"Your house is very dear to me, Lady Burdon," he went on. "You must +believe I act only in your best interests—in what I believe to be—" +</P> + +<P> +She nodded to the footman, turned towards her from the box, and the +carriage began to move. The tumbler contents bill leapt up with an +absurd scurry, somersaulted down to them, and flung itself flat with a +ridiculous air of exhaustion. +</P> + +<P> +"Tragedy in the House of Lords," she read idly, and drove away. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +Lady Burdon drove straight home. She arrived to be apprised she was +concerned in the "Tragedy in the House of Lords" that the tumbler bill +had brought somersaulting down the street. As the carriage drew up, a +maid hurried down the steps and gave her the news: "His lordship"—the +girl was scared and breathless—"His lordship, my lady—taken ill in +the House of Lords—fell out of his seat in a faint—brought him home +in Lord Colwyn's carriage—carried him up-stairs, my lady—fainted +or—a doctor is with him, my lady." +</P> + +<P> +Lady Burdon wrestled with the confused sentences, staring at the girl, +not moving. "Fainted or—" +</P> + +<P> +She threw back the rug from about her lap and sprang from the carriage. +A newsboy rushing down the street almost ran into her, and she had to +stand aside to give him passage. Her eye caught the pink bill +fluttering against him where he held it: "Tragedy in the House of +Lords." +</P> + +<P> +God! The tragedy was here. She ran swiftly up the steps and up the +stairs. At the door of Lord Burdon's room terror leapt at her like a +live thing so that she staggered back a step and could not turn the +handle. "Fainted or—?" She caught her hand to her bosom, her poor +heart beat so. She had a vision of him dead, being carried up the +steps. There flashed with it a vision that showed him tired after +lunch and her saying: "If you knew how elegant you look, lounging +there! You ought to go to the House. You never go. You can sleep +there;" and he saying, "Right-o, old girl." +</P> + +<P> +Sleep there? Had she driven him to die there? Fainted or—? +</P> + +<P> +She entered the room. A man wearing a frock-coat stood by the +dressing-table. She stared, and stared beyond him to the bed. She put +her hand to her throat and strangled out the word "Maurice!" The man +turned to her and began to speak. She ran past him and flung herself +beside the bed and took Lord Burdon's hand and pressed it to her face. +She burst into a terrible sobbing, raining tears upon the hand she +held. From the threshold she had seen the eyes open, the faint twist +of a smile of greeting upon the white, pained face. +</P> + +<P> +Alive! That was sufficient! For the moment, in the first agony of her +distress, she required nothing more. Between the recovery from her +first shock at the news, and the terror that had held her back when she +reached his door, remorse, like bellows at the forge, quicked her every +memory of him to burning irons within her. Happen what might, she was +to be suffered to slake their torture. +</P> + +<P> +She felt the hand she held move in her grasp. It was his signal of +response to her sympathy. He said very weakly, in an attempt at the +old tone: "Made an—awful ass—of—myself, old—girl." He groaned and +breathed: "O God! Pain—pain!" +</P> + +<P> +She would not speak to the doctor. She desired nothing but to be left +there holding that hand, feeling it move for her and pressing it +against her face that was buried upon it when it moved. She desired to +be told nothing, to do nothing. This was between him and her—let them +be left to it while yet they could be left! A procession of pictures +was marching through her mind. In each she saw herself in a scene of +her neglect of him or her impatience with him. She had the feeling +that while she might hold that hand and feel it move, each picture +would pass—atoned for, forgiven, erased. This was between him and +her—let them be left to it while yet they could be left! +</P> + +<P> +Movements, the opening and closing of the door, whispering voices, came +to her. Some one touched her. She shook herself at the touch and +crouched lower. This was between him and her!—for pity's sake!—if +you have pity, let us be left to it while yet we can be left! +</P> + +<P> +The movements continued. They seemed to be closing about +her—impatiently waiting for her. They began to force themselves upon +her attention so that her mind must leave its pictures and distinguish +them. She crouched lower ... if you have pity! She heard stiff +rustlings and fancied a nurse was in the room. She heard a heavier +step and presently felt a touch that seemed to command obedience. +</P> + +<P> +She raised her head—A nurse, the man she had first seen, another +man—older. He pointed at the figure on the bed and motioned with his +head towards the door. Maurice seemed to sleep. She rose with a +little shuddering gasp and looked at them, twisting her hands +together—if they had pity! ... what did they require of her? +</P> + +<P> +The older man was bending over the bed, whispering with the younger. +The nurse came to her, smiling gently, and nodded towards him: "Sir +Mervyn Aston. He will speak to you outside. Will you not leave us +just a moment? Quite all right." +</P> + +<P> +She remembered the name. It was the specialist Maurice had sometimes +consulted. She had not bothered much about it: but she remembered the +name. Sir Mervyn looked towards her and moved across the room. She +looked again at the bed. The nurse nodded brightly. She followed Sir +Mervyn to the door. +</P> + +<P> +"Down-stairs," he said, and trod heavily down before her. He was a +great man and took the privilege of bad manners. In the library he +turned to her: "Did you send for me?" She had not expected that. She +had expected sympathy—at least information. She stared at him, +momentarily surprised out of her grief. His face was stern; she +believed his manner accused her. +</P> + +<P> +"No," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"You expected this?" +</P> + +<P> +Expected it! Of what could he be thinking? +</P> + +<P> +"I've told Lord Burdon repeatedly that this life—I've warned him again +and again to get out of it. Hasn't he told you?" +</P> + +<P> +Now she knew that he was accusing her. She never had cared to listen +when Maurice told her he had been to Harley Street. She stood twisting +her hands together, nervous before this brusque man. +</P> + +<P> +"Hasn't he told you?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +He looked sharply at her. He was a great man and had learned to read +between the lines that his fashionable patients presented him. "A +pity," he said briefly. "This might have been averted for many years." +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me"—she said, and could say no more: "tell me—" +</P> + +<P> +His tone became a little kinder. "We must hope for the best, you know. +There is always that. I will look in again at midnight. They are +making him quite comfortable up-stairs." +</P> + +<P> +He said a little more that she did not catch. Presently she realised +that he had left her. "This might have been averted for many years!" +She ran to a bureau and fumbled frantically for pen and paper. She was +in a sudden panic to do one thing that she believed would soften that +dreadful sentence if the worst came. She was in a panic to get it done +before there might be a sound from above and a horrid running down the +stairs. She found her writing materials. Pen in hand she listened, +trembling violently. No sound! As quickly as she could write she +scrawled to Mr. Pemberton: "I have decided. We are going to Burdon Old +Manor at once. Make arrangements to let the house, please." +</P> + +<P> +Whatever happened now, she had begun her share of the bargain she +prayed to press on death. If death would spare him, she would devote +her life to him! +</P> + +<P> +As she was sealing the letter Rollo came in. He had been to a matinee +with Mrs. Espart and Dora, at home for her holidays. Lady Burdon gave +a little motherly cry at the sight of him and took him in her arms. +</P> + +<P> +They went up-stairs together. +</P> + +<P> +The doctor had gone. The nurse told her Lord Burdon was asleep; but +when she went to her former position on her knees beside the bed and +took his hand again, he opened his eyes and his eyes smiled at her; and +then closed; he seemed desperately weary. +</P> + +<P> +She did not cry now. There was this bargain to be forced on death; +and, as with the letter, so now with her promises, she was in a panic +to get them done, believing that if death—God, as she named it—might +know all she offered to pay, he must accept the price and hold his hand. +</P> + +<P> +She was not the first that has believed death—or heaven—is open to a +deal. +</P> + +<P> +Through the long evening she knelt there, Rollo with her. Thus and +thus she promised—thus and thus would she do—thus and thus—thus and +thus! Mostly she bargained, frantically reiterating. At intervals she +would turn to protest—protesting that her sin was very light for so +heavy a threat. What had she done? She had done no wrong. She had no +flagrant faults—she was serenely good, as goodness is judged. She was +devout—she was charitable. Only one little failing, heaven! She had +desired to enjoy herself, and enjoying herself had neglected him. But +he did not care for the things she liked. Indeed he did not! He was +happiest when she was happy. Indeed he was! Yet she saw the error of +her way. If he might be spared, heaven—thus and thus—thus and +thus—thus and thus! +</P> + +<P> +Physical weariness overcame her as she heaped her promises, leading her +mind astray and tricking it into nightmare dreams whence she would +struggle with trembling limbs. The dreams took gross or strange forms. +She would be running down the street pursued by the tumbler +contents-bill, somersaulting behind. It caught her and fell flat, +flinging out its armlike corners, and she saw it was Maurice. She +stooped to him, and it was the bill again, gone from her on the wind. +She pursued it, and saw it take semblance of Maurice, and pursued it +with stumbling feet and could not catch it. +</P> + +<P> +She struggled from these horrors and found her mind again. She was +intensely cold, she found. Sir Mervyn had come and was bending over +her husband. Sir Mervyn nodded to her and sat down by the bed. She +dared ask no questions. She crouched lower where she knelt. The night +went on—Sir Mervyn still there. She prayed on—thus and thus! thus +and thus! She was tricked into the nightmare dreams. She was with +Rollo's friend, Percival, and running to Rollo, who seemed in distress. +A woman stopped them. She recognised in her the girl who had come with +that claim to be Lady Burdon years before. The girl caught Percival +and held him and Percival held her. She struggled to be free, for +Rollo was calling her wildly. His cries grew louder, louder, louder, +and burst as a real cry suddenly upon her. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother! Mother!" +</P> + +<P> +She started up. Rollo was on his feet, bending towards his father. +</P> + +<P> +"Lift! Lift!" Lord Burdon murmured. +</P> + +<P> +Sir Mervyn raised him. She clutched his hand. He rallied upon the +strength of life's last pulse and flutter, and smiled, and murmured, +"Poor old girl!" +</P> + +<P> +Then she saw death come; and she turned and threw her arms about her +son. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0401"></A> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK FOUR +</H2> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +BOOK OF STORMS AND OF THREATENING STORM. +<BR> +THE ELEMENT OF LOVE +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +PLANS AND DREAMS AND PROMISES +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +Three women were counting the years now. The years were rolling +up—curtain by curtain, like mists from a distant hillside; and behind +them the ultimate prospects for which Lady Burdon waited, Mrs. Espart +waited, and Aunt Maggie waited began to be revealed. Mrs. Espart had +conveyed to Lady Burdon her ambition—formulated long ago—with regard +to Dora and Rollo. Lady Burdon reckoned the union as very desirable +and gave its consummation a first place among her aspirations for her +Rollo. Aunt Maggie saw the hour of her revenge approaching so that its +years might now be estimated on the fingers of one hand. +</P> + +<P> +So near the desirable ends were approaching that the women began to +name dates for their arrival. Youth, with only a few years lived and +so enormous an experience gained in those years (as youth believes), +cannot endure the thought of planning ahead for a space that is a fair +proportion of its whole lifetime. Five years is a monstrous, an +insupportable period to youth that has lived but four times five or +less. Age, with fewer years to live than have been lived, and with the +knowledge of how little a decade has to show, will plan for five years +hence with nothing near so much of sighs and groanings as youth will +suffer if it must wait five months. +</P> + +<P> +The women began to name dates. Those very close friends, Lady Burdon +and Mrs. Espart, spoke of dates frequently. Mrs. Espart and Dora had +already "come into the family" as Mrs. Espart smilingly expressed it, +when, at Lord Burdon's death, and on being acquainted with her dear +friend's intention to let the Mount Street house on a short lease and +retire to Burdon Old Manor, she had offered herself as lessee. The +offer had been most gratefully, most gladly accepted. The great town +house was made over to Mrs. Espart for a seven years' term and thus, in +Mrs. Espart's phrase, "remained in the family"—ready for Rollo and +Dora, as the ladies plotted. +</P> + +<P> +And now they were naming dates. "When Rollo is twenty-four," Lady +Burdon said to Mrs. Espart, come over from Abbey Royal to lunch at the +Manor one day, "look, dear, he is just on twenty now. You know my +plans. Next year he is to go to Cambridge. His illness has thrown him +back. But next year will be time enough. Three years at Cambridge, +then, and that will bring him almost to twenty-three. Then I wish him +to go abroad—to travel for a year. That is so good for a young man, I +think. Then when he comes back he will be ready to settle down and he +will come back just the age for that tradition of ours—celebrating +comings-of-age at twenty-four instead of twenty-one. That would be so +splendid for the wedding, wouldn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Splendid!" Mrs. Espart agreed. "Splendid! That old Mr. Amber of +yours was trying to tell me the other day how that twenty-four +tradition arose. But, really, he mumbles so when he gets excited—!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, he's hopeless," Lady Burdon agreed. Her tone dismissed his name +as though she found his hopelessness a little trying, and she went back +to "Yes, splendid, won't it be? When I look back, Ella, everything has +gone wonderfully. From the very beginning, you know—the very +beginning, I planned a good marriage for Rollo. It was so essential. +To be your Dora—well, that makes it perfect; yes, perfect!"—and Lady +Burdon stretched out her hands and gave a happy little sigh as though +she put her hands into a happy future and touched her Rollo there. +</P> + +<P> +"And I for Dora," Mrs. Espart said. "From the very beginning, too, I +arranged great matches for Dora in my mind. That it should be your +Rollo,"—she gave a little laugh at her adaptation of the words—"that +it should be your Rollo—why, really, perfect is the word!" +</P> + +<P> +They were silent for a space, enjoying the beauty of the hillside that +the thinning years were disclosing. +</P> + +<P> +"You've never said anything to Rollo?" Mrs. Espart asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no—no, not directly, anyway. It will come about naturally, I +feel that. They are so much together. And in any case Dora—Dora is +so wonderfully beautiful, Ella. I couldn't conceive any man not +falling in love with her. In a year or so's time, developing as she +is—why, you'll change your mind perhaps—when they're all worshipping +her!" +</P> + +<P> +She laughed, and her laugh was very reassuringly returned. "But it is +Rollo she will marry," Mrs. Espart smiled. "With her it is as you say +with him—it will come naturally. In any case—well, she is being +brought up as I was brought up. She is dutiful. You find so many +girls encouraged in independence nowadays. Nothing is so harmful for a +girl ultimately, I think." +</P> + +<P> +Lady Burdon nodded her agreement. "How happy Rollo will be!" she said, +and spoke with a little sigh so caressingly maternal and with eyes so +fondly beaming that Mrs. Espart put out a hand to touch her and told +her, "I love your devotion to Rollo, Nellie." +</P> + +<P> +"He is everything to me," Lady Burdon said softly. "Everything!" +</P> + +<P> +"I know he is. Why, you look different again when you speak of him +even! Do you know, you were looking wretchedly ill when I came this +morning, I thought." +</P> + +<P> +"I had slept badly." Lady Burdon looked hesitatingly at her friend as +though doubtful of the expediency of some further words she meditated. +Then, "I had my nightmare," she said; and at the question framed on +Mrs. Espart's lips went on impulsively: "Ella, I've never told you +about my nightmare. I think I shall. It worries me. Do you know, +just after we came into the title a girl came to see me and said she +was the former Lord Burdon's wife." +</P> + +<P> +"<I>No</I>! What happened?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, nothing, of course—nothing serious. I sent her away. She said +she would bring proofs; but I never saw her again." +</P> + +<P> +"You wouldn't, of course. One of those creatures, I suppose," and Mrs. +Espart curled her lip distastefully and added: "I suppose some young +men will do those things—no doubt that's what it was; but it's rather +disgusting, isn't it? And how very horrible for you! But, Nellie, +where does the nightmare come in?" +</P> + +<P> +"With the girl," Lady Burdon said and gave a little uneasy movement as +though even the recollection worried her. "With the girl. I dream of +her whenever—that's the odd thing—whenever something particular +happens. See her just as I saw her then and say 'I am Lady Burdon,' +and she says 'Oh, how can you be Lady Burdon?' Then I get that +dreadful nightmare feeling—you know what it is—and say 'I hold!' and +she says 'No, you do not—Nay, I hold!' It's too silly—but you know +what nightmares are. And it only comes when something particular +happens—or rather is going to happen. The night before we heard of +old Lady Burdon's death, that was once. Then the night before we came +down here for that stay when Rollo met his friend Percival and we began +to come regularly. Then the night my husband died." She stopped, +smiled because Mrs. Espart was smiling at her indulgently, as one +smiles at another's unreasonable fears, but went on, "and now last +night!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Espart laughed outright: "Why, what a hollow moan, Nellie!—'and +now last night!' I'd no idea you were such a goose. You've let the +silly thing get on your silly nerves." +</P> + +<P> +"Only because things have always happened with it." +</P> + +<P> +Her concern, however foolish, was clearly so genuine that Mrs. Espart +changed banter for sympathetic reassurance. "Why, Nellie, really you +must be more sensible! Why, dreaming it last night proves how silly it +is. What's happened to-day? Look, I'll tell you what's happened +to-day, and it's something to settle your wretched girl and your omens +once and for all. She nightmared you last night and to-day we've +settled how happy we are all going to be with our young folk married! +There! Tell her that with my compliments if she ever comes again!" +</P> + +<P> +Her air was so brisk and stimulating that Lady Burdon was made to +laugh; and her facts were so convincing that the laugh was followed by +a little sigh of happiness, and Lady Burdon said: "Why, Ella, it's +funny, isn't it, how in this life some things <I>do</I> go just as one +wishes, for all that people say to the contrary?" +</P> + +<P> +That was to be proved. Down at "Post Offic," while the ladies planned, +a date was also being named. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +"But when? When?" Percival was saying to Aunt Maggie. "I'm +eighteen—eighteen, but you still treat me like a child. I ought to be +doing something. I'm just growing up an idler that every one will soon +be despising. But when I tell you, you ask me to wait and say I've no +need to be anxious and that I shall be glad I waited when I know what +it is you are planning for me." +</P> + +<P> +"You will be, Percival," Aunt Maggie said. +</P> + +<P> +But he made an impatient gesture and cried again: "But when? When? +That satisfied me when I was a boy. It doesn't now. I'm not a boy any +longer. That's what you don't seem to see." +</P> + +<P> +That indeed he was boy no more was written very clearly upon him as he +stood there demanding his future—not for the first time in these days. +He was past his eighteenth birthday: his bearing and his expression +graced him with a maturer air. The mould and the poise of head and +body that as a child had caused a turning of heads after him were +displayed with a tenfold greater attraction now that they adorned the +frame of early manhood. There was about the modelling of his +countenance that air of governance that is the first mark of high +breeding. The outlines and the finish of his face were extraordinarily +firm, as though delicate tools had cut them in firm wax that set to +marble as each line was done. The chin was rounded from beneath and +thrown forward; and to that firm upward round the lower jaw ran in a +fine oval from where the small ears lay closely against the head; +deeply beneath the jaw, cut cleanly back with an uncommon sweep, was +set the powerfully modelled throat that denotes rare physical strength. +The eyes were widely opened, of a fine grey—unusually large and of a +quality of light that seemed to diffuse its rays over all the brow. +The forehead was wide, with a clear, sound look. Outdoor life had +tinted the face with the clean brown that only a fine skin will take; +the hair was of a tawny hue and pressed closely to the scalp. He was +of good height and he carried his trunk as though it were balanced on +his hips—thrown up from the waist into a deep chest beneath powerful +shoulders. He held his arms slightly away from his sides in the +fashion of sailors and boxers whose arms are quick, tough weapons. +After all this and of it all was a gay, alert air, as though he were +ever poised to spring away at the call of the first adventure that came +whistling down the road. His face was not often in repose. Ardent +life was forever footing it merrily up and down his veins, delighting +in motion and in its strength, and his face was the mirror of its +discoveries. +</P> + +<P> +Just now, voiced in his "I'm growing up an idler that every one will +soon be despising," it was discovering restrictions that his brow +mirrored darkly. "It's not fair to me, Aunt Maggie," he said. "I +ought to be doing something for myself. I must be doing something for +myself. But you put me off like a child. You tell me to wait and +won't even tell me what it is. You tell me to wait—when? when?" +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Maggie said pleadingly: "Soon, Percival, soon." +</P> + +<P> +"No, I've heard that—I've heard that!" he cried. "I want to know +when." +</P> + +<P> +She named her date. "When you are of age, dear. When you are +twenty-one." +</P> + +<P> +He cried: "Three years! Go on like this for three years more!" +</P> + +<P> +He swung on his heel and she watched him go tremendously down the path +and through the gate. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0402"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +FEARS AND VISIONS AND DISCOVERIES +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +Percival took the highroad with the one desire to be alone—to walk far +and to walk fast. The prodding of his mind that goaded him, "I'm +growing—I'm losing time—I'm settling into a useless idler!" that +tortured him he was in apron-strings and likely to remain there, +produced a feverish desire to use all his muscles till he tired them. +His feet beat the time—"I must do something—I <I>must</I> do something!" +and he swung them savagely and at their quickest. It was not +sufficient. He was extraordinarily fit and hard; the level road, +despite he footed it at his fiercest, could scarcely quicken his +breathing. A mile from "Post Offic" he struck off to his right and +breasted the Down, climbing its steepness with an energy that at last +began to moisten his body and to give him the desired feeling that his +strength was being exercised. "I must do something!" he spoke aloud. +"I must—I can't go on like this—I won't!" and taxed his limbs the +harder. If he must feel the chains that bound him in idleness, let him +at least make mastery of his body and rebuke it till it wearied. +</P> + +<P> +At the crest of Plowman's Ridge he paused and drew breath and turned +his face to the wind that ever boomed along here and that had come to +be an old friend that greeted his ears with its jovial, gusty Ha! Ha! +Ha! +</P> + +<P> +Far below him he could see "Post Offic" with its garden running to the +wood. From his distance it had the appearance of a toy house enclosed +by a toy hedge, the toy trees of the wood rigid and closely clipped +like the painted absurdities of a child's Noah's Ark. As he looked, a +tiny figure came from the house and went a pace or two up the garden +and seemed to stand and stare towards him up the Ridge. Aunt Maggie, +he was sure, and had a sudden wave of tenderness towards her, looking +so tiny and forlorn down there. He remembered with a prick at heart +that, even in the heat of his anger in the parlour half-an-hour ago, he +had noticed how small she looked as she stood pathetically before him, +gently replying to his impatience. He thought to wave to her with his +handkerchief, but knew she could not see him. He remembered—and +another prick was there—that she had said, seeking, no doubt, to win a +moment from his violence, "Do you see my eyeglasses, dear? I'm getting +so shortsighted, Percival." He flushed to recollect he had disregarded +her words and had threshed ahead with his "It's not fair to me—not +fair to me, keeping me here doing nothing!" He had been unkind—he was +unkind—and she was so small, so gentle, so loving, so tender to his +every mood. +</P> + +<P> +But that very thought of her—how small she was, how gentle—that had +begun to abate his warring mood, returned him suddenly to its +conflicts. That was just it!—so small, so gentle, so different from +him in every way that she could not understand his situation and could +not be reasoned with. No one understood! No one seemed to realise how +he was growing, and how blank the future, and hence what he was +growing. They all laughed at him when he spoke of it. +</P> + +<P> +They all laughed! Mr. Purdie laughed—Mr. Purdie had laughed and said, +"Oh, you're not a man yet, Percival!" and had given his absurd, +maddening chuckle. +</P> + +<P> +"His silly, damned chuckle!" cried Percival to old friend wind at the +top of a wilder burst of resentment against the world in general and +for the moment against Mr. Purdie in particular. +</P> + +<P> +Rollo laughed—Rollo had laughed and declared: "Oh, don't start on +that, Percival! That'll be all right when the time comes." +</P> + +<P> +"When the time comes! Good lord! The time has come," Percival told +old friend wind. "It's slipping past every day. All very well for old +Rollo—all cut and dried for him. For me! I'm to be idling here when +he goes to Cambridge, am I? And idling like a great lout when he comes +back!" +</P> + +<P> +Lady Burdon laughed—they all laughed, thinking him foolish, not +realising. Ah, they would laugh in another way—and rightly so—when +they did realise, when they saw him standing among them idle, useless, +helpless, dependent on Aunt Maggie. They would all laugh—they would +all despise him then. Everybody.... +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +As he came to that thought—visioned some distorted picture of himself, +overgrown, hands in pockets in the village street, and all his friends +going contemptuously past him—there came a sudden change in old friend +wind that for a moment left him vacant, then somehow changed his +thoughts anew. Old friend wind, that had been buffeting him strongly +in keeping with his turbulent mood, dropped, and he was in silence; +then came with a different note and bringing a scent he had not +apprehended while it went rushing by. Nothing odd that he should be +responsive to this change. The wind on Plowman's Ridge was old friend +wind to him, and everybody who is friends with the wind knows it for +the live thing that it is—the teller of strange secrets whispered in +its breezes, the shouter of adventures thundered in its gales. Who +lies awake can hear it call "Where are you? Oh, where are you?"—who +climbs the hill to greet it, it welcomes "Welcome—ho!" Sometimes, to +those who are friends with it, it comes lustily booming along in high +excitement ("This way! This way! There's the very devil this way!"); +sometimes softly and mysteriously tiptoeing along, finger on lip +("Listen! Listen! Listen! Hush—now here's a secret for you!"). +</P> + +<P> +In this guise it came to him now—dropped him down from the turbulence +of spirit to which it had contributed, caught him up and led him away +upon the cloudy paths of the scent it gave him. The fragrance it bore +in this its whispering mood stirred, in that quick and certain manner +that scents arouse, associations linked with such a fragrance. There +was in the scent some hint of the perfume that was always about Dora; +and immediately he was carried to thought of her.... +</P> + +<P> +She to see him idler! She to pass him by contemptuously! His mental +vision presented her before him as clearly as if she were here beside +him on the Ridge. He saw her perfect features, with their high, cold +expression; the transparent fairness of her skin; that warm shade of +colour on either cheek that, as though she saw him watch her, deepened +with their strange attraction even as he visioned her. He visioned her +clearly. He could have touched her had he stretched a hand. And he +was caused—he knew no reason for it—a slight trembling and a slight +quickening of his breath. +</P> + +<P> +She to see him idler! ... In rebuke of such a thought he released his +mind to wild and undisciplined flights that showed himself the champion +of tremendous feats—of arms, of heroism, of physical +prowess—performing them beneath the benison of her eyes, returning +from them to receive her smiles.... +</P> + +<P> +For a considerable space he stood lost among these clouds. They had +drifted upon him suddenly. He found them delectable. Then he began to +find them strange and puzzling—scenes that were meaningless, +sensations that could not be determined. It is to be remembered of him +that, though he was now advanced to the period when the sap is up in +youth and quickening in his veins, he did not pursue the life nor was +he of the nature that encourages the amorous designs. A sluggish habit +of mind and body is the soil to nurture these: he was alert and braced, +eager and sound from foot to brain—a thing all fibre and fearless, +whose only quest was what should give him the challenge of movement, of +light, and ring back tough and true when he taxed it. No room was +here, then, for the disturbances that sex throws up; and yet these very +qualities that such disturbance could not undermine conspired to arouse +him very mightily when he should turn him to enquire what this +disturbance was, and discovering, should launch himself upon it. +</P> + +<P> +He was near to the brink of that launching now. Dora with her rare +beauty always had exercised upon him a feeling different from any he +commonly knew; he never yet had troubled to suppose that it was caused +by any emotion outside his normal life. She had astonished him by her +grace of form and feature on that day when he had discovered her to be +Snow-White-and-Rose-Red of the fairy book. Thereafter she had remained +to him a delicately beautiful object—set apart from the ordinary +fashion of persons he knew; not to be treated quite as he treated them; +a very dainty thing, making him aware of the contrast that his own +sturdy figure, strong limbs, brown face, and hard young hands +presented. As a boy he had always been caused a manner of awe in her +presence; as he grew older the awe went back to the sheer admiration +that she had caused in him at their first meeting. Out of her company, +in the long months that frequently separated her visits, he rarely +thought of her; though sometimes—and he had no reason for it—he would +find her pretty figure in his mind or in his dreams. When he +reëncountered her, the admiration sprang afresh; he liked to watch her +face, to stand unnoticed and expect, then see, her cold smile part her +lips, or those strange shades of colour deepen and glow upon her +cheeks; he liked in little unobserved ways to protect her as he had +protected her that day in the muddy lane; it caused him a strange +rapture to have her thank him for any service. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +These were his relations to her through the years. He never had +thought to analyse them nor question why he so regarded her—never till +now. Now for the first time as he stood on Plowman's Ridge he mused +among the misty tangle of the sensations that old friend wind had +brought, lost and astray among the visions presented to his mind by +estimate of how Dora would consider his idle plight—now for the first +time he suddenly questioned himself what she was to him. +</P> + +<P> +He was all unused to the sensations in which, by an effort recalling +himself from his musings, he found himself suffused. They were +all—that slight trembling and that slight quickening of his breath +that possessed him—foreign to his nature, and he made a sharp movement +as though they were tangible and visible things that he would shake +from about him. Useless!—they had him wrapped.... Quicker his +trembling, and his breath quicker. What was she to him? Up sprang the +answer, answering with a triple voice that demanded his acknowledgment. +Up sprang the answer, causing him a physical thrill as though indeed +there burst at last from within him some essence that had been too long +held and now was loosed like fire through his veins. With a triple +voice, clamouring he should recognise it! What was she to him? Her +face and figure stood in all their beauty before his mental eye—that +was one voice and he trembled anew to hear it. What was she to him? +Memory of a light speech of Rollo on the previous day came flaming to +his mind: "And mother, I believe, has a plot with Mrs. Espart that I +shall marry Dora then and settle down"—that was a second voice and +stung him so that he knit his brow. What was she to him? Of them +all—of all who would laugh and have him in scorn when he was taskless +idler—bitterest, most intolerably goading, that she should hold him +so—that was the third voice and drew from him a sharp intake of the +breath as of one that has touched hot iron. +</P> + +<P> +What was she to him? In triple voice he had the answer, demanding his +acknowledgment, clamouring for his recognition. By a single word he +signed the bond. None was by to listen, and yet he flushed; there was +none to overhear, and yet he spoke scarcely above a whisper. He just +breathed her name—"Dora!" +</P> + +<P> +An intense stillness came about him. He stood enraptured, all his +senses thrilled. Out of the stillness, echo of his whisper, seemed to +come her name of Dora! Dora! Dora! floating about him as petals from +the bloomy rose. He raised his face to their caress and was caught up +in sudden ecstasy—believed he was with her, touching her; and saw and +felt her stoop towards him, bringing her perfume to him as the may-tree +stoops and sheds its fragrance when first at dawn the morning breathes +in spring. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +So for a space he stood etherealised—awed and atremble; youth brought +suddenly through the gates and into the courts of love where the strong +air at every tremulous breath runs like wine to the brain, to the heart +like some quick essence. For a space he stood so; then was aware that +old friend wind was up again and drumming Ha! Ha! Ha! upon his ears as +one that mocks. +</P> + +<P> +What was she to him? The answer, now he had it, stirred to wilder +tumult the feelings that had brought him turbulently breasting up the +Ridge. He looked again towards "Post Offic," toylike below, and had no +tender thought for it—bitter vexation instead, as of the captive who +goes to fury at the chains that bind him. +</P> + +<P> +That he should submit to be thus chained, thus apron-stringed! That +Dora should laugh! That she should know him idler! Goading +thoughts—maddening thoughts, and he flung himself, bruising himself, +against them as the captive against his prison walls. That she should +laugh! It should not be! It was not to be endured! He threw up his +head in determination's action, his hands clenched, his body braced, +resolve upon his angry brow. +</P> + +<P> +Ha! Ha! Ha! drummed old friend wind—Ha! Ha! Ha! +</P> + +<P> +He gave a half cry and turned and strode away along the Ridge, taking +the direction that led him from home, and exerting himself under new +impulse of the desire to rebuke his body and haply ease his mind. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0403"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +A FRIEND UNCHANGED—AND A FRIEND GROWN +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +An hour at that pace brought him above Great Letham, clustered below. +He paused irresolutely. From among the roofs, as it were, a crawling +train emerged. He watched it worm its way along the eastward vale, +then abruptly turned his back upon it as upon a thing more fortunate +than he—not bound down here, as he was bound. Brooding upon the +landscape, he suddenly became aware of a thin wisp of smoke that +pointed up like a grey finger from the valley beneath him. It mounted +in a steady, wand-like line from the belt of trees that marked Fir-Tree +Pool, and its site and its appearance braced him to an alert attention. +It had signalled him before. Only one person he had ever known lit a +fire down there: only one hand in his experience contrived a flame +which gave quite that steady, grey finger. He remembered Japhra +showing him how to get the heart of a fire concentrated in a compact +centre; he remembered Ima laughing at the sprawling heap, burning in +desultory patches, that had come of his first attempt at imitation. +</P> + +<P> +"If only it is Japhra!" he said aloud; and he struck down the +Ridge-side for a straight line across country to where the smoke +proposed that Japhra might be. +</P> + +<P> +More than a year had passed since last the van had visited the +district. Even Stingo, met sometimes over at Mr. Hannaford's, could +give him no better news of it than that Japhra had not taken the road +with Maddox's these two seasons. The disturbed state of mind that now +vexed Percival could be soothed in no other way, he suddenly felt, than +by the restful atmosphere that Japhra always communicated to him. +Japhra would not laugh at him. Japhra would understand how he felt. +Japhra would advise in that quiet way of his that made one see things +as altogether different from the appearance they seemed to present. If +only it were Japhra! +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +It was Japhra! +</P> + +<P> +As Percival came quickly through the trees that enclosed the water he +caught a glimpse of the yellow van. As he emerged he heard Japhra's +voice: "Watch where he comes!" and he pulled up short and cried +delightedly: "You knew! You were expecting me!" +</P> + +<P> +Clearly they had known! Not surprise, but welcome all ready for him, +was in Japhra's keen little eyes that glinted merrily, and on Ima's +face, that was flushed beneath its dusky skin, her lips parted +expectantly. Even old Pilgrim, the big white horse that drew the van, +had its head up from its cropping and looked with stretched neck and +seemed to know. Even tiny Toby, that was Dog Toby when the Punch and +Judy show was out, was hung forward on his short legs like a pointer at +mark, and now came bounding forward in a whirl of noisy joy. +</P> + +<P> +Japhra was astride of a box, a piece of harness between his legs, a +cobbler's needle in his right hand, and the short pipe still the same +fixture in the corner of his mouth. Ima was on one knee, about to rise +from the fire whose smoke had signalled. +</P> + +<P> +"You knew! You were expecting me!" Percival cried again, and went +eagerly to them as they rose to greet him, his hands outstretched. +</P> + +<P> +"Father knew thee before I heard thy footsteps," Ima told him. "The +fire crackled at my ears or I had known." +</P> + +<P> +She seemed to be excusing herself, as though not to have heard were +short of courtesy; and Japhra, who had Percival's hand, gave a twist of +his face as if to bid him see fun, and teased her with: "Thou didst +doubt, though, Ima, for look how I had to bid thee 'watch where he +comes.'" +</P> + +<P> +Percival thought she would toss her head and protest indignantly as +when he used to tease her when they had trifled together. Instead, her +eyes steadily upon his face, "Nay, for I knew it was he," she replied +simply. +</P> + +<P> +He no more than heard her. At a later period he found that the words +had gone to the backwaters of his mind, where trifles lie up to float +unexpectedly into the main stream. Years after he recalled distinctly +her tone, her words, and the look in her eyes when she spoke them. +</P> + +<P> +Now he laughed. "You two can hear the world go round, I believe." He +turned to Japhra: "But how on earth you could tell—" +</P> + +<P> +"Footsteps are voices, little master, when a man has lived in the +stillness." +</P> + +<P> +Percival laughed again—laughed for pure happiness to hear himself +still given that familiar title, and for pure happiness to be again +with Japhra's engaging ideas. "You're the same as ever, Japhra—the +same ideas that other people don't have." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, but 'tis true," Japhra answered him. "Footsteps have tongues, and +cleaner tongues than ever the mouth holds. Look how a man may oil his +voice to mask his purpose—never his feet. Thine called to me, how +eagerly they brought thee." +</P> + +<P> +"Eagerly!—I should think they did! You're just the one I want. I've +not seen you for a year—more. Eagerly—oh, eagerly!" +</P> + +<P> +Japhra's bright eyes showed his delight. "And we were eager, too. We +have spoken often of little master, eh, Ima? Not right to call him +that now, though. Scarcely reckoned to see him so grown. Why, thou'rt +a full man, little master—there slips the name again!" +</P> + +<P> +He twinkled appreciatively at Percival's protest that to no other name +would he answer, and he went on: "A full man. Ten stone in the chair, +I would wager to it. What of the boxing?" +</P> + +<P> +"Pretty good, Japhra. The gloves you gave me are worn, I can tell you." +</P> + +<P> +"That's well. Never lose the boxing. It is the man's game. Ay, thou +hast the boxer's build, ripe on thee now as I knew would be when I saw +it in thee as a boy. The man's game—never lose it." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm keener than ever on it," Percival told him. "I'm glad you think +I've grown. I've got a punch in my left hand, I believe." His spirits +were run high from his former despondency, and he hit with his left and +sparkled to see Japhra nod approvingly and to hear him: "Ay, the look +of a punch there." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I've grown," he said. "You've not changed, Japhra—not a scrap." +</P> + +<P> +Japhra nodded his head towards the fir trees. "Nor are the old limbs +yonder. They stay so till the sap dries, then drop. Nary change. +Only the young shoots change. What of Ima?" +</P> + +<P> +She had turned away while they talked. She was back at the fire, and +Percival turned towards where she stood, about to lift from its hook +the cooking pot that hung from the tripod of iron rods. As he looked, +she swung it with an easy action to the grass. The pot was heavy: she +stooped from the waist, lifted and swung it to the grass with a +graceful action that belonged to her supple form, and, as the steam +came pouring up and was taken by a puff of breeze to her face, went +back a step and looked down at her cooking from beneath her left +forearm, bare to the elbow, raised to shield her eyes. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +That was Percival's view of her. She had put up her hair, he noticed, +since last he saw her. It was dressed low on the nape of her neck; +evening's last gleam delighted in its glossy blackness against her +olive skin. Beneath the arm across her face he saw the long lashes of +her eyelids almost on her cheeks, as she stood looking downwards. Her +mouth was long, the lips, blending in a dark red with her brown +colouring, lying pleasantly together in the expression that partners +the level eye and the comfortable mind. She was full as tall as +Percival—very slim in the build and long in the waist that was moulded +naturally from her hips to spread and cup her bosom, and therefore +taller to the eye. She wore a blouse of dark red cloth; her skirt was +of blue, hung short of her ankles, and pressing her thighs disclosed +how alert and braced she stood. She wore no shoes nor stockings, and +her feet, slender and long, appeared no more than to rest upon the +short grass that framed them softly. +</P> + +<P> +"What of Ima?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ima?—Ima has grown, though," Percival said. "Why, she's simply +sprung up!" +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, grown," Japhra agreed. "Grown fair," he added, watching her. +</P> + +<P> +Percival said, "Yes, she is pretty." The vision of Dora's high +fairness came to his mind, challenged and rebuked his favour of another +of her sex, and returned him swiftly to the stress that had brought him +down here for comfort and that the first reëncounter with Japhra had +caused to be overshadowed. His eyes lost their brightness. He +remained looking dully at Ima, not seeing her; and presently started +and flushed to realise that he was hearing a repeated question from +Japhra. +</P> + +<P> +"What ails, master?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ails? I heard you the first time, Japhra. I was thinking. I'm +troubled—sick. That's what ails." +</P> + +<P> +His face flushed with the same cloudy redness that the beat of rising +tears drives into the faces of children. On the Ridge he had put +against his trouble the stiffness that was of the bone of Burdon +character. Down here was sympathy—and he was very young; it sapped +the stubbornness. +</P> + +<P> +"That's what I'm here for," he said thickly. "To tell you, Japhra." +</P> + +<P> +Japhra had a keen look to meet the misty countenance that was turned to +him. +</P> + +<P> +"Food first, then," he said, and gave a twinkle and a sniff at the +savour from Ima's cooking that made Percival smile in response. +"Naught like a meal to take the edge off trouble. There'd be few +quarrels in the world if we all had full bellies always." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, food first, then," Percival agreed, making an effort; and he +raised his voice: "What's Ima got for us?" +</P> + +<P> +She turned at the sound of her name and smiled towards him, and the +smile caused beauty to alight upon her face as a dove with a flashing +of soft wings comes to a bough. He saw it. Her beauty abode in her +mild mouth and in her seemly eyes. Her parted lips discovered it to +step upon her face; her raised eyes released it, starry as the stars +that star the forest pool, to star her countenance. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0404"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +IMA'S LESSONS +</P> + +<P> +She had odd ways, Percival found—oddly attractive; sometimes oddly +disconcerting. She did not at first contribute to the conversation +while they ate. She was very quiet; and that, and the way in which, as +he noticed, she kept her eyes upon him, was in itself odd. Dusk was +veiling the camp as they took the stew she had prepared. They had the +meal on the grass near the van, and Percival, not eating with great +ease in the squatting pose, noticed how erect she sat, as though her +back were invisibly supported—her plate on her lap, the soles of her +bare feet together. +</P> + +<P> +He deferred his trouble, as Japhra had proposed, till the meal should +be done. He was interested to know where the van had been all these +months; and when he questioned Japhra, "We have had the solitary +desires, Ima and I," Japhra told him. "The solitary desires, master, +whiles thou hast been growing. A sudden wearying of Maddox's and all +the noisy ones. North to Yorkshire, we have been; west to Bristol's +border; deeper west to Cornwall. The road has had the spell on +us—calling from every bend and ever keeping a bend ahead, as the road +will to those who are of it. Summers we have passed the circus on its +tour and laid a night with old Stingo and then away, urgent to move +quicker and lonelier. Trouble has worsened in the circus crowd." +</P> + +<P> +"What, between Stingo's men and Boss Maddox's?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ay," said Japhra. "Boss Maddox is the biggest showman in the west +these days. He rents the pitches at all the fairs before the season +begins; and the Stingo crowd, who must take what he gives, he puts in +the worst places. His hand is heavy against them. One fine day the +sticks will come out and there'll be heads broken, as happened on the +road back in '60. I was in that and carry the mark of it on my pate to +this hour. Pray I'll be there when this one falls." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd like to be with you, Japhra." +</P> + +<P> +Japhra showed his tight-lipped smile: "Well, a camp fight with the +sticks out and the heads cracking is a proper game for a man, master. +Thou'dst be a handy one at it, I warrant me." +</P> + +<P> +Ima broke in with her first contribution to their talk. She said +quickly: "Shame, Father. Not for such as he—fights and the rough +ways." +</P> + +<P> +But she was silent again and without reply when Percival sought to +rally her for this opinion of him; and Japhra twinkled at him and said: +"There's one would like to meet thee, though—sticks or fists"; and +went on, when Percival inquired who: "Thy friend Pinsent. Thy name of +Foxy for him has stuck to him and he has not forgiven thee. A fine +fighter he has grown—boxed in some class rings for good purses in the +winter months, and in the summer is a great attraction at the fairs. +Boss Maddox is fond of him. Boss Maddox has fitted him with a booth of +his own and he gets the crowds—deserves 'em, too. But 'Foxy' has +stuck to him—and suits him. He hates it; and's not forgotten where he +owes it." +</P> + +<P> +Percival laughed. "Well, if he's done so well, I ought to be proud to +have given him something to remember me by. He could wallop me to +death, of course." +</P> + +<P> +"There's few of his weight he could not hand the goods to," Japhra +agreed. He looked estimatingly at Percival and added: "One that could +keep the straight left in his face a dozen rounds'd serve it up to him, +though. Foxy has no bowels for punishment. I have watched him." +</P> + +<P> +And again Ima broke in. "Ah, why dost talk so?" she addressed her +father. "He is nothing for such ways—fights and the fighting sort." +</P> + +<P> +This time Percival would not let her opinion of him escape without +challenge. "Why, Ima!" he turned to her, "that's the second time +you've said that. Seems to me you think I ought to be wrapped in +cotton-wool." +</P> + +<P> +His voice was bantering, but had a note of impatience. The events of +the day had not made him in humour to take lightly any estimate of +himself that seemed to reflect on his manliness. +</P> + +<P> +She noticed it. Her voice when she answered him had a caressing sound +as though she realised she had vexed him and would beg excuse. "Nay, +only that thou art not for the rough ways—such as thou," she said; +and, mollified, he laughed and told her: "Well, you never used to think +so, anyway. You've changed, you know, Ima, changed a lot since I last +saw you." +</P> + +<P> +"And should have changed," Japhra announced. "Scholar with lesson +books, she has been these winter months." +</P> + +<P> +Percival thought that very quaint. "Scholar, Ima; have you?" he asked +her, and saw the blood run up beneath her dusky skin. "I can't imagine +you at lessons!" +</P> + +<P> +"Nor those who taught me," she replied; and paused and added very +gravely, speaking in her gentle voice, "Yet have I learnt—and still +shall learn." +</P> + +<P> +Percival asked: "Learnt what?" +</P> + +<P> +Odd her ways—oddly attractive, oddly disconcerting; speaking steadily +and more as if it were to herself and not to listeners that she spoke. +"Learnt to sit on a chair," she told him, "and to sit at a table +nicely; to wear shoes on my feet, and stockings; to go to church and +sing to God in heaven; to talk properly as house folk talk; to sleep in +a bed; to wear a hat and stiff clothes; to abide within doors when the +rain falls and when the stars alight in the sky—these have I learnt." +</P> + +<P> +Percival was tempted to laugh, but her gravity forbade him. "How +terrible it sounds—for you! But why, Ima, why?" +</P> + +<P> +She did not answer the question. She smiled gently at him and went on +with the same air of speaking to herself: "Lessons from books, also. +Figures and the making of sums; geography—as capes and bays and what +men make and where; of a new fashion of how to hold the pen stiffly in +writing; of nice ways in speaking—chiefly that I should say 'you' when +I would say 'thou'—that is hardest to me; but I shall learn." +</P> + +<P> +Something almost pleading was in her voice as she repeated, "I shall +learn;" and Percival turned for relief of his puzzlement to Japhra: +"Why, whatever's it all for, Japhra?" +</P> + +<P> +Japhra gave his tight-lipped smile. "Woman's reasons—who shall +discover such?" But Ima made a motion of protest, and he went on: +"Nay, the chance fell, and truly I was glad she should have woman's +company—and gentle company. In Norfolk where we pitched the winter +gone by was a doctor I had known when we were young—he and I. He +shipped twice aboard a cattle boat with me, having the restlessness on +him in those days. Now I found him stout and proper, but not forgetful +of an indifferent matter between us. He brought his lady to the van, +and she conceived a fancy for Ima, holding her a fair, wild thing that +should be tamed. Therefore took Ima to her house and to her board, and +taught her as she hath instructed thee. Thus was the manner of it; as +to the wherefore—why, woman's reasons, as I have said," and he smiled +again. +</P> + +<P> +Ima got abruptly to her feet. The meal was ended, and she began to +collect the plates. Her action plainly rebuked the further questions +with which Percival was playfully turning to her. He offered instead +to help her with her washing of the dishes, but she told him: "Nay, +maid's work this. Abide thou with father, and talk men's talk." In +the action of moving away she turned to Japhra and added her earlier +plea: "So it is not of boxing and the rough ways." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0405"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +JAPHRA'S LESSONS +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +Japhra took up Ima's words when she had left them. "Nay, but the +boxing is my business," Japhra said, filling his pipe. "I'm for the +boxing again this summer. Money's short and old Pilgrim yonder has +full earned his rest and must have another take up his shafts. Another +horse is to be bought, wherefore a sparring booth again for me." +</P> + +<P> +Percival asked: "When are you going?" +</P> + +<P> +"To-morrow. I pick up the circus by Dorchester. My lads are waiting +me. Ginger Cronk, I have—thou mind'st Ginger?—and Snowball White, a +useful one. Stingo seeketh another for me. A good lad, I must have, +if the money's to be made, for Foxy Pinsent hath a brave show that will +draw the company—two coloured lads and four more with himself." +</P> + +<P> +Percival was silent. "I wish I could go with you," he said presently: +"And you're going to-morrow, you say?—to-morrow?" +</P> + +<P> +"At daybreak, master." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" Percival gave a hard exclamation as though feelings that were +pent up in him escaped him. "Now I had found you again, I hoped I was +going to see you often for a bit. My luck's right out," and he gave a +little laugh. +</P> + +<P> +Japhra lit his pipe. "So we come back to thy trouble," he said. +</P> + +<P> +His voice and a motion that he made invited confidence. Percival +watched through the dusk the glow from his pipe, now lighting his face, +now leaving it in shadow. He had longed to tell Japhra; he found it +hard. +</P> + +<P> +After a moment: "Hard to tell!" he jerked. +</P> + +<P> +"How to bear? That is the measure of a grief." +</P> + +<P> +"Impossible to bear!" +</P> + +<P> +"Tell, then." +</P> + +<P> +"There's little to be told. That's it! That's the sting of it—so +little, so much. A man must do something with his life, Japhra!" +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, that must he, else life will use him, breaking him." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, that's just it! That's what will happen to me! I'm a man—they +think I'm not; there, that's the pith of it!" He was easier now and in +the way of words that would express his feelings. He went on: "Look, +Japhra, it's like this—" and told how he was growing up idler, how +Aunt Maggie answered all his protestations for work for his hands to do +by bidding him only wait—and he ended as he had begun: "A man must do +something with his life!" +</P> + +<P> +He stopped,—aware, and somehow, as he looked through the dusk at +Japhra, a little ashamed, that his feelings had run his voice to a note +of petulance. He stopped, but a space of silence came where he had +looked for answer. Evening by now was full about the camp. Night that +evening heralded pressed on her feet, and was already to be seen +against the light in the windows of the van where Ima had lit the lamp. +From the pool was the intermittent whirring of a warbler; somewhere a +distant cuckoo called its engaging note that drowsy birds should not +make bedtime yet. In the pines a song-thrush had its psalm to make; at +intervals it paused and the air took a night-jar's whirr and catch and +whirr again. Old Pilgrim cropped the grass. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +Percival said: "What are you thinking of, Japhra?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of life." +</P> + +<P> +"What of life?" +</P> + +<P> +"How hot it runs." +</P> + +<P> +"Meaning me—I'm in a vile temper, I daresay you think." +</P> + +<P> +"How hot it runs, master—how cold it comes and how little the profit +of it." +</P> + +<P> +Percival said heavily: "What is the use of it, then?" +</P> + +<P> +Japhra bent forward to him and Percival saw the little man's +tight-lipped, firm-lined countenance with the tranquil strength of mind +that abode in the steady aspect of the bright eyes, deep beneath their +strong brows. +</P> + +<P> +"The use?" Japhra said. "Nay, that is the wrong way of estimate. For +thee in thy mood, for all men when life presses them, inquire rather +what is the hurt of it. How shall so small a thing as life, a thing so +profitless, that soon becomes so cold, returneth to earth and is +nothing remembered nor required—how shall so small a thing offend thee +and make shipwreck of thy content? Thus shouldst thou judge of it." +</P> + +<P> +"Some men are not soon forgotten, Japhra." +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, master, and what men? They that have seen how small a thing is +life and have recked nothing of it." +</P> + +<P> +"How have they done great things, then?—fought battles, written books?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, master, how wrote Bunyan in chains or Milton in blindness?" +</P> + +<P> +"They didn't mind." +</P> + +<P> +"Even so. Profitless they knew life to be, and cared not how it tasked +them." +</P> + +<P> +"But, Japhra, that's—that's all upside down. Are there two things in +a man, then—life and—?" +</P> + +<P> +Japhra said: "So we come to it—and to thee. Truly there are two +things: life which is here in the green leaf, and gone in the dry; and +the spirit which goeth God knows where—into the sea that ever moves, +the wind that ever blows, the sap that ever rises—who shall say? But +knoweth not death and haply endureth forever if it were mighty +enough—as Milton, as Bunyan. Look at me, master, for that is the +plain fact of it and the balsam for all thy hurts." +</P> + +<P> +He stopped and drew slowly at his pipe with little puffs that floated +to Percival like grey thistledown dropping through the night. +</P> + +<P> +"Go on," Percival said. "Go on, Japhra." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, there thou hast it," Japhra told him. "Lay hold on thy +spirit—let that be thy charge; and of what cometh against thee take no +heed save to rebuke it as a boxer rebuketh the cunning of him that is +matched against him. So was the way of Crusoe, of old Bunyan's +Pilgrim, and of the Bible men, and that is why I call them the books +for a fighting man. Here's my way of it, master—there's force in the +world that moves the tides and blows the winds and maketh the green +things grow. Out of that force I unriddle it we come, and back to it +return. In some the spirit is utterly swallowed up in life, and at +death crawleth back suffocated and befouled and only fit to come again +in some rank growth—so much a lesser thing than when it came springing +to a human breast that the force of the world whence it came is by so +much lessened and can give birth to a flower less and a toadstool more." +</P> + +<P> +"And then there's the other way about," said Percival, attracted by +this argument. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, truly the other way about, master. The way of the mighty men in +whom the spirit rebuketh life and increaseth, and at death goeth +shouting back—so quickening the force of the world that, just as the +cup spilleth when much is added, so there be mighty storms when great +men die—thunders and rushing winds, great lightnings and vast seas." +</P> + +<P> +Percival drew a long breath. "Why, it's a fine idea, Japhra—fine." +</P> + +<P> +"Look at a case of it," Japhra said. "My Bible in the van there hath +one. I have it by heart. Look when Christ died. Never a man than He +cared less how life tasked Him; and at His death—when there went +shouting back the spirit that He had increased beyond the increase of +any man—look thou what came: 'And behold the veil of the Temple was +rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth quaked; and the +rocks rent and the graves were opened.' And again: 'And it was about +the sixth hour; and there was darkness over all the earth until the +ninth hour; and the sun was darkened.'" +</P> + +<P> +He stopped; and Percival breathed long and deep again: "Fine, +Japhra—fine. I never thought of it like that. Fine—I think I see." +</P> + +<P> +"Surely thou dost, master; or any man that giveth thought to it. Take +it to thine own case—that is my word to thee. Reck nothing how life +assaileth—hold on only to thy spirit. Thou wouldst be doing something +and art irked by the bonds that hold thee—never fear but that in its +time the thing will come. I have seen men—I know the fashion of them. +Thou art of the mould and mind to which adventures come. See to it +thou art ready for them when they arrive—trained as the boxer is +against the big fight." +</P> + +<P> +Percival said heavily: "What's the prize, Japhra?" Now that the +application of this engaging view was pressed to his own case he had a +dark vision of what it required of him. "What's the prize?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, content! Look, little master, here's happiness, here's +content—and content is all the world's gold and all its dreams. +Whatever cometh against thee, whether through the flesh or through the +mind, get thou the mastery of it. How? Every man according to his +craft. The philosophers, the reckoners—theirs to judge bad against +good and find content that way. That was old Crusoe's manner of it. +Thou art the fighting type—the Ring for thee." +</P> + +<P> +Percival got abruptly to his feet. At the same moment Ima opened the +door of the van and stood above them—held, as it were, upon the light +that streamed from the interior. +</P> + +<P> +"The Ring for thee," Japhra repeated, "there to meet and conquer all +thy vexations. Make a boxer of thy spirit. Step back through the +ropes then and take up the champion belt marking thee thine own man, +thine own master: a proud and jewelled thing to wear—content." +</P> + +<P> +Ima's voice broke in upon them. "The champion belt?" she said. "What, +is it still boxing, thy talk?" +</P> + +<P> +Japhra turned his face up to her and the lamplight showed the twinkling +with which he met the reproach in her voice. "Why, it is my trade," he +said, "and thine. In two days thou'lt be taking the money at the door +of my booth." +</P> + +<P> +"Not his trade, though," she answered. +</P> + +<P> +Percival said: "Japhra, would I be a likely one for your booth, do you +think?" +</P> + +<P> +He was holding out his hand in the action of farewell. Japhra got up +and took it and held it. "Why, if I get as proper a build as thine for +my third lad I will put a polish to it that would vex Foxy Pinsent +himself. Keep up the boxing, master. Art thou going?" +</P> + +<P> +Percival said abruptly, "Yes, I'm going." He released the hand and +went away a step. "I'm going. I've a longish way home and things to +do before bedtime. You'll be gone at daybreak?" +</P> + +<P> +"At dawn, little master." +</P> + +<P> +"On the Dorchester road?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, to Dorchester." +</P> + +<P> +"All the luck with you, Japhra. I'm better for seeing you." He spoke +jerkily as though his throat were full and speech difficult. He +stopped abruptly, and half turned away; then, recollecting Ima, went +back to the van and stretched up his hand to where she stood: "Good +night, Ima." +</P> + +<P> +She stooped down to him. The action brought her face into the darkness +and he noticed how her wide eyes, as she stooped, seemed actually to +light it. "Farewell!" she said. +</P> + +<P> +It was perhaps that he had so obviously only attended to her as an +afterthought that her throat, for all the sound her word had, might +have been as full as his. Some thought of the kind—that he had been +churlish to her—crossed him. He said more kindly: "I say, though! +your hand is cold, Ima." +</P> + +<P> +She withdrew her fingers, giving him no reply. But as he turned away +and went a step, "What of thy way home?" she cried, and cried it on a +sudden note as though it went against her will. +</P> + +<P> +"By the Ridge," he told her. "By Plowman's Ridge and then along." +</P> + +<P> +She answered him: "Yes, I am cold. I will warm me to the Ridge with +thee—if thou wilt suffer me." +</P> + +<P> +In the mood that was on him he had preferred to be alone. But under +the same apprehension of having been churlish to her, "Why, that's +jolly of you," he said. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +She went within the van a few moments; and while he waited he had a +last exchange with Japhra: "You've helped me, Japhra. But I shall +disappoint you if I'm tried too hard. Content—I'll make a fight for +it. But I shall not endure it very well if I am still to be idler." +He gave a hard little laugh. "When it's a fight for mastery of myself +I shall disappoint you, I believe." +</P> + +<P> +Japhra told him: "I have seen men, master, and know the fashion of +them. Thou wilt not disappoint me." +</P> + +<P> +"You can't say that of any one—for certain." +</P> + +<P> +"I say it of thee. Though thou failest a score times thine is the +mould that comes again—for that I shall look. Listen to me, little +master—that name clings: I cannot shake it from me. Listen to me. +Thy type runneth hot through life till at last it cometh to the big +fight. Send me news of that." He struck a match to relight his pipe +and cupped the flame against his face. "Send only 'The Big Fight, +Japhra,'" he said. +</P> + +<P> +The flame of his match built up the dusky night in walls of immense +blackness. In their heart Percival saw the kindly face with its tight +lines and keen eyes. "I shall know the winner," Japhra said; and the +cup of light within his hands shadowed and lit again his face as he +nodded. +</P> + +<P> +The Big Fight was drawing towards Percival. Aunt Maggie had the very +date of it, and the articles reckoned and ready. When it rushed +suddenly upon him and he was in its stress and agony, he remembered the +lighted face, the confident nod and the message that was to be sent. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0406"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +WITH IMA ON PLOWMAN'S RIDGE +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +Ima had put on shoes and stockings when she reappeared from the van and +joined Percival to accompany him to the Ridge. The two were come +almost to the Down's skirt before they exchanged words. "I have things +to do before bedtime," Percival had told Japhra; and as he walked he +was too occupied by the thoughts of what he purposed—hunted by them as +the tumult of his concerns had hunted him earlier in the day—to give +attention to Ima who had come with him when he had preferred to be +alone. She was perhaps aware of that. She followed the half of a pace +behind the short, impatient steps that partnered—and signified—his +mood, her eyes watching what of his face she could see and ever and +again turning swiftly ahead, as though she feared he might catch her at +it and feared that might offend him; so a dog that knows itself +unwanted may be seen, wistful at its master's heels—with little wags +of a timid tail and with beseeching glances; eager to communicate some +succour to this angry mood; afraid to hazard what may further vex. +</P> + +<P> +Yet he was pleasant when presently he spoke to her. +</P> + +<P> +They stepped from a dense lane about whose mouth and overhead the +arching brambles trailed as though to curtain a sanctuary from trespass +by outer dust and breeze and light. Before them the Down ran smooth +and grey to where, beneath the moon, it took a silver rim along the +line of Plowman's Ridge. A harsher scent was here than briar and wild +rose breathed within the lane and jealously entwined to hold there; the +breeze came with a swifter touch to the face; the light challenged the +eyes that the gloom had rested. +</P> + +<P> +Together their effects aroused Percival's senses from his thoughts to +his companion. +</P> + +<P> +"Warmer now, Ima?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Warmer now, little master," and she smiled and added: "unseemly to +call thee that, now thou hast grown so." +</P> + +<P> +He moved with her to a gate that faced the Down. "Let's rest a bit," +he said. "Why, we've both grown, Ima, since the last time I saw you. +You've grown. You've put up your hair—properly grown up. I shall +have to treat you with terrible respect." +</P> + +<P> +She did not respond to his light tone. Her eyes that looked quietly at +him had a grave air. "I am a gipsy girl to thee," she said. "I am not +for thy respect—such as me. For ladies that." And before he could +answer her she went on: "What of that little lady thou hast told me +of—Snow-White-and-Rose-Red as thou didst name her to me?" +</P> + +<P> +He did not notice a changed tone—to be described as stiff—in her +voice. It did not occur to him that in the matter of his respect she +made comparison between herself and her whom she named with his fond +name for her; he was only surprised and only grateful to have that name +spoken to him. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, she's grown," he said. "Fancy you remembering her, Ima!" +</P> + +<P> +Eagerness was in his voice. "I am cold again," she told him, and drew +away. "Let us go up the Down." +</P> + +<P> +He did not follow her movement or her words, but pursued his own +"—remembering that I called her that, anyway," he said. +</P> + +<P> +If it had been her purpose to dismiss the subject, at least she earned +herself his full attention by the swiftness with which she turned upon +him and by the swiftness of her reply. "It is thee I remember," she +answered him. "Not her—or any such. Thou wast my friend when we +played boy and girl together. All thou hast done with me, all thou +hast told me, point me the way to thee as remembered marks along the +road point to a camping-place—no more, and of themselves nothing." +</P> + +<P> +She had his attention; but he attributed the quickness of her speech +and her odd thought and simile only to the general oddness of her ways. +"Well, you needn't go back to those days in future," he told her. +"We're friends now just as much as then." +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head and smiled. "Nay, after this day I must needs go +farther back," she said, her voice smooth again. "Thou dost not +understand—playmate days I seek. I lie in my bed on the fine nights +with the van door wide, and watch the stars and play I walk among +them—from star to star and round about among the stars, high to the +van's roof and low to where the trees and hills stretch up to them: +thou with me as when first I knew thee—in that wise I seek thee; not +thus"—she broke off and changed the note of her voice. "What talk is +this?" she smiled. "Childish fancies—they are not for thee," and she +moved away and he followed her up the Down. +</P> + +<P> +"Ima, they're pretty fancies, though," he said. "And, you know, you'll +lose them all if you aren't careful—if you go making yourself stiff +and proper with those extraordinary lessons of yours. What are they +for, those lessons? They'll spoil you, Ima. They'll make you quite +different. All that kind of thing is for—for the others—for what +you'd call fine ladies." +</P> + +<P> +"Even so," she said; and pronounced the words as if—though to his mind +they explained nothing—everything was explained by them; and said no +more until the crest of Plowman's Ridge was reached. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +He was willing enough for his own part to relapse into his own +thoughts. He went so deeply into them that, coming to the Ridge and +involuntarily pausing there, he was twice told by her "Here I return," +before he was aroused to her again. Bemused, he stared at her a moment +as one stares that is aroused from sleep, and his mind jumped back in +confusion to the last words that had passed between them. "Well, if +you were so anxious for the lessons, why did you give them up when the +winter was over?" +</P> + +<P> +She answered him—sadness in her voice rather than reproach—"We have +done that talk long since. Thou dost not heed me. It is that I am +going that I am telling thee." +</P> + +<P> +He knew he had been careless of her again, and sought to laugh it off. +"Well, it is why you stopped your lessons that I am asking thee," he +mimicked her. "Woman's reasons, Ima?" +</P> + +<P> +She threw out her hands towards him in a gesture of appeal. "Ah, do +not toy me woman's reasons," she said. "Think me less light than +that—if thou thinkest of me. Not woman's reasons bade me back to the +van when winter broke. Not woman's reasons. I knew me there were +green buds in the ditches beneath the dead wet leaves. I had +discovered them to the sun and the breezes many years—turning back the +leaves and smelling the smell they have. How could I stay beneath a +roof when I had thoughts of such?" +</P> + +<P> +She drew a deep and tremulous breath of the mild night air as though +she inhaled the scents of which she spoke, and he watched her gaze +across the eastward vale with those starry eyes that, as she went on, +never the lids unstarred, and she said: "Thoughts of such—of green +buds in the ditches beneath the moulding leaves that waited for me to +uncover them and knew me when I came; of the first cloud of dust along +the road—dust, ah! of tiny sprigs on every bough that I might run to +see; of busy birds stealing the straws and coming for the bits of cloth +and wool they know I place for them; of early light with all the trees +and fields wet and aglisten; of gentle evenings when the new stars come +dropping down the sky; of the road—the road, ah!—I sitting on the +shafts; of the cool brooks, and leading Pilgrim in and hearing him suck +the water and hearing him tear the grass; of the running stream about +my feet and the soft grass that sinks a little—these bade me back." +</P> + +<P> +She turned to him and said in the low voice in which she had been +speaking: "Not women's reasons these." She changed her voice to one +that cried: "Remember me that if I am not like fine ladies I cannot +help be what I am with these things speaking to me. Now I am going," +and she went swiftly from him and was a dozen paces gone before he +called her back. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +"Ima!" While she spoke he had envisaged what she told, setting its +freedom and its elemental note to his own desires as one sets music +that stirs the breast. Shaking himself from the spell, "Ima!" he +called, and went to her. "Don't go like that. Say good-by properly." +</P> + +<P> +She stopped short and put her hand to her side as though his call had +launched a shaft that struck her. She did not turn—as though she +dared not turn—until he was close up to her, touching her. Then she +turned, and he saw her eyes amazingly lit, and as they met his, saw the +light pass like a star extinguished. It was as if she had expected +much and had found nothing; and it was so pronounced that he said: +"Ima! Why, what did you think I was going to say?" +</P> + +<P> +There was a wild rose in the bosom of her dress that she had plucked as +they came through the lane. She bent her head to it and put her hands +to it in the action of one that seeks to cover lack of words by some +occupation. She drew the flower from her breast and placed it in his +coat, pinning it there. +</P> + +<P> +"That's right," he smiled. "I'll keep that to remember you by. What +did you think I was going to say? You seemed as though you expected +something—then as if you were disappointed. What was it?" +</P> + +<P> +She was very careful in settling the flower. Then she dropped her +hands and looked up at him. "I asked nothing," she said. "How should +I be disappointed?" +</P> + +<P> +"Asked! No! I saw it in your eyes." +</P> + +<P> +She answered swiftly, almost as one speaking in menace of offending +words: "What in mine eyes?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, what I tell you. As though you expected something and were +disappointed." +</P> + +<P> +"No more?" she inquired, and repeated it—"No more?" +</P> + +<P> +"No more—no. But I want to know why—or what?" +</P> + +<P> +She gave a gentle laugh and relaxed her attitude that had been +strained, in keeping with her voice. She seemed to have feared he had +derived some secret that she had; and she seemed glad and yet a little +sad her eyes had not betrayed her. She gave a gentle laugh and threw +her hands apart as if to show how small a thing was here. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, little master, there is nothing in that," she said. "The eyes +light for that the heart runneth to peep through them as a child to the +window." +</P> + +<P> +He laughed at the pleasant fancy: "Well, what did your heart run to +see?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nay, I have not done," she told him. "Look also how one may see a +child run happily past the window—from the van I have seen it: so +sometimes the heart but passeth across the eyes with a glad face, +singing from one happy thought to where another waits. I think my +heart passed so and thou didst catch the gleam." +</P> + +<P> +He heard her take in a quick breath as her words ended. Then, "Suffer +me to go now," she said. "Keep my pretty flowers;" and turned and went +swiftly from him down the slope; and was dim where the moonlight faded; +and was gone in the further darkness. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0407"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +ALONE ON PLOWMAN'S RIDGE +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +She was as quickly gone from Percival's mind as from his sight. Now +that he was free and alone—as he had wished to be alone—he faced +about with an abrupt movement and began to set homewards at a swift +pace along the Ridge; simultaneously his mind returned to his own +business. +</P> + +<P> +He had reached a sudden determination while he talked with Japhra; he +found his mind carried forward to the scenes of its prosecution, and he +was made to breathe deeply and to walk fast as he visioned them. A +conflict possessed him and tore at him as he went. Before he got to +bed that night he would have from Aunt Maggie what she purposed for his +future—he would have it in definite words—he would not be put off by +vague generalisations—he would accept nothing in the nature of "next +year will be time enough to decide"—nay, nor "next month," nor "next +week"—he would have it definitely, clearly, unmistakably now. That +was his determination; thence arose the conflict. He assured himself +as he walked that let him but know Aunt Maggie's intentions, and +however cruel, however impossible, however unendurable they might be, +he would follow wise Japhra's advice—would meet in the ring as if it +were a physical antagonist the passionate impulse to reward all kind +Aunt Maggie's love by violent refusal to obey her—would meet and would +defeat it there. +</P> + +<P> +He threw up his head as he so thought and had his fists clenched and +his jaw set. The action made him conscious of old friend wind. At +this the pitch of his heat, "Ha! Ha! Ha!" shouted old friend wind in +his ears. "Accept idleness if Aunt Maggie so desires, will you?—and +the laughter and contempt, eh? Ha! Ha! Ha!" +</P> + +<P> +He put down his head again. The wind was getting up; it took some +buffeting. +</P> + +<P> +He began to reason now that he should have argued with Japhra when +Japhra laid down the law of self-discipline and moral conduct. +</P> + +<P> +"You can't make one rule to cover everything!" he said aloud, driving +along against the wind. "A man must do something with his life!" he +cried. +</P> + +<P> +He suddenly realised that he was dallying; he suddenly knew that he was +weakening. He was persuading himself that the hour of the fight would +fall when he questioned Aunt Maggie; he suddenly realised that the +battle was already begun. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +The knowledge brought him to a dead halt. His thoughts had fallen in +train with his steps: he had the feeling that he was being beaten while +he walked—only could be master of himself while he stood still and +centred all his faculties on defeating the impulses that goaded him as +they had goaded him earlier in the day. As the sufferer on a sick-bed +tosses wearily through the sleepless night and comes from weariness to +savage groans and curses that rest is not to be found nor a cool +position discovered, so he lashed in spirit to find a stable thought +that would support him amid the tumult that possessed him. He strove +to image Aunt Maggie with gentle eyes; he could command no more than a +glimpse before she was presented to him again as not understanding—not +understanding!—unkind, unkind! He directed his mind at Japhra and +strove to see how small a thing, how childish, how petty was his +trouble; in a moment, "Preposterous! preposterous!" shouted the tumult. +"A small thing to others? Easy for them to think that. Let them apply +it to their own concerns! How can they judge what is your affair +alone? If you are struck, can they feel your pain? If you are +starving, can they measure your hunger?" And again, with greater +cunning: "Why, what a damnable philosophy is this that calls upon a man +to suffer any rebuke, and smile and submit, and declare it is a small +thing, unworthy of notice, and cover himself with sophistries as that +life is too big, the sea too deep, the hills too high, for such an +affair to cause affront! What, is that a man's part, do you think? A +man's part—or a coward's?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not the right way to put it!" Percival struggled. "A false way to +look at it!" +</P> + +<P> +And his adversary, with deeper cunning yet: "Is it fight you would, as +Japhra bade you? You did not explain all the circumstances to him. A +man must do something with his life—he admitted that. Is it fight you +would? Why, fight then! Choose your own life. Make your own life. +For that a man should fight! Get into the world and prove yourself a +man! You are no better than a baby here—worse than a baby; you're a +lout. What sort of a lout will you be in another year or so? What +will they think of you then? Ah, go on; make this precious +ring-business of your life. Rebuke yourself—your natural desires, +your rightful ambitions; win your fight as Japhra bade you win it, and +then when all laugh at you or ignore you for a contemptible lout—then +tell them, tell all the village what a rare prize you have really +won—tell it to Rollo, tell it to Dora!" +</P> + +<P> +The poor boy cried aloud: "Oh, these infernal thoughts! These infernal +thoughts! If only I could get them out of my head—think of something +else!" He was going mad over it, he told himself. His head +ached—ached. It would all come right—there was no cause for all this +worrying. He had often thought about it before—never till now, till +to-day, this wild, maddening, throbbing fury of trouble. What was it? +What was it that caused these feelings and all this pain—why, why was +he so taxed and tormented? If only he could get it out of his mind, +could think of something else till he got home! There would be the +jolly, jolly little supper with Aunt Maggie awaiting him; after it they +would talk quietly, happily together, and he would tell her how he +really must be doing something, and she would understand and everything +would be put right. If only he could get it out of his mind—if he +went back now as he was, why, he was not in a fit state of mind to go +near her—and why? why? why this sudden difference, this sudden, +maddening, throbbing state that goaded and tortured like a wild live +thing within his brain? why? +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +More reasoned thoughts these—at least a consciousness of his condition +and an attempt to plumb its cause. More reasoned thoughts—and they +brought him suddenly to a calmer moment and there to the answer he +sought: Dora. +</P> + +<P> +He was not far in person from the very spot where earlier in the day +the vision of her had come to him and he had breathed her name and had +her name come floating about him—Dora! Dora! Dora! soft as rose petals +fall, sweet as they. He was not far in person from that +spot—realising her in spirit he was aswoon again in that vision's +ecstasy; and suddenly knew what reason urged his burning mood, and +suddenly discovered why he burned to do. She the sweet cause of all +this new distress!—hers the dear fault that life was now thus changed! +</P> + +<P> +Further than that he might not go—nor cared to seek. It was not +his—nor ever belongs to youth suddenly under the sex attraction—to +know a new ichor was mingled with his blood, causing it to surge and +boil and test the very fibre of his veins. Not his to know a sap that +had been storing in his vigour was now released whence it had +stored—touching new strengths that had not yet been felt; flushing the +brain in cells not yet aroused; and crying, and crying to be relieved; +and causing in his strength a tingling vibrancy, as a willow rod that +has been bent springs upright and vibrates when its constraint is cut. +Not his to know, nor care to seek, how love manifested itself within +him, nor what love was, nor why he loved, nor if, indeed, love were +this sudden thing. He only knew that what had served his boyhood could +not suffice now Dora filled his mind; he only knew that in all the +world to bring to Dora's eyes the light of admiration was his sole +desire; he only knew that to have her hold him in contempt—even in +slight regard—was to endure an outrage unendurable; he only knew he +was possessed to challenge mighty businesses—of arms, of strength, of +courage, of riches—that he might win her smile. +</P> + +<P> +He had the new thoughts now for which he had cried while the tumult of +right and wrong conduct vexed him. She filled his mind, suffused his +being, stood with her exquisite face before his eyes. Peace in the +guise of ardour came where conflict in passion's flame had burned. "If +only I could see her before I go home!" he thought. +</P> + +<P> +The recollection came of a hot day earlier in the week when, at lunch +with Dora and Rollo at the Old Manor, they had conspired to abuse the +sultry weather. "But the evenings are worth it," Dora had said. "In +London it is different;" with her mother she had just come from London +for a few days at Abbey Royal before she went, for her last term, to +the "finishing" school near Paris. "In London it is different—of ten +more stifling at night than in the day. But here! Here the evenings +are worth it. Always after dinner I stroll in the garden—and love it." +</P> + +<P> +If only he could see her before he went home! He looked at his watch +beneath the moonlight. Almost nine o'clock it told him. That would be +about her hour. He could strike across to Abbey Royal in fifteen +minutes if he ran. There was just the chance!—just the chance of a +glimpse of her, the first glimpse since this new and adorable sense of +her had come to be his. He might even speak with her—hear her voice. +Hear her voice!—it was the utmost desire he had in all the world! +There was just the chance!—if it failed, still he could see the home +where she lived, see it with the new eyes that now were his—her home, +the grounds her feet had trod, the gates her hand had touched, the +flowers perhaps her dress had brushed or she had stooped to breathe. +</P> + +<P> +There was just the chance!—along the Ridge, down to Upabbot, behind +the church and so to her home. His mind leapt across his route, eager +to urge his pace. He pocketed his watch and set towards the shrine +that had his heart. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0408"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +WITH DORA IN THE DRIVE +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +There was just the chance! "Ah, Chance be kind!" his prayer, but in +the simpler form: "If only I can see her!" For he could not have told +himself precisely what he desired of her. The new condition of mind +and body that possessed him was too newly come for him clearly to +understand towards what it impelled him. We speak of love as an +intoxication. He was as it were beneath the first and sudden influence +of a draught of wine more potent than the drinker knows—causing an +elevation of the spirits, that is to say, a sharper note in the +surroundings, something of a singing in the ears; a readiness for +adventure, but not a clear notion as to the form of adventure required; +a sudden comprehension that there is more tingling stuff in life than +ever the dull round has revealed; but a sense that it is there and must +be found rather than an exact knowledge of what it will prove to be. +He only knew he wished to see her; that seemed the goal; he had no +thoughts nor fancies to take him to what might lie beyond—then reached +the Abbey gates and saw the drive, and saw her there, and stopped as if +a hand suddenly rebuked him in the throat. +</P> + +<P> +That he felt a surge run through his being and flame upon his face, +that he felt suddenly abashed and could not dare to make his presence +known—these marked his nearness to knowledge of his state. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +The night was very clear. By now the full moon had disdained more +trifling with the clouds that earlier had joined hands about her. Far +to the west they trailed their watery burdens to the hills: she queened +above them—queenly serene, aloof in the unbounded vault that all her +empery of stars about her ruled and divided subject to her rule. The +Abbey gates stood wide. Between their pillars little breezes came to +him and brought to him the fragrance of the flowers that banked the +drive on either hand. He saw they also stirred the dress and some +light scarf that Dora wore. +</P> + +<P> +Mystery was here. He knew not what—only that, conditioned by some new +sense that caused him strangeness, he was upon the threshold of things +as yet unknown. +</P> + +<P> +He watched—afraid as yet. She was stooped above a cluster of pansies. +While he looked, she plucked a blossom here and there, her hand now +hovering above their shade and now caressed amid their bloom, and +raised them to her face. +</P> + +<P> +She turned then and came towards him; and he drew back a step. Mystery +was here; not yet, not yet to challenge what it held! +</P> + +<P> +She reached the gates and paused a moment. The little breezes that had +brought the flowers to him stopped their play; her scarf's floating +ends—gossamer and delicately painted—came softly to her sides. You +might have said that the night airs had heralded her here, had taken +form in her scarf's ends to attend her as she walked, and now awaited +which way she should please to move. +</P> + +<P> +Snow-White-and-Rose-Red! The childish appreciation of her, aroused in +him years before, returned to him again. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red—that +was she! As when a child he had been caused a childish wonder and a +child's unspoilt delight at so rare a thing as she appeared to him, so +now, seeing her for the first time with the new eyes that belonged to +his new condition, he felt himself amazed and almost awed that beauty +could have this degree. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red! All she had promised +in her girlish years dowered her now in the burgeoning of her +maidenhood—and dowered more than it had told, as all the beauty of the +opening bud scarcely can hint the opened blossom's beauty; and dowered +more than it had told by the increasing strangeness, as she grew, of +this rare perfection of each feature in one face. Rare, strangely +rare, the transparent fairness of her skin; rare, rare that almost +crimson shade on either cheek, sharply defined, not blended, as it were +frozen there; rare the dark pansy of her wide and stilly eyes; rare, +most rare of all, transcending all, the high air with which she bore +herself—that her chaste and faultless face maintained, with which her +eyes looked and that her presence seemed to make. +</P> + +<P> +He saw her dress. He saw her scarf to be some filmy veil about her +shoulders and that beneath it all her throat was bare. He saw that it +was turned about her throat in a loose fold that lay where her bosom +was disclosed by the silk evening gown she wore, draped low, but +maidenly discreet. At throat, at breast, at arms, at hands, he saw +this filmy thing was challenged of its whiteness and seemed to take a +shade. +</P> + +<P> +She moved; he thought to speak. Mystery was here and held him on its +threshold. +</P> + +<P> +Watching her he had a sudden new conception of her quality. Later, +when he had spoken to her, when he had left her, when he trod again +each passage of their meeting, recalled her voice, her mode of speech, +and how she bore herself, he recalled that conception and knew it was +most proper to her, and thrilled to know it so. +</P> + +<P> +As he looked, and afterwards as he remembered, he conceived the word +that estimated all her beauty, all her quality and her degree—frozen. +Frozen and thus invested with the strange rareness that frozen beauty +has. Frozen and thus most proper that those flames upon her cheeks +never could stain beyond themselves, as blood that will not run in +snow; proper the quaint precision of the words she used, as icicles +broken in a cold hand; proper the high pitch of her voice, curiously +hard, without modulations, as winter sounds are hard. +</P> + +<P> +Snow-White-and-Rose-Red—and frozen snow and frozen red. She was that +in his new discovery of her: and was that better than he knew; +caparisoned and trained for that. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +She raised to her face the pansies he had seen her gather, caressed +them a moment against her lips, then turned and went a few steps back. +And then he spoke—stepped from the pillar's shadow and into mystery's +doors and called her—"Dora!" +</P> + +<P> +The little breezes ran among the flowers: "Bend! Bend! you sleepy +things and blow her your caresses where she moves again!"—ran among +the tree-tops high above the borders: "Salute! Salute! you sentinels, +and show your joy, she comes!"—chased from her path a daring leaf or +two—sprung to her person and bade her veil attend her—caught his low +whisper and tossed it from her ears. +</P> + +<P> +Tiny the stir; yet stiller all the voice he made. He waited; breathed +her name again—"Dora!" and then she heard. +</P> + +<P> +She gave the faintest start; turned, and said, "Why—Percival?" and +then a little laugh, and then spoke "Percival!" again. +</P> + +<P> +He went to her. "Did I frighten you? I'm sorry." +</P> + +<P> +He went into the mystery that barred him at the gate. Her surprise +caused the shades upon her cheeks to flame to sudden crimson, promoting +her beauty to its most high effect. Her lips—also of her +surprise—were lightly parted, alert, with the aspect of some nymph of +the woods and glades, startled and poised to listen. Not yet, not yet +his to know all the truth of what influence had him here. He only had +known he wished to see her: he only knew now that he wished to stay and +talk with her. He was in the mystery—not yet of it; but already, at +this first contact with her presence, a glimmering, a suspicion +arose—softened his voice, quickened his senses. +</P> + +<P> +"I ought to have been frightened," she said. "I never heard you come. +But I scarcely was startled. It is the most curious circumstance, but +I happened to be thinking of you." +</P> + +<P> +As icicles broken in a cold hand! +</P> + +<P> +He did not cry, as love might have directed him—"Thinking of me! +You!" Not yet, not yet the knowledge that would give that ardour. He +only was boyishly pleased. He only said: "Were you, Dora? I'm awfully +glad you were." +</P> + +<P> +And she, no more aware of deeper things than he: "Well, they were not +particularly nice thoughts I had of you," she said, and gave a little +laugh that toned with the clear pitch of her voice. "Indeed, I was +vexed with you." +</P> + +<P> +He laughed back an easy laugh: "I wonder what I've done?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is what you have not done, Percival—or did not do. I was at the +Manor all the afternoon and had the dullest time that anybody could +imagine. Your fault. Rollo was expecting you to tea, and was looking +out for you all the time, and was the most ungracious person. To me, +you know, it is ridiculous how he seems to dote upon you." +</P> + +<P> +And Percival laughed brightly again. Happy, happy to be with +her—alone, alone at this hour, in this still place! "Old Rollo!" he +laughed. "Well, anyway, if I failed him, I've seen you." +</P> + +<P> +She asked him. "But why have you come—so late?" and at that his +laughter left him. +</P> + +<P> +"I wanted to see you," he said. "I don't know why," and paused. +</P> + +<P> +He did not know; but in declaring it to her, and in that pause, came a +step nearer discovery. Some nameless reason held his speech, and, +while she waited, fluttered in his eyes and communicated its influence +to her also. In that pause suspicion came to both of some strange +element that trembled in the air—fugitive, remote, but causing its +presence to be known as a scent declares itself upon the breeze. She +saw a tinge of redness kindle in his face. He saw the faintest trace +of deepening colour in the shades upon her cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +Not yet, not yet the truth! Transient the spell and quickly gone. +Only, a little shaken by it, "You're going away soon, Dora," he said. +"I think that's why I came." +</P> + +<P> +Free of it: "But that's not a reason," she answered him lightly. "I am +not going so suddenly—not till the end of the week." +</P> + +<P> +"Saturday—it's the day after to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, well, time goes so slowly here." +</P> + +<P> +"Dull for you—I can imagine that. To this French school, are you +going, Dora? I heard you telling Lady Burdon of it." +</P> + +<P> +"It's not a school. No more school for me, and I am very thankful." +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me what you do there." +</P> + +<P> +She went into a sudden break of laughter. She had somewhere picked up +a single vulgar phrase that consorted most strangely with her precise +manner of speech. "Your coming here like this," she laughed, "and +asking such very funny things!"—then used her phrase—"it tickles me +to death." +</P> + +<P> +The piquancy of it delighted him, and he laughed delightedly, and for +some reason had a stronger sense of her rare beauty. Not yet, not yet +the truth, but nearer yet, even as such truth advances by the strangest +and most secret steps. +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me, though, Dora!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, how it can interest you I am puzzled to imagine! Pleasant enough +things, then. There are twelve of us there, all English, I am glad to +say. We never speak English, though—always French; and then there are +German and Italian days; they make us laugh very much." +</P> + +<P> +As icicles broken in the hand! +</P> + +<P> +Her laughter had caused the shades on her cheek to glow. He gazed at +her in sheerest admiration; felt a new stirring of his blood; felt his +breath quicken. She was close, close to him. The little breezes that +had attended her, and had gone as if asulk at his intrusion, came with +a sudden little fury to win her back again, and smote him full with all +the fragrance that she had, and tossed her scarf and tossed her skirt +against him. +</P> + +<P> +She drew back her skirt, using the hand that held the pansies she had +gathered. The action brushed his hand with hers and with her flowers. +</P> + +<P> +Not yet, not yet the truth, but almost come! He slipped his fingers +about her wrist, holding her hand mid-breast between them. "Give me +those flowers, Dora." +</P> + +<P> +She slower in approaching it, but suspicious again of some strange +element in the air, as a fawn that lifts a doubtful head to question a +new thing in the breeze. "You have one buttonhole already," she told +him, her voice not very easy. +</P> + +<P> +He looked down at Ima's wild rose in his coat. "That's nothing," he +said, and began to remove it whence it was pinned. +</P> + +<P> +He was clumsy, for his hand trembled—the other still had hers. He was +clumsy. Thoughts, thoughts, were at hammer in his brain—new to him, +fierce to him and, as from iron in a forge, striking a glow that glowed +within his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +She saw the glow, saw how his hand shook. "It is well fastened," she +said. +</P> + +<P> +He broke off the rose at its head, jerked it aside and drew down the +stalk. She suffered him to take her flowers, and very carefully then +he placed them where the rose had been—hers! hers! That she had +plucked! That she had held! He was at the truth and he looked at her. +</P> + +<P> +She almost there. +</P> + +<P> +The glow in his eyes was turned full upon her and she stepped back from +it. The secret thing the night had was full about her and she had +alarm of it. "I find it rather chilly standing here," she said, "—and +late. I must be going in." +</P> + +<P> +He watched her take the veil about her shoulders another turn about her +throat, and watched her move away a pace. He started after her as +though he burst through bonds that held him. He walked beside her, +moving his tongue in his mouth as though it were locked from words and +sought them; and he could hear his heart knock. +</P> + +<P> +So, without words—in silence that shouted louder than speech—they +came to where the drive bent towards the house. She paused, and he +knew his dismissal. +</P> + +<P> +His face was red, as a child reddens when control of tears is on the +edge of breaking. His voice, when he spoke, had a strained note as the +voice is caused to strain when only one thought can be spoken and a +hundred press for speech. And strange—as between them—the words at +last he found: "Dora, you'd hate a man—wouldn't you?—with +nothing—who just poked along and did nothing?" +</P> + +<P> +It was the door that should introduce her to the knowledge wherein he +struggled. But she was only surprised, not recognising it; and +surprised, relieved indeed. "Any one would," she said. +</P> + +<P> +He flung wide the door. "Ah! Do you suppose I am going to?" +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +Love is an instinct and is played by instinct. Struggling in the +knowledge, in the mystery, that had drawn him here and that now +engulfed him, he scarcely yet was aware that he loved, but by instinct +was put in command of all the cunning of the game. His question +fronted her with personal issue between them; it is the first, the +last, the essential strategy. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Percival!" she said and stopped—saw the door wide; and he saw +the colour deepen where her colour lay. "Why, Percival, why ever +should I suppose it of you?" +</P> + +<P> +He could control his voice no more. The strained note went. He said +thickly: "But you'll begin to think it. In time you're bound to—if I +let you. And then scorn me. If I just idled here you're bound to +scorn me. Any one would—you said it." +</P> + +<P> +Nervous her breathing. "But you—you never could be like that, +Percival. I've always thought of you as doing things. Every one +thinks it. I have noticed how they do." +</P> + +<P> +All the distress he had suffered earlier in the day was back with him +now, joined in fiercest tumult with what caused his heart to knock. He +cried "They soon won't!" and cried it on a bitter note that made her go +an unthinking step towards what waited her. "Percival, they always +will," she said. "I always will, Percival." +</P> + +<P> +The redness went from his face. His own clear voice came back to him. +All, all his being braced from storm to his control. He breathed +"Dora! Will you?" +</P> + +<P> +The stress that had been his was hers. She found no words; she only +nodded—moved her lips for "yes" but made no sound. He had come slowly +to the truth, by blundering ways that sometimes brought him near and +sometimes went astray. She was suddenly come—and come, not of +herself, but of as it were a flame that his voice as he spoke, his +ardour as he bent towards her, seemed to communicate. She was suddenly +come, was a degree bewildered, wanted even yet some further light. She +only nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"Dora, you are going for a long time. I heard you tell—" +</P> + +<P> +She said very low: "For a year." +</P> + +<P> +"Dora! A year!" +</P> + +<P> +"I am to be a year away. It is the last time. It is to finish." +</P> + +<P> +"A year! A year! Oh, Dora, a year!" +</P> + +<P> +Her face was close to his, her lips a shade apart, her wide eyes lifted +to him. Rare, rare he had thought her; perfect he knew her. That +mystic thing the night had held, held them mute, magnetised, privy from +all the world, alone. They stood so close the air he drew had first +caressed her. They stood so close that her young bosom almost told him +how she breathed. Slowly, as he were drawn to it, he stooped towards +her; steadily, as she were held, she suffered his face to approach. +Their lips touched, stayed for a space—smaller, infinitely less, than +mind can conceive; wider, immeasurably more, as their joined spirits +reckoned time, and rushed through time in bliss of ecstasy, than mind +can reckon space. +</P> + +<P> +And then he kissed her. +</P> + +<P> +Crimson she flamed in the places of her colour—flaming and more +flaming and deeper yet their flame. Their sharp limitations drove her +driven white about them; from throat to flame and flame to brow as lily +was her hue. She did not move nor speak, and he, amazed before her +rareness, drew back a step. She might have been a statue, so still she +stood. She might not have breathed, nor thought, so motionless her +breast, her eyes so wide, so still her gaze. Only that glowing scarlet +on her cheeks, only her skin's transparency—soft, deep, as if beneath +it some jewel gave a secret light—declared her mortal and proclaimed +she lived. +</P> + +<P> +A space passed. She came from the trance in which she seemed to be. +She gave a little sigh. As if she had been struck, not kissed; as if +she had been robbed, not possessed. "Oh! Percival!" she said. +</P> + +<P> +And he: "Oh! Dora!" +</P> + +<P> +He sprung to her, took both her hands; clasped them in his and adored +her with his eyes; bent his head to them and raised them to his lips. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Dora, have I hurt you? Oh, Dora, I love you so!" +</P> + +<P> +"Let me go in, Percival!" +</P> + +<P> +He held her hands against his breast. "I could not help it! I could +not help it! I love you, Dora! I've always loved you! I suddenly +knew I'd always loved you!" +</P> + +<P> +She spoke so low he scarcely could hear her voice: "Percival, let me go +in!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Dora, have I hurt you? Dear, dear Dora, you are all the world to +me. I love you so, I love you so!" +</P> + +<P> +The faintest movement of her head gave him his answer and gave him +ecstasy. +</P> + +<P> +"I have not hurt you? You are not angry? I knew—or I would not have +kissed you. Speak to me, dear Dora." +</P> + +<P> +She only whispered: "Percival, I would like to go in. I am afraid." +</P> + +<P> +He cried: "I know. You are so beautiful—so beautiful; not meant for +me to love you." +</P> + +<P> +"You are hurting my hands, Percival." +</P> + +<P> +He kissed her hands again—fragile and white and cold and scented, like +crushed, cold flowers in his grasp. He told her: "From the very first +I loved you—but could not know it then. From that day when I first +saw you! Look how I must have been born to love you—you'll not be +frightened then. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red I called you. Smile, darling +Dora, as you smiled when I told you in the muddy lane that day. Do you +remember?" +</P> + +<P> +She had no smile: still seemed aswoon, still scarcely breathed, as some +bewildered dove—captured, past fluttering—which only quivers in the +hands that hold it. +</P> + +<P> +"If only you can sometimes think of me. You will understand then and +think again perhaps, and know all my life is changed, and know that +everything I do I shall do for you. I'll not see you again. I'll not +be here when you come back." +</P> + +<P> +At that he felt her fingers move within his hands. +</P> + +<P> +"I cannot stay here now—now that I love you. I shall go." +</P> + +<P> +He felt her tremble, and she breathed: "Oh, why? Oh, where?" +</P> + +<P> +"How could I face you again and still be idling here? I don't know +where, Dora. I only know why—because I love you so. Anywhere, +anything to get me something that will give you to me!" +</P> + +<P> +She whispered "Percival!" and stopped as though she had not strength +for more. And he breathed "Dora!" as though he knew what she would say +and by intensity of love would draw it from her. +</P> + +<P> +She slowly drew her hands from his. She took them to her breast, and +faltered again—again as she were wounded, afraid, struck, threatened, +atremble at some fearful brink, robbed of some vital virtue: "Oh, +Percival!" and caught her breath and said "Oh, Percival, what is +it—this?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is love!" he cried. "Dora, it is love!" +</P> + +<P> +She gave a little sigh; she unclasped her hands; seemed to relax in all +her spirit; suffered her hands, like cold white flowers floating +earthwards, lovewards to float to his. +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me!" he breathed. +</P> + +<P> +Soft as her hands fell, "I always shall think of you," she told him. +</P> + +<P> +He besought her "Tell me!" +</P> + +<P> +She whispered "Always!" +</P> + +<P> +In a man's voice, out of a sudden and terrible review of his +condition—possessed of nothing, chained to do nothing—and of her high +estate: "Others will love you!" he cried. +</P> + +<P> +As they would nestle there and there abide, her fingers moved within +his hands. +</P> + +<P> +In a man's voice, full man as full love makes, "Tell me," he besought +her. +</P> + +<P> +Scarcely perceptible her answer came; scarcely her lips moved for +it—faint as the timid breeze ventured to the innermost thicket, soft +as the hushed caress of summer rain along the hedgerows, "I shall +always love you," she breathed. +</P> + +<P> +Shortly he left her. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0409"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +WITH AUNT MAGGIE IN FAREWELL +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +It was past eleven when Percival got back to "Post Offic." He had been +absent seven hours. He felt himself removed by thrice as many years +from the moment when he had flung away from Aunt Maggie to work off by +active exercise the feelings aroused in him when, to his demands that +he must be doing something with his life, she had prayed him only wait. +</P> + +<P> +Day then, night now, and he as changed. +</P> + +<P> +The mood he brought her was unlike any he had proposed should be his +case. On Plowman's Ridge before he saw Japhra he had imagined for his +return a petulant, a trying-to-be-calm scene in which he should repeat +his purpose that an end must be made of the purposeless way of life in +which she was keeping him. By Fir-Tree Pool, with wise Japhra +propounding how a man must encourage his spirit and defeat his flesh, +he had imagined himself gentle with dear Aunt Maggie; gently showing +her what restlessness had him, persuading her to his ends, or, of his +love for her, accepting her wishes. Now he was come back and neither +case was his. Day then, night now, and he as changed. Now he had +lived that hour with Dora in the drive; now he had kissed her; now had +heard her breathe "I shall always love you." Gone every thought of +petulant distress; gone Japhra's counsels—gone boyhood, manhood come! +</P> + +<P> +The change was stamped upon his face, figured in his air. Aunt Maggie +looked up eagerly as he entered. She had waited him anxiously. He +stood a moment on the threshold of the room and looked at her with +steady, reckoning eyes. She saw; and she greeted him fearfully. "Why, +Percival, dear, how very late you are," she said. +</P> + +<P> +He replied: "It took me longer to get back than I expected." +</P> + +<P> +His tone matched his aspect and the look in his eyes. Aunt Maggie's +voice trembled a little: "You must have been a long way, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"A good many miles," he said, and came forward and went to his place at +the table where supper was laid, and sat down. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you very tired, dear?—you look tired." +</P> + +<P> +"No—no, thank you, Aunt Maggie." +</P> + +<P> +His voice was absent—or stern; and absently—or sternly—he looked at +her across the table. +</P> + +<P> +She caught her breath and hesitated, and began pathetically to try by +brightness to rally him from his mood. +</P> + +<P> +"At least you must be terribly hungry," she smiled. "Here comes Honor +with just what you like." +</P> + +<P> +A tray tanged against the door, and was borne in by Honor, uncommonly +grim of the face. +</P> + +<P> +"Now wasn't that clever of Honor!" Aunt Maggie went on. "Five minutes +ago—after waiting since seven—she said she knew you would be just in +time if she began to cook the trout then; and here it is ready, and +most delicious, I'm sure, just as you arrive." +</P> + +<P> +Honor's actual words had been: "Time and tide wait for no dangerous +delays, Miss Oxford, and I don't neither—not a single instant longer. +I'll put these troutses on now which ought to have been on at ten +minutes to seven, and I'll cook 'em, and cook 'em and cook 'em till I +drop fainting on my own kitchen carpet and till they're nasty black +cinders that will serve him right. Lost his way! lost his nasty bold +temper! It's no good talking different to me, Miss, not if your voice +was tinkling trumpets, it isn't!" She had burst in with her tray +prepared to repeat her wrath to Percival's face, but caught the +appealing look in Aunt Maggie's eyes, perceived that something was +seriously amiss with Percival, and exchanged her heat for the affection +he had won in her from the first moment, years before, of his +arrival—the sweetest bundle of shawls—at "Post Offic." +</P> + +<P> +"Cooked to a turn, Master Percival, dear," Honor said, uncovering +before him the steaming dish. +</P> + +<P> +"And only just caught," Aunt Maggie smiled. "Rollo brought them in +just before supper time." +</P> + +<P> +And Honor: "And want it you do, as I can see. Nasty pinched look +you've got, Master Percival." +</P> + +<P> +And Aunt Maggie: "And look at that beer, dear. You'd scarcely think it +was a new cask, would you? As clear as crystal." +</P> + +<P> +And Honor: "Ah, 'Pitch that cask about,' I says to the man when he +delivered it. 'Pitch that cask about, my beauty, and you can pitch it +back into your waggin', I says. 'Young master don't want to eat his +beer with a knife and fork, not if you do,' I says sharp." +</P> + +<P> +And Aunt Maggie: "You see what care we take of you, Percival, although +you leave us all day long." +</P> + +<P> +And Honor: "And now I'll just get your slippers down for you. Nothing +like slippers when you're tired. And then you'll be to rights." +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +So these fond women, perceiving him amiss, strove, as women will, to +heal him with their sympathy; and reckoned nothing—as is woman's +part—that he nothing responded to their gentleness nor anything abated +his set and brooding air. The world may be chased up and down to find +men conspired to soothe a woman's brow and scarcely will disclose a +single case. Men weary or wax impatient of such a task. But every +household at some time shows women gently engaged against a bearish +man. It is the woman's part—womanly as we say: using a rare word for +a beautiful virtue. +</P> + +<P> +At another time—in the days before that evening's magic, in the life +that preceded his present only by that hour in the drive with +Dora—Percival had long been won from moodiness by their solicitude for +him. Not now! Those days were only a single hour gone; its events +sundered them from the present by an abyss that had a lifetime's depth, +a lifetime's breadth from marge to marge. New feelings were his and +they enveloped him against old appeals as a suit of mail against +arrows. New prospects held his eyes and they blotted out homelier +visions as the changed scene of a play is dropped across an earlier +background. He was not preoccupied and therefore unaware of the loving +sentences addressed to him. His case was this—that he was a new man, +and as a stranger, therefore, listening to affections that did not +concern him. That he found himself insensible to their appeal was not +that he loved Aunt Maggie less or had suffered abatement of the +affection he had for hot-tongued, warm-hearted Honor. None of these. +It was this only—that he loved another more; this only—that the fires +of his love had sprung out in a new place and there burned with heat +infinitely more fierce than the flame where formerly his affections had +warmed their hands. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +Such of his meal as he required—and that was what habit, not appetite, +demanded—he ate in silence. To silence also Aunt Maggie went, shortly +after Honor had left them. She attempted once or twice to continue to +persuade him from his mood—protested that he was eating nothing; +sought to rally him with little scraps of gossip, with questions +touching his afternoon. Of no avail. Presently she clasped her hands +together on the table before him, and only watched him, and only sought +to discover from his face what thing it was his face betided, and only +felt her fears increase. +</P> + +<P> +When he was done he pushed back his chair and she dropped her eyes, for +his were now upon her and had the steady, reckoning look she had +observed—and feared—when he regarded her for that moment at his +entrance. She could not endure the feeling that he watched her, and +watched her so. "You will go to bed soon, Percival," she said. "You +do look so tired." +</P> + +<P> +He replied: "I am not tired. I have something to ask you first, Aunt +Maggie;" and after a pause he went on: "Aunt Maggie, I was telling you +this afternoon that I thought I ought to be doing something. Well, +more than that I thought I ought to be doing something, and more than +merely telling you—because I know I was in a great state about it and +went off in a great state." +</P> + +<P> +She answered, "Yes, Percival?" +</P> + +<P> +"You said there was plenty of time for that." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Percival." +</P> + +<P> +"There isn't, Aunt Maggie." And he went on quickly: "there isn't +plenty of time to think about what I am going to do. I am not a boy +any longer. Even if I started to-morrow I should be starting late. +Every one at my age is doing something." +</P> + +<P> +His tone was firm and quiet but was kind. She said that which made it +take a harder note. +</P> + +<P> +"Percival, you need only wait," she said, "till you are twenty-one." +</P> + +<P> +She saw his face darken in a change as swift and chill as sudden shadow +along the sea. "Oh, that!" he cried. "That! I don't want to hear +that any more or ever again! Is that all you have for me?" +</P> + +<P> +She clasped and unclasped her hands on the table before her. He waited +several moments for her answer. Then he said: "And what am I to do +till then?" +</P> + +<P> +She told him: "Only wait with me, Percival." +</P> + +<P> +He said very quietly: "No, I will not wait. I will not stay with you. +I am going away." +</P> + +<P> +The stress that each suffered was broken out of them by his +announcement. The thought of losing him, the thought of how a word, +revealing her secret, would keep him, broke from her in her cry: "No, +no, Percival! Oh, Percival, no!" +</P> + +<P> +Her sudden voice and its anguish smote him to his depths in his own +stress as a sudden cry in the night that shocks the heart. He uttered +in a voice she had never heard—most hoarse, most atremble: "Oh, +understand! For pity's sake try to understand. I am so that I will +never sleep again—never again till I have earned my sleep. Oh, +understand that I am a man!" +</P> + +<P> +She saw his dear face, his handsome face, his face that she loved so +and was to lose unless she spoke, all twisted up as though he writhed +in pain. She cried: "Percival, don't look like that. I can keep you. +I cannot let you go." +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her with eyes that told his anguish of this scene and of +his spirit. "You cannot keep me," he said. "I am going." +</P> + +<P> +She breathed: "By telling you I can keep you." +</P> + +<P> +He said: "Tell me, then."' +</P> + +<P> +She began, her tongue heavy as a key is rusty that is to turn in a lock +closed eighteen years; "Rollo—" she began, and stopped. +</P> + +<P> +He had for a moment believed that she intended to tell him this matter +affecting his future that he knew must be delusion—some wonderful +plan, as wonderful as impossible, such as a woman leading Aunt Maggie's +retired life might have—whose delusion, having it before him, he could +at last show her. But at her "Rollo," disappointed, he broke out, "Oh, +what has old Rollo to do with it?" +</P> + +<P> +Her voice was making a stumbling effort to hold on at turning the key. +But his "Old Rollo" caused her to halt, afraid, as one turning a key in +very fact might halt and draw back at a footstep. +</P> + +<P> +He saw her face go grey with the hue of ashes. "Aunt Maggie!" he +cried, and got up quickly and went to her. "I don't mean to be unkind. +I must go. I cannot stay. But I'm not going angry—not running away. +I love you—love you, you know how I love you. Just think of it as +going on a visit. It's no more than that. I'm going with old +Japhra—that's not like going, being with him, is it?" +</P> + +<P> +She just said: "When, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"Darling, in the morning. At daybreak." +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +She began to cry, and clung to him. But it was more than losing him +had made that ashy hue in her face that had wrung his heart. It was +realisation of a sudden thing that menaced her revenge—a thing +suddenly arisen in its long, long path whose end she now was reaching. +Thinking, when the hour came, the more dreadfully to strike Lady +Burdon, she had deliberately made possible and had encouraged the +friendship between Percival and Rollo. Had she gone too far? What +when she told Percival and he saw it was "Old Rollo" he was to +displace, "Old Rollo" upon whom he was to bring disaster—what if—? +</P> + +<P> +She dared not so much as finish that question. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0410"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +WITH EGBERT IN FREEDOM +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +In the morning when he came early to her room, she was easier and able +only to suffer her distress at losing him. Thoughts had come to her, +helping her; and helping her the more in that they were of a part with +the fatalism which had assured her at Audrey's death-bed that nothing +could go wrong in her scheme. His resolve to go away was surely, she +thought, fate's contribution to her success. Always she had planned +for twenty-one—when he should be of age, and qualified himself to +avenge his mother. Last night, in agony at losing him, she had nearly +robbed herself of that. Fate, in guise of her panic realisation of his +affection for Rollo, had interfered to stop her. Last night she had +thought it insupportable to be left without him. While she lay +sleepless—and heard her darling pacing his floor in the next +room—fate had again encouraged her heart by showing her that this was +well, not ill—that this was fate working for her; well that he should +now, in the last period, be separated from Rollo. +</P> + +<P> +Thus supported she was saved from the uttermost extremity of the +collapse that came upon her when fondly he kissed her as she lay in +bed, left her, returned to press her to him again.—"Think of it as a +visit, Aunt Maggie, only that. Just a visit to give these idle +whacking great hands something to do"—and then was gone. +</P> + +<P> +One or two—up thus early—who saw him go by and came to Aunt Maggie +when it was noised that he had gone away, told her how stern he +looked—how strange. Miss Purdie, early in her garden, had noticed it. +"Oh, Miss Oxford, if I had <I>known</I>! Oh, to <I>think</I> he was going when I +saw him! Oh, and I <I>suspected</I> something was wrong. There was +<I>something</I> in his face I had <I>never</I> seen there before. I thought to +myself 'Now <I>what</I> is the matter with you, I wonder?' And I <I>stood</I> +and <I>looked</I> after him, and dropped one of my garden gloves and never +<I>knew</I> I had lost it until I was back in the house and found I had only +<I>one</I> to take off. Oh, when I <I>think</I> of all his sweet ways and his +handsome face...." +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +Stern he looked and strange, and stern his thoughts and difficult. His +plans ran to coming up with Japhra on the Dorchester Road and joining +him. Beyond?—he could supply nothing beyond. His urgent desire went +to being away from home, and for his own respect and for his mind's +ease working to earn his food. Beyond?—he could see nothing beyond. +His thoughts and all his heart and all his being went to his Dora, to +her exquisite beauty, to the rapture of their kiss, to the divine +ecstasy of her whisper, "I shall always love you;" beyond?—black, +black beyond, most utter black, most utter hopeless; emptiness most +utter, mock most shrill, most sharp. +</P> + +<P> +He laughed, poor boy; and "Fool! Fool!" cried, "abject fool!" He +groaned, poor boy, and "Dora! Dora!" cried, "oh! Dora!" He set his +teeth, poor boy, and braced his strength; threw up his chin and +clenched a fist, and "Somehow! Somehow!" cried, "Somehow!" +</P> + +<P> +Most to be pitied then, poor boy, as old friend wind, in whose path now +he came, knew and mocked, or might have known and surely +mocked—buffeting him with "Ha! Ha! Ha!" tossing his "Somehow! +Somehow!" from his lips and chasing it and tearing it as old friend +wind had heard resolves and mocked and tossed and chased and torn them +from end to end along its course since mankind first resolving came. +</P> + +<P> +But he was helped by that strong "Somehow!" as by resolve mankind—and +youth the most of all—is ever helped. More stern, not less, it made +him, but launched a shaft of light into the darkness of that +Beyond—showing the adventure, not the desert there; inspiring him that +somehow stuff was to be found there that somehow he would wrest to +himself, somehow shape and beat to win him fulfilment of all his hopes. +</P> + +<P> +Thus he was in brighter mood when presently he brought the white riband +of the Dorchester road into view, in mood bright enough to laugh when, +striking towards the spot where he proposed to pick up the van, he saw +on a gate there a lank figure, bundle over shoulder, that suggested to +him it could be no one but Egbert Hunt. He laughed—then had a tender +look in his eyes, for his thoughts, as he made along in the direction +of gate and figure, went to Rollo. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +On his way home, when he had left Dora on the previous night, he had +called in at Burdon Old Manor to bid Rollo good-by. Lady Burdon had +gone to bed. He found Rollo in the billiard room, Egbert Hunt marking +for him, and it was what had passed between them that had emphasised +the endearment in his tone when he had said "Old Rollo" to Aunt Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +Tender his look when he recalled how "Old Rollo," hearing he was going +away, had dropped his cue and stared at him in blank dismay, then +questioned him, and then had listened with twitching mouth when he had +cried, "Oh, Rollo, things are so steep for me, old man. I can't +explain. I must get out of this, that's all!" +</P> + +<P> +For the first time—and the only time—in all their friendship it had +been Rollo's to play the supporter. "Why, Percival, dear, dear old +chap," he had cried, "don't look like that. For God's sake, don't. +Whatever's wrong I can help you. We are absolute, absolute pals. No +one ever had such a pal as you've been to me—now it's my turn. Stay +here with us a bit, old man. Yes, that's what you'll do. Let's fix +that, old man. That will make everything right. Everything I've got +is yours—you know that, don't you, old man?" +</P> + +<P> +And when he had shaken his head and had explained that it was +work—work for his hands he wanted, and was going to find with Japhra, +Rollo had vented his feelings on Egbert Hunt with "What the devil are +you standing there listening for, Hunt? Get out of this! Didn't I +tell you to go? Get out!" And when they were alone, and when he had +seen that Percival was not to be moved, had revealed his affection in +last words that brought a dimness to Percival's eyes as he recalled +them. +</P> + +<P> +"Men don't talk about these things," Rollo had said, "so I've never +told you all you are to me—but it's a fact, Percival, that I'm never +really happy except when I'm with you. I've been like that ever since +we met, and in all the jolly days we've had together. You know the +sort of chap I am—quite different from you. I don't get on with other +people. I've always hated the idea of going to Cambridge this October +because it means mixing with men I shan't like and leaving you. You're +everything to me, old man. It's always been my hope—I don't mind +telling you now you're going—that when I settle down, after I come of +age—you know what I mean—it's always been my hope that we'll be able +to fix it up together somehow. I shall have business and things to +look after—you know what I mean—that you can manage a damn sight +better than I can. And I'll want some one to look after me—the kind +of chap I am; a shy ass, and delicate. And you're the one, the only, +only one. Just remember that, won't you, old man?..." +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +Percival was aroused from his warm recollection of it by the figure on +the gate hailing him. Egbert Hunt it was. "Good lord!" Percival +cried. "What on earth are you doing here—this time in the morning and +with that bundle?" +</P> + +<P> +"Coming with you," said Hunt. +</P> + +<P> +"With me! Do you know where I'm going?" +</P> + +<P> +Egbert Hunt pointed up the road where Japhra's van came plodding. "In +that. Heard you tell Lord Burdon last night. Heard you say that Mr. +Stingo's crowd was short of hands. The life for me. Fac'." +</P> + +<P> +Percival stared at him—a grown man now, lanky, unhealthy, white of +face. +</P> + +<P> +"Does Rollo—does Lord Burdon know? Did he say you might go?" +</P> + +<P> +"Told me to go to 'ell." +</P> + +<P> +Percival laughed. "You'll find it that—you frightful ass." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll be free," said Egbert darkly. "No man's slave I won't be any +more. Every man's as good as the next where you're bound, I reckon. +No more tyrangs for me. You're my sort, and always have been." +</P> + +<P> +The van was up to them and pulled up with Japhra's surprised hail of +greeting. Percival went to him where he sat on the forward platform. +"Japhra, here's a hand for one of your crowd—a friend of mine. Is +there work for him?" +</P> + +<P> +Japhra looked at Egbert with unveiled belittlement. "There's work for +all sorts," he said drily. "For him perhaps. Get up behind," he +addressed Egbert. "I'll let old One Eye have a look at thee. He wants +a hand." +</P> + +<P> +Percival swung up beside Japhra and smiled good morning at Ima, who had +come to the door. "Go on, Japhra." +</P> + +<P> +"That's a poor lot, that friend of thine," said Japhra, clicking his +tongue at Pilgrim. "How far dost thou come with us, little master?" +</P> + +<P> +"All the way, Japhra." +</P> + +<P> +Japhra looked at him keenly. "To Dorchester?" +</P> + +<P> +"Farther than that. I'm going to be third lad in your boxing booth, +Japhra. Go on; I'll explain." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0411"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XI +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +WITH JAPHRA ON THE ROAD +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +It was two years—near enough—before Percival came again to Burdon +Village. Egbert Hunt found work with old One Eye who had the Wild West +Rifle Range. Percival became "Japhra's Gentleman" (as the van folk +called him), living with Japhra and Ima in the van, and earning his way +in Japhra's booth. +</P> + +<P> +A tough life, a quick life, a good life; and he "trained on," as they +said in the vans of beast or man or show that, starting fresh, slipped +into stride and did well. He trained on. Little room for trouble or +for brooding thoughts. Up while yet the day was grey; stiff work in +boots and vest and trousers in taking down the booth and loading-up, +harnessing and getting your van away before too many kept the dust +stirring ahead of you. Keen appetite for the breakfasts Ima cooked, +eaten on the forward platform with the van wheels grinding the road +beneath. The long, long trail to the next pitch,—now with Ima as she +sat, one eye on the horse, the other on her needle, sewing, darning, +making; now plodding alongside with Japhra, drinking his quaint +philosophy, hearing his strange tales of men and countries, fights and +hard trades he had seen. Now forward along the long line of waggons, +now dropping back where they trailed a mile down the road; joining this +party or that, chaffing with the brown-faced girls or walking with the +men and listening to their tales of their craft and of their lives. +Sometimes the road from pitch to pitch was short; then the midday meal +would be taken at the new site and there would be an hour's doze before +the booths were set up and business begun. Usually the journey took +the greater part of the day—frequently without a halt—and work must +begin immediately on arrival; the boxing booth built up—first the +platform on which Percival and Japhra, Ginger Cronk and Snowball White +paraded to attract the crowd—a thing of boards and trestles, the +platform, that by sheer sweating labour must be made to lie even and +stable whatever the character of the ground; three uprights at either +end that sometimes must be forced into soil iron hard and sometimes +must be coaxed to hold firm in marshy bog. The booth itself to be +rigged then—the wooden framework that must be lashed and nailed and +screwed; the wide lengths of canvas eyeletted for binding together; +stakes for the ring to be driven in; seats to be bolted together and +covered—and all at top, top speed with a mouthful of nails and screws +and "Who in hell's got that mallet?" and "A hand here! a hand sharp! +Blast her! she's slipped again!" and many a bruised finger and always a +sweating back. And then sharp, sharp into the flannels, and out with +the gloves; and parade till the booth was full; and spar exhibition +rounds alleged to be for weighty purses; and fight all the challengers +from the crowd four rounds apiece, any weight; and top-up with a stiff +six rounds announced by Snowball White: "A sporting gentleman having +put up a purse for knock-out or win on points match between Ginger +Cronk, ten stun champion of the west,—who beat Curly Hawkins in eight +rounds, knocked out Alf Jacobs after a desperate ding-dong o' fourteen +rounds, defeated Young Philipps in five rounds, and Jew Isaacs in +sixteen,—and Gentleman Percival, a lad with a future before him, whom +you'll be proud to have seen, gentlemen, discovered this summer by +Gipsy Japhra, the man who held the lightweight champion belt for four +years in America and who has trained with all the great ring heroes, +bare-knuckle men, gentlemen, of a glorious Prize Ring period of the +past. You are requested to pass no remarks during the progress of this +desperate encounter, but to signify appreciation in the usual manner. +Gentlemen, Mr. Ginger Cronk, Mr. Gentleman Percival—TIME!—" And so +on; and winding up with "a remarkable exhibition in which Gipsy Japhra, +partnered by Gentleman Percival, will show the style and methods of the +old P. R. gentlemen"—and then back to the platform again, to parade, +to fill the booth, to fight—and so till the last visitor had left the +fair to night and to its hoarse and worn-out workers. +</P> + +<P> +A tough life, a quick life, a good life; ... and Percival trained on. +At first he had been considerably tasked by the rough and tumble, +ding-dong work in the boxing booth following the strenuous labour of +the day, with no time lost between pitch and pitch. Aching limbs he +had dropped on his couch when at last rest came, and tender face, +bruised from six or seven hours' punching, that even the soft pillow +seemed to hurt. But he trained on. In a few weeks it was tired to bed +but unaching, unhurt—only deliciously weary with the wearyness of +perfect muscles and nerves relaxed to delicious rest; early afoot, +keen, and sound, and vigorous; brisk, ready smiling to jump into the +ring for the last P. R. exhibition with old Japhra as for the first +spar with Ginger Cronk or Snowball White. "Thou art the fighting +type," wise Japhra had told him years before; and those exhibition +rounds with the old man were each of them lessons that brought him to +rare skill with his fists. +</P> + +<P> +While they sat together before their turn Japhra would instruct what +was to be learnt this time, and while they sparred "Remember!" Japhra +would call, "Remember! Good! Good!—Weak! Weak!—Follow it! Follow +it!—Speed's thy game!—Quick as thou canst sling them!—See how that +hook leaves thee unguarded!—Again!—All open to me again!—Again!—ah, +take it, then!" and <I>clip!</I> to the unprotected stomach, savage as he +could drive it, would come old Japhra's left; and Percival go gasping, +and Ginger Cronk to the spectators: "With that terrible punch, +gentlemen, Gipsy Japhra knocked out Boy Duggan and took the +championship belt at Los Angeles. Put your hands together, gentlemen, +and give 'em a 'earty clap." When the round was ended Japhra would go +over it point by point. When they sat or walked together, at meals or +on the road, he was forever imparting his advice, his knowledge, his +experience. He waas never tired of teaching ... and Percival trained +on. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +There came a day when "Thou must go slow with me," Japhra said after +they had finished their round. "I have put skill to thy youth and +strength. Thou must go slow with me or the folks will see nothing of +the parts I am to show them." There came a day when he was given +demonstration—if he had cared to recognise it for such—that the van +folk knew him for a clever one with his fists. Foxy Pinsent supplied +it. +</P> + +<P> +In all the crowd of tough characters that made up Maddox's Royal Circus +and Monster Menagerie with its attendant booths Foxy Pinsent alone gave +him a supercilious lip or darkling scowl where others gave him smile +and welcome. Foxy Pinsent had an old grudge against him—as Japhra had +said—and lost no opportunity to rub it. The fact that "Japhra's +Gentleman" was in the way of becoming a rival attraction to his own +fame among the crowds that flocked to the fairs sharpened his spleen. +The ever increasing bad blood between the two factions—Maddox's and +Stingo's—gave him chance to exercise it. +</P> + +<P> +Percival came hot to Japhra one day: "Damn that man Pinsent, Japhra. +He's going too far with me. He's been putting it about the vans that I +am too much the gentleman to go with a Maddox man—that I said in his +hearing I refused to go with Dingo Spain to buy bread yesterday because +I would not be seen in his company by decent people." +</P> + +<P> +Japhra looked up at the angry face: "Let him bide. Let him bide." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not afraid of him." +</P> + +<P> +"Nor I of adders, but I do not disturb their nests—nor lie in their +ways." +</P> + +<P> +On a day the reason came for Percival to cross the adder's way. Egbert +Hunt knocked over a bucket in which one of Pinsent's negro pugilists +was about to wash. The man used his fists, then his boots, on Hunt, +sending him back brutally used. Percival sought out the black, +outfought him completely, and administered a punishing that appeared to +him to meet the case. Then came Pinsent. +</P> + +<P> +"You've put your hands to one of my men, I hear—to Buck Osborn?" +</P> + +<P> +"An infernal bully," said Percival. +</P> + +<P> +"You've put your hands to one of my men!" +</P> + +<P> +"And will again if he gives me cause!" +</P> + +<P> +Foxy Pinsent came nearer, thin mouth and narrow eyes contracted in his +ring expression. "Watch me, my gentleman; my lads' quarrels are mine. +Watch out how you go your ways." +</P> + +<P> +Percival glanced behind to see he had room: "You can leave that to me. +I'll not have my friends knocked about." +</P> + +<P> +"It's you in danger of the knocking about, my gentleman! That fine +face of yours would take a bloody mark." +</P> + +<P> +Percival slipped back his right foot six inches and glanced behind him +again: "Try it, Pinsent." +</P> + +<P> +Foxy Pinsent noticed the action. He moved his left fist upwards a +trifle, then dropped it to his side and turned away with a laugh: "I +don't fight boys; I thrash 'em." +</P> + +<P> +"You know where to find me," Percival said. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +So and in this wise he trained on to the tough, quick, good life; and +in spirit developed as in body. The deeper he knew Japhra, the wider +became his comprehension of life. He had failed once in the struggle +with self, and that on the very night of Japhra's instruction of how +that struggle should be fought: he was training on now not to fail +again if ever the Big Fight should come. "What, art thou vexed again?" +Japhra would say when sometimes he fell to brooding. "Get at the +littleness of it—get at the littleness of it. It will pass. Remember +what endureth. Not man nor man's work—only the green things that fade +but come again Spring by Spring; only the brown earth that to-day +humbly supports thee, to-morrow obscurely covers thee; only the hills +yonder that shoulder aside the wind; only the sea that changeth always +but changeth never; only the wind on our cheeks here, that to-day +suffers itself to go in harness to yonder mill and to-morrow will wreck +it and encourage the grass where it stood. Lay hold on that when aught +vexeth thee; all else passeth...." +</P> + +<P> +He trained on. Trifle by trifle and more and more he received and +held, understood and stored for profit the little man's philosophy; +trifle by trifle, more and more, developed qualities that made for the +quality of self-restraint that ripened within him. Whatever his mood +there was always peace and balm for him in the van. Many signs +discovered to him that he was not merely an accepted part of Japhra's +life and Ima's but a very active part; the little stir of welcome told +him that—the little stir that always greeted him when he came on them +sitting together. +</P> + +<P> +They called him "Percival" now, at his desire. To Japhra he was still +sometimes Little Master; to Ima never. But in Ima's ways and in her +speech he noticed altogether a change in these days. The "Thou" and +"Thee" and "Thine" of her former habit were gone: she never appeared +now with naked feet, but always neatly hosed and shod. Gentle in her +movements too, and seemly in her dress, Percival noticed, and he came +to find her strange—a thing apart—in her rough surroundings; strange +to them and remote from them when she sat plying her needle, attending +to his hungry wants and Japhra's, or mothering some baby from a +neighbour's van. He came to think her—contrasted thus with all the +sights and sounds about her—the gentlest creature that could be; her +voice wonderfully soft, her touch most kind when she dressed a bruise +or nursed him, as once when he lay two days sick. She mended his +clothes; made some shirts for him; passed all his things through her +hands before he might wear them; and never permitted him clothes +soiled, or lacking buttons, or wanting the needle. +</P> + +<P> +He was leaving the van once to go into the town against which they were +pitched. She called him back. The scarf he wore was soiled, she said, +and she came to him with a clean one. +</P> + +<P> +He laughed at her: "It's absolutely good enough." +</P> + +<P> +"No, soiled," she said, and took it from his neck and placed the other. +</P> + +<P> +He playfully prevented her fingers. "I'm like a child with a strict +nurse—the way you look after me." +</P> + +<P> +She replied, smiling but serious: "It is not for you to get into rough +ways." +</P> + +<P> +"They're good enough for me." +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head. "You are not always for such." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0412"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XII +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +LETTERS OF RECALL +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +The first winter of this life Percival spent with Japhra in the van; +the second took him, for the first time since he had broken away, back +to "Post Offic." Ima left them, when the circus broke up in that first +October, to go to her doctor friend in Norfolk, there to continue the +education she had imposed upon herself. Egbert Hunt took her place, +and the three started to tour the country till Spring and the +reassembly of Maddox's should be round again. But winter on the road +proved inclement to Mr. Hunt's nature. A week of frost in early +December that had them three days snow-bound and on pinching short +commons decided him for less arduous ways of life. He left them for +London, his pockets well enough lined by his season's apprenticeship to +old One Eye; they had news of him once as a socialist open air speaker +in company with some organisation of malcontents of his kidney; once as +prominent in an "unemployed" disturbance and in prison for seven days +as the price of his activities. +</P> + +<P> +"He will know gaol a longer term ere he has done," was Japhra's +comment. "A weak, bad streak in him." +</P> + +<P> +Percival laughed. "Poor old Hunt. More bitter than ever against +'tyrangs' now, Japhra. He's been shaping that way since I first knew +him—often made me laugh with his outbursts." +</P> + +<P> +"Best keep clear of that kind," Japhra said. "The stick for such." +</P> + +<P> +They pushed North. Neither had a feeling for roofs or fireside that +winter. The tinkering and the Punch and Judy kept them in enough funds +scarcely to draw upon the season's profits. Japhra plied him at the +one; Percival took chief hand in the other. A tough life, a quiet +life, a good life. With only their two selves for company they talked +much and read much of the three fighting books that were Japhra's +library. Percival was almost sorry when Maddox's was picked up again +and Ima rejoined them. He welcomed the second winter when it came; +chance fell that it had him scarcely a month alone with Japhra when it +saw him leave the van, and homeward bound to Burdon. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +Two letters gave him this sudden impulse. Both were from "Post +Offic"—one forwarded thence—and seemed to have partnered one another +on a long and devious search before finding him. One was from Aunt +Maggie. The other he opened first and opened with hands that trembled +a little. Well he knew that regular, clear writing! He had only seen +it in notes to Rollo, invitations to tea, in the days gone by, but it +was as memorized to him as in him every memory of her was +graven—Dora's! +</P> + +<P> +His hands trembled that held this the first sign of her since he had +left her in the drive at Abbey Royal on that night eighteen months +before, and his breath ran quick. The first sign! He had urged her at +their parting he might write to her. She had desired he should not. +Letters at the French school might only come, it appeared, from +parents, or in handwriting authorised by parents, and only to such +quarters might be addressed. He had accepted the fate. Nay, well it +should be so, he had told her. He would not—could not, for he loved +her so!—see her again, be the time never so long, till somehow he had +won some place in the world; very well, not even write to her. Their +hearts alone should bind them: "For, Dora, you are to be mine. Somehow +I shall do it—not see you till I have. You will remember—that is +all, remember." +</P> + +<P> +How had she remembered? He broke the seal and held his breath to read. +</P> + +<P> +She wrote from Burdon House in Mount Street: explaining the address as +though he had not known Mrs. Espart had taken it on lease at the time +of Lord Burdon's death:— +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +DEAR PERCIVAL, +</P> + +<P> +We returned here yesterday from the South of France, where we have been +with Rollo and Lady Burdon. Did you know that Mother has taken Rollo's +house here until he wants it and turns us out? I am writing for Rollo. +I think you will be distressed to learn that he has been very +ill—beginning with pneumonia. But we left him better, and they are +following us to London soon. He most urgently desired me to tell you +this, and that you must come and see him then. He says that he must +see you again; and, indeed, he is forever talking of you. As to that, +I must tell you that when I was with him we saw in an illustrated paper +some pictures entitled "Life among the Showmen;" and in one, on a tent +was to be seen "Gentleman Percival." From what Rollo told us, that was +your tent. He was very excited about it; and to me it was very +singular to have come upon it like that. +</P> + +<P> +Well, I have written his address on the back of this, and you must +certainly write to him or he will think that I have not told you and +that I side with Lady Burdon and Mother in estimating that you are +"very wild," which I do not. +</P> + +<P> +I address this to your home; but it is hard to know if it will ever +reach you. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Yours sincerely,<BR> + DORA ESPART.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +How had she remembered? No trace of any memory of love was in the +lines he carried to his lips and read again and many times again. He +reckoned nothing of that. He read what he had expected to find. He +read herself, as in the months that separated that magic hour in the +drive he had come again to think of her—as one as purely, rarely, +chastely different from her sisters as driven snow upon the Downside +from snow that thaws along the road; as one that he should never have +dared terrify by his rough ardour into that swooning "Oh, Percival, +what is it, this?" Realising that moment of his passion, he sometimes +writhed in self-reproach to think how violently he must have distressed +her: sometimes hoped she had forgotten it—else surely shame of how her +delicacy had been ravished at his hands would make her shrink at +meeting him again. So this letter that had no hint of memory of love +rejoiced and moved him to his depths. Unchanged from his boyish +adoration of her, it revealed her, and unchanged he would have her be. +Its precise air, its selected words, its stilted phrases, spoke to him +as with her very voice—"It was very singular to me;" "It is hard to +know:" as icicles broken in the hand! Snow-White-and-Rose-Red—and +frozen snow and frozen red! +</P> + +<P> +He was ardent and atremble in the resolve that he must get to London on +Rollo's return and make old Rollo the excuse to see her again—touch +her, perhaps; speak to her, ah!—then, and not till then, bethought him +of his second letter. From Aunt Maggie; and he drew it from his pocket +with prick of shame at his neglect of it. He had from time to time +written to Aunt Maggie. Her letters were less frequent; easier to +write to "Post Offic" than for "Post Offic" to write to him, ever on +the move. +</P> + +<P> +Three closely-written sheets came from the envelope. They contained +many paragraphs, each of a different date—Aunt Maggie waited, as she +explained, until she could be sure of an address to which to post her +letter. There was much gossip of a very intimately domestic nature, +each piece of news beginning with "I think this will interest you, +dear." Before he was through with the letter the recurrence of the +phrase, speaking so much devotion, caused a moisture to come to his +eyes. "I think this will interest you, dear"—and the matter was that +Honor burnt a hole in a new saucepan yesterday. "I think this will +interest you, dear"—and "fancy! fourteen letters were posted in the +box to-day." "I think this will interest you, dear"—and would he +believe it! "one of the ducks hatched out sixteen eggs yesterday." +</P> + +<P> +The more trivial the fact, the more Percival found himself affected. +He was touched with the profound pathos of Aunt Maggie's revelation of +how he centered each smallest detail of her remote and lonely life; he +was rendered instantly responsive to the appeal with which at the end +of her letter she cried to him to come home to see her—if only for a +night. "This will be the second Christmas that you have been away. +The days are, oh! so very, very long for me without my darling boy." +</P> + +<P> +He told Japhra that he must go—not for long, and if for longer than he +thought, at least the first of the new year would see him back. They +were in Essex. Urgent with this sudden determination that had him, he +took train for London on the next morning, and before midday was set +down at Liverpool Street Station. Holiday mood seized him now that he +had taken holiday. He counted again and again the sixty-five pounds +that, to his amazed joy,—he, who till now had never earned a +penny!—Japhra paid him for two seasons' wage and share. It seemed a +fortune—forced up the holiday spirit as bellows at a forge; and on the +way to Waterloo he ridded his burning pockets of a portion of it in +clothes and swagger kit-bag for this his holiday, and in presents that +brought parcels of many shapes and sizes into his cab—for Aunt Maggie, +for Honor, for Mr. Amber, for Mr. Hannaford, for all to whom his heart +bounded now that he was to see them again. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +In these delights he missed his train. Two hours were on his hands +before the next, and as he contemplated them a daring thought (so he +considered it) came to him. He took a hansom cab and bade the man +drive him to Mount Street,—through Mount Street and so back again. He +would see where she lived! +</P> + +<P> +"Drive slowly up here," he told the man when the cab turned into the +street for which he watched. "Do you know Burdon House?" +</P> + +<P> +It was pointed out ahead of him. "Set down there many a time. Lord +Burdon's 'ouse it was. Another party's got it now." +</P> + +<P> +Percival leant back, not to be seen—not daring to be seen!—and +stared, his pulses drumming, as he was slowly carried past. +</P> + +<P> +Might there have troubled him some vague, secret feeling of association +between himself and that brown, massive front of Burdon House with its +broad steps leading to the heavy double doors, with its tall, +wrought-iron railings above the area, with its old torch extinguishers +on either side the entrance, with its quiet, impassive air that large +old houses have, as of guardians that know much and have seen +much—brides come and coffins go, birth and death, gay nights and sad, +glad hours and sorry—and look to know more and see more? Might he +have felt, as he told Aunt Maggie he had felt at Burdon Old Manor, +"thinking without thinking, as if some one else were thinking," as he +passed those steps where one that he might have called Father often had +gaily passed, where one he might have called Mother had gone wearily up +and come fainting, dizzily down? +</P> + +<P> +He felt, nor was disturbed, by none of those. He only gazed, gazed as +he would pierce them, at all its solemn windows, riveted its every +feature on his mind; but only because it was where she must have +looked, because it sheltered her where she must be. It was a new +setting against which he might envisage her; he only thought of it as +that. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0413"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIII +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +MR. AMBER DOES NOT RECOGNISE +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +It was in dreams that night that vague, secret influences of his sight +of Burdon House came stealing about him—if such they were; he +attributed them to the disturbance of an event that greeted him within +a few hours of his gay arrival at "Post Offic." +</P> + +<P> +He had announced his coming by telegram. He took Plowman's Ridge on +leaving the train at Great Letham, old friend wind greeting him with +most boisterous Ha! Ha! Ha! and as he came down the slope two figures +broke from the little copse and came fluttering up the Downside towards +him—one slight with running tears, and outstretched, eager arms; the +other gaunt and grim, uncompromising of visage, but with eyes aglisten. +</P> + +<P> +"Aunt Maggie! Aunt Maggie!" +</P> + +<P> +"My boy! My Percival!" +</P> + +<P> +Her boy's arms went about her: for a space neither moved after that +first cry. He only held her—close, close to him; she only clung to +him, her face to his, and felt his dear face stop her flowing tears. +</P> + +<P> +He held her from him then at arm's length, the better to gaze at her; +and she overcame her foolish tears and told him: "How you have grown! +How handsome you have grown!" +</P> + +<P> +And Honor grimly, with grimness spoilt by chokey utterance: "Ah, +handsome is as handsome don't make fine birds!" +</P> + +<P> +"You've got it wrong, you frightful old goose!" cried Percival; and +there was Honor's bony cheek to be kissed, her bony hug to take. +</P> + +<P> +Then the disturbing even:— +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Amber, Aunt Maggie told him, was dying. He had been told Percival +was coming and had begged to see him. There had only been a brief +interval of consciousness in the last twenty-four hours; Percival had +better go at once. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +Percival went immediately. The Old Manor had the deserted aspect he +remembered when, as a little boy, he used to seek Mr. Amber in the +library; and it was to the library he now was taken. Mr. Amber had +been carried there. He knew he was to die. He had begged to die in +the apartment he loved—among his books. +</P> + +<P> +There Percival found him. He lay on a bed that had been placed in the +centre of the room. He was asleep, breathing with a harsh, unnatural +sound. A nurse sent over from Great Letham attended him, and Percival +inquired of her: "I am Percival; has he been asking for me?" +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head: "Since this morning only for Lord Burdon. Before +that, frequently." +</P> + +<P> +Percival went on one knee by the bedside. The mild old face that he +had always known silvery and smiling seemed white as the pillow where +it lay, pathetically lined and hollowed. On a sudden the eyes very +slowly opened and looked full into Percival's bending above him. +Percival experienced a shock of horror at what followed. Burning +intelligence flamed into the dim eyes; the blood rushed in a crimson +cloud to the white face; the thin form struggled where it lay. +</P> + +<P> +"My lord! my lord!" Mr. Amber whispered; and "lift me—lying down +before my lord!" +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Amber! I am Percival! You remember me!" +</P> + +<P> +The nurse raised him, and with practised hand the pillows also, so that +he reclined against them. "It is your friend Percival. Lord Burdon +will soon come, perhaps." +</P> + +<P> +He gave her no attention. He smiled at Percival in something of his +mild old way. "We are very weak, my lord," he said. "Very weak." +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Amber! I am Percival! You remember what friends we were. You +will get strong, and we will have some more reading together—you +remember?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Amber still smiling, his eyes closed again. "On the ladders." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—yes. On the ladders. You remember now—Percival." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Amber's smile seemed to settle upon his face as though his lips +were made so. "Hold my hand, my lord." +</P> + +<P> +He began to slip down in the bed. The nurse eased his position. He +seemed back to unconsciousness again, his breathing very laboured. +Night had drawn about the room and was held dusky by the candles. +There stole about Percival, as he knelt, atmosphere of the memories he +had recalled in vain attempt to arouse Mr. Amber's recognition. Again +dusk here, and he with mild, old Mr. Amber. Again shadows wreathing +about the high ceiling, stealing from the corners. Again a soft +thudding on the window-pane, as of some shadow seeking to enter—death? +Again the strange feeling of "thinking without thinking as if some one +else were thinking"—and on that, worn out perhaps with his long day, +perhaps carried by some other agency, he went into a dream-state in +which vague, secret influences of his ride through Mount Street came +upon him. He thought he was in Mount Street again and come to Burdon +House, and that the door opened as he ascended the steps. He found the +interior completely familiar to him, and for some reason was frightened +and trembled to find it so. He went from familiar room to familiar +room, afraid at their familiarity as though it was some wrong thing he +was doing, and knew himself searching—searching—searching. What he +searched he did not know. He just opened a door, and looked, and +closed it and passed on. There were persons in some rooms—once Dora, +once Rollo, once Lady Burdon. They stretched hands to him or spoke. +He shook his head and told them "I am not looking for you," and closed +the doors upon them. He climbed the completely familiar stairs and +searched each floor. The fear that attended him suddenly increased. +He had a sudden and most eerie feeling that some presence was come +about him as he searched. He heard a voice cry: "My son! My son! We +have waited for you. Oh, we have waited for you!" Fear changed to a +flood of yearning emotion. He tried to cry, "It is you—you I am +looking for!" He could not speak, and wrestled for speech; and +wrestling, came back to consciousness of his surroundings. He was +streaming with perspiration, he found. He saw next that Mr. Amber's +eyes were open and looking at him, and heard him say, "Percival!" +</P> + +<P> +Had that been the voice in that frightful dream? +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Amber! I knew you would know me!" +</P> + +<P> +Recognition was in the eyes, but they were filming. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, he knows you," the nurse whispered. +</P> + +<P> +Quite firmly, firmer than he had yet spoken: "Hold my hand—my lord," +Mr. Amber said, and ended the words and ended life with a little +throaty sound. +</P> + +<P> +The nurse disengaged their hands. "But I am so glad he did just +recognise you," she said kindly. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +Old friend wind was in tremendous fettle that night. Percival battled +along Plowman's Ridge on his way back and had battled twenty minutes +when he cried aloud, venting his grief, and answering the nurse's +words, "He didn't recognise me!" +</P> + +<P> +And old friend wind paused to listen; came in tremendous gusts, Ha! Ha! +Ha! and hurled the words aloft and tossed and rushed them high along +the Ridge. +</P> + +<P> +"Something was wrong with me in there," Percival exclaimed. "Did I +speak sense to him? What was happening to me? Was I dreaming? What +was it?—oh, damn this wind!" +</P> + +<P> +Ha! Ha! Ha! thundered old friend wind, staggering him anew—Ha! Ha! Ha! +</P> + +<P> +An absolutely irrepressible party, old friend wind. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0414"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIV +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +DORA REMEMBERS +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +Percival was not the only one that in this period was disturbed by +uneasy dreams, by vague and strange half-thoughts, by "thinking without +thinking," as though some other influence were temporarily in +possession of the senses. Lady Burdon was thus disturbed; Aunt Maggie, +too. But of the three Aunt Maggie only knew the cause. If Lady +Burdon, if Percival, had brought their unrest to her for explanation +she might have explained it as she was able to explain her own—the +"fluttering" that very often came to her in these days of Percival's +visit home. She might have told them, as she told herself, that it was +occasioned for that the years were closing in now—the prepared doom +gathering about them all and they responsive to its nearness as +gathering storm gives vague unease, headaches, depression when its +emanations fall. +</P> + +<P> +For her own part Aunt Maggie had herself in hand again—was again +possessed by the certitude that nothing could go amiss with her plans. +It had supported her through all these long years. It had been shaken, +but had recovered again, by fear of Percival's affection for Rollo. It +tore at her frantically, like a strong horse against the bridle, now +that only a few months remained for its release in her revenge's +execution. In little less than a year Percival would be twenty-one. +She no more minded—relative to her plans—the proof of the fondness +still between him and Rollo shown in his leaving her to stay with Rollo +in town, than she minded—relative to the same purpose—his +determination to be with Japhra again when winter ended. She suffered +distress both at the one and the other in that they robbed her of the +object of her heart's devotion; she felt no qualm that either would +hinder her revenge. "Strange-like?" "Touched-like?" The villagers, +when she passed them without seeing them in these days, were more than +ever sure of that, poor thing; but she was more than ever sure—lived +in the past and in the near, near future and had scenes to watch there. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +Rollo's return to town was delayed longer than Dora had supposed in her +letter to Percival. It was not till February that his doctors and his +mother gave way to his protestations that he would never get fit if he +could not go and have a glimpse of old Percival while he had the +chance, and then it was only for a week—a passage through town to get +some things done and to pick up the Esparts for a spring sojourn in +Italy. +</P> + +<P> +Thus Percival was several weeks with Aunt Maggie before he left her for +Rollo—and Dora. Pleasant weeks he found them, reclaiming all the old +friends (save that one whose grave only was now to be visited) and in +their company, and in the new affection that they gave him for his +strong young manhood, retasting again the happy, happy time of earlier +days. There were jolly teas with the Purdies, brother and sister; +plump Mr. Purdie never tired of saying, with quite the most absurd of +his shrill, ridiculous chuckles, "Why, you've grown into a regular man +and I expected to see a swarthy gipsy with earrings and a red +neckcloth!", birdlike little Miss Purdie, more birdlike than ever with +her little hops and nods and her "Now <I>fancy</I> you coming to take me to +the Great Letham Church Bazaar! I was <I>wanting</I> to go. But you're +<I>not</I> to be extravagant, Percival. At Christmas you were <I>dreadful</I>. +You <I>don't</I> know the value of money!" And there were almost daily +visits to Mr. Hannaford, Stingo with him now till the road was to be +taken again, who found Percival a proper full-size marvel now, and +blessed his eighteen stun proper if he didn't, whose little 'orse farm +was developing amazingly, who displayed it and who discussed it with +Percival to the tune of leg-and-cane cracks of almost incredible +volume, and who placed at Percival's entire disposal a little riding +'orse, three parts blood and one part fire, that showed him to possess +a seat and hands that any little 'orse oughter be proud to carry, +"bless my eighteen stun proper if he didn't!" (Crack!) +</P> + +<P> +And there were thoughts of Dora ... who soon must be met and whom to +meet he burned (his darling!) and feared (his darling and his +goddess!—too rare, too exquisite for him, as tracery of frost upon the +window-pane that touch or breath will break or tarnish!). Thus he +thought of her; thus to help his thoughts often walked over to closed +Abbey Royal; thus never could approach the gates without the thought +that if, by some miracle, he met her there he could not dare approach +her. He would steal away at her approach, he knew. Watch her if, +unseen, he might unseen adore her—mark her perfect beauty, breathless +see her breathe; watch her poised to listen to some bird that hymned +her coming; watch her stoop to greet some flower's fragrance with her +own. Watch the happy grasses take her feet and watch those others, +benisoned and scented by the border of her gown; watch the tumbling +breezes give her path and only kiss her—see them race along the leaves +to give her minstrelsy. Speak to her?—how should he dare? +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +What his condition then when at last in London he came face to face +with her? Rollo and Lady Burdon stayed their week at a private +hotel—Baxter's in Albemarle Street. He was immediately made their +guest (against Lady Burdon's wish, who desired now in the approach of +the consummation of her own plans—and Mrs. Espart's—to detach the +friendship she had formerly encouraged; but he did not know that). +Rollo met him at Waterloo station and took him direct to the hotel. +Eager to meet old Rollo again he was touched by the pathetic devotion +of Rollo's greeting, touched also at the frail and delicate figure that +he presented. The emotions were violently usurped by others when +Baxter's was reached and he was taken to the private sitting-room Lady +Burdon had engaged. +</P> + +<P> +"Here's mother!" Rollo cried, opening the door. +</P> + +<P> +Here also were Mrs. Espart and Dora. +</P> + +<P> +The elder ladies were seated. Percival greeted them and fancied their +manner not very warm. He had a swift recollection of the letter's +advice that they joined in estimating him "Very wild"; but while he +shook hands, while he exchanged the conventional civilities, his mind, +nothing concerned with them, was actively discussing how he should +comport himself, what he should see, when he turned to the figure that +had stood by the window, facing away from him, when he entered. +</P> + +<P> +"Never in London before—no," he said. "I have passed through once, +that is all." +</P> + +<P> +Then he turned. +</P> + +<P> +She had come down the room and was within two paces of him. Her dress +was of some dark colour and she wore fine sables, thrown back so that +they lay upon her shoulders and came across her arms. A large black +hat faintly shadowed the upper part of her face; her left hand was in a +muff, and when he turned towards her she had the muff nestled against +her throat. She gave the appearance of having watched him while he +spoke, reckoning what he was, with her face resting meditatively upon +her muff, her tall and slim young figure upright upon her feet. +</P> + +<P> +There was no perceptible pause between his turning to her and their +speaking. Yet he had time for a long, long thought of her before he +opened his lips. It took his breath. So still she stood, so serene +and contemplative her look, that he thought of her, standing there, as +some most rich and most rare picture, framed by the soft dusk that +London rooms have, and surely framed and set apart from mortal things. +</P> + +<P> +She dropped her muff to her arm's length with a sudden action, just as +a portrait might stir to come to life. She raised her head so that the +shadow went from her face and revealed her eyes, as a jealous leaf's +shade might be stirred to reveal the dark and dew-crowned pansy. She +had not removed her gloves and she gave him her small hand—that last +he had held cold, trembling and uncovered—gloved in white kid. She +spoke and her voice—that last he had heard aswoon—had the high, cold +note he thrilled to hear. +</P> + +<P> +"It is pleasant to see you again," she said. +</P> + +<P> +He never could recall in what words he replied—nor if indeed he +effected reply. +</P> + +<P> +Conventional words went between them before she and her mother took +their departure; conventional words again at a chance meeting on the +following day and again when the parties met by arrangement at a +matinee. His week drew to a close. As its end neared he began to +resist the mute and distant adoration which he had felt must be his +part when he had thought of meeting her again and which, without pang, +he at first accepted as his part now that they were come together. But +when the very hours could be counted that would see her gone from him +again he felt that attitude could no longer be endured. Insupportable +to pass into the future without a closer sign of her!—insupportable +even though the sign proved one that should reward his temerity by +sealing her forever from his lips. He nerved himself to the +daring—the very opportunity was hard to seek. Rollo, in the slightly +selfish habit that belongs to delicate persons accustomed, as he was +accustomed, to their own way, was ever desirous of having Percival to +himself alone. He saw plenty of Dora at other times, he said +(deliberately avoiding a chance of meeting her on one occasion); and +when Percival, not daring to do more, made scruples on grounds of mere +politeness, "But, bless you, she'll think nothing of it," Rollo said +carelessly: "She's made of ice—Dora. I like her all right, you know. +But she's not keen on anything. She's got no more feeling than—well, +ice," and he laughed and dismissed the subject. +</P> + +<P> +Had she not? It was Percival's to challenge it. +</P> + +<P> +The chance came on the eve of the morrow that was to see his friend's +departure for Italy and his own for a farewell to Aunt Maggie and so +back to Japhra again. The Esparts came over to dinner at Baxter's +hotel—came in response to Lady Burdon's private and urgent request of +Mrs. Espart. The week of Percival's visit had tried her sorely. Night +by night and every night, as she told Mrs. Espart, she had had that +dreadful nightmare of hers again—that girl to whom she cried "I am +Lady Burdon," and who answered her: "Oh, how can you be Lady Burdon?;" +to whom she cried "I hold," and, who answered her, "No, you do +not—Nay, I hold." +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Maggie might have explained it. Mrs. Espart laughed outright. +"That? Good gracious, I thought you had forgotten that long ago." +</P> + +<P> +"So I had—so I had. I never thought of it again from the day I told +you until last Wednesday night—the day Percival came to us. Since +then every night..." +</P> + +<P> +She paused before the last words and stopped abruptly after them. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, my dear! You're not putting down to poor Percival what must be +the fault of Mr. Baxter's menus, surely?" +</P> + +<P> +Lady Burdon said without conviction: "No—no, I'm not. Still, it began +then—and I don't like him now—don't care for Rollo to be so attached +to him now—and had words with Rollo about it—and perhaps that was the +reason and is the reason. Anyway, do come to dinner to-night—distract +my thoughts perhaps—I can't face that nightmare again. It's on my +nerves." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Espart permitted herself the tiniest yawn, but promised to come; +and came, bringing Dora. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +So Percival's chance came, or so came, rather, his last +opportunity—for he ran it to the final moment. Announcement of the +Esparts' carriage brought their evening to an end, and he went down +with Rollo to see them off. Baxter's preserved its exclusiveness by +preserving its old fashions; the staircase was narrow, so the hall. +Mrs. Espart went first, then Rollo. Percival followed Dora. +</P> + +<P> +As she came to the pavement she turned to gather her skirts about her. +In the action she looked full at him. +</P> + +<P> +The end? +</P> + +<P> +He said: "Dora—do you ever remember?" +</P> + +<P> +Her skirts seemed to have eluded her fingers and she must make another +hold at them. He saw the colour flame where her fair face showed it, +swiftly, deeply scarlet in that shade on either cheek. He saw her +young breast rise as though that red flood drew and held it—saw her +lips part for words, and held his breath to catch her voice. +</P> + +<P> +"I have not forgotten," she whispered. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0501"></A> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK FIVE +</H2> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +BOOK OF FIGHTS AND OF THE BIG FIGHT.<BR> +THE ELEMENT OF COURAGE +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +BOSS MADDOX SHOWS HIS HAND +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +Ima asked: "Of what are you thinking, Percival?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of when I shall leave you all—and how." +</P> + +<P> +She replied: "Strange, then, how thoughts run. It was in my mind also." +</P> + +<P> +Stranger how tricks and chances of life go! This trick and that—and +this was to be his last night with the van folk. That chance and +this—and within a few hours he was to be returned to Aunt Maggie, bade +good-by at the close of his visit scarcely four months since. This +trick and that, that chance and this, and he was to be put in the way +of winning Dora—a way that never had seemed so obscure, never so +impossible of attainment as when he came back to Japhra with her "I +have not forgotten," at once shouting to him that she loved him and +mocking him with the difference between her estate and his. +</P> + +<P> +Already the tricks and chances were afoot. He was alone with Ima upon +a rising bluff of common land. Considerably below them, so that they +looked down as it were from a cliff to a valley, the fair was pitched +and in full swing—that it was in full swing and he idle was the first +step in the freakish hazards that were to encompass him this night. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +A stifling evening had succeeded a burning day. Here on the bluff a +breeze moved cool and soft as it had been waftings from the dusky cloak +night dropped about them; below was heat and crowded life and clamour, +rising in the waving reek of the naphtha flares; in shouts of the +showmen; in shrill laughter from village girls at fun about the booths, +or horseplay with their swains; in ceaseless rifle-cracks from the +shooting-galleries—in drum-thumpings, in steam organs, in brazen +instruments; occasionally, high above it all, in enormous +<I>oo-oo-oomphs</I> from the caged lions in the huge marquee that housed +Boss Maddox's Royal Circus and Monster Forest-bred Menagerie—a +tremendous sound, as Percival thought when it came booming across the +clamour, that was a brute's but that seemed, like some trump of protest +against the din, to make brutish the human cries and shouts it governed. +</P> + +<P> +Two crowds, leaving and entering, jostled one another at the entrance +to the Royal Circus and Forest-bred Menagerie; stretching on either +hand from where they pressed ran the minor shows under Boss Maddox's +proprietorship, forming a noisy, flaring street that ended, facing the +circus marquee, with "Foxy" Pinsent's Academy of Boxing and School of +Arms. Maddox's Royal Circus and Forest Bred Menagerie at one end, +Pinsent's fine booth at the other—between them Maddox's Living +Pictures, Maddox's Wild-West Shooting Gallery, Maddox's Steam +Switch-back and Aerial Railway, Maddox's Original Marionettes, Maddox's +Premier Boatswings, Maddox's Monster Panorama, Maddox's Royal Theatre +and Concert Divan, Maddox's Elite Refreshment Saloons, Maddox's +American Freak Museum, and all Maddox's smaller fry—coker-nut shies, +hoop-las, Living Mermaid, Hall of Strength, Cave of Mystery, Magic +Mirrors, and the rest of them; owned by Boss Maddox, financed by Boss +Maddox, or, if of independent ownership, having the Boss's favour and +acknowledging the Boss's ownership. +</P> + +<P> +No booths whose proprietors called Stingo Boss were open: and that was +one step in the tricks and chances of the day. +</P> + +<P> +The gaunt figure of Boss Maddox, watchful and urgent this night for the +very reason that the Stingo booths were closed, passed now along the +further side of lights towards Foxy Pinsent's pitch. Head bent towards +his left shoulder; hands clasped behind his back; uncommonly tall; +uncommonly spare—that was Boss Maddox anywhere. +</P> + +<P> +A further mark, as he moved through his little kingdom, proclaimed him +who he was and what he was. Frequent nods of his head he made in +response to hat touchings or greetings in the crowd; frequent stoppings +to exchange a few words with some figure that stepped into his +path—and broke away from others or pushed others aside to step there: +the local tradesmen these, or members of the local Borough Council, +anxious to be in with Boss Maddox and so to secure the considerable +patronage in victualling and provender he was able to distribute; or +anxious to let fellow-townsmen observe on what familiar terms they were +with the Boss, and concerned to know that he found his pitch to his +liking. A mighty man, the Boss in these days, who bought up his +pitches and paid handsomely for them a year in advance, who on a famous +occasion had fallen into dispute with a Borough Council, refused their +district the honour of his shows, and thereby—by loss of entertainment +and loss of revenue—had caused the Borough Councillors to suffer +defeat at the next election. Things like that were remembered up and +down the west of England; Boss Maddox in the result was reckoned a man +to be placated, to be done homage, and to have his interests preserved. +Only the old Stingo gang resisted him, and this day he had paid them +dear for their want of allegiance. +</P> + +<P> +His parade brought him at length to "Foxy" Pinsent's Academy of Boxing +and School of Arms. Foxy Pinsent had risen to be his lieutenant and +right-hand man in the management of his business, and Boss Maddox was +come to compare notes on how the Stingo crowd were taking their +set-back. +</P> + +<P> +Eight pugilists in flannels—two of them negroes—displayed themselves +upon the raised platform outside the Academy of Boxing and School of +Arms. Pinsent, in a long fawn coat reaching to his shoes, paced before +them, crying to the assembled crowds their merits, their prowess, their +achievements and their challenges. He swung a great bundle of boxing +gloves in his right hand and, amid delighted shouts of the spectators, +sent a pair flying to venturesome yokels here and there who pointed to +one or other of the eight stalwarts in acceptance of combat. +</P> + +<P> +As Boss Maddox pushed his way to the front the eight turned and filed +into the booth. He raised a hand. Foxy Pinsent tossed a last pair of +gloves to the crowd, came down the steps from the platform and joined +him. +</P> + +<P> +"How are they taking it, Boss?" +</P> + +<P> +"Pretty tough. Move round with me and let 'em see we're watching. In +a while I'm to have a word with Stingo and Japhra—you with me, boy." +</P> + +<P> +Foxy Pinsent spat on the ground. "We've fixed the ——s this time," he +said venomously. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +The fixing of the Stingo crowd had been Boss Maddox's culminating +stroke in the heavy hand he had pressed these many seasons upon those +who named Stingo Boss. The bad blood between the two factions of which +Japhra had told Percival years before had steadily increased with Boss +Maddox's increasing dominance and position. Waxing more and more +determined to crush under his rule the little knot of Stingo +followers—or to crush them out—Boss Maddox had this day given them an +extra twist—and they had made protest by refusing to erect their +booths. +</P> + +<P> +A new Fair ground had been marked out here since the last visit of the +showmen. A broad stream marked one boundary, bridged only by the +highroad bridge a mile up from the new ground. The new ground was +small. Maddox's would require it all, the Boss announced. Beyond the +stream was common land, free to all. "Yonder, you!" said Boss Maddox +to the Stingo crowd. "Yonder, you!" and pointed across the stream with +his stick. +</P> + +<P> +It meant going back a mile and a mile down again so as to come to the +common land. It meant worse than that, with a discovery that changed +the first demur to loud and bitter protest: "No bridge except the +highroad bridge? Then how were folk going to get over from the Fair +Ground? No bridge? What game's this, Boss?" +</P> + +<P> +"Your game," Boss Maddox told them in his stern and callous way. +"Naught to do with me that the Fair Ground's changed. Your game. Get +out and play it." +</P> + +<P> +The angry crowd went to Stingo and Stingo to Boss Maddox. Boss Maddox +could not refuse parley with Stingo, and gave it where the great pole +of his circus marquee was being fixed—his own followers grouped about, +enjoying the fun; Stingo's packed in a murmuring throng behind Stingo's +broad back. +</P> + +<P> +The interview was very short. "You're going too far, Boss Maddox," +Stingo said in his husky whisper. "This ain't fair to the boys. Grant +you the ground's too small. After your tent and Pinsent's there the +rest should fall by lot. That's fair to all. It was done on the road +Boss Parnell's time when you and me were boys." +</P> + +<P> +"It's not done in mine," said Boss Maddox, and his words called up two +murmurs—approval and mocking behind him, wrath before. +</P> + +<P> +Stingo waited while it died away, then went close with words for Boss +Maddox's private ear. "You've been out to make bad blood these three +summers, Maddox," he said. "Have a care of it. I'll not be answerable +for my boys here." +</P> + +<P> +His tone was of grave warning, as between men of responsible position. +But it was Foxy Pinsent, standing with Maddox, who replied to him. +"We'll drink all we may brew," Foxy Pinsent said, and sneered: "We're +not fat old women this side, Stingo." +</P> + +<P> +The flag of a temper kept in control but now burst from his command +came in violent purple into old Stingo's face. His huskiness went to +its most husky pitch, "By God, Foxy! I'll stuff it into ye, if need +be," he throated. +</P> + +<P> +He took a calmer and wiser mood back to his followers, joining with +Japhra in counselling a making the best of it across the stream +to-night and a deputation to Boss Maddox, when heads on both sides were +cooler, on the morrow. They would not listen to him. They would stay +where they were, they told him. They could not open their booths +here—they would not open them there; here, to assert their rights, +they would stay. What was Boss Maddox's game?—to rid himself of them +altogether?—they who had worked the West Country boy and man, girl and +woman, in this company before Boss Maddox was heard of? Were they +going to be turned adrift from it—from the roads they knew and the +company they knew? Not they!—not if Boss Maddox and his crowd came at +'em with sticks! Let 'em come! Ah, let Boss Muddy Maddox and his +crowd try 'em a bit further and the sticks would come out in their own +hands as they came in their fathers' in the big fight that sent the +Telfer crowd north in '30.... +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +So the Stingo vans remained where they had been driven up on the edge +of the Fair ground. The men for the most part shared their afternoon +meal in groups that sullenly discussed their hurt. Some broodingly +watched the erection of their rivals' booths. A few gathered about +Egbert Hunt, who had oratory to deliver on this act of oppression. The +winters Hunt had spent with "unemployed" malcontents had given a flow +of language to a character that from boyhood had shaped away from +honest work and towards hostility against authority. In the vans, +among men who sweated as they toiled, and worked in the main for their +own hands, he was commonly an object of contempt. To-day he found +audience. He had words and ranted his best—"Tyrang!" the burden of +it; rising, as he tossed his arms and worked himself up, to "'Boss' +Maddox is he? 'Oo appointed 'im boss over you or over me? 'Boss' +Maddox? Tyrang Maddox—that's what I name 'im." +</P> + +<P> +He observed a titter run round those who listened to him; turned to +seek its cause; with Tyrang Maddox found himself face to face; and +before he could make movement of escape was sent to the ground with a +stunning box on the ear. He shouted a stream of filthy abuse and made +to spring to his feet. Boss Maddox's hand pinned him down and Boss +Maddox's whip came about his writhing form in a rain of blows that, +when they were done and he had taken the kick that concluded them, left +him cowering. +</P> + +<P> +"Whose hand are you, you whelp?" Boss Maddox demanded. +</P> + +<P> +Egbert Hunt looked up at him. He was gasping with sobs of pain and +sobs of rage. He looked up, hate and murder in his eye, and pressed +his lips between his sobs. +</P> + +<P> +The whip went up. "Whose hand?" +</P> + +<P> +Egbert cowered back: "Old One-Eye's." +</P> + +<P> +"Keep to his heel. Cross my sight again and the same is waiting for +you." +</P> + +<P> +Boss Maddox stalked away. A crowd had gathered from all parts of the +camp, attracted by Egbert's screams. Egbert raised himself on one arm +and looked at the grinning faces before him. He got stiffly to his +feet, mumbling to himself, his breast still heaving with sobs. "Me, a +full-grown man, to be used like a dog! Cross his path!—ill day for +him when I do!" +</P> + +<P> +He went a few paces, walking parallel to those assembled. Suddenly he +turned to them, tears running down his face, and threw up his clenched +hands. "I'll put a knife in 'im!" he cried. "By God, I'll put a knife +in 'im!" +</P> + +<P> +The crowd laughed. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0502"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +IMA SHOWS HER HEART +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +Percival suggested to Ima that they should use in a stroll the leisure +evening that the trouble in the vans had given him. Some drink had +been passing as the day wore on, and the heat between the two factions +was not better for it. Here and there bickerings were assuming an ugly +note.—"Let's get out of it," Percival said. "Come along, Ima, up to +the top over there—Bracken Down they call it." +</P> + +<P> +It was close upon nine o'clock as they left the Fair. They picked +their way along the paths through the tall bracken that gave the place +its name—reaching a clearing in the thick growth, by mutual accord +they dropped down for a glad rest. +</P> + +<P> +Very still and cool here among the fern, the Fair a nest of tossing +lights, faint cries and that lion's trump of <I>oo-oo-oomph</I> beneath +them; a remote place of silence, and silence communicated itself to +them until Ima broke it by her question "Of what are you thinking, +Percival?" and to his reply—that he thought of when he should leave +them all, and how—told him "Strange then how thoughts run. It was in +my mind also." +</P> + +<P> +Stranger how tricks and chances of life go! Looking back afterwards, +recalling her words, Percival realised how events had run from one to +another upon the most brittle thread of hazards. The trouble in the +vans had sent him out here with Ima; that was the merest chance; that +was the beginning of the thread. +</P> + +<P> +Very cool and remote here among the bracken. He had gone back to +silence after her last words. It was she who spoke again. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you weary of it?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +He was lying at his full length, face downwards, his chin upon his +clasped fingers. She sat upright beside him, one knee raised and her +hands about it. +</P> + +<P> +He turned his cheek to where his chin had been and looked up lazily at +her: "Why, no, not weary of it, Ima. I like the life. I've been at it +a long time. When the day comes I shall be sorry to go." +</P> + +<P> +She was looking straight before her. "A sorry day for us, also," she +said. +</P> + +<P> +"Will you be sorry, Ima?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course I shall be sorry." +</P> + +<P> +He gave a sound of mischievous laughter. Lying idly stretched out +there, the warm night and the unusual sense of laziness he was enjoying +stirred in him some prankish spirit, or some spirit of more warm +desire, that he had never felt in Ima's company. "Yet you are always +trying to get rid of me," he said; and he laughed again on that +mischievous note, and snuggled his cheek closer against his hands, and +felt that spirit run amicably through him as he stretched and then +released his muscles. +</P> + +<P> +She looked down at him, smiling. "Unkind to return my conduct so," she +said. "No, I have but reminded you you are not always for the rough +ways." +</P> + +<P> +He had watched her face as he lay there, seen how her hair, her brow, +her eyes, alone in all the shadow about Bracken Down caught the light +from where the light was starred across the sky, and how her lips +seemed also to attract it. Now when she looked down and smiled, it was +as if some gentle radiance were bent upon him, or as if Night, in +visible embodiment, gracious as Summer night, starred, tranquil, cool, +stooped to his couch. +</P> + +<P> +He got quickly to his feet, that spirit tingling now. +</P> + +<P> +"Going?" she asked, and the lamp of her face was turned up to him so +that he looked full into it. +</P> + +<P> +"No," he said, pronouncing the word as he had made his laugh—as if +some inward excitement pressed its escape. +</P> + +<P> +"No." He came in front of her, went on his knees and sat back on his +heels. That brought him close to her, facing her. +</P> + +<P> +"Ima," he said, "you've got six—seven stars on your face, do you know +that?" +</P> + +<P> +She smiled, unaware of his mood. +</P> + +<P> +Himself he was scarcely aware of it: "Well, you have, though," he said. +He approached a finger towards her and pointed, and almost touched her +while he spoke. "You have, though. Two on your hair—there and there. +One on your forehead—there. One in each eye—that's five. Two on +your mouth—one here, one there: seven stars!" +</P> + +<P> +"Foolish talk," she smiled. "We had a Romany woman once with us who +told fortunes. Just so have I heard her speak to village girls. +When—" +</P> + +<P> +His eyes betrayed him. Concern and worse leapt into hers. She thrust +out a hand to stop him, but he bent forward swiftly and strongly. +Urged by the spirit that laziness and the warm, still night had put +into him, that had led him on in mischief and that now suddenly +engulfed him—"Stars on your mouth!" he cried, and caught his arms +about her to kiss her. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +He felt her twist as she were made of vibrant steel and strong as +steel. His lips missed hers, and scarcely brushed her face. He tried +for her lips again, laughing while he tried, and pressed her to him and +felt her twist and strain away with a strength that surprised him while +he laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"Only a kiss, Ima! Only a kiss!" +</P> + +<P> +She was of steel, but he held her. She spoke, and the strangeness of +her words made him release her. "Ah, ah, Percival!" she gasped. "How +you despise me!" +</P> + +<P> +He let her go and she sprang away and upright, as a bow stick released. +He let her go, and stared at her where she stood panting fiercely, and +stared in more surprise when, checking her sobbing breaths, she spoke +again. +</P> + +<P> +In their struggle her hair had loosened and it fell, half-bound, in a +heavy cascade upon one shoulder and down her breast. The starlight +gleamed on it and on her dark face framed against it. She had a wild +look, as if her mild beauty had suddenly gone gipsy; her sobbing voice +had a wild tone, and he noticed the drop back to the "thee" long absent +from her speech: "Ah, this to happen!" she cried. "This! Ah, what a +thing I must be to thee!" +</P> + +<P> +The strangeness and the violence of her distress astonished him. What +had he done? Tried for a kiss? In the name of all the kisses snatched +from pretty girls—! "Why, Ima?" was all he could say. "Ima?" +</P> + +<P> +She dropped to the ground with a collapsed action as though, oppressed +as she was, standing were insupportable. She covered her face with her +hands, ceased her sobbing breaths; but he saw her trembling in all her +frame. +</P> + +<P> +Rising, he went to her, put a hand on her shoulder, and, at the +convulsive movements he felt, made deeper the contrition for his +careless act that her distress now caused him. "Ima, what have I done? +Only tried to kiss you in fun. A sudden, silly thing—I don't know +why—I never meant it—but only a kiss in fun." +</P> + +<P> +He waited a moment, grieved for her, half-vexed with her—then had his +answer and was faced with emotions as sudden and unexpected as when a +moment before, without premeditation, he had her struggling in his arms. +</P> + +<P> +She drew a deep breath and answered him. "That is it—in fun!" she +said. She threw out her arms across her raised knees—the palms +upward, the fingers curved in a most desolate action. "In fun!" she +said intensely. "I would to God—I would to God thou hadst done it in +passion." +</P> + +<P> +He came in front of her. "Tell me what it is I have done to you," he +said firmly. +</P> + +<P> +The intensity went from her voice. She spoke then and thenceforward +very softly, as if she were making explanation to a child, and in her +answer she used again the term that went with the days of the "thee" +and "thou" now returned to her. +</P> + +<P> +"Used me," she answered him softly, "used me as any wanton is to be +used, little master." +</P> + +<P> +He cried, "Ima! After all these years we have known each other—a kiss +in fun!" +</P> + +<P> +But she went on: "What maids are kissed in fun? That a man weds does +he use so? That the sisters of such as thou art does he so use? That +give him cause for regard does he so use? What maids, then?" and +answered herself, "Such as I am!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" he cried, wounded with pity for her, "Oh, Ima—Ima, dear, don't +talk like that. What can you mean? I am sorry—sorry! Forgive me!" +</P> + +<P> +Her sad eyes almost smiled at him. "I have nothing to forgive thee," +she said. "It was but a foolish fancy that I had. Well that it should +be broken—ended that;" and she looked again across the dark bracken, +her arms extended upon her knees in that desolate pose. +</P> + +<P> +It wrung him with pity—his dear Ima! "But tell me!" he pressed her, +anxious to soothe her. "Tell me what you mean by fancy—by saying +'ended that!'" +</P> + +<P> +She answered: "That all I had tried should be broken suddenly—suddenly +as a star falls. I had not minded if I had been warned." +</P> + +<P> +"What have you tried, Ima?—I want to know—to show you how sorry I am." +</P> + +<P> +She was silent for a considerable space. When she began to speak she +spoke without pause, without modulations of her low tone, without +notice of the stammered exclamations that her words broke from him. +</P> + +<P> +"Hear me, then," she said. "The thing is no more mine—thou mayst know +it. To what shall I go back for when I first knew that I loved thee?—" +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Ima!</I>" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, from the first I knew it and began to try to fit me for thee. +Why went I to shut myself in roofs and walls, to learn hard books and +gentle ways and how to speak in thy fashion?—so thou shouldst not +scorn me, so I might make me to be seemly in thy sight—" +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Ima! I never dreamt—!</I>" +</P> + +<P> +"—Why have I gone my ways so—winter by winter leaving my father's +van? Because I loved thee since I first saw thee—" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't! Don't!" he cried. There was something completely terrible to +him in this avowal from a woman—immodest, shameful, horrible—that +must cause her violation of her most sacred feelings as they would be +violated were she thrust naked before him; that caused him agony for +her suffering, and agony that he should see it, as he would endure +agony for her and for himself if made to see her nudity. "Don't, Ima! +Don't! I understand—I see everything now. I ought to have known!" +</P> + +<P> +But she went on—it might have been some requiem she made to some poor +treasured thing now dead in her extended arms. She went on: "Because I +loved thee—ah, worshipped all thy doings, all thy looks—loved thee +with all the love that men and women love—as mothers love, as lovers +love, as friends love, as brothers love,—there is no love but I have +loved thee with it, and I have thought them all and loved thee with +each one the better to enjoy my love—" +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Ima!</I>" +</P> + +<P> +"—Why cried I 'this to happen!' Because by thy kiss I saw that I was +nothing to thee—and less than nothing. All my poor trying suddenly +proved of no avail. All my poor fancy that haply thou mightst turn to +me if I could be worthy of thee suddenly gone to dust that the winds +sport. Why cried I 'ended that!'—" +</P> + +<P> +She sighed very deeply. Her trembling had in some degree communicated +itself to him. He trembled for the shame he knew she must be +suffering, and for the effect upon him that her gentle, even voice had, +crooning its tragedy in the darkness of their remote and silent +situation, and for the effect upon him of that long sigh—rising and +then falling away to tiniest sound, as it had been the passing of some +spirit released to glide away across the bracken. +</P> + +<P> +"—Why cried I 'ended that'?" and then her long, sad sigh; and then: +"Because all is nought, little master;" and he saw her fingers extend +and her head bow a little.... +</P> + +<P> +She arose then, slowly, and he went back to give her room. Her hair +had slipped the last coil that held it, and was in a black sheen to her +waist before one shoulder and in a black sheen to her waist behind her +back. She began to loop it up with deft but tired fingers and looked +at him while she twined it. Her face was very kind to him; the stars +caught it, and he saw those stars upon her mild mouth that had tricked +him to his wanton act: they seemed to show her almost smiling at him. +</P> + +<P> +He asked: "Are we going now?" +</P> + +<P> +She smiled then, gently. "Nay," she said. "I have left my poor +secrets here—suffer me to go alone." Then turned and left him; and he +watched her form swiftly merging to the darkness—now high among the +bracken, now lower and lower yet, as though it were a deepening pool +she entered. Now gone. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +It seemed to Percival, left alone, as if some horrible and most +oppressive trouble had befallen him. This piteous thing had struck so +suddenly that for some moments he remained only numbed by it, as +numbness precedes the onset of pain from a blow. When the full meaning +returned to him, "Good God!" he cried aloud, "What a thing to have +happened!" and most tenderly—with increasing tenderness, with +increasing grief—he went through all she had revealed and how she had +revealed it. It was surely the most monstrous pitiful thing that ever +could be, her secret plots and strivings to fit herself for what she +yearned—tasking herself in "gentle ways," in speech of his fashion, in +hard books, in the life between walls and under roofs; he ached for her +in every bone as he thought of her thus schooling herself—for him. +"Oh, horrible, horrible!" he muttered, writhing for her to remember all +her little cares for him—her attention to his clothes, her concern +that he should not get into "rough ways"; horrible! horrible! now that +he knew their loving purpose. And then her revelation of it! He must +rise and pace, the better to endure the recollection of that. How +terribly she struggled in his arms! "God, what a beast a man can be!" +he cried. What agony must have wrung that cry, "Ah, Percival, how you +must despise me!" What agony that "This to happen!" What pain, what +bleeding of her heart, that lamentable ending—"Because all is naught, +little master!" Happy, happy time when first she used to call him by +that quaint endearment; in what travail, in what blackness, it had come +from her now! What had she done? Why fastened such a love upon him +whose love was utterly pledged away? Nay, the torment was What had he +done? What vile and brutal ends had he used to knock her to her +senses? What manner of sympathy had he given her when she lay bleeding? +</P> + +<P> +"I must go to her," he said abruptly; and at the best speed the +darkness would admit he twisted his way through the paths among the +bracken towards the distant nest of lights. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0503"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +PERCIVAL SHOWS HIS FISTS +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +He ran in two moods. First he was earnest above all things to hold her +hands and comfort her—to explain, to soothe, to endear. To hold her +hands and tell her how fond, how very, very fond he was of her, of how +they should be sister and brother, and the happiest and fondest sister +and brother that ever were. To thank her, thank her for all her sweet, +devoted ways. To tell her how good she was, how he admired her. That +was one mood. The other was a savage and burning anger at himself, +partly for his wanton act towards her, partly born of his agony of +discomfort at the revelation she had made. The moods were +intermingled. He yearned to comfort her for her suffering, he writhed +to think he had witnessed that suffering. He was in the one part utter +tenderness towards her—in the other flame, furious flame, most eager +for vent. +</P> + +<P> +The tricks and chances of life had fuel for the flame, not outlet for +the tenderness, as he came to the nest of lights. +</P> + +<P> +He went quickly to Japhra's van. It was end-on to him as he +approached; and as he came to the shafts he saw a group of men there +talking,—Japhra, Stingo, Boss Maddox. He supposed—and was confirmed +by the words he caught as he passed them—that they were discussing the +dispute. "I'll ask Pinsent," he heard Boss Maddox say, and saw and +heard him turn and call "Pinsent! Here, Foxy, where are you?" as +though Foxy Pinsent had been of the group a moment before. +</P> + +<P> +He passed quickly to the tail of the van and himself found Pinsent. +"Angry, my pretty duck?" Foxy Pinsent was saying. "Angry? Chuck! +chuck!" +</P> + +<P> +It was to Ima that he was saying it; and with his last words, lolling +against the entrance steps, he put out a hand to chuck her chin. She +stepped out of his reach, and in relief cried, "Ah, Percival!" as +Percival approached. +</P> + +<P> +Flame, furious flame most eager for vent! +</P> + +<P> +Choked for words by the flame's fierce leap and burn, "Clear out of +this!" Percival said. +</P> + +<P> +Foxy Pinsent turned his head slowly from Ima to Percival and looked +Percival coolly up and down with the foxy smile. He put his elbows +back to lean against the van, and very deliberately crossed one foot +over the other. "Go to hell, won't you?" he said mildly. +</P> + +<P> +It was a double smart he took to wipe the studied insolence from his +face and to plant venom there. Percival's open hand that struck his +mouth—a tough, vicious jolt with the arm half-crooked, a boxer's +hit—drove his head against the van; and his "Ah, curse you!" followed +the sharp smack and thud quick as if the three sounds—clip, thud, +hiss—belonged to some instrument discharged. +</P> + +<P> +He sprang forward, head back, hitting quickly with both hands, like the +rare boxer he was—feinted with his right, drove his left against +Percival's forehead, took a sharp <I>one-two!</I> on mouth and throat, and +they were engaged, fighting close, fighting hard, and savage and glad, +and fierce and exultant, each of them, at last to spring their common +hate. +</P> + +<P> +In its suddenness and fury, in its briefness and the manner of its +check, the thing was like the sudden <I>woof!</I> of flame of a spark to a +handful of gunpowder. There is the belch and blinding flash of heat, +then the thick cloud of smoke. There was the swift drum of blows, then +the rush of feet—Stingo, Japhra, Boss Maddox, men from here, men from +there, in that trap-door swiftness with which commotion throws up a +crowd—and the two were grasped and pulled apart and held apart, +struggling like terriers that have had the first taste of blood and to +collect the glut are gone blind to blows or authority. +</P> + +<P> +Stingo from behind threw his two immense arms about Percival and leant +with all his weight the better to lock them. Boss Maddox thrust his +tall form before Pinsent, and snatched a wrist and gripped it in his +long fingers. Japhra was at Percival's hands that tore at Stingo's. +</P> + +<P> +"Lay on here, some of you!" Boss Maddox called, struggling with +Pinsent's arm. "Get that other arm!—Dago! Frenchy! Jackson! +Darkie! Look alive with it! Drop it, Foxy! Drop it! What the +devil's up with you?" +</P> + +<P> +And Stingo's strained whispers, in jerks and gusts by reason of his +exertions: "Easy, Percival! Easy with it! Easy, I say! You can't +shift me, boy! Get that hand, Japhra! Get that hand!" +</P> + +<P> +Then the smoke clears and there remains only the acrid smell of the +burning, and the sense of heat. +</P> + +<P> +The two were dragged apart till a safe space separated them and they +fronted each other before the groups about them—their faces furious, +their bodies still, but their hands plucking at the hands that held +them as they made their answers. +</P> + +<P> +"Struck me!" Foxy Pinsent shouted. "Struck me! By God! I'll teach +him! I've been saving it up for him a long time. Let me go, Boss! +What's the sense of holding me like this? Struck me, the whelp, I tell +you! I've got to have him first or last! Let me go!" +</P> + +<P> +And Percival: "And more to give you, Pinsent! Teach me, eh? If I +could get!—Japhra! Stingo! It's no business of yours, this! Damn +your interference! Japhra! Japhra! Let go my hands!" +</P> + +<P> +They cooled a little as the hands still held them and their +explanations were demanded. Boss Maddox left Pinsent to other +constraint and came and stood in the little space between the two +groups, hands behind his back in the familiar posture, shoulders +slightly hunched, head on one side, and turning it this way and that as +Percival or Pinsent spoke. +</P> + +<P> +Presently he looked at Stingo. "That boy's right," he said, with a +jerk back at Pinsent. "He's been struck. He's Foxy. This can't end +here. He's got to have his rights." +</P> + +<P> +"He'll get 'em," Stingo said, with as much grimness as his huskiness +could convey. "He'll get 'em if I let this lot loose. Don't you let +him worry, Boss." +</P> + +<P> +Boss Maddox turned squarely on Pinsent. "Give it a rest till the +morning, Foxy. You boys can't fight in this darkness—not you two." +</P> + +<P> +Pinsent laughed: "I'm not going to fight him. I'm going to thrash him." +</P> + +<P> +"Let me go, Japhra! Boss, let's have hands off! It's our show—no one +else's." +</P> + +<P> +Boss Maddox went back to his first contention. "This can't end here, +Stingo," and Japhra answered him: "Nay, there's blood to be let, Boss. +We can't stop it—nor have call to." He released Percival while he +spoke, but kept a hand on him, and motioned Stingo's arms away. He +spoke in his slow habit, and with seeming reluctance, but there was a +glimmer of relish in his voice. "They've to settle it, Boss." +</P> + +<P> +"Will you fight him, Pinsent?" Boss Maddox asked. +</P> + +<P> +Pinsent shook off the clutches upon him. He came forward two +deliberate paces, and with great deliberation stretched himself, and +with great deliberation spat upon the ground. Then fixed his eye on +Percival. "If he likes to get out of it with a whipping," Pinsent +said, "I'll learn him the manners he wants with your whip and let him +off at that. If he's got the guts to stand up, I'll roast him till he +lays down." He thrust forward his body towards Percival and said +mockingly: "Which way? Which way, my pretty gentleman?" +</P> + +<P> +Percival's face was a white lamp in the dusky night. "Give us room!" +he said. +</P> + +<P> +Then Pinsent's voice lost its deliberate drawl and rasped out in a rasp +that showed his breeding and showed his hate: "I want light to serve +you up, my gentleman! Light and a pair of shoes! Christ! I've waited +too long for this to spoil it. I've a pattern to put on that pretty +face of yours—not in this dark. Where'll I fight him, Boss? Where?" +</P> + +<P> +"Along the road in the morning." +</P> + +<P> +Percival came up. "I'll not wait, Boss. You've heard him. I'll not +wait." +</P> + +<P> +Pinsent rasped: "Morning be withered! Now! Now, while I'm hot. +Where'll I fight him?" +</P> + +<P> +Boss Maddox peered at his watch, then looked across the booths. "Nigh +midnight—few left yonder. We'll be shut down in twenty minutes. At +one o'clock." +</P> + +<P> +And Japhra, a strange tremble in his voice: "In your tent, Boss. The +boys will want to watch this. Room there, and good light." +</P> + +<P> +Boss Maddox turned to Pinsent: "Good for you? The circus tent?" +</P> + +<P> +"The place for it," Pinsent said. "Sharp at one. Japhra, you and me +are ring men; come and settle a point." +</P> + +<P> +"Come thou to me," Japhra answered him sturdily. "Thou and I!—I knew +the ring, the knuckle ring, before thou sucked." +</P> + +<P> +"Come to the tent," Boss Maddox interposed. "Best settle there." +</P> + +<P> +Japhra took Percival a space away. "Lay thee down," he said. His +voice was frankly trembling now, and he pressed both Percival's hands +in his. "Bide by my words; bide by them. Lay thee down till I return +to thee. Forget thy spite against yonder fox. Ima!" +</P> + +<P> +She was at his side, her hands clasped together, her face white and +strained. +</P> + +<P> +"Forget him his spite, and what comes, Ima. While he lies, with a rug +and with his boots from his feet, bide thou there and read to +him—Crusoe, eh? Stingo and I will make for thee, master. I am not +long gone." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0504"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +FOXY PINSENT <I>V.</I> JAPHRA's GENTLEMAN +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +Visitors to the booths who had stayed late that night went home +complaining of the abruptness with which the shows were closed and of +the uncouth way in which showmen who had fawned and flattered for their +patronage suddenly seemed no more occupied with them than to bustle +them off the ground and set their faces townwards. +</P> + +<P> +But visitors were not in the line of communication that flashed that +amazing news around the camp: +</P> + +<P> +"Heard it?" +</P> + +<P> +"No!" +</P> + +<P> +"Foxy Pinsent's to fight Japhra's Gentleman in the marquee!" +</P> + +<P> +"What of it?" +</P> + +<P> +"What of it, yer muddy thick? What of it? Not a show—private! Had a +scrap and to fight it out!" +</P> + +<P> +"Eh? Fac'? No! When?" +</P> + +<P> +"One o'clock. When the ground's clear." And, with a nod at the +sightseers, "Get 'em out, mate! Get 'em out! Stars and stripes! What +a knock-out!" +</P> + +<P> +So, as the Fiery Cross among the Highland glens rushed with incredible +swiftness, leaving in its wake a trail of mad commotion, the message +flashed from mouth to mouth, booth to booth, van to van—received with +utter incredulity, grasped with wildest excitement, relished with a +zeal that caused every other thought and object to be abandoned, and +resulted in a tide of feverish agitation to be at leisure for details +and for the business that drove out naphtha flares and visitors alike +as it swept across the ground. For there was more in the fight than +the rare thrill of fight itself. It was accepted everywhere as the +meeting by champion of the two factions; and the bickerings of many +months, the final poison of that day's events, rushed a savage zest +into the appetites that waited the encounter. Foxy Pinsent was Boss +Maddox's party, coat off to put that Stingo crowd properly in its +place; Japhra's Gentleman was the Stingo following, girt at last to +collect a little on account for much outstanding debt. When, towards +one o'clock, the surging crowd outside the marquee made a sudden +movement forward and into the tent, it entered with rival cries, +taunts, faction jeers—and separated, as a barrier had divided it, into +two bodies that faced in mutual mock across the ring that had been +formed. +</P> + +<P> +They found preparations at the point of completion, done by half a +dozen principles that Boss Maddox had called in, who stood conferring +with him now on final arrangements—Stingo, with Ginger Cronk and +Snowball White of Japhra's booth; Foxy Pinsent, hands in the pockets of +his long yellow coat, with Buck Osborn and others of his Academy of +Boxing and School of Arms—Pink Harman, Dingo Spain, Nut Harris. At a +little distance Japhra stood with Percival. He had towels on his arm, +a sponge in his hand, and as the crowd took up their places he turned +and called a single word across the arena to the group within the ring. +</P> + +<P> +"Gloves?" he called. +</P> + +<P> +Pinsent answered him. Pinsent took his hands from the pockets of his +coat and curved up two brown fists. "There's no gloves between us," he +called back; and at his words the two groups of spectators drew as it +were one long breath of relish—"Ah-h-h!" that hardened to murmurs of +grim satisfaction, each man to his neighbour—"The raw 'uns!" "The +knuckle!" "The knuckle!" "The raw 'uns!" and broke into individual +bickerings, cries of derision, across the ring; and thence into a +sudden wordless shouting, one party against the other—a blaring vent +of old antagonism fermented by new cause that made the animals in the +menagerie cages at the end of the arena leap from uneasy slumber to +spring against their bars and join their chorus to a chorus brutish as +their own. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +To a renewed outburst of that clamour—the thing was on the tick of +beginning—Ima raised the flap that covered the entrance to the marquee +and stepped within. Simultaneously the shouting stilled with a sudden +jerk that left an immense silence—Foxy Pinsent had stepped into the +ring. +</P> + +<P> +She stopped as if the sudden stillness struck her; and she took in the +scene, her hands clasped against her breast. +</P> + +<P> +The ring had been contrived within the inner circle that forms the +working part of a circus arena. The canvas belt, some two feet high, +that surrounded this circle during a performance, had been taken up as +to the arc farthest from where she stood and brought forward to the +great pole of the marquee. The wide half circle thus bounded was made +the ring for the fight. Around the tent the lights above the seats had +been extinguished; the great lamp of many burners that encircled the +mast enclosed the ring in its arc of clear light. In the surrounding +dimness, as Ima paused and watched, were the high tiers of red-draped, +empty benches. Within the light's arc she saw the rival crowds on +either hand; straight before her the gap that separated the two +clusters and declared their enmity. At the centre front of each, +against the canvas that bounded the ring, was a little caving-in of the +throng where men in their shirt-sleeves knelt. Pinsent had just +stepped out from this knot on the one side: in the other she saw +Percival seated on her father's knee. A hundred men and more were +behind Pinsent, behind Percival forty or fewer; there was significance +in how each throng stood closely packed, refusing the accommodation +that the ample space between them offered—hatred was deep that +preferred the discomfort of jostling and tiptoe standing to easier view +at the price of mingling. Every face was beneath a peaked cap or +dented bowler hat and above a scarfed neck; a pipe in most caused, as +it were, a grey, shifting bank of smoke, cut flat by the darkness above +the lamp's reflection, to be swaying above the caps as though they +balanced it. Here and there were clumps of colour where women in +blouses of red or white clustered together. Sweat, for the place was +hot, glistened on this face and on that as if the grey, shifting bank +above them exuded drops of water. There was something very sinister, +very eerie, in the complete silence that for a moment held the scene; +and Ima started to hear a sound of breathing and of restless movement. +She looked around. On either hand of where she stood the menagerie +cages were banked. Dark or tawny forms were coiled or stretched there; +in one cage was a big wolf, head down, nose at the bars, that watched +the light as she watched it. +</P> + +<P> +She went quickly forward to where she saw her father. Impatient way +was made for her. Japhra was talking earnestly to Percival, and they +scarcely seemed to notice her. She slipped down beside them, her knees +against the canvas, and sat on her heels, her hands clasped at their +full extension. She had said she would not come. She had found she +must. While she had been with Percival waiting Japhra's return after +the scene with Pinsent he had begun the contrition he had come to her +to express. She suffered him nothing of it. "That is left where we +laid it among the bracken," she told him. "Let it abide there. Look +already what has come of it. If I had stayed with thee, this had not +happened." +</P> + +<P> +But her leaving him, and why she left, and his following her, and what +came then, were of the train of the tricks and chances that shaped for +him this day. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +Boss Maddox spoke. "They're going to fight," he said, taking up a +position against the mast and addressing the gathering in his dry, +authoritative way—"They're going to fight, and you can count +yourselves lucky to see it. If any one interferes—out he goes. +Everything's settled. If any one sees anything he don't think right or +according to rule he can go outside and look for it—keep his mouth +shut while he's going and go quick. Three minute rounds. One minute +breathers. Ten count for the knock-out. Stingo 'll stand here with +the watch. I'm referee. And I'm boss—bite on that. Come along, +Foxy." +</P> + +<P> +Pinsent, who had stepped over the canvas and strolled to the centre of +the ring as Ima entered, was still in the long yellow coat, still with +his hands in his pockets. He liked to have all those eyes upon him. +He liked to give pause and opportunity for the thought that this fine +figure standing here had fought in class rings and bore a reputation +that gentlemen in shirt-fronts had paid gold to see at battle. He +suffered usually a slight nervousness at the first moment of stepping +into those class rings: to-night and here he had an exultant feeling, +and he carried it with a most effective swagger. He knew Percival +could box. He had watched him spar in Japhra's booth. He knew, to +express his own thoughts, there 'd be a little bit of mixin' up at the +outset; but he knew, as only Japhra among them all also knew, that to +his own skill that had put him in a good rank of his weight he added +the experience, the craft, the morale of a score and more class fights, +and that such a quality is to be reckoned as a third arm against that +poor thing—a "novice." "A novice, Boss!" he had said to Boss Maddox +an hour before. "A novice—I lay there's more'n a few 'ud stop this +fight if they knew what I was fighting. 'Strewth! I'd not do it +myself but for what I've been saving up against the whelp!" +</P> + +<P> +What he had been saving up came poisonously to his mind as he stood +there, driving away even the flavour of the admiration he felt he was +receiving. At last the price for that "Foxy" he had been dubbed and +had endured. At last that price! Folk had come to the booths to see +Japhra's Gentleman, had they!—A price for that! That smack in the +mouth an hour ago!—A price for that! a big price and he would have it +to the full! +</P> + +<P> +The foxy smile contracted his mouth and eyes as he began to draw the +scarf from his neck, slipped the long yellow coat, and peeled a +sweater. A delighted cry went up from his supporters—good old Foxy +had done them the honour of appearing in his class ring kit! Japhra, +whispering last earnest words in Percival's ear, looked up at the cry, +and twisted up his face at what he saw. Naked but for the tight boxing +trunks and boxing boots, Pinsent declared himself a rare figure of a +fighting machine. Japhra knew the points. Pinsent threw out his arms +at right angles to his sides and drew a long breath. Japhra saw the +big round chest spring up and expand as a soap bubble at a breath +through the pipe—the cleft down the bone between the big chest +muscles; the tense, drumlike look of the skin where it swept into waist +from the lower ribs; the ridge from neck to shoulder on either side +where the head of the back muscles showed; the immense span of the +arms, rooted in great hitting shoulders that, at such length and along +such well-packed arms, would drive the fists like engine rods. He +scaled a shade over ten stone, Japhra guessed. Percival would be +little above nine-and-a-half; and in Pinsent's uncommonly long +legs—their length accentuated by the brief boxing-drawers—Japhra saw +a further and most dangerous quality in his armoury. He swung an arm +and side-stepped to his left as Japhra watched; and Japhra's lips +twitched. The left leg not slid the foot but lifted it and put it away +and down, more with the ease of an arm action than of a leg—as a +spider lifts and places; up, two feet away, the body perfectly poised +on the right; down, and in a flash the body alert upon it—down, and in +a flash the arm extended and back again with the stab of a serpent's +tongue. There went up a murmur of applause at the consummate ease of +the action, and Japhra turned to Percival with whispered repetition of +last words. +</P> + +<P> +"Thou seest that?" he whispered. "Thou must follow, follow; press him; +give him no rest. In-fighting, in-fighting, quick as thou canst hit!" +</P> + +<P> +Earnest anxiety was in his voice as he spoke and in his lined face that +was all twisted up so that every line became a pucker, as a withered +apple that is squeezed in the hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Now bide me a last time," he said. "He hath no bowels for punishment. +There is a coward streak in him—I have seen it. That thou must find +by following, following—quick as thou canst sling them. Good for thee +that he has chosen the knuckle. Thou hast used thy hands. That fox +yonder hath been too fine a swell these years to pull and carry, shift +and load as thou hast done. He will rue his choice when his knuckles +bruise; thine like stone. He will use his tongue on thee, mocking +thee. Pay no heed to that. He will use his ring tricks. Watch for +them. Up now! they are ready for thee. My life is in this fight, +little master—punish, punish, punish; give him no peace—it resteth on +that. All the luck!" +</P> + +<P> +He slipped Percival's coat, and Percival stepped across the canvas and +went where Pinsent waited him in the centre. He wore the dress in +which he boxed in the booth—white flannel trousers, a vest of thin +gauze, white canvas shoes with rubber soles. He carried his arms at +his sides, twisting up his fingers to make toughest those fists that +Japhra had said were like stone. He held his head high, looking +straightly at Pinsent; stopped within an arm's length of him and turned +his eyes informatively to Boss Maddox, then direct into Pinsent's again. +</P> + +<P> +His covered limbs joined with his few pounds' lesser weight to make him +appear the slighter figure of the two. "Going to eat him!" a voice +behind Pinsent broke out. +</P> + +<P> +"Going to muddy well eat him!" and Pinsent's mouth and eyes contracted +into their foxy smile at the words. +</P> + +<P> +"Ready?" from Boss Maddox. "All right, Stingo. Get along with it." +</P> + +<P> +"Time!" said Stingo's husky whisper; and, as a hand laid to the wire of +dancing puppets, the word jerked both figures into movement. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0505"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +A FIGHT THAT IS TOLD +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +They tell that fight along the road to-day. Old men who saw it want +never a listener when the talk turns on boxing and they can say: "Ah, +but I saw Japhra's Gentleman and Foxy Pinsent back in Boss Maddox's +time." +</P> + +<P> +I tell it as it is told. +</P> + +<P> +Why (the old men say), why, this Japhra's Gentleman, mark me, he was +one of the quick-ones—one of the movers, one of the swift-boys, one of +the dazzlers, one of the few! He come in <I>tic-tac! tic-tac! +tic-tac!</I>—quicker'n my old jaws can say it: <I>Left-right! left-right! +left-right!</I>—like his two fists was a postman's knock. Pinsent never +see nothing like it. He was one of the class ones, this Pinsent—one +of the pretty ones, one of the sparrers, one of the walk-rounds, +talk-rounds, one of the wait-a-bits; never in no hurry, the class-ring +boys—all watching first to see what a man's got for 'em. He muddy +soon saw, Foxy! Foxy never see nothing like it. First along, he prop +this quick-boy off, an' prop him off, an' prop him off; an' catch him +fair and rattle him, an' smash him one and stagger him, an' side-step +an' shake him up; but still he come, and still he come, and still he +come; <I>tic-tac! tic-tac! tic-tac!</I> ah, he was one of the quick-ones, +one of the dazzlers, one of the steel-boys. +</P> + +<P> +Pinsent never see nothing like it. He come back after the first round +thinking this was novice stuff—going all out like that from the +gong—and laughin' at the bustle of it, an' Buck Osborn an' Nut Harris +an' his boys laughin' back at him. Second round he come back an' give +a bit of a spit on the ground an' ease up his trunks an' look +thoughtful. Third round he step back slowly 's if he'd a puzzle to +think about,—third round I mind me Dingo, Dingo Spain, chip him +friendly while he pass the sponge over him, and Foxy turn on him like +he had the devil in his eyes. "What in hell's that to you?" he give +him. "Keep your grins in your ugly mouth," he give him, "lest you want +me to wipe it for you!" He was rattled some, that foxy one; not hurted +much—one of the tough ones, Foxy—but bothered by it an' not quite +sure what to make of it, like a man with a wops buzzin' round his +head—that was the like of it with that quick-boy comin' at him, an' +comin' at him, an' comin' at him. +</P> + +<P> +Ay, but he was one of the tough ones, Foxy—one of the lie-lows, one of +the shifty ones, one of the snaky-boys, one of the cautions! He went +out fourth round for to serve it up to that quick-boy with some of his +crafty bits. I like a bit o' craft meself. I was a Maddox man, me, +an' I set up a holler, an' we all holler, take my word, when we see +Foxy servin' of it up to that quick-boy like he lay hisself to do then. +Give his tongue to him a treat, he did. Walkin' out to him—tiptoe an' +crouchin' at him. "What, you're in a hurry, my gentleman!" he chips +him. "You'll make yourself hot, my pretty pet, if you don't steady +down," he chips him. "That's not lady's manners, runnin' about like +you've been," he chips him. +</P> + +<P> +That quick-boy come at him an' he slip a bit of craft on him quick as a +snake. Side-step, he did, that foxy one; an' duck an' say, "Where's +your manners?" an' rake his head across an' butt that quick-boy's +stomach so he grunts; an' up an' hook him one, an' follow him an' lash +him one, an' "Mind your manners, you bastard!" he says an' half across +the ring an' waitin' for him. Three times he butt him so, an' each +time hook him one, an' all the time lip-lippin' of him, an' us boys +hollerin' an' Stingo's boys hollerin' an' the animals in the cages +hollerin' back on us. Holler!—I mind me I was in a fair muck sweat +with it. +</P> + +<P> +Back he goes again, next round, that foxy one, an' "Why, dear, dear, +you've got some beauty-spots on your face, my pretty gentleman!" he +chips him. "Come an' let's paint 'em up a bit for you, my little +lady!" he chips him. Ay, that was a round, that one! That Japhra,—a +rare one that Gipsy Japhra—had been talkin' to that quick-boy whiles +he had him on his knee; an' when he comes in, an' that foxy one goes to +rake him with buttin' him again, he step back, that quick-boy, for to +cut him as he come out. I see the move—but that foxy one! All craft +that foxy one was—one of the snaky ones, one of the tough boys, one of +the coves! 'Stead o' swingin' through with his head, he swing up and +hook his left 'un with it, an' chin that quick-boy one, an' "Paint!" he +says, "There's paint for you, you dog!" an' lash him one where he had a +little mouse-lump over his eye; an' true enough, the paint splits +across an' comes streaky down that quick-boy's face. +</P> + +<P> +You'd ha' thought—I lay me I know what that foxy one thought. Blood +fierce went that foxy one when he see that blood, an' in he goes, +fierce after blood, for to finish it; leaved off his craft and went in +for to hammer him. He muddy soon goed back to craft again, Foxy! That +quick-boy shook his head an' run back; an' draws a breath an' meets +him; an' throats him one an' staggers him; an' draws a breath an' +follows him; an' pastes him one an' grunts him; an' <I>tic-tac! tic-tac! +tic-tac!</I> an' follows him, an' follows him, an' follows him. Like a +wops he was—like a bull-tamer he was, an' that foxy one gets all +muddled with him, an' runs back puzzled with him, an' then catches hold +of hisself, an' stops hisself—I reckon he wondered where 'n hell he'd +be soon if he didn't—and puts in that duck an' butt craft again; an' +that quick-boy steadies for him like old Japhra bin teachin' of him; +an' when that foxy one swings across, that quick-boy smashes up under +him—<I>crack!</I> like a stone-breaker with his hammer; an' that foxy one +come back to us with his mouth split, an' his chin red; an' while he +sit blowin' take a toof out; an' while he sit blowin' get it drip-drop +on his chest from where the blood run to his chin. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +But Percival had suffered under the punishment of these savage +encounters, and under the immense exertions of that unceasing +in-fighting to which Japhra had urged him. Back on Japhra's knee, +"I've dosed him, Japhra," he said. "He's taking all I can give him." +There was a sob in his quick breathing as he spoke, and he smiled +weakly and leant back against Japhra's shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +Japhra's eyes were sunk in his twisted face to twin points of +glistening light. His voice trembled, and his hand as he plied the +sponge. "He will not drink much more," he said. "Thou art hot after +that coward streak in him. I mark the signs of it. Keep up the dose, +master! Never such a fight—and never thy like! never thy like! +Follow him, son of mine—follow him! follow him! A last call on +thyself! Watch him where he sucks his tender knuckles." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Pinsent knew better than Japhra the tenderness of those bruised +knuckles of his: he knew too that he was housing an uneasy feeling +beneath his belt, born of the bewildering persistence of his opponent +and of the punishing fists which that persistence pressed upon him, +giving him no peace. He was sore; he had reached the point when blows +were beginning to hurt him—and that was a point beyond which he knew +it was dangerous for him to delay proceedings. +</P> + +<P> +Again! He came forward with a trick in his mind that he had seen and +that he had once playfully practised on Buck Osborn. Thought of it +helped him to his foxy smile that was a grotesque burlesque of itself +as he made it with his swollen mouth; but again!—again that +steel-springed fury was on him, following him, following him, following +him. Pinsent must needs use his fists to try to check its rushes; when +he effected a savage blow the jar at his knuckles made him wince. +Twice he went backwards round the ring—a third time and feinted a +stumble as he moved his feet. It made his chance. Percival, coming +too quick, ran full into him. He ducked, then drove up his head with +all his force beneath the other's jaw. +</P> + +<P> +The trick succeeded better than when he had seen it and marked it for +future use. Jarred to the point of unconsciousness, Percival staggered +back, his arms wide. At the exposed throat Pinsent drove his left fist +with all the driving power his body and legs could give it; with the +dull <I>wup!</I> of a wet sheet beaten on stone Percival went his full +length and full length lay. +</P> + +<P> +"Time!" throated Stingo; and at the word the facing crowds, that as one +man had caught their breaths, went into two tumults of jostling +figures, tossing arms, and of brazen throats before whose thunders, +beating the air like thunder's self, Japhra, Ginger Cronk, Snowball +White, and One Eye bent their heads as they came rushing forward. +</P> + +<P> +"Time!" Japhra snarled at Pinsent. "Out of this, thou foul-play fox!" +</P> + +<P> +"Out you!" Pinsent shouted. He stood over the prostrate form, +breathing quick, one arm curved back as if it held a stabbing sword: +"Out you! Enough o' this! Private between him an' me now. Stand out +and let him up for me! Out!" +</P> + +<P> +"Boss! Boss!" Japhra called, and dropped on his knees by Percival, +dizzily rising on an elbow. "Boss! Boss! What's this? Order him +out! Have him out!" +</P> + +<P> +"Play fair!" "Fight fair!"—with cries and oaths the Stingo men pressed +to the canvas, shaking fists aloft; with cries and oaths and tossing +fists were answered. A Stingo man put his leg over the canvas and half +his body into the ring: a leg and flushed face struck out on the other +side. Then in a rush men broke across the canvas, poured into the +ring, and met in two raging, foul-mouthed banks that strained about the +boxers. +</P> + +<P> +Boss Maddox thrust his way forward. "Ge' back! Ge' back! I'll have +'ee out the tent, every man of 'ee! Ge' back! Ge' back! By God, I'll +have the lamp out!" And he fought his way back to the mast and +stretched his hand to the chain that released the extinguishers upon +the burners. +</P> + +<P> +A Stingo and a Maddox man, catching each the other's eye as the two +sides bayed and jostled, made private cause of the common brawl, and +closed with clutching hands. Another pair engaged, and now +another—whirled in that tossing mob, and flung the crowd this way and +that in their furious grappling, like fighting tigers in a stockade +breaking in pieces at their violence. +</P> + +<P> +Boss Maddox's iron throat like a trumpet across the din: "The light +goes! The light goes!" +</P> + +<P> +It flickered; savage hands tore at the fighters, savage feet kicked +furious commands; flickered again—and suddenly the immense clamour +went to a cry, to a broken shout, to peace. +</P> + +<P> +Pinsent pushed his way to the front. "Easy, Boss—I want that light. +I've a job to finish," he said; and in the laugh that went up, added, +"The boys 'll be all right." He threw his arms apart in gesture of +command. "Out o' the ring!" he cried. "You're robbin' me of it. +Gettin' his wits back! I'd ha' cut him out by now!" +</P> + +<P> +Three parts supporting Percival, Japhra with Ginger Cronk and the rest +had taken him back through the mob and supported him while they tended +him.... The tumult gave him five minutes, and he was sitting up as the +men returned growling to their places. He looked at Ima, crouching by +him, read the entreaty in her eyes, and answered it and at the same +time answered Japhra's trembling "How of it, master?" by shaking his +head. "No!" he said, "No!" and felt Japhra's arms tighten about him. +</P> + +<P> +Another heard him and pressed forward. It was Egbert Hunt, tears +running down his face. +</P> + +<P> +"You ain't going on?" he cried. "You ain't going on! Stop it, Mr. +Japhra! Stop this murder!" +</P> + +<P> +Japhra's left arm was about Percival's body, his right hand used the +sponge. Those near him for the first and only time heard him use a +coarse expression. As he were some tigress above a threatened cub, he +drew Percival closer to him and turned savagely up at Egbert's pallid +face. "Shut thy bloody, coward mouth!" he cried at him. "Men's work +here! Quit thee, thou whelp!" +</P> + +<P> +The ring was clear. Pinsent came out, sucking a fist. Percival got to +his feet, stood a moment, the blood that had dripped to his chest the +red badge of courage flying there—then walked forward. +</P> + +<P> +Somewhere in the crowd a woman's voice shot up hysterically: "God love +yer, Gentleman!" it shrilled—"Y're pluck! Pluck!" +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +That foxy one (the old men say) he come out sucking his fistses that +were gone more like messy orindges than any fistses ever I see. He see +that quick-boy rockin' a bit on his feet where he stood, an' he spit +his fist out his mouth an' he run slap down at him for to knock him off +his legs by runnin' into him. He run at him hard as he could pelt, +that foxy one; an' that quick-boy stan' 's if he was dreamin' an' never +see nothin' of him. Ah, but that quick-boy could have fought if he was +asleep, I reckon me! He slip aside, squeeze aside, twist aside jus' as +that foxy one reach him; so quick he twist, us what was watchin' the +ground for to see him go there never see him move. I reckon that foxy +one never did neither. He muddy soon knowed, though, Foxy! He go +sprawlin' by, an' as he go that quick-boy clip him one an' help him go +an' stumble him. Round he come, that foxy one, savage with it; an' +that quick-boy dreamin' there again; an' rush him for to rush him down +again; an' this time that quick-boy, too tired for to shift by the look +of it, let him have it as he come fair under the eye, an' Foxy jus' +swing him one on the cheek, an' that shift him like he shift hisself +before; an' he clip that foxy one the other fist a clip you could ha' +heard far as yonder tree; an' clip that same eye again; an' us see the +blood run up into Foxy's peeper; an' that foxy one shake his head, an' +shake his head, like he was blinded with it. He shake a muddy lot +more, Foxy, afore he was through! He set in for to do the rushing +then, like that quick-boy had done first along; an' that quick-boy's +turn, dreamin' there, for to do the proppin' off. But he not rush like +that quick-boy rush. He shake his head an' have a go at him; an' that +quick-boy prop him off an' wait for him; an' he shake his head an' walk +round a bit, an' <I>ur!</I> he go, an' rush at him; an' that quick-boy wake +hisself an' prop him off; an' he suck his fist an' wipe his eye, an' +<I>ur!</I> he come again: and that quick-boy twist hisself an' give him +one—<I>crack!</I> my life, his fistses was like stones, that quick-boy's! +</P> + +<P> +Ah, my word! my word! then they got at it. That old Japhra—a rare +one, that Gipsy Japhra!—sing out "Cut in! Cut in! little master!" and +that quick-boy gives a heave of hisself an' they meet, those two, +slapper-dash! slapper-dash! this way! that way! punchin', punchin'! an' +they fall away, those two, an' breathe theirselves, an' pant +theirselves; an' that foxy one has his mouth all anyhow an' fair +roarin' of his breath through it; an' his head all twisty-ways with +only one eye for watchin' with; an' they rush those two—my life! they +were rare ones! Hit as they come, those two—an' that put the stopper +on it. Like stones—<I>crack!</I> like stones—my word on it, their fists +met, an' Foxy drop his left arm like it was broke at the elbow. Then +he takes it! Like a bull-tarrier!—like a bull-tarrier, my word on it, +that quick-boy lep' at him. <I>One!</I> he smash him an' heart him, an' I +see that foxy one glaze in his eye an' stagger with it. <I>Two!</I> that +quick-boy drive him an' rib him, an' I hear that foxy one grunt an' see +him waggle up his hanging arm an' drop it. <I>Three!</I> that quick-boy +smash him an' throat him, an' back he goes, that foxy one; an' crash he +goes! an' flat he lies—an', my life! to hear the breathing of him! +</P> + +<P> +Life of me! there was never a knock-out like it; never one could do it +like that quick-boy done it! Never no one as quick as that quick-boy +when first along he come <I>tic-tac! tic-tac! tic-tac!</I> left-right! +left-right! left-right! Never one could come again after he was bashed +like that quick-boy come. Never his like! One of the rare ones, one +of the clean-breds, one of the true-blues, one of the all-rights, one +of the get-there, stop-there, win-there—one o' the picked! +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +Quivering in silence the facing crowds stood while the count went. +</P> + +<P> +"Nine!" throated Stingo—scarcely a whisper. +</P> + +<P> +Stillness while perhaps five seconds passed. Then Boss Maddox opened +his hands towards the ring in an expressive gesture. +</P> + +<P> +Then men came rushing to Pinsent and shook him: "Up, Foxy! Up!" Then +Pinsent drew up his knees, groaned, and seemed to collapse anew. Then, +then the storm burst in a bellow of sound, in a rush of figures. All, +all of clamour that had gone before—of exultation, hate, defiance, +blood-want, rage—seemed now to bind up in two clanging rolls of +thunder that in thunder went, in thunder thundered back, and thundered +on again. Percival turned and saw Japhra running towards him, an arm's +length in advance of the mob that followed. He fell into Japhra's +arms, felt himself pressed, pressed to Japhra's heart, heard in his +ears "Never thy like! Son of mine, never thy like!" He knew a driving +mob behind his back, before, and all about him—heard curses, +grapplings, blows. Heard Japhra's cry "Up with him! Up!" felt himself +borne aloft and dimly was conscious that his bearers were staggered +this way and that by the flood that surged about them.... Sudden +darkness, and sudden most delicious air and sudden most delicious rain +was his next impression—they had got him outside the tent.... At his +next he was in the van, on his couch, smiling at those who bent above +him. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0506"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +THE STICKS COME OUT—AND A KNIFE +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +"How dost thou go?" Japhra asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, my face is sore," Percival said—"sore! it feels as if I had only +a square inch of skin stretched to cover the lot. I'm right as rain +otherwise. That was a fight, Japhra!" +</P> + +<P> +"Never its like!" Japhra answered him huskily—"never its like! Thou +art the fighting type, my son. Long ago I said it. This night hath +proved me!" +</P> + +<P> +Percival sighed most luxuriously. Pleasant, pleasant to be lying +there—bruised, tired, sore, but weariness and wounds bound up with +victory. He put up a hand and took Ima's fingers that touched his face +with ointment. "That's fine, Ima!" he smiled at her. "I saw you +crying. You oughtn't to have been there. Did you think I was done +for?" +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head; tears were still in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's over now," he said affectionately. "Dry those eyes, Ima!" +</P> + +<P> +She gave a catch at her breath. "Well, I am a woman," she told him, +and her gentle fingers anointed his face again. +</P> + +<P> +Their caress assisted him into drowsiness. Without opening his eyes he +inquired presently: +</P> + +<P> +"What's all that row? There's a frightful noise somewhere, isn't +there?" +</P> + +<P> +Japhra, who was looking through the forward window into the early dawn +of the summer morning, turned to Ima and shook his head. She took his +meaning and answered Percival: "It rains heavily. There is a storm +coming up." +</P> + +<P> +He dropped into slumber. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +But the noise he had heard was heavier than the rain that streamed upon +the van's roof; there raged outside a fiercer storm than the +thunder-clouds massing up on the wind. It had been many seasons +brooding; it was charged to the point of bursting when the two factions +came shouting from the marquee after the fight. Swept up with arrogant +glee, the Stingo men paraded with hoots and jeers before the Maddox +vans. A stone came flying through the gloom and cracked against a tall +man's cheek. He stooped for it with a curse, sent it whistling, and +the crash of glass that rewarded his aim was the signal for a scramble +for stones—smashing of windows, splintering of wood. +</P> + +<P> +There came a wild rush of men from behind the Maddox vans. Japhra, +watching from his window, turned swiftly and took up the stout limb of +ash he commonly carried. He gave it a deft twirl in a tricky way that +spoke of the days when single-stick work figured at the fairs, and +looked at Ima with his tight-lipped smile. +</P> + +<P> +"The sticks are out!" he said grimly. "I knew it would end thus;" and +as he opened the door and dropped to the ground there came to him from +many throats the savage cry—glad to the tough old heart of him that +once had told Percival, "Ay, a camp fight with the sticks out and the +heads cracking is a proper game for a man"—of "Sticks! Sticks!"; and +one that came running past him toward the press shouted to him: +"Japhra? Good on yer! The sticks are out! The ——s ha' come at us +with sticks!" +</P> + +<P> +It was Snowball White. "This way with it, boy," Japhra told him as +they ran. "Thy stick thus—with a hand at each end across thy head. +Crack at a pate right hand or left when thou seest one—then back to +overhead to guard thine own again. I have been out with the sticks. I +know the way of it." +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +Weight of numbers had told their tale when Percival got a glimpse of +the fierce work. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm fit—I'm absolutely fit, I tell you!" he had told Ima when, +awakened by the sounds that now had raged close to the Stingo vans, and +recognising them for what they were, he had shaken off her protests and +entreaties and had come to the scene. +</P> + +<P> +"Lie here while they're fighting us! Why, you'd be ashamed of me, you +know you would!" he had cried; but when he was outside, and had gone a +few steps in the rain that now was sheeting down, he was informed how +weak he was, and was caught and spun dizzily back by a sudden mob of +men driven towards him, and was held dizzy and fainting by the panting +breaths and by the reek of sweating bodies that wedged him where he +stood. +</P> + +<P> +He was packed in a mob of his Stingo mates, half of whom could not free +their arms for use and about three sides of whom the Maddox mob were +baying, driving them further and further back against the vans with +sticks that rattled on sticks and on heads like the crackling of trees +in a wood fire. Two forms, taller than the rest, upstood clearly—near +Percival old Stingo, hatless, blood on a cheek, and throating "Hut! +Hut, boys! Hut!" with each stroke he made; further away Boss Maddox, +pale, grim and iron of countenance as ever even in this fury, and using +his long reach to strike with deadly precision at heads half a dozen +men in front of him. +</P> + +<P> +The two were working towards one another, Percival could see, and a +sudden surge of the crowd brought him almost within reach of Boss +Maddox's stick. It was at that moment that he felt a jostling at his +ribs as of someone burrowing past him from behind, looked down and +recognised Egbert Hunt—shut in by accident and trying to escape, +Percival guessed. +</P> + +<P> +"Hullo! You're going the wrong way to get out," he told him. +</P> + +<P> +Egbert Hunt thrust up and filled his lungs as a diver might rise for +air. He peered in the direction of Boss Maddox, and went down again. +"I know which way I'm going," he said, and squirmed ahead—feeling and +thrusting with his outstretched left hand, his right in the pocket of +his coat. +</P> + +<P> +Stingo and Maddox met. Each stood high above those about them and each +had a cry of challenge for the other as their sticks joined. "Hut!" +grunted Stingo and slashed to Boss Maddox's shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +Percival saw the stick caught where it had slipped from its mark and +gone into the press; saw Boss Maddox shake himself for freer action and +the crowd give way from about him; saw him swing up his arm and poise +his stick a dreadful second clear above Stingo's unprotected head—then +saw him give an awkward stagger, saw the raised stick slip down between +his fingers, heard him grunt and saw him drop down and disappear as a +man beneath whose feet the ground had opened. +</P> + +<P> +There arose almost simultaneously, high above the din of sticks and +oaths, a scream of shocking sound and horrid meaning—"A knife! A +knife!" the scream shot up—"A knife! Some bastard 's used a knife!" +</P> + +<P> +It swept across the struggling men, stopped them, and was cried from +throat to throat as though through the night there jarred some evil +bird circling with evil cry: "A knife! A knife! Some one's knifed!" +</P> + +<P> +And then again that first voice screamed: "Boss Maddox's knifed! The +Boss is murdered!" +</P> + +<P> +And another, most beastly: "Christ! it's pourin' out of 'im. Boss! +Boss! 'Oo's done it on yer?" +</P> + +<P> +And a third: "Boss! Boss! God ha' mercy!—he's dead! dead!" +</P> + +<P> +And one that sprung up in panic and smashed a panic blow at the man +behind him: "Dead! Dead! Gi' us room, blast yer!" +</P> + +<P> +And one that sprung upright, held in his hand aloft that which caught +the dull morning gleam, and screamed "Here y'are! Here's what done it! +Blood on the haft!" +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +A thud of hoofs broke into the silence in which the crowd stood held. +A jingle of accoutrements; a sharp voice that called: "What's up? +What's wrong here? Who called murder?" a breaking away right and left +of the mob; and into the lane instinctively formed to where the body +lay a mounted constable rode, pulled up his horse and cried again: +"What's up? What's wrong here?" +</P> + +<P> +He was answered. Scarcely the fearful whisper "Police! Police!" had +run to the outskirts of the crowd, when one that had knelt sprung +raving to his feet, tossed aloft two hands dark with blood, and +shouted: "I called murder! There's murder here! Boss Maddox 's got a +knife in him!" His shouting went to a scream: "One o' they's done it!" +he screamed. "One o' they! One o' Stingo's bastards!" +</P> + +<P> +There had been mutterings of thunder and swiftly gathering darkness +that submerged the summer morning's gleam. Tremendous upon that +accusing scream there now broke out of heaven great reverberating rolls +of sound as of heaven demanding answer to that cry. The sheeting rain +burst with a torrent's fury—a great stab of lightning almost upon the +very camp; then pitchy black and thunder's roll again. +</P> + +<P> +To the Stingo crowd it gave the last effect to the mounting panic that +had mounted in them on successive terrors of "A knife!" "Boss Maddox's +knifed!" "Boss Maddox 's dead!" "Police! Police!" and "One o' they! +One o' they! One o' Stingo's bastards!" +</P> + +<P> +Murder had been done. The Blue Boys were out. With one of their own +number lay the guilt. There cried to them "Away! Away!", all the +instinct that, since first law came on the land, has bade roadmen, +gipsies, outlaws, take immediate flight from trouble. "Away!" it +screamed; and by common impulse there was a break and a rush to their +vans of the Stingo men; and in the pitchy blackness and in primeval +shudder at every roll of thunder, drenched by the streaming downpour, +lit as the lightning snatched up the cloak of night, there were panic +harnessing and panic cries: "One o' us! One o' us done it! D'yer see +the Blue Boy on his 'orse?—more of 'em coming! 'Old still!—still, +blast yer! Up wi' that shaft!—up! Hell take this buckle! Are yer +fixed? One o' us! One o' us!" +</P> + +<P> +A van, speedier ready than its neighbours, rolled off, its driver +flogging the horse from the forward platform. A blinding torch from +heaven flamed down about it. The constable, giving directions by the +prone figure—"He's not dead; knot those scarves together; lift, and +bind 'em so"—shaded his eyes from the glare; then jumped for his +horse. "Stop that van! None's to leave here! Stop 'em! stop 'em!" +</P> + +<P> +Away! Away!—thundering hoofs; rocking wheels; a van overturned, and +groans and curses; pursuers driven down or smashed at where they +climbed the steps; the constable surrounded by those who ran beside the +van he followed, dragged from his saddle, hurled aside, and his horse +sent galloping. +</P> + +<P> +Away! Away!—blindly into the night. +</P> + +<P> +And in the night, two miles afield, one that ran with streaming face +and labouring chest and that muttered "I done it on 'im—me, served +like a dog before 'em all—I done it on him, the tyrang!" +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +V +</P> + +<P> +Percival was changing his dripping clothes. Complete exhaustion had +him. The bruises on his face had hardened to ugly colours, and Japhra, +chiding him for having left the van, saw with concern an uglier colour +yet that burned behind the bruises and whose cause made his wet body +burning to the touch. +</P> + +<P> +"Bed for thee!—no changing!" he said; and was answered by Percival: +"Japhra! I saw him pitch and drop!" +</P> + +<P> +"I have helped bear him to his van.... I saw him struck." +</P> + +<P> +There had never left Percival's mind him that went thrusting past in +the press, right hand in pocket. His eyes questioned Japhra and were +answered by Japhra's. Then he said, "Egbert Hunt?" +</P> + +<P> +"Egbert Hunt." +</P> + +<P> +"What's going to happen now, Japhra?" +</P> + +<P> +Strange how tricks and chances go! All that day's chain of tricks, all +its train of chances, had brought Percival straight to the import of +Japhra's words. +</P> + +<P> +"This night hath ended this life, master. Stingo sells his stock and +back to his brother near thy home. To-morrow, new roads for me." +</P> + +<P> +Percival scarcely heard him. Japhra made an exclamation and caught him +in his arms. +</P> + +<P> +"Ima!" +</P> + +<P> +She came from where she had waited behind her curtain. +</P> + +<P> +"Help me here—then to Boss Maddox's van where they bring a doctor. +This night hath struck down this heart of ours." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0507"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +JAPHRA AND IMA. JAPHRA AND AUNT MAGGIE +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +The van brought Percival back to Aunt Maggie. +</P> + +<P> +Japhra and Ima, waiting the doctor's arrival, watched and tended the +signs of how, as Japhra had said, the night had struck Percival down. +From the moment of his collapse in Japhra's arms, his vitality no +longer withstood the strain to which it had been pressed. His mind +gave way beneath the attack of the events of the past hours; marshalled +now by fever's hand they returned to him in riot of delirium. "Don't, +Ima! Don't! ... No! No! I'm all right! I'm better standing! ... +Only a kiss in fun, Ima! O God, if I had only known! ... Murdered! +Where's Hunt? Murder! Poor old Hunt! ... In-fighting! I must get in! +If only I can stick out this round! ... Ge' back! Ge' back! What's +Boss Maddox yelling about? ... In!—I must get in! I will get in! ... +Ima! For me! O God, what a thing to happen! Only in fun! Only in +fun, Ima! ... Follow him! Follow him! I must get in at him...." +</P> + +<P> +When he was momentarily in silence Japhra looked a question at Ima. +</P> + +<P> +She answered quite simply: "I told him that I loved him." +</P> + +<P> +"And he?" Japhra said. +</P> + +<P> +She arranged the bedclothes, and with a fond touch smoothed back +Percival's hair; then looked at her father and smiled bravely and shook +her head. +</P> + +<P> +"I have known it these many days," Japhra told her. "I have watched +thee." He placed his hand on hers where it caressed Percival's +forehead. "What of comfort have I for thee?" he said. "My daughter, +none. He is not of us. Hearken to this thought, Ima. Heaven shapeth +its vessels for the storms they must meet. Some larger thing calleth +that grace of form and that rareness of spirit that he hath. What +profit then for us to sorrow?" +</P> + +<P> +Because he saw her crying, he repeated: "What profit?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I am a woman," she said. "My love is of a different sort from +thine." +</P> + +<P> +He stroked her hair. "My daughter, wouldst thou unlive the past?" +</P> + +<P> +She replied: "Nay, it is all I have." +</P> + +<P> +"So with me," he said. "This night endeth it. Thou and +I—henceforward we will be alone, remembering him—happy to have loved +him, happy that he hath been happy with us, happy to have been a port +where he hath fitted himself a little for what sea he saileth to." +</P> + +<P> +She pressed her father's hand. "As thou sayest," she said; and after a +moment, bending over Percival like some mother above her child: "What +awaiteth him?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Some strong thing," Japhra said. "I know no more—that much I know +without mistake. From the first when he came to us with his quaint +ways and fair face I knew it. A big fight, as I have told him." +</P> + +<P> +As if she believed her father to have divination, "Will he win?" she +asked him. +</P> + +<P> +"He is the fighting type," Japhra replied. "Victory for him. This +night in the tent. To-morrow—whatever will. Though it be +death—always victory." +</P> + +<P> +She remembered that. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +The doctor, when he came, showed himself a tough gentleman—abrupt of +speech, of the type that does its rounds in the saddle—who said "Stiff +crowd, you! Regular hospital here. Cracked head in every van. Boss +Maddox—he's in a bad way. Now this young man. Make me fortune if you +stop." +</P> + +<P> +After examination: "Nursing," he said; "it's a case for nursing. He's +gone over the mark. Head—and hands, by the look of 'em! Not my +business that. Stiff crowd, you! Nursing. You'll have to watch it +pretty sharp. That girl's got a way with him. That's what he wants." +</P> + +<P> +"I am taking him home," Japhra said; "two days from here—if that be +wise." +</P> + +<P> +"Wisest thing. Get him out of this. Stiff crowd, you! I'll look in +again midday. Send you some stuff. Then you can move. He's badly +over the mark. Look after him." +</P> + +<P> +Thus, on the afternoon of that day, the train of tricks and chances had +Percival on the road towards Aunt Maggie and Burdon village. The +police, who had taken authority in the camp, made no objection to +Japhra leaving. They knew now the man they wanted; half the Maddox +crowd had heard Hunt's threat to stick a knife in Boss Maddox; the +blade found was scratched with his name; a score had seen him edging +through the press towards the Boss; there were not wanting those who, +their imagination enlarged by these hints, had seen the very blow +struck. Japhra might go, the police said, and Stingo Hannaford too. +The only wanted vans were those in flight that might have the fugitive +in hiding. So, while Boss Maddox, removed to the Infirmary, lay +between life and death, while the Blue Boys from the police station and +the tough boys from the vans scoured the country in thrill of man-hunt, +Japhra harnessed up the van and struck away towards Burdon. +</P> + +<P> +The patient ranged wide in his delirium during the journey—often on +his lips a name that once had fallen about him like petals of the +bloomy rose, sweet as they; that now struck like blows in the face at +her who ceaselessly watched him: +</P> + +<P> +"I know this house! Up the stairs! down the stairs! I'm tired, tired! +What am I looking for? What am I looking for? Not you, Dora!—not +you! ... You are Snow-White-and-Rose-Red! I love you, Dora! Why do +you look at me so strangely, Mr. Amber! ... Rollo! Rollo, old +man!—Rollo, what are you doing? She is running away from me! Let me +go, Rollo! let me go! ... In-fighting! I must get in! I will get in! +... Dora! Dora! How I have longed for you!..." +</P> + +<P> +She that watched him appeared to have a wonderful influence over him. +Of its own force it seemed to give her the quality of entering the +wanderings of his mind and satisfying him by answering his cries. +</P> + +<P> +"In-fighting! In-fighting!" he would cry. "I must get in! I will get +in!" +</P> + +<P> +And she: "You are winning! There—there; look, you have won! It is +ended—you have won!" +</P> + +<P> +"You are Snow-White-and-Rose-Red! Dora! Dora! My Dora!" +</P> + +<P> +And she, steeling herself: "I am here, Percival! Your Dora is here! +Hold Dora's hand! There, rest while I stay with you!" +</P> + +<P> +So through the hours. +</P> + +<P> +"Post Offic" was the evening of the second day distant. Japhra walked +all the way, leading the horse—movement steadier, less chance of +jolting, by leading than by driving, Japhra thought; and so trudged +mile on mile—guiding away from ruts, down the steep hills holding back +horse and van by force amain rather than use the drag that would have +jarred noisily. For the rest he walked, one hand on the bridle, the +other in his pocket, his whip beneath his arm, not with the keen look +and alert step that was his usual habit, but with some air that made +kindly folk say in passing: "Poor gipsies! They must have a hard life, +you know!" +</P> + +<P> +But it was that each step brought him nearer end of a companionship +that had gone with deep roots into his heart that made life for the +first time seem hard to this questioner. +</P> + +<P> +He would not smoke. "The reek would carry back on this breeze and +through the windows to him," he told Ima, come beside him while her +patient slept. +</P> + +<P> +She could never remember seeing her father without his pipe, and she +was touched by his simple thought. She slipped her hand into the +pocket of his long coat where his hand lay, and entwined their fingers. +"Ah, we love him, thou and I," she said. +</P> + +<P> +She felt his fingers embrace her own. He asked her quietly: "My +daughter, is it bitter for thee when he crieth Dora?" +</P> + +<P> +She answered him with that poor plea of hers. "Well, I am a woman," +she said. But after a little while she spoke again. "Yet I am glad to +suffer so," she told him. "Though he cries Dora, it is my hand that +soothes him when he so cries. He sighs then, and is comforted. It is +as if he wandered in pain, and wanted me, and finding me was happy. +Well, how should I ask more? Often—many years I have prayed he should +one day be mine, my own. It is not to be. But now—for a little +while—when he cries and when I comfort him, why, my prayer is +vouchsafed me. Mine then—my own." +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Maggie saw that wonderful influence Ima exercised over his +delirium. When Japhra had carried him up to his bedroom, and when Ima +was bringing "his things" from the van, he broke out in raving and in +tossing of the arms that utterly alarmed her and Honor, their efforts +of no avail. She called in panic for Ima. Ima's touch and voice +restored him to instant peace. "You must stay with me," Aunt Maggie +said, tears running down her face. "My dear, I beg you stay with me. +You are Ima. I know you well. He has often spoken of you. Oh, you +will stay?" +</P> + +<P> +Afterwards Aunt Maggie went down to thank Japhra for his agreement to +this proposal. He would put up his van with the Hannafords, he told +Ima—with Stingo, who would shortly be coming, and with Mr. +Hannaford—and would stay there, whence he might come daily for news +while Ima remained with Percival. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Maggie had grateful tears in her eyes when she thanked him. +These, and those tears of panic when she called Ima's aid, were the +first she had shed since suddenly the van had brought her Percival to +her an hour before. Trembling but dry-eyed she had gone to him and +seen his dangerous condition; shaking but tearless had made ready his +bed. +</P> + +<P> +"Strange-like"? "Touched-like"? It was fate had ordered him back to +her, she told herself. Almost upon the eve—within four short months +of the twenty-first birthday for which she had planned—he was brought +back; and brought back, despite himself, by an agency stronger than his +own strong spirit. Fate in that!—the same fate that by Audrey's +death-bed had assured her that nothing would fail her, and that by a +hundred seeming chances had justified its assurance through the years. +</P> + +<P> +He was very ill. She was not afraid. Fate was here—and she told +Japhra he would recover. +</P> + +<P> +She found him in the van, his pipe alight again and staring in a +dullish way at the vacant places whence Percival's belongings had been +removed. He came down to her, and when she told him her belief he had +a strange look and a long look into her eyes before he answered. He +had marked the tearlessness that went curiously with her devotion when +he had brought her to Percival; he marked now some strange appearance +she had for him and some strange note in her voice when she told him +"He will recover." +</P> + +<P> +"Ay, mistress," he said. "Have no fear. He will recover." +</P> + +<P> +For her own part she marked also some strange look in the strangely +strong eyes that regarded her. +</P> + +<P> +She asked "But why are you so confident?" +</P> + +<P> +He noticed the "But." "Mistress, because his type is made for a bigger +thing than he has yet met." +</P> + +<P> +To that—meeting so strongly the truth she knew—she replied: +"Yes!—yes!" +</P> + +<P> +At her tone he came a sudden step to her. "Mistress, is it in thy +hands, this thing he must meet?" +</P> + +<P> +She, by the influence of this meeting, stood caught up and dizzy by +return to her in dreadful violence of that old fluttering within her +brain. +</P> + +<P> +Japhra in stern and sudden voice: "Beware it!" +</P> + +<P> +He thought her eyes questioned him and he answered them: "Why have I +from the first known some big thing waited him?—it was somehow told +me. Why beware?—I am somehow warned." +</P> + +<P> +She turned and began to go away. Come out of the fluttering, she could +not at once recall what had passed between her and this little man. +</P> + +<P> +Japhra put a quick hand on her arm: "Mistress, beware lest thou +betrayest him!" +</P> + +<P> +She remembered that. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0508"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +A COLD 'UN FOR EGBERT HUNT. ROUGH 'UNS FOR PERCIVAL +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +Ima's nursing, as that doctor had said, brought Percival back from +where he had been driven beyond the mark by stress of events and put +him firmly afoot along the road of convalescence. Only one +circumstance arose to distress those days of his returning +strength—the news of Egbert Hunt. +</P> + +<P> +The assizes at Salisbury followed quick on the capture of the +fugitive—run to earth in a wood by the Blue Boys and the tough boys +and brought back like some wild creature trapped—soaked, soiled, +bruised, faint, furious, terrified and struggling, for prompt committal +by the magistrate. +</P> + +<P> +A newspaper reporter at the assizes wrote of him as having again that +appearance of some wild creature trapped when he stood in the dock +before the Judge. The case attracted considerable local interest. +There was first the fact that famous Boss Maddox had narrowly escaped +death at the prisoner's hand: there was second the appearance of a +noble lady of the county—Lady Burdon—as witness for the defence. +</P> + +<P> +Gossips who attended the trial said it was precious little good she did +the fellow. His conviction was a foregone conclusion. A solicitor +with an eye to possibilities who attended Hunt during the police court +proceedings learnt from him that he had been in Lady Burdon's service +from boyhood and (in his own phrase) promptly "touched her" to see if +she would undertake the expenses of a defence. Her reply was in a form +to send him pretty sharply about his business and (a man of some +humour) he thanked her courteously by having her subpoeaned on the +prisoner's behalf—mitigation of sentence was to be earned by her +testimony to the young man's irreproachable character during his long +years in her service. +</P> + +<P> +It was little of such testimony she gave. Angry at the trick played on +her (as she considered it), angry at being dragged into a case of +sordid aspect and of local sensation, she went angrier yet into the +witness-box for the scene made at her expense by the prisoner as she +passed the dock. The newspaper reporter who described him as +presenting the appearance of a wild animal trapped, wrote of him as +having a wolfish air as he glared about him—of his jaws that worked +ceaselessly, of his blinking eyelids, and of the perspiration that +streamed like raindrops down his face. As Lady Burdon passed him the +emotions of the public were thrilled to see his arms come suppliant +over the dock rail and to hear him scream to her: "Say a word for me, +me lady! Say a good word for me! Love o' God, say—" A warder's +rough hand jerked his cry out of utterance, and he listened to her +during her evidence, watching her with that wolfish air of his and with +those jaws ceaselessly at work. +</P> + +<P> +A cold 'un, the gossips said of her when she stepped down. The Judge +in passing his stereotyped form of sentence made more seemly reference +to her testimony. +</P> + +<P> +"The evidence," the judge addressed the prisoner, "of your former +employer—come here reluctantly but with the best will in the world (as +she has told us) to befriend you—has only been able to show that you +have exhibited from your boyhood upward the traits—sullenness of +temper, hatred of authority—that have led you directly to the place +where now you stand. It has been made very clear that this crime—only +by the mercy of God prevented from taking a more serious form—was +wilful, premeditated, of a sort into which your whole character shows +you might have been expected to burst at almost any period of your +maturer years. You will be sent away now where you will have leisure, +as I sincerely trust, to reflect and to repent.... Five years.... You +will go to penal servitude for that term." +</P> + +<P> +Most wolfishly the wolfish eyes watched the judge while these words +were spoken; quicker the working jaws moved, lower the poor form +crouched as nearer the sentence came. As a vicious dog trembles and +threatens in every hair at the stick upraised to strike, so, by every +aspect of his mien, Egbert Hunt trembled and threatened as the ultimate +words approached. "Penal servitude for that term"—as the dog yelps +and springs so he screamed and sprung: a dreadful wordless scream, a +savage spring against the dock, arms outflung. +</P> + +<P> +Warders closed about him; but he was at his full height, arms and +wolfish face directed at Lady Burdon. "You done it on me!" he +screamed. "You might ha' saved me! You—! You—cruel—! I'll do it +back on yer! Wait till I'm out! I'll come straight for yer, you an' +your—son! I'll do it on—" +</P> + +<P> +A warder's hand came across his mouth. He bit through to the bone and +had his head free before they could remove him. "I've never had a fair +chance, not with you, you—Tyrangs!—tyrangs all of yer!—tyrangs! +You're the worst! God help yer when I come for yer! Tyrangs! ... +Tyrangs!..." +</P> + +<P> +They carried him away. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, five years!—Five years!" Percival cried when he read the news. +"Poor, poor old Hunt! Five years!" +</P> + +<P> +He was sitting comfortably propped in a big chair in the garden behind +"Post Offic," Aunt Maggie and Ima with him, and his weakness could not +restrain the moisture that came to his eyes. "Five years, Aunt Maggie! +He was one of my friends. I liked him—always liked him. He was +always fond of me—jolly good to me. When I think of him with his +vegules and his sick yedaches! Five years—poor old Hunt!" +</P> + +<P> +He was very visibly distressed. "Everybody is fond of you, dear," Aunt +Maggie said sympathetically. +</P> + +<P> +"That's just it!" he said—"that's just it!" and he threw himself back +in his chair and went into thoughts that were come upon him and that +her words exactly suited: thoughts that were often his in the days of +his sickness when he lay—was it waking or sleeping? he never quite +knew. They presented the cheery group of all his friends, all so +jolly, jolly good to him. Himself in their midst and they all smiling +at him and stretching jolly hands. But a gap in the circle—Mr. +Amber's place. Another gap now—Hunt. It appeared to him in those +feverish hours—and now again with new reason and new force—that +outside that jolly circle of friends there prowled, as a savage beast +about a camp-fire, some dark and evil menace that reached cruel hands +to snatch a member to itself and through the gap threatened him. +Within the circle the happy, happy time; beyond it some other thing. +Life was not always youth, then? not always ardour of doing, fighting, +laughing, loving? Menace lurked beyond.... What?... +</P> + +<P> +But those thoughts were swept away, and fate of poor old Hunt that had +caused them temporarily forgotten, by footsteps that brought up the +path three figures, of whom two were colossal of girth and bright red +of face—one striking at his thigh as if his hand held an imaginary +stick—and one that walked behind them lean and brown, with rare bright +eyes in a face of many little lines. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Mr. Hannaford! Mr. Hannaford!" Percival cried delightedly. +"Stingo! Good old Japhra!—you've actually brought them!" +</P> + +<P> +They were actually brought; but in the alarming company of women +folk—of Aunt Maggie, of Ima, and of Honor, who now, the visit having +been expected, came out with a laden tea-table—the tremendous brothers +exhibited themselves in a state of embarrassment that appeared to make +it highly improbable that they would remain. First having shaken hands +all round the circle, colliding heavily with one another before each, +Mr. Hannaford declaring to each in turn "Warm—warm—bless my eighteen +stun proper if it ain't!" and Stingo repeating some husky throatings of +identical sound but no articulation; they then shook hands with one +another; then proceeded round the circle again; simultaneously appeared +to discover their mistake; collided with shocking violence; and finally +relapsed into enormous nose-blowings, trumpeting one against the other, +as it seemed, into handkerchiefs of the size of small towels. +</P> + +<P> +It was to abate this tremendous clamour that Aunt Maggie handed a cup +of tea to Mr. Hannaford, and it was without the remotest desire in the +world to have it there that Mr. Hannaford in some extraordinary way +found it on the side of his right hand and proceeded to go through an +involved series of really admirable juggling feats with it, beginning +with the cup and saucer and ending with the spoon alone, that came to a +grand finale in cup, saucer and spoon shooting separately and at +tolerable intervals in three different and considerable directions. It +was to cover the amazement of the tremendous brothers at this +extraordinary incident that Ima handed a piece of cake to Stingo, and +it was the fact that Stingo had no sooner conveyed it to his mouth than +he abandoned himself to a paroxysm of choking and for his relief was +followed about the garden by Mr. Hannaford with positively stunning +blows on the back that sent Percival at last from agonies of hopeless +giggling to peals of laughter which established every one at their ease. +</P> + +<P> +"Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" from Percival. "I'm awfully sorry—I can't +help it. Oh, Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" +</P> + +<P> +Impossible to resist it: "Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho!" thundered Mr. +Hannaford. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" shook Percival, rolling on his pillows. +</P> + +<P> +"He! He! He! He! He!" came Stingo, infection of mirth vanquishing +the contrariness of the cake-crumb. +</P> + +<P> +"Proper good joke!" bellowed Mr. Hannaford, not at all sure what the +joke was, but carried away by Percival's ringing mirth. "Proper good +joke! Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho!"; and was chorused in gentler key by +Japhra—for once—by Aunt Maggie and by Ima. +</P> + +<P> +"He! He! He! He! He! Looks as well as ever he did!" choked Stingo, +catching his brother's eye and nodding towards the invalid's chair; and +that as masterfully turned the laughter to practical use as the +laughter itself had turned dreadful embarrassment into universal +joviality. It was the chance for Mr. Hannaford to cry delightedly: +"Why, that's just what I was athinking, bless my eighteen stun proper +if it isn't!" the chance for the tremendous brothers to overwhelm +Percival with the affection and the joy at his recovery with which they +had come bursting; the beginning of highest good fellowship all round, +of stupendous teas on the part of the tremendous brothers, and at last +of explanation of the real project they had made this visit in order to +discharge. +</P> + +<P> +It took a very long time in the telling. On the part of Stingo there +was first a detailed account (punctuated by much affectionately +fraternal handshaking) of how he positively had settled down at +last—sold out of the show trade after and on account of the events in +which Percival and Japhra had shared, and henceforward was devoting his +entire energies to the cultivation of the little 'orse farm. There was +then from Mr. Hannaford, helped by a ledger that could have been +carried in no pocket but his, a description of the flourishing state at +which the little 'orse farm had arrived—"Orders for gentlefolks' +little carts' little 'orses apourin' in quicker'n ever we can apour 'em +out"—and in which it was monthly advancing more and more; and there +was finally a prolonged discussion in fierce whispers between the +brothers, interspersed with loud "Don't forget that's" and "Recollect +for to tell him this's." +</P> + +<P> +Then Mr. Hannaford turned to Percival, struck his thigh a terrible +crack with his ledger, and in a very demanding tone said, "Well, now!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm awfully—awfully glad," said Percival. "It's +splendid—splendid. By Jove, it really is a big thing. But what?—but +what—?" +</P> + +<P> +"What of it is," said Mr. Hannaford very solemnly, "that what we want +and the errand for what we've come is—we want you!" He turned to +Stingo: "Now your bit." +</P> + +<P> +"What of it is," responded Stingo with the huskiness of a lesson learnt +by heart and to be repeated very carefully—"What of it is, he's wanted +you, told me so, ever since you come over long ago with his late +lordship and showed what a regular little pocket marvel you was, but +didn't like for to have you until I'd settled down and taken my proper +place and given my consent—which I have done and which I do, never +having set eyes on your like and never wanting to. Now your bit." +</P> + +<P> +"What of it is," said Mr. Hannaford, bringing himself to the point of +these remarkable proceedings with a thigh-and-ledger-thump of +astounding violence—"what of it is, we're Rough 'Uns, Stingo an' me. +All right to be Rough 'Uns when it's only little circus 'orses and +circus folk you're dealing with—no good being Rough 'Uns when it's +gentlefolks' little carts' little 'orses, gentlefolks' little riding +little 'orses, and gentlefolks' little polo little 'orses. Want a +gentleman for to deal with the gentlefolk and a gentleman for to break +and ride and show for the gentlefolk. Want you—an' always have wanted +you, bless my eighteen stun proper if we ain't." (Thump!) +</P> + +<P> +Percival was white and then red as the meaning of all the mysterious +conduct of the tremendous brothers' errand was thus made clear to +him—white and then red and with moisture of weakness in his eyes: why +was everybody so jolly, jolly good to him? +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Mr. Hannaford—Stingo—" he began. +</P> + +<P> +But the tremendous brothers raised simultaneous shoulder-of-mutton +fists to stop him, and fell into hurried preparations for departure. +It was disappointment they feared. "Don't speak hasty!" Mr. Hannaford +thundered. "Think over it—don't say a word—keep the ledger—proper +good business in it—pay you what you like—make you a partner in +it—set you up for life properly to rights." He wrung Aunt Maggie's +hand. "Say a word for us, Mam! loved him more'n a son ever since—"; +in great emotion backed down the path taking Japhra with him; and in +tremendous excitement returned to wring the hand of Stingo who, after +opening and shutting his mouth several times without sound, at length +produced: "Set you up for life properly to rights—more'n that, too. +You're young. We're bound to pop off one day. No one to leave nothing +to. Rough 'Uns. You're young. Bound to go to you in the end. Rough +'Uns—" +</P> + +<P> +"O' course! O' course! O' course!" joined Mr. Hannaford, wringing +Stingo's hand in ecstasy and wringing it still as he led him down the +path. "O' course! That was a good bit. Never thought of it. Bound +to pop off! Bound to go to him!" +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +"Tears in your eyes, Percival," Ima said, smiling at him as immense +trumpetings at the gate announced the Rough 'Uns' departure in a din of +emotional nose-blowing. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, dash it all, there always are, nowadays," Percival laughed. +"Everybody's so jolly, jolly good to me." +</P> + +<P> +He lay back with new and most wonderful visions before his eyes; set +his gaze on the dear, familiar line of distant Plowman's Ridge and +peopled it with the scenes of his new and wonderful prospects. His +hand in his pocket closed about letters received from Dora between that +night at Baxter's and the night of the fight. Black and impossible his +outlook then; limitless of opportunity now. Set up for life properly +to rights! by a miracle, nay, by a chain of tricks and chances—and he +ran through the amazing sequence of them—he suddenly was that! Dora +no longer immeasurably beyond him; Snow-White-and-Rose-Red possible to +be claimed. +</P> + +<P> +Aunt Maggie broke into his thoughts. "Are you glad, dear—about the +Hannafords?" +</P> + +<P> +"Glad! Aunt Maggie, I was just thinking I seem to be a sort of—sort +of thing for other people's plans. Old Japhra planned a fighter of me +and, my goodness! I had a dose of it. Here's old Hannaford always +been planning to have me with him, and here I am going sure enough!" +He laughed at an almost forgotten recollection. "Why, even you—even +you had a wonderful plan for me. Don't you remember? I say, it's in +hot company, your plan, Aunt Maggie. All come out right except yours. +You'll have to hurry up!" +</P> + +<P> +"Mine will come out right," she said. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0509"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +ONE COMES OVER THE RIDGE +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +"Mine will come out right." But Percival's twenty-first birthday, that +was to have seen the consummation of Aunt Maggie's plan, came—and Aunt +Maggie held her hand and let it go. +</P> + +<P> +A double reason commanded her. Percival's coming of age arrived with +the Old Manor closed and Rollo and his mother far afield on that two +years' travel which Lady Burdon had long before projected for her son +to introduce his "settling-down." It were an empty revenge, Aunt +Maggie thought, that could be taken in such case; robbed of its sting, +sapped of all its meaning, unless it were delivered to Lady Burdon face +to face, as face to face with Audrey she had struck Audrey down. +</P> + +<P> +That was one reason that found Percival's twenty-first birthday gone, +and still the blow not struck. The other was in tribute to the fate +that had carried forward Aunt Maggie's plan through many hilly places +and that, fatalistic, she dared not hasten when the promised land drew +into sight. When she heard during the three months of Percival's +zestful life on the little horse farm leading to his birthday that +Rollo, before that birthday dawned, would be shipped and away on his +leisurely journey round the world, she was at first strongly tempted to +make end of her long waiting; at last to Audrey's murderer send +Audrey's son. Her superstitious reliance on fate prevented her. With +fate she had worked hand in hand through these long years. Vengeance +had been nothing had she taken it at the outset when Audrey lay cold +and still in the room in the Holloway Road. Under fate's guidance it +was become a vengeance now indeed—Lady Burdon twenty years secured in +her comfortable possessions; her husband by fate removed, and the blow +to be struck through her cherished son; a friendship by fate designed +suddenly to turn against her and drive her forth as she had driven +Audrey. Fate in it all, in each moment and each measure of it, and +Aunt Maggie had the fear that now to dismiss fate and anticipate the +hour that she and fate had chosen would be to risk by fate's aid being +dismissed. +</P> + +<P> +Fate gave her hint of it—gave her warning. She was in one moment +being told by Percival of Rollo's intended departure and long absence; +and seeing herself robbed, her plan for his twenty-first birthday +defeated, was urging herself with "Now—now. No need to wait +longer—now;" she was in the next hearing Percival's desolation at the +thought of losing "old Rollo" for so long—of their plans for closest +companionship during the few weeks that remained to them; and hearing +it, was warned by the same question she once before had asked herself +and dared not finish, much less answer then, and dared not finish now: +"What, when I tell him, if—" +</P> + +<P> +Fate in it. Fate warning her, Aunt Maggie thought. Fate threatening +her. Fate had been so real, so living a thing to her, its hand so +plain a hundred times, that she had come to envisage it as a +personality, an actuality—a grim and stern and all-powerful companion +who companioned her on her way and who now stooped to her ear and told +her: "Go your own way—if you dare. Seek to take your revenge now +without my aid and short of the time that you and I have planned—if +you dare. Abandon me and tell him now." Then the threat: "What, when +you tell him, if—" +</P> + +<P> +"Strange-like"? "Touched-like"? Thus, at least, she held her hand, +paying tribute to fate; thus when the birthday came, and Rollo and Lady +Burdon across the sea, and empty her vengeance made to seem if she then +took it, she turned to fate and asked of fate "What now?" +</P> + +<P> +"Strange-like"? "Touched-like"? Again to her ear that strong +companion stooped—not threatening now; encouraging, supporting.... +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Aunt Maggie," Percival cried, "you do look well—fit, this +morning. Fifty times as bright as you've been looking these past days. +Younger, I swear!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it is your birthday, dearest," she told him. +</P> + +<P> +"All very well! But every time we've mentioned my birthday, my +twenty-first—even last night—you've been—I've thought it has made +you sad, as if you didn't want me to have it!—growing too old, or +something!" +</P> + +<P> +For answer she only shook her head and smiled at him. But her reason +for the stronger air he noticed in her, for her rescue from her +depression of the days that led to his birthday, was that to her +question of "What now?" she was somehow assured that she had but to +wait, but to have a little more patience, and her opportunity would +come. Fate was shaping it for her; fate in due time would present +it.... +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +Percival for his own part was also in some dealing with fate in these +days. As one that is forever feasting his eyes on a prized and newly +won possession, the more fully to realise it and enjoy it, so +frequently in these days he was telling himself "I'm the happiest and +luckiest beggar in the world!" and was marvelling at the train of +tricks and chances by which fate—luck as he called it—had brought him +to this happy, lucky period. +</P> + +<P> +Every human life falls into periods reckoned and divided not by years +but by events. Sometimes these events are recognised as milestones +immediately they fall; a death, a birth, a marriage, a new employment, +a journey, a sickness—we know at once that a new phase is begun, we +take a new lease of interest in life; not necessarily a better or a +brighter lease, a worse, maybe—but new and recognised as different. +More frequently the milestone is not perceived as such until we look +back along the road, see the event clearly upstanding and realise that +we were one man as we approached it and have become another since we +left it behind; again not necessarily a better or a happier man—a +worse, maybe; and maybe one that often cries with outstretched arms to +resume again that former figure. It cannot be. Life goes forward, and +we, once started, like draughtsmen on a board, may not move back. +Beside each event that marks a milestone we leave a self as the serpent +sheds a skin—all dead; some better dead; some we would give all, all +to bring again to life. It may not be. +</P> + +<P> +Percival in these happy, happy months as right-hand man to the Rough +'Uns on the famously prospering little horse farm often told himself +that his life had been—as he expressed it—in three absolutely +different periods. He found a wonderful pleasure in dividing them off +and reviewing them. Daily, and often more than once in a day, when he +had a pony out at exercise, he would pull up on the summit of rising +ground and release his thoughts to wander over those periods as his +eyes reviewed from point to point the landscape stretched beneath him; +his mind aglow with what it tasted just as his body glowed from his +exercise of schooling the pony in the saddle. Three periods, as he +would tell himself. The first had ended with that night when he came +to Dora in the drive. Everything was different after that. Then all +his life with Japhra and with Ima in the van—the tough, hard, good +life that ended with the fight. The third—he now was in the third! +Two had been lived and left, and in review had for their chief burthen +the picture of how, as he had said during his convalescence, every one +had been so jolly, jolly good to him. Two had been lived and had +shaped him—"a sort of <I>thing</I> for other people's plans"; and what kind +plans! and what dear planners! and he, of their fondness, how happy a +thing!—to this third period that sung to him in every hour and that +went mistily into the future whose mists were rosy, rosy, rose-red and +snow-white, Snow-White-and-Rose-Red.... +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +In the first few months, before Rollo and Lady Burdon took their +departure for the two years' travel, he was daily, in the intervals +from his work, with "old Rollo"; Dora often with them. Nothing would +satisfy Rollo for the few weeks that lay between Percival's beginning +of his duties with the Hannafords and his own start for the foreign +tour but that they must be spent at Burdon Old Manor, nothing would +please him to fill in those days but to pass them in Percival's +company. He made no concealment of his affection for his friend. Men +not commonly declare to one another the liking or the deeper feeling +they may mutually entertain. The habit belongs to women, and that it +was indulged by Rollo was mark in him of the woman element that is to +be observed in some men. It is altogether a different quality from +effeminacy, this woman element. Sex is a chemical compound, as one +might say, and often are to be met men on the one hand and women on the +other in whom one might believe the male or female form that has +precipitated came very nearly on the opposite side of the +division—women who are attracted by women and to whom women are +attracted; and men, manly enough but curiously unmannish, who are +noticeably sensible to strongly male qualities and who arouse something +of a brotherly affection in men in whom the male attributes ring sharp +and clear as a touch on true bell. +</P> + +<P> +There were thrown together in Rollo and Percival very notable examples +of these hazards in nature's crucibles. The complete and most +successful male was precipitated in him of whom Japhra had said long +days before: "I know the fighting type. Mark me when the years come. +A fighter thou." Qualities of woman were alloyed in him who once had +cried: "Men don't talk about these things, Percival, so I've never told +you all you are to me—but it's a fact that I'm never really happy +except when I'm with you." Strongly their natures therefore cleaved, +devotedly and with a clinging fondness on the weaker part; on the +bolder, protectively and with the tenderness that comes responsive from +knowledge of the other's dependence. +</P> + +<P> +"Men don't talk about these things—but I'm never really happy except +when I'm with you." That diffidence at sentiment and that +self-exposure despite it, made when Percival, off to join Japhra, +seemed to be passing out of his life, were repeated fondly and many +times by Rollo now that Percival looked to be back in his life again. +"Hearing me talk like this," he told Percival, "it makes you rather +squirm, I expect—the sort of chap you are. But I can't help it and I +don't care," and he laughed—"the sort of chap I am. You don't +know—you can't come near guessing, old man, what it means to me to +think you've chucked all that mad gipsy life of yours that might have +ended in anything, the rummy thing it was, and that kept you utterly +away from me; to think you've chucked all that and are settled down in +a business that really is a good thing, every one says it is, and any +one can see it. It means to me—well, I can't tell you what, you'd +only laugh. But I can tell you this much, that I do nothing but think, +and all the time I'm away shall be thinking, of how we'll both be down +here always now when I get back, and of all the things we'll do +together." +</P> + +<P> +They were riding as he spoke, their horses at a walk up the steady +climb of the down to Plowman's Ridge from Market Roding. His voice on +his last sentence had taken an eager, impulsive note, and as though he +had a sudden suspicion that it was betraying an undue degree of +sentiment he stopped abruptly, his face a trifle red. It was his +confusion, not any excess of sentiment, that Percival—quick as of old +in sympathy with another's feelings—noticed. He edged his horse +nearer Rollo's and touched Rollo with his whip. "Yes, we're going to +have a great, great time, aren't we?" he said. "I'm only just +beginning to realise it—great, Rollo!" +</P> + +<P> +The affectionate touch and the responsive words caused Rollo to turn to +him as abruptly as he had broken off. "I've planned it," Rollo said. +"I'm forever planning it. When I get back—fit—I'm going to settle +down here for good. I loathe all that, you know," and he jerked his +head vaguely to where "all that" might lie, and said, "London and that +kind of thing. I'm going to take up things here. I've never had any +interests so far. My rotten health, partly, and partly not getting on +with people, and I've let everything drift along and let mother make +all the programmes. That's how it's been ever since you went off. Now +you're back again and I'm keen as anything. I'm going to work up all +this property, going to get to know all the people intimately and help +them with all sorts of schemes. Going to run my own show—you know +what I mean, no agent or any one between me and the tenants and the +land. And you're going to help me—that's the germ of it and the +secret of it and the beginning and the end of it." +</P> + +<P> +Percival laughed and said: "Help you! You won't want any help from me. +I can see myself touching-my-hat-to-the-squire sort of thing as you go +hustling about the country-side." +</P> + +<P> +But Rollo was too serious for banter. "You know what I mean," he said. +"And you—you're going to be a big man in these parts, as they say, the +way you're going, before very long." +</P> + +<P> +They had gained the Ridge and by common consent of their horses were +halted on the summit. Rollo turned in his saddle and pointed below +them. "Percival, that's what I mean," he said, and carried his whip +from end to end along the Burdon hamlets. "That's what I think of. +Look how peaceful and remote it all looks, shut away from everything by +the Ridge. We two together down there, planning and doing and living—" +</P> + +<P> +Percival's gaze had travelled on from Burdon Old Manor where the whip +had taken it and over the Ridge into the eastward vale. He turned +again to Rollo, recalled by the stopping of his voice; and Rollo saw +his strong face bright and said: "You'll think me a frightful ass, +you'll think me a girl, but you know I get quite 'tingly' when I +anticipate it all. And not want your help!—Why, only look at that for +instance," and he laughed and put his hand against Percival's where it +lay before his saddle. The delicate white, the veins showing, against +the strong brown fist was illustration enough of his meaning. "And +you're not long out of an illness that would have outed me in two +days," he said. +</P> + +<P> +He saw the bright look he had observed shade, as it were, to one very +earnest. The symbol of their two hands so strongly different quickened +in Percival the appeal that he always felt in Rollo's company, that +went back to the early years of their play together, that was vital +part of this happy, lucky period, and that was warmed again in the +thoughts that came to him as he had looked over the eastward valley. +"Why, Rollo," he said earnestly, "it is good to think of. It is going +to be good. We two down there. It's wonderful to me how it's all come +out. It makes me 'tingly,' too, when I think of it—and of what it's +going to be. Help you—why, we two—" He pressed the brown fist about +the delicate hand. "There!—just like this good old Plowman's Ridge +that shuts us off from everybody! Nothing comes past that to interfere +with us." +</P> + +<P> +They were a moment silent, each in his different way occupied by this +close exchange of their friendship; and Rollo's way made him almost at +once put his horse about, concerned lest his face should betray his +feelings, and made him say with an attempt at lightness: "No, nothing, +with the good old Ridge to shut us off," and then, "Is that some one +riding up from Upabbot?" +</P> + +<P> +The direction was that where Percival's gaze had been. "Yes, it is," +Percival said. "I thought so. She's coming up. It's Dora." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0510"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +TWO RIDE TOGETHER +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +Often in these weeks the three rode together; seldom Percival and Dora +met out of Rollo's company. Brief moments while they waited him, brief +moments when he rode ahead of them, these were the most frequent of +their intimacies; more rarely came chance half-hours, and most rare of +all half-hours planned when she admitted they could be contrived. He +suffered nothing that their meetings should be thus fugitive and at +caprice, in main, of Rollo's moods and movements. That none as yet +should know their secret ministered to rather than chafed his ardour; +that, when their eyes met, their eyes spoke what in all the world only +they two knew, was of itself as darling a thing as when to all the +world she should be known for his alone. Then she would be his own, +but their secret the price of it; now he might not claim her, but ah, +their secret, theirs! +</P> + +<P> +So secret it was, and she so much her rare and chaste and frozen self, +that even between them it was hardly spoken. He never had lost his +first awe and wonder at her beauty; and it filmed all his intercourse +with her and all his thoughts of her as with a gossamer veil that, +forbidding rough movements, forbade him touch her with the close words +of his passion that might bruise her or give her alarm. More by signs +than ever by words they spoke their secret. Words carried them over +the passing subjects that any might discuss; signs revealed the secret +that was theirs alone. When they met the faintest deepening of her +colour shades would show it, when they parted came a last glance and +again those shades would glow; when he sometimes touched her hand, her +hand would stay and speak it; when he sometimes held her eyes, ah, then +their secret stirred! In those few half-hours when alone they came +together, meeting near the Abbey, riding through the lanes, then with +none to see them he would hold her hand and feel it tell him of their +secret while their lips told empty words. +</P> + +<P> +It was in these weeks, indeed, that he came to know he found it a +little hard to make conversation with her. That something of her +character was manifested in this difficulty he had no suspicion, nor +that in his solution of it her disposition was clearer yet revealed. +He found she was not greatly interested to hear of himself; then found +her most alert, and oftenest brought the little laugh he loved to hear, +the deepening he loved to see of those strange shades of colour on her +cheeks, by speaking to her of herself, or listening while of herself +she told him. At first he gave her glimpses of the van life with +Japhra on the road; her curiosity was not aroused. Something of the +famous fight he told her, and in vigorous passages of when the sticks +came out, and of the wild scenes that followed the crime of poor old +Hunt, whom she had known: he saw she was not greatly entertained. +Later, as events ran along, he gave them to her—told her of the day +when it was found that his increasing activities with the dear old +Rough 'Uns made it necessary he should live over there, no longer ride +daily to and fro from "Post Offic," and of how jolly, jolly good they +were to him and of the funny evenings in their company; told her of the +day when the Rough 'Uns had announced they thought it proper to +advancement of their business that a couple of hunters should be bought +for him so that he might ride to hounds and keep among the horsey folk +when the hunting season opened; told her of the day when he had from +Aunt Maggie the news that the affection between herself and Ima had +arranged that Ima was coming to spend the approaching winter—and +likely every winter—with her; all these he brought to Dora, but slowly +came to see they but little took her interest. +</P> + +<P> +The discovery no more gave him suspicion that she was at fault in +sympathy than of itself it vexed him, as one commonly might be vexed in +such a case. It was himself he blamed when, recalling how he had +talked and how little had been her response, he feared that he had +tired her by his enthusiasms or, as reproaching himself he termed them, +his meanderings. Clumsy he called himself, inept, dull-witted; and +pictured her, his darling and his goddess, his frozen, rarest, perfect +Snow-White-and-Rose-Red, and hated to have blundered all his dulness on +so rare and exquisite a thing. Glad, then, the finding that he could +entertain her by exercise of what a thousand-fold entranced himself—by +encouraging her to speak of herself, her doings, her reflections, just +as in the drive in that hour when first he knew he loved her she had +spoken of her school. Lightest and most prattling what she told, and +light and very passing what she thought; but spoken in her quaintly +precise mode of speech and in her cold, high tone, and bringing from +her her cold little laugh, and on her cold white cheek lighting those +flames of colour. When he watched her with others he saw her perfect +face set in its strangely still, aloof expression; when she spoke with +him, and spoke of herself, he was content only to listen so he might +see it light and sometimes see their secret make it flame. +</P> + +<P> +More than once while she so spoke and he so listened, "But I told you +that," she would say; "I perfectly recollect telling you." +</P> + +<P> +And he: "Well, tell me again;" and at the note of his voice she would +seem to catch her breath as though some sharpness checked her +breathing, and he would see their secret flutter in her eyes and see it +stain its signal like a red rose on her cheeks. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +It was by one definite step—not observed as such by him at the time +nor any significance in it apprehended—that they passed from this +stage of reserve on the matter between them and came towards its open +entertainment. The afternoon following Rollo's departure with Lady +Burdon on the long foreign tour marked the event, and Percival, meeting +Dora by chance, was in some loss of spirits at the fact. He found her +in very different case. Her mood was high. She had the air of one who +has made a success or who has escaped some shadowing mischief. He +could suppose no cause for such a thing or he would have said her +bearing signified relief, removal of some oppression, freedom from some +weight that had burdened her mind and that now, displaced, suffered her +mind to run up, made her tread lighter. +</P> + +<P> +"There's something different about you to-day," he told her; then, +while she laughed, and while he caught more glee than commonly he knew +in the little sound he loved to hear, found the exact expression for +the change he saw, and named the new step in their relations—"You are +as if you'd suddenly got a holiday." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it is true that I somehow feel like that," she declared, "though +why I should, I am sure I cannot imagine." +</P> + +<P> +Yet dimly she knew, dimly in these later days had felt closing about +her the purpose of her training, and when Percival spoke of the two +years—the "frightfully long time"—for which old Rollo was gone, knew +it half unknowingly for the period of her holiday. Another, more +freely schooled than she, had known it clearly, had questioned, +revolved, examined the sudden lightness that was hers, had realised it +came of freedom from constant reminder of an end that seemed to wait +her, and had inquired of herself, Why then glad?—Is that end unwelcome? +</P> + +<P> +It was not hers so to examine; or examining, so to realise; or +realising, so to ask; nor asking, and being answered "Yes, unwelcome," +to think to make resistance and crush the end before it came. Not hers +whose schooling in her mother's hands had made for and had won the +stifling of such processes of thought; not hers who was caparisoned and +trained for certain purpose; not hers who had responded in faultless +beauty and in cloistered mind. Hers, if she stretched her hands and on +a sudden found that purpose walled about her, only to follow on between +the walls, not to break through them; to glance at them or run them +with her fingers and see them silk and proper to her life, not beat +against them, find them steel behind the silk, cry "Trapped! Trapped!" +and wildly beat for outlet. Hers, if she raised her eyes and saw her +purposed end far down the narrow way, only to accept and move towards +it, not to halt, doubt, fear; hers to glance, and know, and think it +meet and proper to her life, not start and shrink, cry "No! No! No!" +and seek escape while yet escape might be. +</P> + +<P> +So she was circumstanced; yet there remains, be restraint never so +firmly chilled into the bones, the purely primeval instinct of delight +in freedom; so she was trained, but scarcely yet had recognised +purpose, walls, or end. She only, as she told Percival, "somehow felt" +that she had holiday, and holiday her mood in the months that went. +Why she felt so, she was sure, as she said, she could not imagine; but +as the butterfly, content to live among the flowers of a hothouse and +never know itself prisoner, will airily toss aloft through the open +door yet scarcely think itself escaped, so, content to have remained, +but gaily floating free, blithe and new her mood when now they met. +Less frequent their meetings, the common excuse of Rollo being denied, +but ah, more fond! Fewer their secret exchanges, but ah, more dear! +Holiday her mood, and fluttering she came to him, and was swinging in +his ardour from her prison to his heart; from his heart to her prison, +swinging in his ardour, and had no more than glimpses—transient +tremors—of her prison's walls. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +He had her engaged in such a glimpse—a little fearfully suspicious +that there were walls about her—on a day when they were hunting +together. Mrs. Espart changed her earlier intention of returning to +town in the Autumn after Rollo and his mother had left. To encourage +her position in the country-side formed part of her own share of the +plans for the young people that were to crystallise when the return was +made to Burdon Old Manor, and she began to centre Abbey Royal in the +social round of the neighbourhood. Her daughter's betrothal to Lord +Burdon, when it was done and announced, should thus, as she schemed, +lose nothing that was possible to the stir it would make. She was able +to use the local Hunt as a prominent part of these intentions, did not +ride herself, but horsed Dora well, subscribed handsomely and was +gladly taken up by the Master in her suggestion of a bi-monthly meet at +the Abbey. +</P> + +<P> +Thus it was after hounds that Percival and Dora were given best chance +to meet. The Rough 'Uns' idea of mounting Percival for the field +proved successful to them as happy to him; Dora, in pursuance of her +mother's plans, had encouragement—and wanted none—rarely to miss a +meet. Hounds had run far on that day when she was caught by Percival +engaged in one of those transient glimpses of her state that sometimes +in these days came to puzzle her. He threw her into it, and that at a +moment most unlikely, for circumstances had it that she was +uncomfortable and out of temper. A bold fox carried the few who could +follow him—they two among them—to a point fifteen miles from the +Abbey before hounds ran into him. It was late afternoon, rain falling, +when Percival and Dora started to hack the long stretch home, and they +were little advanced on the road, and she feeling the wet, when she +pronounced her feelings by telling him petulantly: "You should not have +made me come on. I would have turned back long ago." +</P> + +<P> +But it had been a rare run, and he was beneath the vigour of it. +"Come, it was a great run," he said. "It was worth it, Dora." +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing is worth getting wet like this. You know how I hate getting +wet." +</P> + +<P> +She was much wetter, and would give him no words, before a new trial +necessitated that she should speak again. Her saddle was slipping, she +said, and when he alighted and found the girths had loosened and then +that she must get down: "No, I'll try it a little farther," she told +him very vexedly. "We're nearly there now. To move is hateful. The +wet is touching me right through." +</P> + +<P> +She gave him no answer to his "I'm awfully sorry, Dora;" but presently +said: "It's no good, I must get down, I suppose." +</P> + +<P> +He looked up at her as he stood to help her from the saddle. +</P> + +<P> +"You're angry, Dora?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, of course I am angry." +</P> + +<P> +He acted upon an impulse that swept out her temper and put her to that +transient glimpse that vaguely showed her vague misgivings. He had +watched her as they rode in silence, watched the rain that swept +against her face run down her face that was like marble in her chill +and in her loss of temper. Cold as it her eyes that met his now, and +he had a sudden impression of her—all marble, all frozen snow, his +darling!—that seemed to embody all his every thought of her frozen +beauty and frozen quality since first he knew her, and that taxed +beyond his power the restraint that frozen quality ever had set upon +him. Beyond his power!—and as he brought her down he not released +her, almost roughly turned her to him; and with no word almost roughly +clasped her to him; and with "Dora!" kissed her wet face and held her +while startled she protested; and kissed again, again, again, again. +</P> + +<P> +"No, I will not let you go! No, you have been cold to me! No, you +shall not go! I have never kissed you since that once I kissed you. I +will kiss you now. No, I will not let you go. I love you, love you, +love you!" +</P> + +<P> +She bent her face away. He felt her panting in his arms and pressed +her to him; and with his hands could feel how wet she was, and with his +body felt her warm against him through her soaking clothes; and passion +of love broke from him in words, as passion of love he pressed upon her +face. +</P> + +<P> +"Turn your face to me, Dora. You shall. I have endured enough. Turn +your face to me—your wet, cold, sweet face that I love. Give me your +lips. Give me your lips. I will kiss your lips and you shall kiss me. +Put your arms round me. Dora, put your arms round me. Now kiss me, +kiss me— Ah! I love you, I love you—my darling, my beautiful, my +Snow-White-and-Rose-Red. Keep your arms there, Dora, Dora, my Dora!" +</P> + +<P> +His voice had run hoarse and broken in his passion; now, when obedient +she gave him her lips, obedient clung to him—her will, her physical +discomfort and her natural impassivity burnt up as in a flame by this +sudden assault—deep his voice went and strong:— +</P> + +<P> +"That is all done now—all those days when I have been afraid to touch +my darling, afraid to tell her every hour, every moment, how I love her +for fear of frightening her. You are in my arms, my darling, and I can +feel my darling's heart, and those days can never come again. You +shall remember when you see me how I have held you here. You shall +remember how you lie in my arms and that they hold you strongly, +strongly, and that it is your safe, safe place. Look up at me! Ah, +ah, how beautiful you are—your eyes, your lips, your cold, sweet face +with the rain all wet on it. Kiss me! Ah, Dora—we were meant to +meet, meant to love." +</P> + +<P> +She answered him more by the abandonment with which she lay in his arms +than by the faltering sentences in which she sometimes whispered while +they stood there. She was whispering, "I never meant you should think +I was afraid. Percival, I never meant you should think I did not want +to speak about our love. Only—" when she shivered violently, and he +chid himself for keeping her there, and for warmth's sake, he leading +the horses, they walked the last mile to the Abbey. Ardently then he +talked to her of future plans. He told her that late in the next year +it was arranged he was to go out to the Argentine with some ponies. A +big business was like to be established there, arising out of a sale to +a South American syndicate, and he was to arrange it and to select and +bring back ponies of a native strain for the development of a likely +type. When he returned—"This is why I am telling you, darling,"—the +good old Rough 'Uns had declared he should formally be made partner in +what had now become a great enterprise. "I shall claim you then, my +darling. I shall be able to claim you then." +</P> + +<P> +She surprised him—and, not aware of her reason, thrilled him—by +halting suddenly and clasping his hands that had been holding hers. +"Oh, don't leave me, Percival! Percival, don't go away!" +</P> + +<P> +He kissed her adoringly. "Do you love me so?" +</P> + +<P> +She clung to him and only said: "Don't leave me, Percival. Percival, +you must not," and while he sought to soothe her plea—and still was +thrilled to hear it—suddenly went into a tempest of weeping, changing +his tender happiness to tenderest concern. +</P> + +<P> +"Dora! Why, what is it? What is it, my darling? Tell me, tell +me—ah, don't, don't cry, don't tremble like that." +</P> + +<P> +She had not controlled herself to answer him when sound of wheels came +down the road, lamps through the gloom. She checked herself, and was +at her horse's head when there drew up a carriage sent from the Abbey +to meet her and bring her back in shelter from the rain. A groom took +her horse and, standing by the door as she entered, prevented +explanation she might have made—had she been able to explain. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +Had she been able—for the thing that caused her sudden tears and +sudden plea was no more than a glimpse, one of those transient glimpses +of the walls, of the purpose, of the end of her training; differing +from other glimpses that sometimes came in that it caught her unstrung. +If it flickered again in the weeks that followed, it little more +disturbed her than sudden shadow across the garden disturbs the +butterfly passing among the flowers; a flicker of misgiving, a vague +disturbance—gone. The year's end took her away with her mother to +town. Succeeding Autumn that brought them back started Percival to the +Argentine. +</P> + +<P> +"I just miss everybody by going by this boat," he told Aunt Maggie, +sitting with her far into the night before his departure. "There's Ima +coming to you to look after you till I get back and not coming till +next week, so I just miss her; and old Japhra bringing her, so I miss +seeing him too; and then"—he paused for the briefest moment—"there's +Dora and her mother staying another fortnight abroad so I miss them; +and old Rollo and Lady Burdon due next month—I miss them all. It's +the rottenest luck." +</P> + +<P> +"They'll all be here for you when you get back," Aunt Maggie said. +</P> + +<P> +He paused again before he spoke. "Yes. That's where my luck's going +to be dead in. I could tell you something, Aunt Maggie," and he +laughed. "But I won't—yet. My luck—look here, tell old Japhra this +from me; tell him I'm coming back for—he'll understand—the Big Fight, +and going to win it!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0511"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XI +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +NEWS OF HUNT. NEWS OF ROLLO. NEWS OF DORA +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +The great Argentine trip—an affair of so much consequence in its +bearing on the development of pony-breeding as to attract the attention +of the "Field" in a series of articles that spoke in highest terms of +"Messrs. Hannafords' well-known establishment" and of "the far-reaching +effects of their new enterprise"—occupied six months. Six weeks—or +days—they seemed to Percival as they fled on the novelty and the busy +interests that attended him while in South America. Six years he found +them on the long voyage home in the steamer that brought him and the +purchases from native stock of whose blood "the far-reaching effects" +were to be produced; and twice and three times six years he declared to +himself he seemed to have been away as, in the closing hours of an +April afternoon, the train brought him in sight—at last! at last!—of +homeland scenes, of Plowman's Ridge along the eastward sky. +</P> + +<P> +Quite a little party was assembled on Great Letham platform to greet +him. The Rough 'Uns had driven over in two separate carts—one that +should carry him to Aunt Maggie and the other that should bear his +luggage—and they were there, their faces to be seen afar like crimson +lamps of their excitement, and Mr. Hannaford's leg-and-cane cracks +rising high above the din of escaping steam in which the train drew up, +and Stingo almost completely voiceless with huskiness for more than an +hour back. And Stingo had brought Japhra, arrived at the little horse +farm to take up Ima after her winter with Aunt Maggie; and Mr. +Hannaford had brought Ima, and they were there—Japhra with his tight +mouth twitching, and deep in his puckered face his bright little eyes +gleaming; and Ima, standing a shade apart, a tinge of colour crept +beneath her skin, and on her lips and in her eyes her gentle smile. To +complete the greeting there came shrill, ridiculous chuckles from a +stout, soft gentleman, and from his sister little hops and little +flutters and "<I>There</I> he is! He'll <I>hit</I> his head leaning out like +that! He's <I>browner</I> than ever! Oh, <I>Percival</I>!" +</P> + +<P> +And "Percival!" from them all in all their different keys, and he among +them before the train was stopped, and turning from glad face to glad +face, and caught up in the midst of it with a sudden wave of the old +thought, like a knock at the heart, like a catch at the throat—"How +jolly, jolly good they all are to me!" +</P> + +<P> +Like a knock at the heart, like a catch at the throat, it took him, and +checked him a moment in his responses to the congratulations and was +mirrored in the flicker that went across his face. His eyes caught +Japhra's and it was the look of understanding he read there, he +thought, that brought Japhra to him for another word before he drove +away. In the station yard the traps were waiting. "You, longside o' +me—<I>partner</I>!" bellowed Mr. Hannaford and must shake Percival's hand +again for the meaning of that word. "Up behind, Ima, my dear. We'll +take <I>partner</I> home while Stingo leaves that box at the farm and then +comes on with the rest of the luggage." +</P> + +<P> +Plump Mr. Purdie and birdlike little Miss Purdie had started to walk; +Stingo was throating "Come along, Japhra, come along, Japhra," in a +husky whisper that no one could hear but himself; Mr. Hannaford was +beginning the tremendous operation of hoisting himself up on one side +of the cart while Percival, a foot on the step, was about to swing +himself up on the other, when Japhra turned and came back to him. +</P> + +<P> +"Thy hand a last time, master!" +</P> + +<P> +"Hullo, what's this for?" Percival laughed; but saw Japhra's face +grave, and went on: "You caught my eye on the platform just now, +Japhra. I saw you knew how I felt. That's it, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"Something of that," Japhra answered him. "Ay, a thought of that came +to me then." The note of his voice was as earnest as his eyes, and he +added, "Master, there was another matter to it that I saw." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you were always the thought-reader," said Percival, and smiled +at him quizzically. "What was it, Japhra?" +</P> + +<P> +"That thou art out for something else than we know." +</P> + +<P> +"You could see that? Well, you shall know to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +The earnest look in Japhra's eyes went deeper. "Comes it so soon?" +</P> + +<P> +"A few hours, Japhra." +</P> + +<P> +There came an impatient hail from Mr. Hannaford, settled at last in the +trap above them. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, press my hand to it," Japhra said; and as he held Percival's +hand, "press—let me feel thy grip, master. Something bids me to it. +Ay, thou art strong. Be strong in thine hour." +</P> + +<P> +As the trap swung out of the station yard Percival saw him still +standing there as though he still would speed that message. He turned +about in his seat to elude Ima in his chatter with Mr. Hannaford, and +they were not two miles upon the road before he was launched upon what +gave him need for strength. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +Strangers were rare in Great Letham. Every figure passed as they +rattled through the town was familiar to Percival. The turn into the +high road took them by one—a tall, straight man with something of a +stiff air about him, as though his clothes were uncomfortable—that +looked at them with a swift glance as they overtook him. +</P> + +<P> +"Hullo," said Percival. "That's a new face. Who's that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, that's a bit of news for you, <I>partner</I>," said Mr. Hannaford. +"Bless my eighteen stun proper if it ain't. There's two or three o' +them chaps about—'tecs." +</P> + +<P> +"'Tecs?—detectives? Why, what's up, Mr. Hannaford?" +</P> + +<P> +"There's been an escape from Dartmoor prison. Three of 'em in a fog. +And one—you'd never guess!" +</P> + +<P> +"Not old Hunt?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hunt sure enough, <I>partner</I>." +</P> + +<P> +"Hunt—good lord, poor old Egbert Hunt! And those chaps? After him? +Do they think he's here?" +</P> + +<P> +"They didn't know what to think," said Mr. Hannaford, and with a laugh +at them for their puzzlement went into explanation. A fortnight ago +the escape was made, it appeared. Two caught—one shot—but Hunt still +missing. Traces of him in four burglaries, and each one nearer this +way, and now the 'tecs here on the belief that he was making for the +country-side he knew. +</P> + +<P> +Percival met Ima's eyes and saw in them sympathy with the feelings +given him by this news. "I knew you would be sorry," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Sorry!—why, Ima, it's awful, it's dreadful to me to think of poor old +Egbert like that. One of them shot—and he hiding, terrified, no +shelter, no food. When they catch him—I know what he is. He'll be +mad—do anything. They'll shoot him down, perhaps." +</P> + +<P> +She touched his hand and he was moved to catch hers that touched him +and saw the blood tide up into her face. He had seen much of her in +the winter following his illness when she had lived with Aunt Maggie. +They were brother and sister, he had told her in those days, and when +he had spoken of that night on Bracken Down before the fight: "Oh, it +is forgotten," she had told him. "Forgotten, and forgotten all the +foolish words I spoke. Nothing in them, Percival. Yes, you are my +brother. I am your sister. That is it." +</P> + +<P> +And now was sister. He did not notice that she caught her breath when +the blood came into her face as he took her hand, nor that she +disengaged his clasp before she spoke. Only that in her gentle voice, +"You must not let it upset you, Percival," she told him. "You are +coming back so happy. You must not let this spoil it." +</P> + +<P> +"But it does," he said. "It does. I can't enjoy myself—I can't be +happy while he's near here perhaps—those brutes after him. We'll have +to look out for him, Ima. You and I. He'll not be afraid of us. +We'll go all round the place together. He'll come to us if he sees us." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—yes," she said, and seemed glad. +</P> + +<P> +"What does old Rollo say?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, Lord Burdon—Lord Burdon is longing to see you. Of Hunt I don't +know what he says. But of you—Percival, he's longing for you. He's +not been very well. He's kept to the house. He sent word how he had +looked forward to meeting you at the station but could not, and begged +you would go up to him as soon as ever you arrived. You must." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, of course I will," Percival said, and with recollection of +Rollo—and of Rollo longing for him—was temporarily removed from the +gloom that had beset him and returned to the anticipation of all that +awaited him. +</P> + +<P> +"I will, of course. He's not ill?" +</P> + +<P> +"He's ever so much stronger since he came back. Only a cold that keeps +him in. He has to keep well for the festivities, of course." +</P> + +<P> +Her reference was to the great twenty-fourth birthday celebrations—the +coming of age according to Burdon tradition—and Percival agreed +eagerly. "Why, rather! He'll want all his voice for the speeches! I +was afraid once I'd not get back in time. As it is, I've only just +done it. The nineteenth, next week, his birthday, isn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Next Thursday," Ima said, smiling to see him smile again. +</P> + +<P> +"Touch and go!" laughed Percival. "I might easily have missed it." He +turned to Mr. Hannaford. "Mr. Hannaford, you'll have to stay a bit +when we get home—have tea—and then drive me over to the Manor. We're +talking about Lord Burdon and the festivities. Great doings, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, great doings is the word for it," said Mr. Hannaford. "Bless my +eighteen stun proper if it ain't. Everybody invited a score o' miles +round. Going to roast a nox whole, marquees in the grounds, poles with +ribbons on 'em from the church to the Manor—" +</P> + +<P> +"From the church! What, is there going to be a service?" +</P> + +<P> +"Service!" said Mr. Hannaford. "Why, how's he going to be married +without?" +</P> + +<P> +Percival almost jumped to his feet. "Married! Is he going to be +married?" +</P> + +<P> +"What, don't you know, <I>partner</I>?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've not had letters for months. <I>Married</I>! Good lord, old Rollo +married! Why, that's tremendous. Ima, why ever didn't you tell me? +Married! Whom to?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hannaford was enormously pleased at this excitement. "Give 'ee +three guesses, <I>partner</I>." +</P> + +<P> +Percival cried: "Why, I couldn't guess in a thousand. It fairly knocks +me. Old Rollo going to be married! Go on—tell me!" +</P> + +<P> +"Go on—guess," said Mr. Hannaford. +</P> + +<P> +"How can I guess? I don't know his London friends. I shan't even know +her name." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you'll ha' left your memory where you left that string o' little +'orses if 'ee don't. Ever heard o' Upabbot?" He twisted round to wink +advertisement of his humour to Ima. "Got any sort of a glimmering +rec'lection of Abbey Royal?—why, Miss Espart!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0512"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XII +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +PRELUDE TO THE BIG FIGHT +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +Percival said in a quiet voice, "Put me down. Put me down—I'm going +to walk." +</P> + +<P> +"So you're no hand at guessing, partner. Own up to that," was Mr. +Hannaford's response. Then he cried, "Hi, what's up with 'ee? What be +doing?" for Percival had stretched a sudden hand to the reins and the +horse swerved sharply. "Whoa!" bellowed Mr. Hannaford, and dragged up +with a wheel on the brink of a ditch. "Might ha' had us out!" he +turned on Percival. "Bless my eighteen stun proper if 'ee mightn't!" +</P> + +<P> +It was a wild face that fronted him, blotchy in red and white as it +were freshly bruised. "Well, put me down!" Percival cried at him +fiercely. "Put me down when I ask you!" and as he slowly drew the rug +from his knees and put out a foot to the step he turned back on Mr. +Hannaford and flamed "I suppose I can walk if I want to?" and dropped +heavily to the road. His feet landed on the edge of the ditch. He +blundered forward and came with hands and knees against the hedge. The +stumble shook his hat from his head and he turned and went hatless past +the tail of the cart and a few paces down the road. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hannaford released with a rushing explosion the immense breath that +he had been sustaining during the whole of these proceedings. He +turned amazed eyes on Ima: "What's happened to him?" +</P> + +<P> +She sprang to the road. "Percival!" and followed him. +</P> + +<P> +He turned at the sound of her feet; and at the look on his face she +stopped. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" he demanded. "Well? What is it now?" +</P> + +<P> +"You have left your hat," she said. "I will bring it to you." +</P> + +<P> +Some wit that came to her gave her these ordinary words in place of +questioning him, and he came back to her quickly. "I don't want my +hat," he told her. He looked up towards Mr. Hannaford. "I'm sorry I +pulled you up like that. I want to walk, that's all. I'm going along +the Ridge—to stretch my legs." +</P> + +<P> +"There's something wrong with 'ee," said Mr. Hannaford. "What is it, +boy?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing. I want a walk, that's all." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hannaford pointed across the Ridge. "There's a storm coming up. +Best ride." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll be home before that." He turned and went slowly towards a gate +that gave to the fields approaching the downside. Ima hesitated and +then went swiftly after him as he fumbled with the latch. +</P> + +<P> +"Percival, I will walk with you." +</P> + +<P> +He turned upon her a face from which the gentler mood was gone. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, for God's sake let me alone," he cried, and passed through the +gate and left her. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +He found that he kept stumbling as he pressed along. +</P> + +<P> +He tried to give attention to lifting his feet but stumbled yet. He +found that he could not think clearly. He tried to take a grasp of his +thoughts and place them where he would have them go, but they persisted +in form of words that Mr. Hannaford had spoken, in swift gleams of +pictures that answered the words and then round about the words again. +"Ever heard o' Upabbot?" Ah, every well-remembered street of it arose +before his mind! "Got any sort of a glimmering recollection of Abbey +Royal?" Ah, he could scent the very flowers banked along the drive! +"Why, Miss Espart." Blankness then—some thick oppressive darkness +suddenly shutting down upon him; some bewildering, vaguely sinister +blanket of dread that stifled thought—then suddenly out of it and back +again to "Ever heard o' Upabbot?" +</P> + +<P> +The ground beneath him flattened abruptly under his feet. He stumbled +more violently than before, and was jolted to recognition that +Plowman's Ridge was gained. Of long habit he straightened himself to +meet the wind. It suited the unreal conditions that seemed to surround +him, it was a part of the dream in which he seemed to be, that +something that should have been here seemed to be missing. What? He +stood a moment looking dully about him. The question merged into and +was lost in the circle of thought that beset him as he followed his +right hand and turned along the Ridge. He had stumbled a full mile and +more when there struck his face that which informed him what had been +missing when first he reached the crest. Wind came against him, and he +realised there had been no wind where, ever and like an old friend, +wind ran to greet him. Aroused, he pulled up short. He had come far. +That was Little Letham lying beneath him, Burdon Old Manor in those +trees. Late afternoon gave before evening down the valley. Heavy the +wind and close. He turned his head and saw against the further sky +great storm clouds pressing down upon the Ridge. He raised his eyes +and saw a figure come towards him, crossing the Ridge and walking fast +from Little Letham, turning towards him as he gave a cry. +</P> + +<P> +"Dora!" +</P> + +<P> +He went forward some swift paces, the stumbling gone from his feet and +his mind sprung tensely out of its dull circling; then he stopped. She +too was halted. She had turned sharply about at his cry and was poised +towards him where she turned. There were perhaps twenty yards between +them, and the quickly deepening gloom admitted him her face whitely and +without clear outline through the dusk. He did not move, nor she. +There came from her to him a rattle of breeze, presage of the storm +that gathered, and he saw her skirts fan out upon it. There struck his +face a heavy raindrop, skirmishing before the gale, and he drew a quick +breath and went forward to her—nearer, and saw her faultless face and +felt the blood drum in his ears; nearer, and her clear voice came to +him and he could hear his heart. +</P> + +<P> +She said: "Percival!" +</P> + +<P> +"Dora, I have come back." +</P> + +<P> +Her face, that he watched with eyes whose burning he could feel, was as +emotionless as motionless she fronted him. It might have been frozen, +so still it was; and she a carven thing, so still she stood; and her +eyes set jewels, so still were they. His breathing was to be heard as +of one that breathes beneath a heavy load. When she did not +answer—and when answered he knew himself by her silence—"There is +only one thing I want to hear from you," he said. "Tell me it." +</P> + +<P> +Her voice was a whisper. "Oh, must you ask me that already?" +</P> + +<P> +He said stupidly: "But I have come back." +</P> + +<P> +She said: "O Percival, it is a long time." +</P> + +<P> +He had known her voice precise and cold—as icicles broken in a cold +hand!—as was its habit and as he thrilled to hear it. He had known it +faltering and atremble and scarcely to be heard when she was in his +arms. Now there was a new note in it that he heard. There was a weary +droop, as though she were tired. "But it is a long time," she said +again. "I asked you not to leave me." +</P> + +<P> +He was trembling. "Tell me what has happened." +</P> + +<P> +Her reply was, "I asked you not to leave me, Percival." +</P> + +<P> +"You and—" There was a name he had difficulty in saying. He turned +away and went a step, fighting for it among the scenes in which her +words surrounded it. Then came to her again and pronounced it. "You +and Rollo. Is it true?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, it is true." +</P> + +<P> +He said brokenly: "But I have held you in my arms. How can it be true? +I have kissed you and you have kissed me and clung to me. You have +loved me. I have come back for you. How can it be true?" +</P> + +<P> +Her face answered him. Beneath his words the crimson flamed as though +in crimson blood it would burst upon her cheeks—flamed in those +strange pools of colour where her colour lay, and drove her white as +driven snow about them—flamed and called his own blood as flame bursts +out of flame. He caught her in his arms. "You are mine! What has he +done to you? Mine, mine, what has he dared?" +</P> + +<P> +She struggled and pressed her face away from his that approached it. +"You must not! You must not! Percival, you must not!" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, your voice, your voice tells me that you are mine!" he cried: and +cried it again in revulsion of triumph over the unthinkable torment +that had possessed him. "Your voice tells me!" and again in savagery +of heat at a thought of Rollo, "Mine—your voice tells me you are mine!" +</P> + +<P> +The colour was gone from her face. She was so white and so still in +his arms that he desisted the action of his face towards her, but held +her close, close. There came from her lips: "No, no! you must not. It +is wrong." +</P> + +<P> +"How can it be wrong? You say No, but your voice tells me. I have +come back for you, my Dora." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, be kind to me, Percival." +</P> + +<P> +"How should I be unkind to my darling?" +</P> + +<P> +He felt a tremor run through her. "You must not call me that, +Percival. It should never have been. I thought you would forget." +</P> + +<P> +What, had he not triumphed then? Torment came ravening back at him +again like a wild thing, and with a sudden burst and clamour, shaking +him where he stood, old friend wind with that old hail—or mock?—of +ha! ha! ha! in his ears. He said intensely: "You thought I would +forget? While I was away you thought I would forget? Dora, you never +thought it!" +</P> + +<P> +She stirred in his clasp to disengage herself: "No, no—before that. +When we were together." +</P> + +<P> +He broke out: "Explain! Explain!" He let her from his arms and she +stood away from him, stress on her face. "Oh, there is something I do +not understand in this," he cried. "Explain—tell me." +</P> + +<P> +She told it him. "Percival, I was always to marry Rollo," she said. +</P> + +<P> +He stared at her. "How can you mean—always?" +</P> + +<P> +"I should have told you. I knew it." +</P> + +<P> +He pronounced in a terrible voice "Rollo!" Then he said thickly: +"What, when you were with me—in those days, those days! You knew it? +He had spoken to you then?" +</P> + +<P> +She caught her hands to her bosom in an action of despair. "No, no!" +she cried; and then, "Oh, how can I explain?" and then found the word +that helped her with force of a thousand words to name her meaning. +"It was—holiday," she said. +</P> + +<P> +He remembered it. He remembered, and its memory came like a lamp to +guide him. He said slowly, "When Rollo went—I remember you were +different. Dora, do you mean it was always arranged you were to marry +Rollo?" +</P> + +<P> +She said, "Always—always!" +</P> + +<P> +He cried, "But you loved me!" +</P> + +<P> +She wrung her hands at that, and cried in the most pitiful way, "I +thought you would forget. I don't know what I thought. It was +holiday. It should not have been. Oh, why must we talk of it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Dora, they are forcing you to marry him." +</P> + +<P> +"I was always to, Percival. I was always to." +</P> + +<P> +"You want to?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I was always to." +</P> + +<P> +Her voice was that of a child whose young intelligence by no means can +take a lesson. Sufficient to one such that the thing is so as he sees +it and cannot be otherwise; and to her sufficient—trained and schooled +and cloistered for that sufficiency—that, as she said, she was always +to. Ah, she had had holiday, but not enough to loose her; she had +tossed among the flowers, but had fluttered home at nights. Now the +mate she toyed with was knocking at her prison; she could see and could +remember, but she could not fly. Quickly after the end of their months +together, and very certainly after Rollo's return, she had discovered +what long she had dimly seen. Clearly the purpose and the walls and +the end of her training had been presented to her. Passively she had +accepted them. +</P> + +<P> +But how explain it? How explain what herself she did not know? She +looked from night that came stealing up the valley to his face that had +a shade of night. She heard the wind that now was in gusty beat +against them, and above the sound could hear his breathing. She could +only wring her hands and say again: "Percival, I was always to;" and +when he did not answer, "Let me go now, Percival." +</P> + +<P> +He answered her then. "You loved me. How can you do this? You loved +me. Why did you not tell me?" +</P> + +<P> +She cried as if she were distracted, "Oh, oh! I asked you not to leave +me. It was a long time. You were not here." +</P> + +<P> +He caught on to that. "I am here now. It shall not be. Dora, I am +here now!" +</P> + +<P> +"It is done," she said. "It is done!" +</P> + +<P> +He seemed for the first time to realise the complete abandonment, the +unresisting resignation to her fate, that was in her every word and +tone. His voice went very low. +</P> + +<P> +"Dora, are you going to marry him?" +</P> + +<P> +"I was always to." It was the beginning and the end of her will. "I +was always to." She had no question of it. +</P> + +<P> +He threw up his arms in wild despair at its repetition. "O my God! +What a thing to tell me! What a thing to be! Why? Why? Do you love +him? Is he anything to you? Why were you always to marry him?" +</P> + +<P> +She gave the reason her mother had never concealed from her. "He is +Lord Burdon. It was arranged long ago. My mother—" +</P> + +<P> +The sound he made stopped her. As if he had been stabbed and choked +his life out on the blow, "Ah!" he cried. "That is it. Because he is +what he is. If he were like me this would never have happened. If he +were not what he is it would be ended." +</P> + +<P> +She appealed "Percival! Percival!" wrung her hands and turned and went +a step. When she looked again she saw his face as none had ever seen +it, twisted in pain and dark with worse than pain. He was not looking +at her, but down upon Little Letham where Burdon Old Manor lay. She +approached him and spoke his name, touched him, but he did not move. +</P> + +<P> +She left him there and once looked back. He still stood as she had +left him. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0513"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIII +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +THE BIG FIGHT OPENS +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +There had been one years before that had cried, "You are Lord Burdon!" +and one that had received it, first in light mock at its folly, then in +bewilderment at its truth. There was one cried the same words at "Post +Offic" on this night and one, groaning in torment of spirit, that put +it aside as a jest untimely, then, convinced of it, got to his feet and +heard as it were the world shattering to pieces in his ears. +</P> + +<P> +The gathering storm had opened and was driving along the Ridge in its +first onset of rain when at last Percival turned where Dora had left +him, wrenched himself about as though his feet were rooted, and brought +to Aunt Maggie the dark and working face that had stared down upon the +Old Manor. Ima had told Aunt Maggie of his strange behaviour when he +had stopped the cart. When he arrived she was up-stairs in her room, +crying a little, wanting to be alone. Aunt Maggie, Ima's fears +communicated to her, awaited him alone in the parlour. He opened the +door fiercely and came in dripping from the streaming night. She gave +a little cry at sight of his face and rose and stretched her hands +towards him. The sudden peace in here, exchanged for the buffeting of +the night, reacted on the tumult of his mind and forced him to +discharge it. +</P> + +<P> +"O Aunt Maggie! Aunt Maggie!" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"My Percival! What is it?" +</P> + +<P> +He took both her hands that were extended to him; then was acted upon +anew by her loving eyes, and clasped her to him and she felt sobs +shaking his strong frame. +</P> + +<P> +"Percival! Percival! What has happened to you?" +</P> + +<P> +He let her go and dropped into a chair against the table, put his hands +to his head and while she saw his shoulders heaving she saw the +raindrops running through his fingers from his hair. She went before +him, and stretching her arms across the table encircled his wrists with +her hands. They were burning to her touch. "Percival, it is torturing +to me to see you like this. Tell me, tell me!" +</P> + +<P> +He took her hands. "Oh, I am in torture," he said, and she saw the +torture burning in his eyes. "Aunt Maggie, Aunt Maggie, I loved Dora. +I never told you. I was to tell you to-night. I had come back for +her." +</P> + +<P> +She felt a sense go through her as of a sword turned within her. +</P> + +<P> +"But Rollo!" she said. +</P> + +<P> +His hands crushed hers so that she had pain. "Yes, Rollo!" he said. +"I nearly went to him to-night. I shall go yet. Rollo! Rollo! +Rollo!" +</P> + +<P> +He ground the name between his teeth. The pressure of his hands on +hers became almost insufferable. She felt it as nothing to what shook +her brain. She was back at the bedside in the Holloway Road. She was +spun through the years of her waiting, waiting. She was fronted with +the torments when that for which she waited had seemed to be snatched +from her. There filled the room and stooped towards her the figure +that she envisaged as fate, that had stayed her hand, that she obeyed, +that had tried her, that had fought for her, that now was come to prove +itself fate indeed. +</P> + +<P> +In one part she was dizzy and overcome with the shaking at her brain; +in the other she was listening to Percival and worse beset at every +word. "I have seen her," he said, "I have seen her to-night. They are +forcing her to this. They have arranged it for years—arranged it! +Bought her and sold her because he is what he is. Aunt Maggie, she +loved me for myself. He comes in! he comes in! he comes in! and takes +her because he is Lord Burdon." +</P> + +<P> +The shaking at her brain pitched suddenly to a tensest balance like a +machine that rattles up to action then tunes to a level spinning. +</P> + +<P> +"He is not Lord Burdon!" she said. +</P> + +<P> +He was silent but he did not heed her. +</P> + +<P> +"He is not Lord Burdon!" +</P> + +<P> +At her repetition he moved quickly in his seat and relaxed his hands. +"Oh, why say that? Why say that?" +</P> + +<P> +"You are Lord Burdon!" +</P> + +<P> +He let her hands go and pressed his own again to his head. "Can you +only talk like that when you see me suffering?" +</P> + +<P> +She rose to her feet. "Percival! Percival, listen to me. It is true. +It is what I have kept for you these years. It is what I have meant +when I told you I had something for you. You are Lord Burdon!" +</P> + +<P> +He also stood. "Are you mad, Aunt Maggie? Are you mad?" +</P> + +<P> +She staggered back against the wall. While he stared at her as he +questioned her sanity, while she saw the look in his eyes as he asked +her, there came to her with a shock of sudden fear, as to one that has +released a wild and mighty thing and shudders to have done it, the +words Japhra had said: "Mistress, beware lest thou betrayest him!" +</P> + +<P> +He came swiftly to her and roughly caught her. "Are you mad? What is +this?" +</P> + +<P> +She recovered herself. "Do you know that box in your room?" +</P> + +<P> +The locked box was an old joke of his. "What has that to do with it?" +</P> + +<P> +"The proofs are there. You shall see." +</P> + +<P> +"Show me," he said, his voice not to be recognised for any he had +spoken with. "Show me!" +</P> + +<P> +She steadied herself against a chair, and steadying herself by all her +hand came against as she walked, went across the room to the stairs, he +following. There came at that moment a loud knock upon the outer door. +He went dazedly to it and stared with unattending eyes at one who stood +there, the light shining on his heavy waterproof coat that streamed +with rain. It was the strange man whom they had overtaken as the cart +came out of Great Letham. +</P> + +<P> +"The convict Hunt's been seen near by," said the man abruptly. "Me and +my mates thought it right to tell the village." +</P> + +<P> +Percival closed the door upon him without a word. "Show me," he +repeated to Aunt Maggie, and followed her to her room. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +He sat on the edge of her bed while she told him his story. He sat +motionless and with his face immobile. There was only one action that +betrayed he was under any emotion. His chin was forward on his hand, +elbow on knee. His fingers came across his mouth, and in the knuckle +of one he set his teeth. Blood was there when he drew his hand away. +</P> + +<P> +She finished: "It is all here, letters, certificates. Your mother's +letters, Percival, and your father's. They are all in order from the +first. There is one here to his grandmother and one to his lawyer +telling them of his marriage. He left those with her when he went +away. Then the letters from India." +</P> + +<P> +He drew his hand from his mouth, the blood on his fist. "Leave me +alone," he said. "Go away, Aunt Maggie, and leave me to look at them +alone." +</P> + +<P> +There was that in his voice which smote terribly across her spinning +brain and caused her to obey him. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +An hour he was occupied in reading the yellowed sheets whose heritage +he was; for long thereafter sat and stared upon them. These devoted +lines in that round hand were his mother's: his father's those ardent +passions in those bold characters; he their son. He felt himself a +shameless listener to penetrate these tender secrets; he felt himself a +little child that hears his parents' voices. Sometimes, in that first +mood, the blood ran hotly to his cheeks; sometimes, in that second, +there came sobs to his throat and great trembling. Memories of +thoughts, impulses, happenings that had been strange, returned to him, +crowding upon him; here was their meaning, their interpretation here. +In the library with Mr. Amber, "thinking without thinking as if I was +in some one else who was thinking," shadows about the room and a moth +thudding the window-pane—here the secret of it! In the library with +Mr. Amber and the old man's cry: "Why do you stretch your hand so, my +lord?"—here the answer! In presence of death with Mr. Amber, and +"Hold my hand, my lord"—here what had opened Mr. Amber's eyes. In +dreams in Burdon House, and searching, searching, and all the rooms +familiar, and a voice that had cried, "My son, my son! Oh, we have +waited for you!"—here, here, the key to it—here that voice in those +yellowed sheets—here, here, what he had searched, streaming from those +papers, tingling his skin, filling his throat as though from the faded +lines strong essences rushed and pressed about him. His mother!—he +spoke the word aloud, "Mother!" His father!—"Father!" Their son, "I +am your son!..." +</P> + +<P> +Of a sudden he was returned to the present. Of a sudden he was +snatched up from realisation of what had been, and what was, and +pitched into battle of what was now to be. Out of a churchyard, out of +a graveside where gentle thoughts arise, into the street, into the +business where the din goes up! So he was hurled, and as one that +gasps on sudden immersion in icy water, as one gripped in panic's hold +that comes out of sleep to sudden peril, so, as he faced the thing that +was come to him, he cried out hoarsely, knew horror upon him, and shut +his eyes and pressed his hands against them as though his lids alone +could not blind what picture was before him. In one instant fierce, +fierce, exultant triumph; in the next torment that reeled him where he +stood. In one instant himself that an hour before had stood looking +balefully down upon Burdon Old Manor; that had cried to Aunt Maggie: +"Rollo! Rollo! Rollo!" and knew it for a thrice-repeated curse; that +had cried: "I was going to him! I shall go to him yet!" and knew his +hands tingle and his brain leap at the thought; in the next, nay, +immediate with the flash and flame of it, Rollo that from childhood's +days had leant upon him; that he had brothered, fathered, loved; that +had cried to him—ah, God, God! how the words came back!—"Everything +I've got is yours—you know that, don't you, old man?" That had cried, +"I'm never really happy except when I'm with you;" that had said, "I +want some one to look after me—the kind of chap I am; a shy ass and +delicate." +</P> + +<P> +He dropped on the bed in the tumult of his torment. He writhed to his +knees and flung himself against the bed, his fingers twisting in the +quilt, his face between his outstretched arms. He had burned with fury +to face Rollo and crush him down. The weapon was in his hands. Ah, +ah, too strong, too sharp, too cruel! New thoughts brought him to his +feet. Strongly he arose and shook himself. What, was he weakening +toward a sentiment? "Everything I've got is yours"—but Dora taken +from him! "Everything I've got is yours!"—it was! it was! and Dora +with it! Always arranged because he was Lord Burdon! His darling sold +to Rollo and bought by Rollo because Rollo was what he was! And he was +not it! He was not it! This night, this hour he should know it! +</P> + +<P> +This night? There came to him the vision of Rollo he had had when they +told him Rollo could not come to the station to meet him but begged he +would go up to him directly he arrived. He had pictured old Rollo +coming to him with eager, outstretched hands. Rollo was waiting for +him now, expecting him every moment, would so come to him if he went, +would so come to him if he waited till to-morrow; and how would look +when he spoke and told? The years ran back and answered him. There +came to him clearly as yesterday that first visit to Mr. Hannaford's +when he had been flushed with excitement and praise at riding the +little black horse and had turned to see Rollo shrinking as he stood +away, distress and tears working in his face. So he would look now. +Then he had encouraged Rollo—as all through life thereafter he had +heartened him. Now? Now he was to strike the appealing face that then +and ever had looked to him for aid.... +</P> + +<P> +How do it? How do it? Why hesitate? Why hesitate? How strike him? +Why spare him? How break him? Why let him go? Like live wild things +the questions came at him and tore him; as one in direst torment there +broke from his lips "O God, my God!": as one pursued he burst from the +room, through the parlour where Aunt Maggie stretched hands and cried +to him, out into the night where tempest raged and blackness +was—fierce as his own, black as the thoughts he sought to race. +</P> + +<P> +Out, out, as one pursued! Away, away, to shake pursuit! And caught as +he ran, screamed at as he stumbled on, by all the howling pack that +gathered strength and fury as he fled. His feet took the Down; full +the tempest struck him as he breasted it; ah, ah, more violent the +furies fought within! Thunder broke sheer above him out of heaven with +detonation like a thousand guns; he staggered at the immensity of it; +on, on, for furious more what joined in shock of battle in his brain! +A sword of lightning showed him the Ridge and seemed to shake it where +it lay. He gained the crest and turned along it and knew in his ears +old friend wind in howling mock of ha! ha! ha! to see this fruitless +race. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0514"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIV +</H3> + +<P CLASS="t4b"> +ALWAYS VICTORY +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +He came over against Burdon Old Manor and stopped and knew himself +where he had stood with Dora three hours before. His exertions had run +him to the end of his physical strength. He sank to his knees, and +there, like vultures swooping to their stricken prey, the torments he +had raced from came at him in last assault; there had him writhing on +the sodden ground.... +</P> + +<P> +In their stress, as a hand put down to touch him where he writhed, a +sudden recollection came—himself with Japhra by the van by Fir-Tree +pool; Japhra with a lighted match cupped against his face and Japhra's +words: "Listen to me, master. Listen to me—thy type runneth hot +through life till at last it cometh to the big fight. Send me news of +that. Send only 'The Big Fight, Japhra.' I shall know the winner." +Ah, here was the Big Fight, saved for him, growing for him through +these years and now released upon him! "I shall know the winner." He +crouched lower beneath the storm, and in his inward storm buried his +fingers in the sodden turf. "I shall know the winner"—ah, God, God, +which was victory and which defeat? To win Dora, to take all that was +his and she, his darling, with it, but against Rollo to use this +hideous thing: was that victory? To lose all, all, to let his darling +go, but to spare Rollo: was victory there? Was that victory with such +a prize? his Dora won? Yes, that was victory, victory! Was that +victory at such a price, Rollo spared, his darling lost? Could he bear +to see his darling go? Endure to live and know whose son he was? +Watch Rollo with his darling and keep his secret sheathed? Was victory +there? No, no, defeat—defeat unthinkable, impossible, not to be +borne! He sprang to his feet and another thought came at him and +gripped him. Japhra again: "Get at the littleness of it—get at the +littleness of it. It will pass." Ah, easy, futile words; ah, damnable +philosophy! Was littleness here? Was littleness in this? "Remember +what endureth. Not man nor man's work—only the green things, only the +brown earth that to-day humbly supports thee, to-morrow obscurely +covers thee. Lay hold on that when aught vexeth thee; all else +passeth." +</P> + +<P> +The Big Fight had him; in its agony he cried aloud, threw up his arms +and fell again to his knees. +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +So Ima found him. +</P> + +<P> +When he had burst from the house, when Aunt Maggie had followed him and +cried after him into the night, when she had returned and for a while +wrestled with fear of what she had seen in his face, she went to the +little room that was set apart for Ima and in sharp agony, in dreadful +possession of that "Mistress, beware lest thou betrayest him," had +cried "Ima, Ima, go to him! go to him!" +</P> + +<P> +And Ima, taking Aunt Maggie's hands and staring in her face, "What has +happened to him? What has happened to him? I heard him in his room +alone. I knew something had happened to him." +</P> + +<P> +The other could only say: "Go to him, Ima! Go! He must not be alone!" +</P> + +<P> +She was at once obeyed; her voice and face, and nameless dread that had +been with Ima since Percival had left the cart and while she heard him +in his room, commanded it. +</P> + +<P> +"How will you find him?" Aunt Maggie asked. +</P> + +<P> +Hatless and without covering against the storm, Ima went to the outer +door. "He will be on Plowman's Ridge," she said. "I shall find him." +</P> + +<P> +Some instinct took her along the very path that he had followed. Some +fear put her to speed. Her heart that he had silenced on Bracken Down +and that never again she had permitted him to see, carried her to him. +She ran with her skirts taken in her left hand, gipsy again in her free +and tireless action, gipsy when at the summit of the Ridge instinct +directed her without hesitancy to the right, gipsy when in the +blackness she almost ran upon him and a second time revealed him what +he was to her. +</P> + +<P> +He cried, "Ima! Why are you here?" but carried his surprise no further. +</P> + +<P> +"Percival, what has come to thee?" +</P> + +<P> +"O Ima, leave me alone! leave me alone!" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, let me help thee!" +</P> + +<P> +He cried, "None can—none can help me! Leave me! leave me!" Almost he +struck her with his frantic arms that pressed her from him. She +nothing cared, but caught them: +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, suffer me to help thee. Look how I have come to thee. I healed +thee once." +</P> + +<P> +Her voice, and memories of her touch when he had lain sick, acted upon +him. "Hold my hands, then. I must hold something. Hold them, hold +them! O Ima, I am suffering, suffering!" +</P> + +<P> +"That is why I am come. Your hands burn in mine and tremble." +</P> + +<P> +"Kind Ima!" he said brokenly. "Kind Ima!" and put her hands to his +face. +</P> + +<P> +She caught at her breath. There came a sudden lull in the storm as +though the wind paused for words she tried to make. +</P> + +<P> +"Some one is running to us," Percival cried, and took his hands from +her; stepped where approaching feet sounded and suddenly caught one +that ran into his arms. +</P> + +<P> +"Who are you?" Then peered and then cried, "Hunt!" +</P> + +<P> +The figure that he held panted for breath. "I'm going to him—me +lord," Hunt said, and laughed with the words. +</P> + +<P> +Percival went back a step and there came to Ima's ears his breathing, +heavy as Hunt's that laboured from his run. "What do you mean?" +</P> + +<P> +Again the laugh. "I heard, me lord. Like as I heard that odd bit in +the hall at the Manor years back and never forgot it that day to this." +</P> + +<P> +"How did you hear?" +</P> + +<P> +"I come to you. I come to you hiding, knowing you'd be kind as was the +only one ever kind to me. Hid in your bedroom back of the screen, you +not being there. Saw you come in and heard—" +</P> + +<P> +His sentence was broken in the savage hands with which Percival caught +his collar and shook him. "What did you hear? What? What?" +</P> + +<P> +"Leave off of me! You're choking of me." +</P> + +<P> +"What did you hear?" +</P> + +<P> +"Y're Lord Burdon. Not him—not that—" +</P> + +<P> +He was swung from his feet by Percival's grasp. "What now? What now, +Hunt?" +</P> + +<P> +"Leave off of me! Leave off! You're killing me." +</P> + +<P> +The grip relaxed, and Hunt shook himself free, and tossed his arms. +"What now?" he echoed, and had hate and dreadful laughter in the scream +his words made. "What now! I come out for him! For him and 'er as +put me away and as I told her in the dock I'd come. Straight for 'em I +come. Straight for 'em with the police after me. Stole this for 'em +and come to give it 'em." He drew from his jacket what gleamed in his +hand as he shook it aloft. "Come to shoot 'em like dogs as used me +like dogs, the bloody tyrangs. I've got better for 'em now. They can +go free—free! turned out! turned out! chucked into the street! kicked +out! Think of 'em! Think of 'em crying and howling and beggars and +laughed at and pointed at! That's what I'm going to give 'em. Into my +hand God Almighty what casts down the oppressors and the tyrangs has +delivered 'em! That's what—ar-r-r!" +</P> + +<P> +Percival was on him and threw him. His throat was in Percival's clutch +and his hands tearing at the hands that throttled him. +</P> + +<P> +"You are not!" Percival cried. "You are not. By God, you shall not!" +</P> + +<P> +In those wild words of Hunt's and what they meant—the world's mockery; +in that vile face and what it stood for—the world's cruelty, clearly +there came to him the answer that vainly in his torment he had sought. +Rollo face this? Rollo to this be subjected? Rollo suffer ejection +from home and name? Ah, now he knew which in the big fight had been +defeat and which was victory. "Rollo! Rollo! Rollo!" he had cried, +and cried it as a curse. "Rollo! Rollo! Rollo!" now beat in his +brain and in his grinding fingers and was pulse of the old protection +throbbing for his friend that ever had been more than brother to him. +</P> + +<P> +"Percival, you are killing him!"—Ima's fingers were on his, pulling +his grip. +</P> + +<P> +"Keep away! keep away!" he cried. "I'll have his life if need be!" and +to Hunt, livid and at last gasp: "You damned devil! You damned devil! +What are you going to promise me? How am I going to bind you? What am +I going to do with you?" +</P> + +<P> +There came gaspingly: "Promise—promise—oath to it." +</P> + +<P> +He relaxed his fingers, and as Hunt drew gasping breaths, "You damned +devil!" he cried again. "You damned fool. Did you not hear talk of +proofs? Nothing in them! Nothing in them! Can you hear that?" +</P> + +<P> +He was thrown on his side, he was grappled with by one whom fear of +death gave strength, his clutch was eluded and Hunt sprang free. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing in them! What's your murder fingers for, then? Nothing in +them—what you say 'Mother' for, then? Nothing in them—what—keep +away! Keep off of me!" He whipped from his pocket what had gleamed in +his hand. "Keep off of me! I'll fire. By God, I'll let you have it +if you come at me!" +</P> + +<P> +<I>An' come at him, an' come at him, an' come at him</I>, as of Percival in +the fight the old men say. +</P> + +<P> +Quick and straight as he had leapt at Pinsent, now quick and straight +he leapt at Hunt. Quick and straight then to win victory, now quick +and straight in victory already gained. Quick and straight he leapt; +quicker the pistol spoke; without reel or stumble he pitched to earth. +</P> + +<P> +There came a scream of hideous sound from Hunt, and screaming still he +turned and fled, screaming was answered by a shout, and screaming ran +to the hold of tall men come out of the night in his pursuit and close, +yet very late, before he screamed. +</P> + +<P> +From Ima no cry nor sound. She cast herself beside the figure that lay +there, looked in its face and had no need for word or question; pressed +her lips to his and then cried only, "Little master! ah, ah, Percival!" +</P> + +<P> +She threw herself full length upon him where full length he lay. With +her body she shielded him from the immense rain, with her arms enfolded +him, put her mouth to his. +</P> + +<P> +So she lay scarcely breathing; so she held him—hers, her own. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +There is a hill that stands in a chain of hills where the west country +stands towards the sea. A river streams below in a great mouth that +opens to sea and a wide flood that winds along the vale. No more than +a wide ribbon it looks from the hill, and the sea no more than the +sky's reflection. Here on a day the van stood, the horse tethered, and +Japhra with his pipe watching the remote valley. He turned his eyes to +Ima, knew the thoughts that had her, and touched her where she sat +beside him on the steps. All was known to them in these days and he +spoke of it. "My daughter, art thou still questioning it? Why, this +was the happy ending such as none could make it. How had he endured to +live and overthrow his friend? How live in silence and carry those hot +embers in his breast? Nay, nay, the fight came to him—that heart of +ours—and he took up the prize. A fighter I marked him when a child he +came to us. A fighter I knew him and a winner alway. Mark me what I +told thee once when he lay with us: Though it be death, always victory. +My daughter, what more happiness is there?" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="finis"> +THE END +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Happy Warrior, by A. S. M. Hutchinson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAPPY WARRIOR *** + +***** This file should be named 38325-h.htm or 38325-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/3/2/38325/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</BODY> + +</HTML> + diff --git a/38325-h/images/img-front.jpg b/38325-h/images/img-front.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..67da60d --- /dev/null +++ b/38325-h/images/img-front.jpg diff --git a/38325.txt b/38325.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ed29b39 --- /dev/null +++ b/38325.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14276 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Happy Warrior, by A. S. M. Hutchinson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Happy Warrior + +Author: A. S. M. Hutchinson + +Illustrator: Paul Julien Meylan + +Release Date: December 17, 2011 [EBook #38325] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAPPY WARRIOR *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece] + + + + + + +THE HAPPY WARRIOR + + + +BY + +A. S. M. HUTCHINSON + +AUTHOR OF "ONCE ABOARD THE LUGGER----" + + + + +WITH FRONTISPIECE BY + +PAUL JULIEN MEYLAN + + + + +TORONTO + +MCCLELLAND & GOODCHILD LIMITED + + + + +_Copyright, 1912,_ + +BY A. S. M. HUTCHINSON. + + +_All rights reserved._ + + + First Edition Printed, December, 1912 + Reprinted, January, 1913 (three times) + February, 1913 (three times) + Reprinted, March, 1913 + + + +Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Cushing Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. + +Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A. + + + + + Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he + That every man in arms should wish to be? + --It is the generous spirit, who,... + Come when it will, is equal to the need... + Who, with a toward or untoward lot, + Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not-- + Plays, in the many games of life, that one + Where what he most doth value must be won: + Whom neither shape of danger can dismay, + Nor thought of tender happiness betray. + --WORDSWORTH. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +BOOK ONE + +_A NICE, SHORT BOOK, ILLUSTRATING THE ELEMENTS OF CHANCE_ + +CHAPTER + + I. A PAGE OF THE PEERAGE + II. A CHANGE IN THE PEERAGE + III. INTO THE PEERAGE + IV. A FORETASTE OF THE PEERAGE + V. MISREADING A PEERESS + VI. MISCALCULATING A PEER + + +BOOK TWO + +_A BOOK OF THE SAME SIZE, ILLUSTRATING THE ELEMENT OF FOLLY_ + + I. LOVE TRIMS WRECKERS' LAMPS + II. LOVE LEADS AN EXPEDITION INTO THE UNFORESEEN + III. A LOVERS' LITANY + IV. WHAT THE TOOO-FIRTY WINNER BROUGHT MRS. ERPS + V. WHAT AUDREY BROUGHT LADY BURDON + VI. ARRIVAL OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR + VII. ENLISTMENT OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR + + +BOOK THREE + +_BOOK OF THE HAPPY, HAPPY TIME. THE ELEMENT OF YOUTH_ + + I. PERCIVAL HAS A PEEP AT THE 'NORMOUS + II. FOLLOWS A FROG AND FINDS A TADPOLE + III. LADY BURDON COMES TO "POST OFFIC" + IV. LITTLE 'ORSES AND LITTLE STU-PIDS + V. THE WORLD AS SHOWMAN: ALL THE JOLLY FUN + VI. JAPHRA AND IMA AND SNOW-WHITE-AND-ROSE-RED + VII. BURDON HOUSE LEASED: THE OLD MANOR OCCUPIED + + +BOOK FOUR + +_BOOK OF STORMS AND OF THREATENING STORM. THE ELEMENT OF LOVE_ + + I. PLANS AND DREAMS AND PROMISES + II. FEARS AND VISIONS AND DISCOVERIES + III. A FRIEND UNCHANGED--AND A FRIEND GROWN + IV. IMA'S LESSONS + V. JAPHRA'S LESSONS + VI. WITH IMA ON PLOWMAN'S RIDGE + VII. ALONE ON PLOWMAN'S RIDGE + VIII. WITH DORA IN THE DRIVE + IX. WITH AUNT MAGGIE IN FAREWELL + X. WITH EGBERT IN FREEDOM + XI. WITH JAPHRA ON THE ROAD + XII. LETTERS OF RECALL + XIII. MR. AMBER DOES NOT RECOGNISE + XIV. DORA REMEMBERS + + +BOOK FIVE + +_BOOK OF FIGHTS AND OF THE BIG FIGHT. THE ELEMENT OF COURAGE_ + + I. BOSS MADDOX SHOWS HIS HAND + II. IMA SHOWS HER HEART + III. PERCIVAL SHOWS HIS FISTS + IV. FOXY PINSENT _v._ JAPHRA'S GENTLEMAN + V. A FIGHT THAT IS TOLD + VI. THE STICKS COME OUT--AND A KNIFE + VII. JAPHRA AND IMA. JAPHRA AND AUNT MAGGIE + VIII. A COLD 'UN FOR EGBERT HUNT. ROUGH 'UNS FOR PERCIVAL + IX. ONE COMES OVER THE RIDGE + X. TWO RIDE TOGETHER + XI. NEWS OF HUNT. NEWS OF ROLLO. NEWS OF DORA + XII. PRELUDE TO THE BIG FIGHT + XIII. THE BIG FIGHT OPENS + XIV. ALWAYS VICTORY + + + + +THE HAPPY WARRIOR + + + +BOOK ONE + +A NICE, SHORT BOOK, ILLUSTRATING THE ELEMENTS OF CHANCE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A PAGE OF THE PEERAGE + +I + +This life we stumble through, or strut through, or through which we +creep and whine, or through which we dance and whistle, is built upon +hazard--and that is why it is such a very wobbling affair, made up of +tricks and chances; hence its miseries, but hence also its spice; hence +its tragedies, and hence also its romance. A dog I know--illustrating +the point--passed from its gate into the village street one morning, +and merely to ease the itch of a momentary fit of temper, or merely to +indulge a prankish whim, put a firm bite into a plump leg. Mark, now, +the hazard foundation of this chancey life. A dozen commonplace legs +were offered the dog; it might have tasted the lot and procured no more +pother than the passing of a few shillings, the solatium of a pair of +trousers or so. One leg was as good as another to the dog; yet it +chanced upon the vicar's (whose back was turned), enjoyed its bite, +jerked from the devout but startled man an amazingly coarse expression, +and hence arose alarums and excursions, a village set by the ears, +family feuds, a budding betrothal crushed by parental strife (one party +owning the dog and the other calling the vicar Father) and the genesis +of a dead set against the vicar's curate (who hit at the dog and struck +the priest) that ended in the unfortunate young man having to leave the +village. + +But all that is by the way, and is only offered to your notice because +commonplace examples are usually the most striking illustrations. It +is introduced to excuse the starting of this story with its least and +worst character. He figures but occasionally on these pages; yet by +this chance and by that he comes to play a vital part as the story +draws to an end; he comes, in fact, to close it: and therefore, out of +his place, he shall be the first to occupy your attention. + +Egbert Hunt his name. + + +II + +Miller's Field, Hertfordshire, an outer suburb of London and within the +cockney twang, was put into a proper commotion by the news that had +brought a title into its midst--had left a peerage as casually as the +morning milk at its desirable residence "Hillside," where Mr. and Mrs. +Letham (Lord and Lady Burdon as suddenly and completely as Monday +becomes Tuesday) made their home. The commotion chattered and clacked +in every household and in every chance meeting in the streets; but it +swirled most violently about Hillside and in Hillside, and its +brunt--if his own statement may be accepted--pressed most heavily upon +Egbert Hunt. + +Egbert, morose, a pallid and stoutish boy of fourteen years, +constituted the male staff at Hillside. This boy toiled sullenly at a +diversity of tasks, knives, boots, coals, windows: any soul-corroding +duties of such character, throughout the earlier hours of the day. In +the afternoon he fitted himself into a tight page-boy's suit that had +been procured through the advertisement columns of the "Lady," and +that, on the very day of its arrival, had been shorn of much of the +glory it first possessed in Egbert's eyes. + +Sunning himself proudly down the village street, the lad had been +greeted with a howl of "Marbles!" by the ribald companions he thought +to impress. + +"Marbles! They're buttons, yer silly toads!" the indignant Egbert had +cried. + +"Wot O! Marbles!" they jeered, and two of the round silver buttons +were wrenched off in the distressing affair that followed. + +Egbert carried them home in his pocket. The incident augmented the +hostile and suspicious air with which, from his childhood upwards, he +regarded the world. For this attitude the accident attending his birth +was primarily responsible. When he presented this morose disposition +to his mother's friends, Mrs. Hunt, in her softer moods, would instruct +them that his sourness--as she termed it--was due to the sudden and +unexpected discharge of a cannon during her visit to a circus, when +Egbert was but eight months on the road to this vale of tears. The +cannon had hastened his arrival (she never knew, so she said, how she +managed to get home) and the abruptness, she was convinced, was +responsible for his glum demeanor. By a dark process of reasoning, +wherein were combined retribution to the clown who had fired the cannon +and recompense to the child it had unduly impelled into the world, she +had named the boy Egbert, this being the title by which the clown was +announced on the circus programme. + +The story became a popular joke against the lad; to shout "Bang!" at +Egbert from behind concealment became a favourite sport of his grosser +companions. It rankled him sorely. For one so young he was +unnaturally embittered; his digestion, moreover, was defective. + + +III + +Upon the evening of the day on which his employers, Mr. and Mrs. +Letham, had been miraculously elevated to the style and title of Lord +and Lady Burdon, Egbert's hostility towards the world was at its +height. From half-past three onwards, callers followed one another, or +passed one another, over the Hillside threshold. Egbert was +bone-tired. It was close upon seven when kindly Mrs. Archer, the +doctor's wife, addressing him as he showed her out, inquired in her +gentle way after his mother and passed down the path with a "Well, good +night, Egbert!" + +"Good night, mum," Egbert muttered. He added in a lower but more +devout key, "An' I yope ter Gawd yer the last of um." + +The cool air invited him to the gate and he leaned wearily over it, his +bitterness of spirit increased by a boy who, spying him, cried, "Bang!" +as he passed, "Bang!" in retort to Egbert's tongue thrust out in hatred +and contempt across the gate, and "Bang! bang!" again, as the gathering +evening took him in her trailing cloak. + +Egbert drew in his tongue with a groan of misery and hate, of +indigestion and of weariness. An approaching footstep along the road +caused him to thrust it out again and to keep it extended, armed lest +the newcomer should be one of the bangers who irked his young life. + +It chanced to be his father, returning from work in the fields. Mr. +Hunt paused opposite his son and gazed for a few moments at the +outstretched tongue. At some pain to himself Egbert pressed it to +further extension: the boy was a little short-sighted and in the gloom +did not recognise his parent. + +"Tongue sore?" Mr. Hunt inquired, after a space. + +Recognising the voice, Egbert restored the member to his mouth. + +"Comes of tellin' a lie, so I've 'eard," said Mr. Hunt. + +Considerable sympathy was in his tone; but Egbert gave no more +attention to this view of retributive justice than he had vouchsafed to +the question preceding it. + +Father and son--neither greatly given to words when together--continued +to regard each other solemnly across the gate. Presently Egbert jerked +his head back at the house. "Heard about it?" he inquired. + +The news had long since permeated the village. Mr. Hunt said, "Ah!" +and taking a step forward, gazed earnestly at the house, first on one +side of Egbert's head and then on the other. His air was that of a man +who, the inmates suddenly having reached the peerage, rather expected +to see a coronet suspended from the roof or a scarlet robe fluttering +from a window; and as he stepped back he said, "Ah!" again, in a tone +that committed him, as a result of his observations, neither to +complete surprise nor complete satisfaction. + +"Ah!" said Mr. Hunt, and shifted the spade he carried from his left +hand to his right and waited. + +"Goin' to take me with 'em when they move to the 'Ouse o' Lords," +Egbert announced. "Told me so, dinner time." + +Mr. Hunt put the spade before him, and leaning on it gazed profoundly +at his son. "Ah! You'll wear one of them wing things side of yer 'at, +that's what you'll wear," he informed him. "Tall 'at." + +"Cockatoos they call um, don't they?" Egbert inquired. + +"That's right. Side of yer 'at," his father replied. "Tall 'at." + +Egbert appeared to ponder gloomily on the prospect. It was the habit +of this boy's sombre mind to suspect a hidden indignity in each change +thrust into his life. Seeking it in the cockatoos, he presently found +it. + +"Make me a Guy-forx again, I suppose," he said. "Same as these 'ere +buttons." + +Mr. Hunt took a step forward, and peering over the gate gazed down at +his son's buttons with considerable concern. + +The inspection finished, "Different in the 'Ouse o' Lords," he +consoled. "Expec' they'll all wear them wing things side of their 'ats +there. Call 'em same as they call you, that's what you can do. Tall +'ats." + +But this boy's pessimism was incurable. "I'll have the biggest, you'll +find," Egbert responded. "Else they'll give me two an' make a Guy-forx +of me that way." + +Mr. Hunt mentally visualised cockades the size of albatross wings on +each side of his son's hat. The picture made him unable to deny the +slightly outre effect that would be produced, and he began to move away. + +"Comin' in to see your mother to-night, I suppose?" he asked. + +Egbert grunted. + +"Tongue still sore?" + +"Boilin'," said Egbert, and turning from the gate moved moodily towards +the house. + +At nine o'clock, following his usual Tuesday night privilege, he betook +himself down the village street to his parents' cottage. A further +word or two dropped by his mistress joined with kitchen gossip during +supper to enable him to supply something of the information for which +he found his mother impatiently waiting. + +"So you're goin' with 'em, I hear?" she greeted him. + +Egbert nodded. + +"Think you was goin' to prising, 'stead of to a lord's castle, one +would, judgin' by your face," Mrs. Hunt exclaimed. + +"Goin' to wear one o' them wing things side of his 'at, that's what +he's goin' to wear," announced her husband. "Tall 'at." + +"An' oughter be proud," cried Mrs. Hunt. "Hold yer yed up, Sulky, do!" + +Sulky gave a stiff jerk to his bullet head. "Not goin' to the 'Ouse o' +Lords, after all," he answered his father. + +"'Ouse o' Lords! 'Ouse o' nonsense!" Mrs. Hunt exclaimed. "Goin' to +live in a castle, that's where you're goin' to live, young man. Down +in Wiltsheer; the cook told me all about it when I popped round this +afternoon." + +"Goin' to wear one o' them wing things side of 'is 'at, that's what +he's goin' to wear," pronounced Mr. Hunt doggedly. "Tall 'at. Tall +'at," he reaffirmed; but "In a castle!" Mrs. Hunt continued, heedless +of the interruption. "Burdon Old Manor, they call it, at a place +called Little Letham, which Letham is the family name of the family, +they giving their name to it as is very often the case, and a proper +castle it is, too, though called a Manor." + +Mrs. Hunt foamed out this information with a heat that increased as she +perceived the morose indifference with which Egbert accepted it. +Throwing herself into the third person, "Don't you 'ear what your +mother is a telling of you, Sulk?" she demanded. Her eye caught on the +wall behind Sulk's head a coloured presentation calendar depicting +Lambert Simnel at scullion's work in an enormous kitchen, and she took +inspiration. "A proper castle, your mother's telling you, where you'll +have scullings in the kitchen; that's what you'll 'ave, you nasty sulk, +you! Can't you say something?" + +"I'll sculling 'em!" breathed Egbert, yielding to her request. He +scented in this new form of acquaintance some fresh trial and +indignity. "I'll sculling 'em!" he repeated. + +His fierce intention earned him at once, and earned him full, the thump +upon his head that his mother's excitement and his own gloom had been +conspiring to inflict ever since he entered the cottage; and he trudged +his way back to Hillside viciously embittered against every point of an +aching day: his mistress, her visitors, the approaching change in his +life, his mother, the "scullings." "Tyrangs!" said Egbert. He +stumbled over a stone as he pronounced the savage word and bit his +tongue most painfully. "Boil yer," said Egbert to the stone; and, +including the stone with the "tyrangs," as wearily he got him to bed, +"Boil um!" he said. "Tyrangs! Toads!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A CHANGE IN THE PEERAGE + +This hazard foundation of life! As a stone tossed down a hillside +dislodges others and sets them rolling, themselves dislodging more till +the first light pitch will gather to a rumble where was peace, the +first stone cause to jump and shout many score that might have held +their place long after the thrower's idle hand was equal dust with the +dust of their descent--so it is with the lightest action that the least +of us may idly toss upon our small affairs. We cannot move alone. +Life has us in a web, within whose meshes none may stir a hand but he +pulls here, loosens there, and sets a wave of movement through a +hundred tangles of the coil. + +This hazard foundation of life! Egbert Hunt was made to lean wearily +over the gate that evening and the toads and "tyrangs" whose oppression +had cost him a bitter day were set in his path by a movement in the +web, leagues upon leagues of land and sea from Miller's Field. Life +has us in a web. In one remote corner an Afridi tribesman shot a +British officer: that was his movement in the meshes, and swift, swift, +the chain of tugs set up thereby acted upon a morose page-boy in +another remote corner, rendering him bone-tired through ushering the +visitors come to congratulate those who had stepped into the dead man's +shoes. + +This hazard touch even in the billet that the Afridi tribesman selected +for his bullet! In sheeting rain, behind a rock above a pass on the +northwestern frontier of India, Multan Khan--Afridi, one-time sepoy, +deserter from his regiment, scoundrel, first-class shot--snuggled his +cheek against his stolen rifle, hesitated for a moment between the +heads of three British officers, drew a line on one, pressed the +trigger; and, while he chuckled over his success, himself pitched dead +with a bullet through the incautious skull he had craned over the rock +the better to enjoy the fruits of his skill. + +Brief his pleasure but lusty the tug he had given the web. The news of +it reached London just in time to catch the final edition of the +evening papers as they went to press, just in time to supply a good +contents-bill for an uncommonly dull night. + + PEER + KILLED IN + FRONTIER + FIGHTING + +went flaming down the streets, substantiated in the news columns by a +brief message announcing Lord Burdon's name among the casualties of a +brisk little engagement in the Frontier Campaign. + +The morning papers did better with it, particularly that which Egbert +Hunt took in from the doorstep of Hillside. This paper's "Own +Correspondent" with the British force, eluding vigilance, had enjoyed +the fortune of getting among the party detailed for clearing the rocks +whence Multan Khan and his friends had made themselves surprisingly +unpleasant; and his long despatch, well handled in Fleet Street, +bravely headlined above: + + Gallant Young Peer + Lord Burdon Killed in Sharp Frontier Engagement + Leads Dashing Charge + +and nicely rounded off below with a paragraph written up from "cuttings +about Lord Burdon" in the newspaper's library, was distributed far and +wide on the morrow. The journalists dished it up, the presses hammered +it out, the carts, the trains, and the boys galloped it broadcast over +the country. To some it fetched tragedy (as we shall see); to others +idle interest; to Egbert Hunt a bone-aching day and cruel indignities +(as have been shown); to Mrs. Letham bewildering excitement. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +INTO THE PEERAGE + +I + +It made Mrs. Letham very excited. Mrs. Letham, coming upon it as she +idly turned over the newspaper at her breakfast, took a bang at the +heart that for the moment made the print difficult to read. +Recovering, she read it through, her pulses drumming, her breath +catching, her hands shaking so that the paper rustled a little between +them. She half rose from her seat, then read again. She read a third +time and now pursued the lines to that subjoined paragraph written up +from the "cuttings about Lord Burdon." + +"Lord Burdon, the twelfth Baron, was attached to the staff of General +Sir Wryford Sheringham, commanding the expeditionary force. He was a +lieutenant in the 30th Hussars and left England in October last with +General Sheringham when the latter went out to take command. Lord +Burdon, who only attained his majority in April last, was unmarried. +This is the first time since the creation of the Barony in 1660 that +the title has not passed directly from holder to eldest son; and about +Little Letham, Wilts, where is Burdon Old Manor, the family seat, the +expressions "Safe as a Burdon till he's got his heir," and "Safe as a +Burdon heir" have passed into the common parlance of the countryside. +The successor is of a very remote branch--Mr. Maurice Redpath Letham, +whose paternal great-grandfather was the eighth baron. It will be +noticed as a most singular event that the first break in a direct +succession extending over two hundred years should cause the new heir +to be found in the line of no fewer than four generations ago of his +house." + +When Mrs. Letham presently arose, she arose suddenly as if she forced +herself to move against spells that numbed her movements. She arose, +the paper clutched between her hands, and for a space she stood with a +dizzy air, as if her thoughts reeled in a giddy maze and perplexed her +actions. A jostle of visions--half caught, bewildering glimpses of +what this thing meant to her--spun through her brain, the mind shaping +them quicker than the mental eye could distinguish them, as one +half-stunned by a blow, dizzy between its violence and the onward +pressure of events. She put a hand for support upon the table before +her and felt, but did not think to end, the unpleasant shrinking of her +flesh communicated by her fingers scraping the wood where they bunched +the cloth beneath them. + +She was Lady Burdon...! + + +II + +With that amazement singing in her ears, and recovered from the first +effects of her bewilderment, she went quickly to the door and excitedly +up the stairs. She was thirty-five; they called her pretty; and +certainly she made an attractive presence as she came to the threshold +of the room where she sought her husband. Her entry was abrupt: a +quick jerk on the door handle, the door wide open and she with a sudden +movement standing there, tense, animated, a flush on her cheeks, +sparkle in her eyes, and a high, glad, strange note in the "Maurice!" +that she cried. "Maurice!" + +"Con-found!" came the answer. "Conster-_nation_!" and illustrating the +reason of the words, a fleck of blood came through the snowy lather on +a chin in process of being shaved. + +Mr. Letham--portly; forty; pleasant of countenance in a loose-lipped, +good-natured fashion; in a shirt and trousers before the looking-glass; +pain on face; finger firmly on the blood stain; razor in the other +hand--Mr. Letham peered short-sightedly into the mirror, made a very +squeamish stroke with the razor in the vicinity of the wound, and, +quickly over his concern, pleasantly addressed his wife. + +"'Morning, old girl. I say, you made me jump. Am I so fearfully late? +What's for breakfast?" + +He did not turn to face her. Viewed from behind, half-hitched trousers +and bulging shirt, he had a lumpish appearance, and it was the more +inelegant for the contortions of his arms and shoulders, characteristic +of a clumsy shaver. + +The spectacle caused Mrs. Letham a pucker of the brows that marred her +rosy animation. She said, "Maurice! Do turn round! I've something to +tell you." + +"M-m-m," murmured Mr. Letham, at very ticklish work with the razor. + +"Maurice!" + +"M-m-m--M-m-m. Beastly rude, I know. Half-a-second, old girl. This +is a most infernal job--" + +She interrupted him, "Oh, listen! Listen! In this paper here--" Her +voice caught. "In this paper--you are Lord Burdon!" + +Mr. Letham, signalling amusement as best he was able, gave a kind of +wriggle of his back, held his breath while he made another stroke with +the razor, and expired the breath with: "Well, I'll buy a new razor +then, hanged if I won't. This infernal thing--" and he bent towards +the glass, peering at the reflection of the skin he had cleared. + +The door behind him slammed violently, and then for the first time he +turned. He had thought her gone--angry, as she was often angry, at his +mild joking. Instead he saw her standing there, one hand behind her in +the action with which she had swung-to the door, the other clutching +the newspaper all rumpled up against her bosom; and there was that in +her face, in her eyes, and in the tremble of her parted lips that made +him change the easy, tolerant smile and the light banter with which he +turned to her. "Only my silly fun, Nelly," he began. "What is it? +Some howler in the newspaper? Let's have a--" Then appreciated the +pose, the eyes, the parted lips; and changed nervously to: "Eh? Eh? +What is it? What's up?" + +She broke out: "Your fun! Will you only listen! It's true--true what +I tell you! You are Lord Burdon." Angry and incoherent she became, +for her husband blinked at her, and looked untidy and looked doltish. +"He's unmarried. I was trying only the other day to interest you in +what that meant. When his uncle died last August I spoke to you about +it--" + +Mr. Letham, blinking, more untidy, more doltish: "Who's unmarried?" + +And she cried at him: "Young Lord Burdon! Young Lord Burdon is dead! +He's been killed in the fighting in India--" + +She stopped. She had moved him at last. + + +III + +Mr. Letham laid down his razor--slowly, letting the handle slip +noiselessly from his fingers to the dressing-table. Slowly also he +lifted his face towards his wife, and she saw his mild forehead all +puckered, his eyes dimmed with a bemused air, his loose mouth parted: +she particularly saw the comical aspect given to his perturbation by +its setting of little patches of soap with the little trickle of red at +the chin. + +He put out a hand for the paper and made a slow step towards her. +"Eh?" he said--a kind of bleat, it sounded to her. + +"No! Listen!" she told him. "Listen to this at the end of the +account," and she spread the sheet in her hands. A little difficult to +find the place ... a little difficult to control her voice.... +"Listen!" and she found and read aloud, in jerky sentences, the +paragraph that had been made out of "cuttings about Lord Burdon." + +Almost in a whisper the vital clause "_...the successor is of a very +remote branch--Mr. Maurice Redpath Letham, whose paternal +great-grandfather was the eighth baron...._" + +And in a whisper, dizzy again with the amazement of it: "Maurice! Do +you realise?" + +His turn for bewilderment. He ignored her appeal. He did not heed her +agitation. He took the paper from her and she read that in his +eyes--preoccupation with some idea outside her range--that caused her +own to harden. She crossed and stood against the bed rail, and she +eyed him with narrowing gaze as he read Our Own Correspondent's +despatch. + +"Poor young beggar!" he murmured, following the story. "Poor, plucky +young beggar!" + +She just watched his face, comical with its dabs of drying soap, +reddening a little, eyelids blinking. She watched him reach the fold +of the paper, ignore the paragraph relating to himself, and turn again +to Our Own Correspondent's account. "Poor--poor, plucky young beggar!" +he repeated. + +She gave a little catch at her breath. He exasperated +her--exasperated! Here was the most amazing fortune suddenly theirs, +and he was blind to it! Often Mrs. Letham flamed against her husband +those outbursts of almost ungovernable exasperation that a dull +intelligence, fumbling with an idea, arouses in the quick-witted. They +are the more violent, these outbursts, if the stupid fumbling, fumbling +with some moral issue, conveys a reproach to the quicker wit. She was +made to feel such a reproach by that reiterated "Poor young beggar! +Poor, plucky young beggar!" It intensified the outbreak of +exasperation that threatened her; and she told herself the reproach was +unmerited, and that intensified her anger more. It was nothing to her +and less than nothing, this boy's death; but she had rushed up to her +husband the better to enjoy her natural joy by sharing it with him, and +ready, if he had met her excitement, to compassionate the fate of young +Lord Burdon. He greeted her, instead, only with "Poor young beggar! +Poor, plucky young beggar!" She caught her breath. Exasperation +surged like a live thing within her. If he said it again! If he said +it again, she would break out! She could not bear it! She would dash +the paper from his hands. She would cry in his startled face--his +doltish face: "What! What! What! What! Don't you see? Don't you +understand? Lord Burdon! Lady Burdon! Are you a fool? Are you an +utter, utter fool?" + + +IV + +He opened his lips and she trembled. It is natural to judge her +harshly, natural to misjudge her, to consider her incredibly snobbish, +cruel, common. She was none of these. Given time, given warning, she +would have received her great news, received her husband's reception of +it, gently and kindly. But life pays us no consideration of that kind. +Events come upon us not as the night merges from the day, but as +highway robbers clutch at and grapple with us before we can free our +weapons. + +Happily, for the first time since he had taken the paper, Mr. Letham +seemed to remember her. He glanced up, flushed, damp in the eyes, +stupidly droll with the dabs of drying soap: "I say, Nellie, did you +read this: + +"_The boy--he was absolutely no more than a boy--poked this way and +that on the little ridge we had gained, trying, whimpering just like a +keen terrier at a thick hedge, to find a way up through the rocks and +thorns above us. We were a dozen yards behind him, blowing and +cursing. 'Damn it! we've taken a bad miss in balk on this line!' he +cried, turning round at us, laughing. Next moment he had struck an +opening and was scrambling, on hands and knees. 'This way, +Sergeant-major!' he shouted...._" + +Portly Mr. Letham, carried away by the grip of the thing, drew himself +up and squared his shoulders. He repeated "'This way, +Sergeant-major!'" and stuck, and stopped, and swallowed, and turned +shining eyes on his wife (she stood there brooding at him) and +exclaimed: "Can't you imagine it, Nellie? Listen: '_This way, +Sergeant-major!' he shouted, jumped on his feet, gave a hand to his +sergeant; cried 'Come on! Come on! Whoop! Forward! Forward!' and +then staggered, twisted a bit on his toes, dropped. I saw another +officer-boy jump up to him with 'Burdon! Burdon, old buck, have you +got it?'..._" + +Portly Mr. Letham's voice cracked off into a high squeak, and he +lowered the paper and said huskily: "I say, Nellie, eh? I say, Nellie, +though? That's the stuff, eh? Poor boy! Brave boy!" + +With unseeing eyes he blinked a moment at his wife's face. Brooding, +she watched him. Then he turned to the washstand and began to remove +the signs of shaving from his cheeks, holding the sponge scarcely above +the water as he squeezed it out, as though a noise were unseemly in the +presence of the scene his thoughts pictured. + +And she just stood there, that brooding look upon her face. Ah! again! +He was off again! + +"And his grandmother," Mr. Letham said, wiping his face in a towel, +sniffing a little, paying particular attention to the drying of his +eyes. "I say, Nellie, his poor grandmother, eh? How she will be +suffering! Think of her picking up her paper and reading that! ... +Only saw him once," he mumbled on, brushing his thin hair. "Took him +across town when he was going home for his first holidays from Eton. +Remember it like yesterday. I remember--" + +It was the end of her endurance; she could stand no more of it. "Oh, +Maurice!" she broke out; "oh, Maurice, for goodness' sake!" + +Mr. Letham turned to her in a puzzled way. He held a hair brush in +either hand at the level of his ears and stared at her from between +them: "Why, Nellie--" he began; "what--what's up, old girl?" + +She struck her hands sharply together. "Oh, you go on, you go on, you +go on!" she cried. "You make me--don't you understand? Can't you +understand? I thought that when I brought you this news you'd be as +excited as I was. Instead--instead--" She broke off and changed her +tone. "Oh, do go on brushing your hair. For goodness' sake don't +stand staring at me like that!" + +He obeyed in his slowish way. "Well, upon my soul, I don't quite +understand, old girl," he said perplexedly. + +"That's what I'm telling you," she cried sharply and suddenly. "You +don't. You go on, you go on!" + +He seemed to be puzzling over that. His silence made her break out +with the hard words of her meaning. "Do you really not understand?" +she broke out. "Do you go on like that just to irritate me? I believe +you do." She gave her vexed laugh again. "I don't know what to +believe. It's ridiculous--ridiculous you should be so different from +everybody else. It means to me, this news, just this: that it makes +you Lord Burdon. Can't you realise? Can't you share my feelings?" + +"Oh!" he said, as if at last he understood, and said no more. + +"How can I work up sympathy for people I have never seen?" she asked. + +He did not answer her--brushed his hair very slowly. + +"Nobody can say I should. Anybody in my place would feel as I feel." + +Still no reply, and that annoyed her beyond measure, forced her to say +more than she meant. + +"What are they to me, these Burdons?" + +"They're my family, old girl," Mr. Letham ventured. + +She did not wish to say it but she said it; he goaded her. "You've +never troubled to make them mine," she cried. + +Mr. Letham had done with his hair. He struggled a collar around his +stout neck, examined what injury his finger nails had suffered in the +process, and set to work on his tie. + + +V + +For a few minutes Mrs. Letham frowned at the solid, untidy back turned +towards her--the lumped shoulders, the heavy neck, the bulges of shirt +sticking out between the braces. She gave a little laugh then--useless +to be vexed. "You've never quarrelled with any one in your life, have +you, Maurice?" she said; and with a touch in which kindliness struggled +with impatience, she jerked down the bulging shirt, straightened a +twisted brace, said, "Let me!" and by a deft twist or two gave Mr. +Letham a neater tie than ever he had made himself. "There! That's +better! Have you?" she asked. + +He told her smiling: "Not with you, anyway, Nellie." Little attentions +like these were rare, and he liked them. In his weak and amiable way +he patted the hand that rested for a moment on his shoulder, and he +explained. "You're quite right, of course, old girl. Of course I +realise what it means to you and I ought to have shared it with you at +once. I'm sorry--sorry, Nellie. Just like me. And about never making +them your family. I know you're right there. But you don't really +mean that--don't mean I've done it intentionally. You know--I've often +told you--we were miles apart, my branch and theirs; you do see that, +don't you, old girl? A different branch--another crowd altogether. I +don't suppose you've ever even heard of the relations who stand the +same to you as I stand to the Burdons. All the time we've been +married, long before that even, I've never had anything to do with +'em." He smiled affectionately at her. "That's all right, isn't it?" + +She was getting impatient that he ran on so. "Of course, of course," +she said indifferently. "I never meant to say that." And then: "Oh, +Maurice, but do--do--do think what I'm feeling." She entwined her +fingers about his arms and looked caressingly up at him. "Have you +thought what it means to us, Maurice?" + +He liked that. He liked the "us" from her lips. His normal +disposition returned to him; he smiled whimsically at her. "'Pon my +soul, I haven't," he said; and added, smiling more, "it's a big order. +By Gad, it's a big order, Nellie." + +She clapped her hands in her excitement and stood away from him, her +eyes sparkling. "Maurice! Lord Burdon! Fancy!" + +"It'll be a nuisance, I shouldn't wonder," he grimaced. + +She laughed delightedly. "Oh, that's just like you to think that! A +nuisance! Maurice! Think of it! Lady Burdon--me! It's a dream, +isn't it?" + +"It's a bit of a startler," he agreed, smiling tolerantly down upon her +excitement. + +She laughed aloud. "But fancy you a lord!" and she looked at him, +holding him by both his arms and laughed again. "A startler! A +nuisance! What a--what a _person_ you are, Maurice! Fancy you a lord! +You'll have to--you'll have to _buck up_, Maurice!" + +He turned away for a moment, occupying himself in fumbling in a drawer. +When he turned again to her, his face had the tail of a grimace that +she thought expressive of how repugnant to him was the mere thought of +any change in his life. "Well, there's one thing," he said. "It won't +be for long;" and he tapped his heart, that doctors had condemned. + +She knew that was only his characteristic way of joking, but a flicker +of irritation shadowed her face. She hated reference to what had often +been a spoil-sport cry of "Wolf! Wolf!" + +"Oh, that's absurd!" she cried. "That's nonsense; you know it is. +Those doctors! Make haste and dress and come down. Make haste! Make +haste! I want to talk all about it. I want you to tell me--heaps of +things: what will happen, how it will happen. Now, do make haste. +I'll run down now and see to Baby." She had danced away towards the +door; now turned again, a laugh on her face. "Baby! What is he now, +Maurice?" + +"Still a baby, I expect you'll find, though I have been nearly an hour +dressing." + +For once she laughed delightedly at his mild absurdity; just now her +world answered with a laugh wherever she touched a chord. "His title, +I mean. An honourable, isn't it--the son of a peer? The Honourable +Rollo Letham! I must tell him!" She laughed again, moved lightly to +the door and went humming down the stairs. + +Mr. Letham waited till the sound had passed. When the slam of a +distant door announced the unlikelihood of her return, he dropped +rather heavily into a chair and put his hand against the heart he had +playfully tapped. "Confound!" said Mr. Letham, breathing hard. +"Conster-_nation_ and damn the thing. Like a sword, that one. Like a +twisting sword!" + +For the new Lady Burdon had been wrong in estimating any humour in the +grimace with which he had looked at her after turning away, while she +told him he must _buck up_. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A FORETASTE OF THE PEERAGE + +I + +A worrying morning foreshadowed--or might have foreshadowed--to Egbert +Hunt the strain and distress of the afternoon whose effect upon him we +have seen. Normally his master was closeted in the study with the +three young men who read with him for University examinations; his +mistress engaged first in her household duties, then in her customary +run on her bicycle before lunch; shopping, taking some flowers to the +cottage hospital, exchanging the magazines for which her circle +subscribed. These occupations of master and mistress enabled Egbert to +evade with nice calculation the tasks that fell to him. This morning +the household, as he expressed it, was "all of a boilin' jump," whereby +he was vastly incommoded, being much harried. The three young men +thoughtfully denied themselves the intellectual delights of their usual +labours with Mr. Letham. "Lucky dawgs," said Egbert bitterly, hiding +in the bathroom and watching them from the window meet down the road, +confer, laugh, and skim off on their bicycles; his mistress--writing +letters, talking excitedly with her husband--did everything except +settle to any particular task. The result was to keep Egbert +ceaselessly upon "the 'op," and he resented it utterly. + + +II + +With the afternoon the visitors; the satisfying at last of the +excitement that had thrilled Miller's Field to the marrow since the +newspapers were opened. + +A little difficult, the good ladies thought it, to know exactly what to +say. + +Some, on greeting Mrs. Letham, boldly plumped: "My dear, I _do_ +congratulate you!" At the other extreme of tact in grasping a novel +situation, those who cleverly began, "My dear, I saw it in the 'Morning +Post'!" a wary opening that enabled one to model sentiments on the lead +given in reply. + +"My dear, I _do_ congratulate you!" "My dear, I saw it in the 'Morning +Post'!" and "Ho, _do_ yer, thenk yer!" from bone-tired Egbert, +mimicking as he closed the door behind the one; and "Ho, _did_ yer, +boil yer!" closing it behind the other. + +Between these forms, then, or with slight variations upon them, fell +all the salutations but that of Mrs. Savile-Phillips who, arriving +late, treading on Egbert's foot in her impressive halt on the +threshold, called in her dashing way across the crowded drawing-room, +"And where is Lady Burdon?" + +She was at her tea table, closely surrounded, prettily coloured by +excitement, animated, at her best, tastefully gowned in a becoming +dove-grey that fortuitously had arrived from the dressmaker that +morning and mingled (she felt) a tribute to her new dignity with a +touch of half-mourning for the boy her relationship to whom death with +a hot finger had touched to life. Thus Mrs. Letham--new Lady +Burdon--took the eye and took it well. This was the moment of her +triumph; and that is a moment that is fairy wand to knock asunder the +shackles of the heavier years, restoring youth; to warm and make +generous the heart; to light the eye and lift the spirit. Hers, hers +that moment! She the commanding and captivating figure in that +assembly! + +Her spirit was equal with her presence. Physically queening it among +her friends, psychically she was aloft and afloat in the exaltation +that her bearing advertised. Each new congratulation as it came was a +vassal hand put out to touch the sceptre she chose to extend. The +prattle of voices was a delectable hymn raised to her praise in her new +dignity. She was mentally enthroned, queen of a kingdom all her own; +and as she visualised its fair places she had a sense of herself, +Cinderella-like, shedding drab garments from her shoulders, appearing +most wonderfully arrayed; shaking from her skirts the dull past, with +eager hands greeting a future splendidly coloured, singing to her with +siren note, created for her foot and her pleasure. + +Consider her state. The better to consider it, consider that something +of these sensations is the lot of every woman when, on her marriage +eve, a girl, sleepless she lies through that night, imaging the +womanhood that waits her beyond the darkness. It is the threshold of +life for woman, this night before the vow, and has no counterpart in +all a man's days from boyhood to grave. How should it? The sexes are +as widely sundered in habit, thought, custom, as two separate and most +alien races. Love has conducted every plighted woman to this threshold +and has so delectably engaged her attention on the road that she has +reckoned little of the new world towards which she is speeding. Now, +on her marriage eve, she is at night and alone: her eager feet upon the +immediate moment beyond whose passage lies the unexplored. Love for +this space takes rest. To-morrow he will lead her blindfolded into the +new country; to-night, poised upon the crest to which blindfolded he +has led her, she stands and looks across the prospect, shading her +eyes, atremble with ecstasy at the huge adventure. Mighty courage she +has--a frail figure, barriers closing up behind her to shut forever the +easy paths of maidenhood; hill and valley stretching limitless before, +where lie lurking heaven knows what ravening monsters. But she is the +born explorer, predestined for this frightful plunge into the unknown, +heedless of its dangers, intoxicated by its spaciousness, amazingly +confident in Love's power and devotion to keep her in the pleasant +places. And Love--he the reckless treaty-monger between the alien +races--is prone, unhappily, to lead her a dozen entangling steps down +the crest, and there to leave her in the smiling hills suddenly become +wilderness, in the little valleys suddenly become abyss. + +Mrs. Letham had enjoyed that intoxicating moment upon the crest. +Something of its sensations were hers again now; but she found their +thrill a far more delectable affair. Again she was upon the crest +whence an alluring prospect stretched; but now she looked with eyes not +filmed by ignorance; now could have seen desert places, pitfalls, if +such had been, but saw that there were none. Or so she thought. + +Already, in the congratulations she was receiving, she was tasting the +first sweets, plucking the first fruits with which she saw the groves +behung. For the first time she found herself and her fortunes the +centre of a crowded drawing-room's conversation. For the first time +she enjoyed the thrill of eager attention at her command when she chose +to raise her voice. It was good, good. It was sufficient to her for +the moment. But her exalted mind ran calculating ahead of it, even +while she rejoiced in it. She had her little Rollo brought in to her, +and kept him on her knee, and stroked his hair; and once and twice and +many times went into dreams of all that now awaited him; and with an +effort had to recall herself to the attentions of her guests. + +As evening stole out from the trees, in shadows across the lawn and in +dusk against the windows, like some stealthy stranger peering in, her +party began to separate. A few closer friends clustered about her, and +the conversation became more particular. Yes, it would mean leaving +Miller's Field--_dear_ Miller's Field; and leaving them, but never, +never forgetting them. Elated, triumphant, and therefore generous, +emotional, she almost believed that indeed she would be sorry to lose +these friends. + +As one warmed with wine has a largeness of spirit that swamps his +proper self in its generous delusions, so she, warmed with triumph, was +genuine enough in all her protestations. With real affection she +handed over kindly Mrs. Archer, the doctor's wife, who stayed last, to +the good offices of Egbert Hunt, and in a happy, happy glow of elation +returned to her drawing-room. This was the beginning of it! + +This the beginning of it! She drew a long breath, smiling to herself, +her hands pressed together; through the glass doors giving on to the +lawn she espied her husband, and smiling she went quickly across and +opened them. + + +III + +Mr. Letham was coming in from work in the garden. He had a +watering-can in one hand, with the other he trailed a rake. He was in +his shirt-sleeves, and his face was damp with his exertions around the +flower-beds. "Hullo! All gone?" he asked. + +The warmth of her spirit caused her to extend her hands to him with a +sudden, affectionate gesture: + +"All, yes. Maurice, you were an old wretch! You might have come in." + +"Simply couldn't, old girl. I had a squint through the window, and +fled and hid behind a bush. Thousands of you; it looked awful!" + +She laughed: "Miserable coward! I was hoping you would." + +"Were you, though?" he said eagerly. "I'd have come like a shot if I'd +known." + +That made her laugh again: he was always the lover. "Well, come and +have a talk now to make up," she told him. "Out here in the garden. +It's frightfully hot in this room." + +His face beamed. He put down the implements he was carrying, wiped a +hand on his waistcoat and slipped his fingers beneath her arm. "That's +a stunning dress," he said. + +She gathered up the trailing skirt and glanced down at it, well +pleased. "It is rather nice, isn't it?" + +"Fine! You look as pretty as a picture this evening, Nellie. I tell +you, I thought so, when I squinted in through the window." + +"That's because I'm so happy." + +"So am I." He pressed her arm to show why, and "Maurice! you are a +goose," was her gay comment; but for once his foolish loverlikeness +pleased her; her mood was widely charitable. + +They paced the little lawn in silence. She suddenly asked, "You don't +mind my being happy, do you?" + +"Mind! Good Lord!" and he pressed her arm again. + +"Being excited about--about it, I mean. It's natural, Maurice?" + +"Of course it is. Of course it is, old girl." + +"But you're not--it doesn't excite you?" + +Mr. Letham was too honest, even at risk of disturbing this happy +passage, to pretend the untrue. "Well, that's nothing," he said. +"That's nothing. I'm so beastly slow. An earthquake wouldn't excite +me." + +"I don't believe it would," she laughed, then was serious. "But I'm +excited," she said abruptly. "Oh, I am!" She put up her face towards +the veiling sky--a dim star here and a dim star there and a faint +breeze rising--and she drew a deep breath just as she had breathed +deeply in the drawing-room a few moments earlier. "Oh, I am!" she +repeated. "Maurice! I want to talk about it." + +He was not at all conscious of the full intensity of her feelings; but +for such of it as he perceived he smiled at her in his tolerant way. +"Well, you say," he told her. "You do the talking." + +She was silent for a considerable space; her mind run far ahead and +occupied among thoughts to which she could not introduce him, for he +had no place in them. That he shivered slightly recalled his presence +to her. That his presence had been deliberately shut from among the +castles she had been building caused her one of those qualms which (if +we are kind) often sting us back from our worser self to our better +nature. And she was kind, alternating ceaselessly between the many +womanly parts she had and those other parts we all possess; only to be +pitied if the events now quickly shaping for her tempted her too much, +led her too far from the point whence kindness is recoverable. + +Recalled to him and to her womanliness, "Oh, your coat!" she exclaimed. +"You've been getting hot and you'll catch your death of chill. You're +dreadfully careless. Where is it?" + +"In the summer-house. But what rot!" + +"I'll get it." She slipped her arm from his hand and ran away across +the lawn. "There!" she said, returning. "Now button it up. Ah! +You're all thumbs!" + +She fastened it for him and turned up the collar. The action brought +her face close to his. "You're jolly good to me, Nellie," he said, and +his lips brushed her forehead. A kiss it had been, but she drew back a +step. "Not going to have you ill on my hands," she told him brightly. +Then she slipped a hand into his arm and resumed, "What are we going to +do--first? I want to talk about that." + +She had talked to him of it all the morning; but as if it were +undiscussed--anything to preserve these happy moments--"Yes, go on," he +said. + +She responded eagerly. "Well, we must write to Lady Burdon, of +course--Jane Lady Burdon, now, you said, didn't you? Not to-day. +Better wait a day--to-morrow." + +"That is what I thought." + +"Yes--yes--and then you will have to go to see her. By yourself. I +won't come at first." She gave a little sound of laughter. "I don't +think I shall much like Jane Lady Burdon, from what you told me this +morning." + +He asked her: "Good lord, why, Nellie? Why, what did I tell you? I've +only seen her once, years and years ago." + +"You made her out proud; you said she would feel this terribly." + +"That poor boy's death? Of course she would. She was devoted to him. +Look, he was no more than Rollo's age when his father died. She +brought him up. Been mother and father to him all his life. Imagine +how she'd feel it." + +"Oh, I don't mean that; feel us coming in, I mean. Proud in that way." + +It was an idea that another man, though he knew it true, would have +laughed aside. Mr. Letham's hopeless simplicity put him to a stumbling +explanation. "Ah, but proud's not the word--not fair," he said. "She +has pride; you understand the difference, don't you, old girl? A +tremendous family pride. She'll feel this break in the direct +descent--father to son, as it said in the newspaper, ever since there +was a Burdon. It is one of their traditions, at the bottom of half +their traditions, and they're simply wrapped up in that kind of thing. +I should think there never was a family with so many observances--laws +of its own." + +"Tell me," she said: and while they paced, he spoke of this family +whose style and dignity they were to take; and while he spoke, +sometimes she pressed together her lips and contracted her brows as +though hostile towards the pictures he made her see, sometimes breathed +quickly and took a light in her eyes as though she foretasted delights +that he presented. She had no romantic sense in her nature, else had +been moved by such traditions of the House of Burdon as, he said, he +could remember. That white roses were never permitted in the grounds +of Burdon Old Manor, that no male but the head of the family might put +on his hat within the threshold, that the coming of age of sons was +celebrated at twenty-four, not twenty-one,--she scarcely heeded the +legends attaching to these observances. "Rather silly," she named +them, and did not condescend a reply to her husband's weak defence, +"Well, they rather get you, you know, don't you think?" + +He spoke of the Burdon motto, the arrogant, "I hold!" that was of the +bone of Burdon character, so he said. "I remember my old grandfather +telling me lots about that," he told her. "It sums them up. That's +the kind they've always been: headstrong and absolutely fearless, like +that poor boy, and stubborn--stubborn as mules where their rights, or +their will, or their pride is concerned. Stubborn in having their own +way, and stubborn in doing or not doing simply because the thing's done +or not done in the traditions they're bred up in." + +He stopped and bent to her with "Yes, what did you say?" but only +caught her repeating to herself intensely and beneath her breath, "I +hold!" + +"Yes, it's rather fine, isn't it?" he said; and he went on: "Well, +that's just what I mean about old Lady Burdon. She'll have felt that +she was holding for her grandson, had held all these years, and now was +the one, the only one, to see the tradition break, the direct +succession pass. That's what I mean by saying she has pride and will +feel it. That time I saw her, as I was telling you this morning, when +that poor boy was about Rollo's age and I was doing a walking tour down +in Wiltshire and managed to get up courage to go to Burdon Old Manor +and introduce myself, I noticed it then. She was dividing all her time +between the boy and a quaint kind of 'Lives of the Barons Burdon' as +she called it, a manuscript life of each holder of the title, hunting +up all the old records and traditions and things with the librarian; he +was as keen on it as she. He..." + +"Where will she be now, do you think?" Mrs. Letham interrupted. "In +town?" + +"In town for certain. She'd be sure to be where she could always get +earliest news of the boy." + +"In the town house? Burdon House in Mount Street, you said, didn't +you? Have you ever been there? What's it like?" + +"No, never been in. A whacking great place, from the outside. That's +where she'll be all right, unless they've sold it." + +Mrs. Letham gave him a sudden full attention. "Sold it? Why should +they have sold it?" + +"The ancient reason--want of money," he replied lightly. + +She made no response nor responsive movement; yet some emotion that she +had seemed to communicate itself to him, for looking down at her, +half-whimsically, half-gravely, "I say, you don't think we've come into +untold wealth, do you, Nellie?" he said. + +She took her hand sharply from his arm. Much that he had said, though +she could not have analysed why, had caused her kinder self to ebb. +Now it left her. She answered him by asking him: "What of all those +names you told me? Tell me them again." + +"The property? The Burdon Old Manor property? Little Letham, and +Shepwell, and Burdon, and Abbess Roding, and Nunford, and Market +Roding: those, do you mean?" + +"Yes, I mean those. How do you mean 'the ancient reason, want of +money'?" + +"Well, that's all there is, though. The money is all out of the +estate. Nothing more." + +She said impatiently: "Well? All those villages?" + +"All those duties." he corrected her. "That's the Burdon way of +looking at it. What they make on Abbess Roding they lose on Market +Roding, so to speak. It's that 'I hold!' business again. They won't +sell; they won't raise rents when leases fall in; they never refuse +improvements that can possibly be afforded. The tenantry have been +there for generations. No Burdon would ever think of turning them off +or of refusing them anything; it wouldn't enter his head. That's why I +said Burdon House in Mount Street might be sold. It's unlikely, but I +remember there was talk of it in my grandfather's time. It belongs to +an older day, when they were wealthier. They'd sacrifice that, if need +be, though it would be like a death in the family; but anything rather +than the bare idea of interfering with the people they regard as a +trust." + +He spoke quite easily, never realising the intensity of her feelings. +"Oh, it's no untold wealth," he laughed. "You mustn't think that." + +She said after a little space, "Richer than we are, though?" and added, +comforting herself with an old truism, "What's poverty to one is wealth +to another." + +"Oh, richer than we are. Good lord, yes, I hope so. I'm thinking of +years ago, anyway. Things may have changed. I'm telling you of when I +was a kid." + +She gave a little sigh of relief and she made a little laugh at the +mood she had permitted to beset her--that sigh we give and that laugh +we make when we shake ourselves from vague fears, or open our eyes from +disturbing dreams. Folly to be fearful! Life is a biggish field; easy +to give those fears the slip! The day is here, night ridiculous! She +laughed and turned smiling to her husband and proposed they should go +in. "I've got an extra special little dinner for you--to celebrate," +she told him. + +He pressed her arm against his side. "And I've got an extra special +little appetite for it," he said. "Makes me feel fearfully fit to see +you so happy." + +"Well, I am," she replied, and sighed her content and said again "I am!" + + +IV + +The night ridiculous! But when night came it caught her unstrung, too +excited for immediate sleep, and visited her with vague resentments, +with vague but chilly fears. They came gradually. Long, long she lay +awake, visioning the gleaming future. Her Rollo trod it with her--its +golden paths, limitless of delights--her little son rejoicing into +manhood as he walked them. She was intensely devoted to her baby +Rollo, born two years before. Marriage had disappointed her; from its +outset, directly she began to realise Maurice, she accounted herself +robbed of all it ought to have given her. Motherhood had recompensed +her; from Rollo's birth she had begun to dream dreams for him. Now! +She got out of bed and went to his cradle and bent above him, most +happily, most adoringly, as he slept. It was there and so occupied +that the first vague, unreasonable fear came to disturb her night. It +was gone as soon as it had come, and it had neither shape nor meaning. +Yet its discomfort made her frown. She had frowned in the midst of +happiness when Maurice was telling her of Burdon traditions, and the +repetition of the action returned her mind to what had occupied it then. + +At once resentments began to stir. She found herself resentful of Jane +Lady Burdon, as drawn by Maurice; of the tenantry at Burdon Old Manor, +who were regarded as a trust--a greedy, expensive trust on his showing; +nay, of the Old Manor itself, if saturated in traditions such as he +described. Why resentful? At first she could not say, and worried. +Then the reason came to her. It was the feeling that this old lady, +not proud but having pride, a ridiculous distinction, this old lady, +these tenantry, those traditions would resent her. Resent her? She +could not get away from the thought, and it irritated her and tired +her. Yes, and rob her, and that irritated and tired her the more. She +began to desire sleep and could not sleep for these resentments. +Resent her? Rob her? She grew angry that she could not sleep, and +then suddenly calmed herself by deliberately setting herself to see how +grotesque such thoughts were. After all, what could they do, even +suppose they desired her hurt? It came to her, with a grim sense of +the humour of it, that their own motto was against them. "I hold!" It +was she who held! + +"I hold!" The old motto did its new mistress its first service. It +charmed her, at last, to sleep. Immediately, as it seemed to her, she +passed into dreams of her amazing happiness; and in their midst the +motto rose against her. In their midst the vague fear that had +troubled her while she bent over her Rollo--but vague no longer--became +definite and horrible. She was taunted, she was terrified by some +force that told her it was all untrue; that tortured her she was +befooled and did not hold and should never hold the amazement she +fancied hers. Terrified and struggling, "I hold!" she cried. It +became the delirium of her sleep. Again and again "I hold! I hold!" +and always from that force the answer, quiet but most terribly assured: +"No, you do not! Nay, I hold!" Horror and panic overcame her. She +was so nearly awake that she tried to awake but could not. "I hold! I +hold!" "No, you do not. Nay, I hold!" There was no escape, no +escape.... When at last her fevered brain broke out of sleep, she +awoke to hear her own voice cry it aloud in agony: "I hold!" and +shaking, unnerved, thanked God for young morning stealing about the +room, and none and nothing to rebuke or contradict that waking cry. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +MISREADING A PEERESS + +I + +We will give them their title now. + +Events fell out much as the new Lady Burdon had planned. On the day +following the news, the new Lord Burdon wrote a few sympathetic lines +to Jane Lady Burdon; two days later he received an acknowledgment from +the house in Mount Street. She would like to see him, Jane Lady +Burdon, wrote, but she would like a little time in which to accommodate +herself to her sad affliction. Perhaps he would arrange to call on +that day week; and meanwhile, if he could see Mr. Pemberton, they would +be spared much explanation relative to the sudden change. + +"Rather cold," was Lady Burdon's comment; but her attention was taken +by another letter brought in with Jane Lady Burdon's by Egbert Hunt, as +they sat at early breakfast, and overlooked in the excitement. "And +Mr. Pemberton--who is Mr. Pemberton?" she asked, but had opened this +other envelope while she spoke, taken the gist of its letter at a +glance, and herself answered her question, looking up with flushed face +and sparkling eyes. "He's the solicitor," she said. + +Lord Burdon nodded. "So he is. The name comes back to me." + +"This is from him--to you. It's all right. He says it's all right, +Maurice. He's the lawyer. He knows. He admits it." + +"Sounds as though he'd committed a crime. What does he admit?" + +She was very happy, so she laughed. "Listen!" and she read him the +letter in which, in stilted, lawyer like terms, Matthew Pemberton (as +it was signed) formally advised him of the death in action on the +northwestern frontier of India, and of his succession to the barony and +entailed estates. The firm of Pemberton, it appeared, had for many +generations enjoyed the honour of acting for the house of Burdon, and, +acting on Jane Lady Burdon's instructions, Matthew Pemberton desired to +propose an interview "here or at your lordship's residence, as may be +most convenient to your lordship." + +"Maurice!" Lady Burdon exclaimed, and handed him the letter; and when +he had read it, "There! There's no doubt now, is there?" + +He had frowned over it as though it troubled him. At her words he +looked up and smiled at her beaming face and patted her hand. "Why, +you never had any doubt, had you?" he asked. + +She gave the slightest possible shiver; but with it shook off the +recollection that had caused it. "Oh, I don't know," she answered. "I +do believe I had; yes, I had. I couldn't realise it sometimes. There +was nothing--nothing to go on. Now there is, though!" And she touched +the letters that were the magic carpet arrived to wing her from the +delirium of that night toward the amazement that night had threatened. + +She exclaimed again, "Now there is!" and, pushing back her chair, rose +vigorously to her feet, casting aside forever (so she told herself) +that nightmare dream and animatedly breaking into "plans." Too +animated to be still, too excited to eat, gaily, and with a commanding +banter that rendered him utterly happy, she easily influenced her +husband, against his purpose, to bid Mr. Pemberton make the proposed +interview at Miller's Field, not Bedford Row. "'At your lordship's +residence,'" she laughed. "It's his place to do the running about, not +yours. And tell him--I'll help you to write the letter--tell him to +come the day after to-morrow, not to-morrow. Don't let him think we're +bursting with eagerness." + +"By gum, he'd better not see you, then," Lord Burdon said grimly. + +She gave him a playful pinch. "Oh, I'll do the high and haughty stare +all right," she told him, and she laughed again and ran gaily humming +to the Hon. Rollo Letham in the garden. + + +II + +Mr. Pemberton, on arrival, proved incapable of much of that running +about, in the literal sense of the term, that Lady Burdon had +pronounced to be his place. + +"Here he is!" Lady Burdon said, watching through the drawing-room +window from where she sat, as a closed station-fly drew up before the +gate. "Here he is!" There was a longish pause before the cab door +opened, and then a walking-stick came out and tapped about in a +fumbling sort of way until it hit the step. A very thin leg came +groping down the stick, its foot poking about nervously as though to +make sure that the step was stable. "Good gracious!" Lady Burdon +exclaimed. "The poor old man!" + +She forgot the high and haughty stare premeditated for the interview, +and she crossed to the window, womanly and womanishly alarmed. The +knee above the trembling leg took a jerky shot or two at stiffening, +then stiffened suddenly and took the weight of a little wisp of an old +man, who swung suddenly out upon it, whirled half around as the gusty +breeze took him and, clutching frantically against the side of the cab +with one hand, with the other made agitated prods of his stick at the +road desperately far beneath. + +"Oh, goodness!" Lady Burdon cried. "He'll kill himself! And that +idiot like a frozen pig on the box! Maurice!" But she was quicker +than her husband and, the high and haughty stare completely abandoned, +was swiftly from the room, down the path, through the gate, and with +firm young hands under a shaky old arm, just as the little old man, +unable to balance longer, was dropping stick and leg towards the ground +and in danger of collapsing tremendously upon them. + +She landed him safe. "The road slopes so frightfully here, doesn't +it?" she said. "I am afraid you are shaken." + +The little old man, very visibly shaken by the fearful adventure, +essayed to straighten his bent old frame. He raised his silk hat and +stood bareheaded before her. "You saved me from that," he said. "It +was very, very kind of you. I am clumsy and stupid at moving about." + +She was flushed by her run, the breeze was in her hair; she looked +pretty and she was quite natural. "Oh, I saw you," she smiled. "I +ought to have come before. Let me take your arm. The path is steep; +we are on the side of a hill, as you see." + +She swung open the gate with one hand and put the other beneath his arm. + +He seemed to hesitate, looking at her curiously. "Oh, I am all right +when I am on my legs," he said, with a little laugh. "Well, well--it +is very, very kind of you," and he accepted the aid she offered. + +"It is steep, you see,"--she smiled down at him,--"and rough. It ought +to be rolled, but we have the idlest gardener boy in the world. You +are Mr. Pemberton, aren't you? I am--I am Lady Burdon." + +He halted in his nice little steps and looked full up at her. "I am +very glad to know that," he said simply, and put himself again to the +task of making the house. + + +III + +Mr. Pemberton was more than pleased; he was intensely relieved and +intensely happy. His thoughts, as he came down in the train to +Miller's Field, had caused his face to wear a nervous, a wistful, +almost an appealing, look. Bound up in inherited devotion to the noble +house whose service was handed down in his firm as the title itself was +handed down, he had feared, he had dreaded what manner of people the +tragic break in the famous direct succession might have brought to the +name he loved. Nothing could so well have reassured him as that most +womanly action of Lady Burdon when she ran to his assistance at the +gate; nothing could so well have affirmed the confidence with which he +turned to her husband, come to the door to meet them, as the simple +honesty of character imprinted on Lord Burdon's face and expressed in +his greeting. Both impressions were sharpened as they sat talking at +tea. Mr. Pemberton had come to talk business; he found himself drawn +by this sympathetic atmosphere into speaking intimately of the gay +young life whose cruel termination had caused his visit. + +Clearly he had been deeply attached to that young life; he speaks of it +in the jerky, disconnected sentences of one that does not trust his +voice too long, for fear it may betray him; and when he comes to his +subject's young manhood, after eulogy of childhood and youth, clearly +Lady Burdon is interested. She draws her chair a trifle towards him, +and with her elbow on the low tea-table, cups her chin in the palm of +her hand, the fingers against her lips, watches him and attends him +closely. Her throat and face are dusky, her wrist and hand are white +against them. Her eyes have a deep and kind look. She makes a gentle +picture. + +Encouraged by her sympathy, "He was a little wild," says Mr. Pemberton. +"I am afraid a little inclined to be wild.... Always so full of +spirits, you see ... eager ... careless, reckless perhaps, impetuous +... lovable--ah, me, very lovable.... + +"I was very fond of him, Lady Burdon," he says apologetically, "very +fond;" and he stumbles into an example of what he is pleased to call +the young man's impetuous carelessness. It is of his last months in +England, before he sailed for India, that this deals. Between June and +August, having leave from his regiment, he disappeared, it seems; was +completely lost sight of by his grandmother and his friends. Towards +the end of August he appeared again. "Not himself--not quite himself," +says Mr. Pemberton, shaking his head as though over some recollection +that troubled him, "and no explanation of his absence, and, when the +chance came--General Sheringham was a relation, you know--wild to get +out to this frontier 'show,' as he called it. + +"Typical of him," says Mr. Pemberton after a pause, and smiling sadly +at Lady Burdon. "Typical. A law to himself he would always be, and +not responsible to any one for what he chose to do. A Burdon trait +that; and he was a Burdon of Burdons." + +Lady Burdon asks a question, breaking into Mr. Pemberton's history for +the first time. "But that really is extraordinary, Mr. Pemberton," she +says. "Wouldn't Lady Burdon--wouldn't his grandmother--have felt +anxious during that disappearance, and wouldn't she have questioned him +when he came back?" + +"Not unless he seemed disposed to tell her. In a way--in a way, you +know, relations between them were a little difficult. Poor boy"--and +Mr. Pemberton gives a sad little laugh--"poor boy, he often came to me +in a great way, and her ladyship, too, has had occasion. He, on his +side, passionately devoted to her, hating to hurt her, but enormously +high-spirited, difficult to handle. And she, on hers, making all the +world of him and a little apt on that account to claim too much from +him, if you follow me. He sometimes chafed--chafed, you know; hating +to hurt her but restless of her control, her claim. Latterly she had +to be very tactful with him. No, she wouldn't have questioned him +unless he seemed disposed to tell her." + +They are interrupted here by the entrance of baby Rollo on his way to +bed, for it is getting late. "The rummiest little beggar," says Lord +Burdon, introducing his small son. "Not much more than eighteen +months, and solemn enough for an archbishop, aren't you, Rollo?" + +The solemn one, pale and noticeably quiet and far from strong looking, +justifies this character by having no smiles, though Mr. Pemberton +greets him cheerfully and says approvingly: "Rollo, eh? The Burdon +name. _His_ name," he adds, and looks at Lady Burdon, who gives him a +gentle smile of understanding. + + +IV + +Mr. Pemberton looked after her very gratefully when she excused herself +to take the child up-stairs. The door closed, he turned to Lord +Burdon. "Nice--nice," he began in a stifled kind of voice, "to have a +little son growing up--to watch. We watched young Lord Burdon--that +poor boy--growing up--anxiously--so anxiously...." + +He gave a nervous little laugh. "When I say 'we' you've no idea with +what a terrible air of proprietorship the family is regarded by those, +like myself, attached to it for generations, by those dependent on it. +We looked so eagerly, so eagerly as the time drew on, to his coming of +age. He was wanted so." + +"Wanted?" Lord Burdon asked. "Wanted?" He pronounced the word +heavily, as though he had an inkling of the answer and was apprehensive. + +It started Mr. Pemberton on a recital that he spoke with seeming +difficulty and yet as though he had prepared it. It occupied longer +than either knew, and Lord Burdon, before it was finished, was sitting +sunk low in his chair, as though what he heard oppressed him. The +little old lawyer spoke of difficulties in connection with the estate; +the diminished rent roll; the urgent necessity for comprehensive +improvements essential to make the land pay its way; the long-urged +necessity for the sale of Burdon House in Mount Street, heavily +mortgaged and the interest an insupportable drain on the estate. It +led him to why they had looked so anxiously for the coming of age. +Everything that was essential was impossible, he showed, in the reign +of gentle Jane Lady Burdon, who felt that she held in sacred trust for +her grandson and would suffer no risks in raising of loans, nor +depredation of her charge by sale of the town property. He had no +eloquence, this devoted little lawyer, but he had earnestness that +seemed to him who listened to fill the room, as it were, with living +shapes of duties, demands, traditions of a great heritage that +marshalled before him and looked to him to be carried forward, as +soldiers to a leader. + +A change in Mr. Pemberton's tone aroused him. + +"He was wanted so," Mr. Pemberton said jerkily, and stopped. + +No response, and in a funny little cracked voice, "Well, he's dead," +Mr. Pemberton said. + +Lord Burdon raised his eyes, contracted with the trouble that had given +him that drooped, oppressed appearance while the other spoke, dim, +clouded as with looking at something that menaced; and their eyes +met--two very simple men. + +Mr. Pemberton stretched out fumbling hands. He cried blunderingly and +appealingly, his mouth twisting: "It has affected me--this death, this +change. I am only an old man--a devoted old man. As we looked to him, +so now we look to you." + +"Look to me!" Lord Burdon said slowly. "Look to me! Good God, +Pemberton, I funk it!" he cried. "I funk it and I hate it. I'm not +the sort. I wish I'd been left alone. I wish to God I had!" + +There followed his words a silence of the intense nature caused by +speech that has been intense. In that silence, consciousness of some +other personality in the room caused Mr. Pemberton to turn suddenly in +his chair. He turned to see Lady Burdon standing in the doorway. She +was not in the act of entering. She was standing there; and for the +briefest space, while Mr. Pemberton looked at her and she at him, she +just stood, erect, her head a trifle unduly high, with estimating eyes +and with purposed mouth. + + +V + +It had been an anxious Mr. Pemberton that came down to Miller's Field. +It was a reassured Mr. Pemberton that stayed there, but a gravely +disturbed Mr. Pemberton that went back to town. He knew Lady Burdon +had been listening, the look he had seen on her face informed him of +her displeasure with what she had heard, and he knew that in his first +estimate of her he had misread her. + +For he read her look aright. In her husband's cry--his weak, +contemptible cry--in what she had heard of the little lawyer's +statements and proposals--his tears and prayers of duties--she knew +hostility to her plans, to her dreams, to her pleasures. Her +estimating eyes that met Mr. Pemberton's inquired the strength of that +hostility; her purposed mouth was the mirror of her determination +against it. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MISCALCULATING A PEER + +I + +The little clock that is perched high over the vast fireplace in the +library at Burdon House, Mount Street, marks a shade before ten of the +evening. Its delicate ticking joins with the fluttering of the flames, +and with the steady scratch of Mr. Librarian Amber's pen, to make the +only sounds in this dignified apartment with its high-bred air, that +has known many a Burdon and that shortly is to acknowledge another +bearer of the title and serenely give farewell to the lady seated +before the fire. + +A gracious lady of many sorrows, as the Vicar of Little Letham parish, +in a surprising flight, had named Jane Lady Burdon on the previous +Sunday--and rightly named her. Sorrow has companioned Jane Lady Burdon +before; now again is called whence it has lightly slumbered--walks hand +in hand with the gentle lady, is her bedfellow, crouches on the hearth +beside her as she sits, drooping slightly, in the high-backed chair, +fingers enlocked on lap, eyes dimly upon the flames. + +Lord Burdon, who has stepped into the dead boy's shoes--(Ah, Sorrow, +walk here and here with me. Look, Sorrow, where he used to sport and +run!)--has paid his visit that afternoon; sympathetic little Mr. +Pemberton, with his papers and documents, has occupied a part of her +morning. It has been a trying day for her. Her only desire now is to +be left alone with her thoughts. (Come away, come away, Sorrow, +Sorrow; and hold me close, and open me his prattling lips, his strong +young lips.) + + +II + +Mr. Librarian Amber--very conscious of Sorrow crouching there, but +busy, busy--is writing at a table behind the drooping figure in the +high-backed chair. The bald top of Mr. Amber's narrow head, nose hard +after his pen like a diligent bloodhound on a slow scent, shines +between the splendid yellow candles in their tall, silver holders that +light his work. Neat little packets of papers, neatly arranged, dot +the polished surface of the table, like islands set in a still, dark +sea about the greater island that is Mr. Amber's manuscript. On a +chair by Mr. Amber's side is a large, slim volume held by a gilt clasp +and lettered on its cover of white vellum: + + Percival Rollo Redpath Letham + XIIth Baron Burdon + + +He is engaged, Mr. Librarian Amber, on that "Lives of the Barons +Burdon" of which Lord Burdon had spoken to his wife, walking in the +garden of Hillside. + +Then that little clock perched over the mantelpiece tinkles the hour of +ten. + +"How do you progress, Mr. Amber?" Jane Lady Burdon inquires gently. + +Mr. Amber--constitutionally nervous--starts, drops his pen, grabs at it +as it rolls for the floor, misses it in the stress of a short-sighted +fumble, makes a distressed _Tch-tch!_ as it rattles to the boards, +clears his throat, starts on one reply and, in the manner of nervous +persons suddenly interrogated, strangles it at birth and has a shot at +fortune with another. + +"I have almost got--I am just concluding the newspaper reports of the +fight, my lady. Very nearly at the end." He recollects a resolve to +be bright in order to cheer my lady, so he adds with a funny little +pop: "Almost done!" and then with a brisk little puff blows imaginary +dust from his manuscript. "Almost done! _Hoof!_" + +"I will read it over to-morrow, Mr. Amber, immediately after breakfast. +To-day is Friday. By Monday you should have finished, I think, and the +book will be ready to go into its place at the Manor. You will come +with me when I go down there next week, Mr. Amber, and we will put it +in its place together. I shall be glad to see it in its place before I +leave: all the Lives finished--our little hobby, Mr. Amber;" and her +gracious ladyship of many sorrows puts into the words the smile that +faintly touches her lips. + +Mr. Amber, desperately agitated and pleased by this coupling of himself +with his dear mistress, takes from the warmth of his happiness courage +sufficient to introduce to her a matter that has been troubling him. +He gets awkwardly to his feet, a spare, stooping figure, mild of face, +little over fifty but looking more, frowns horribly at his chair for +the noise it makes upon the polished floor as he pushes it back, and +comes forward, twisting the fingers of his hands about one another. + +"My lady--yes, I will surely finish by Monday. Your ladyship will +forgive me--intruding myself--your ladyship speaks of leaving--I am--if +I may venture--so attached--I scarcely--" + +He is quite painfully agitated. His fingers, tightly locked now by +their twistings, present a figure of his halting sentences come to a +final tangle, an ultimate and hopeless knot. + +Her gracious ladyship of many sorrows smiles in her kind way. "Dear +Mr. Amber, you should know, of course. I have been thoughtless of you +in my sorrow. I am going to my sister in York, Mr. Amber--Mrs. Eresby, +you remember. Here nor the Manor is no longer my home, you understand. +Indeed, how should I stay in houses of sad memories only?" + +Mr. Amber murmurs "Ah--my lady!" and she continues: "I intend a last +visit to the Manor--to take leave of our dear friends, Mr. Amber, and +to collect a few--memories. I would go now, but I have first to meet +Lady Burdon. Lord and Lady Burdon will very kindly come here for that +purpose on Monday so that we may know one another for a few days." + +She pauses and smiles inquiringly as though to ask Mr. Amber if he is +now sufficiently informed. He blinks considerably, starts to work at +his hands again, and suddenly says with a mouth all twisted: "It will +be very--strange--to me to be parted from your ladyship." + +She extends a gentle hand towards his that twist and twist, touching +them softly: "Dear Mr. Amber. It has been the pleasantest friendship." + +He says stupidly and brokenly, "What will I do?" + +"You must go on living with the books," she tells him. "Why, what +would they do without you, or you without them? I will speak to Lord +Burdon. You must live on just the same in the Manor library where we +have been together so often--all of us. I shall like to think of you +there. It is my wish, Mr. Amber." + +She says gently, "There!" as he clutches her hand to his lips. "I will +go to bed now. I think I hear Colden coming for me," and as her maid +enters, she rises. + +Mr. Amber tries for words. That twisting mouth forbids them, and he +turns to hold the door open. + +"Thank you. Good night, Mr. Amber. Here is our kind Colden so +thoughtful for my sleep. I am ready, Colden. Yes, I will take your +arm. Good night, Mr. Amber." And as Mr. Amber stands watching, there +comes to him faintly across the great hall: "We'll rest a moment here, +Colden. A little trying, these stairs. Do you remember how he used to +take me up? He never missed a night when he was home, did he? Do you +remember how he made us laugh about this seat...?" + +Then Mr. Amber returns to the library, closes the door and eases +emotion by a trumpet blast upon his nose. + + +III + +Mr. Amber took a seat before the fire. He was unsettled, he found, for +further progress that night upon the work that had engaged him at the +table. But his mind turned to it and from it to the eleven fine +volumes into whose company it would go, completing the lives of the +Barons Burdon that were the fruits of many years of loving +labour--result of "our little hobby." In memory he trod again those +happy days--saw himself installed librarian at Burdon Old Manor, a +bookish youth, weak-backed, weak-eyed, son and despair of a tenant +farmer; rehearsed again that youth's aimless, browsing years among the +books, acquiring strange and various knowledge from the shelves, +developing affections, habits, tastes that, as with tentacles, anchored +him by heart and mind to the house of Burdon. Mr. Amber moved +restlessly in his chair and came to the beginning of the great scheme, +propounded by her gracious ladyship, that was to become "our little +hobby," as immediately it became the purpose and enthusiasm of his +life. Well, it was done--or almost done. The results of desperately +exciting scratching about the library--among distressed old books, +among family trees, among deeds, letters, parchments, rolls, +records--were in eleven fine manuscript volumes--only the twelfth to +finish. + +A leisurely volume this twelfth, now lying on the table behind Mr. +Amber's chair. Written up during its subject's short life--dear and +most well-beloved to Mr. Amber every moment of it--the volume is as +naturally detailed as some of the earlier volumes are naturally +scrappy. Pettily detailed, perhaps. Mr. Amber starts with the precise +hour and moment--6:15-1/2 A.M.--of the birth of the Hon. Rollo Percival +Redpath Letham; notes his colouring--fair; his weight at successive +infantile months--lusty beyond the average, it would appear; date of +his first articulate speech; date of first stumbling run across the +nursery floor--and suchlike small beer. His father's death is +chronicled ("cf. vol. XI, pp. 196 _et seq._") and he is shown to be yet +in his third year when he becomes twelfth Baron Burdon.... Date of +measles.... Date of whooping cough.... First riding lesson.... +Preparatory school.... First holidays.... First shooting lesson.... +Puts a charge of shot into a keeper. It is all very closely detailed. +It is detailed so closely that a gap towards the end is made +conspicuous: and this is precisely that gap occupied by the +"disappearance" of which Mr. Pemberton had spoken in the drawing-room +at Hillside. The chronicle, that is to say, is brought very fully up +to the May in which, as it shows, my lord suddenly went down to Burdon +Old Manor from London, his grandmother being at Mount Street, and +thence for a long holiday. It jumps to October and at once begins +again to be remarkably detailed, "Our Own Correspondent's" account of +the frontier engagement waiting on the table there to conclude it. But +of this May to October period, covering the June to August of which Mr. +Pemberton had spoken, Mr. Amber, like Mr. Pemberton, for the good +reason that he knew nothing of how my lord occupied it, has nothing to +say. Let it be said. My lord was in that June secretly married in +London: a matter closely germane to this history, and now to be +examined. + + + + +BOOK TWO + +A BOOK OF THE SAME SIZE, ILLUSTRATING THE ELEMENT OF FOLLY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +LOVE TRIMS WRECKERS' LAMPS + +I + +On a May morning, then, love in his heart, purpose in his eye, +gathering in his careless hand the meshes that he is going to tug, +shaking the unconsidered lives they bind--Rollo Percival Redpath +Letham, twelfth Baron Burdon, "Roly" to his gay young comrades of the +clubs and messes, was set down at Great Letham by the express from +London. + +Great Letham marks the nearest approach of the railway to the +sequestered villages that touch their hats to the Burdon Old Manor +folk. It stands at the head of a country that rolls away on either +hand in down and valley. Roughly, Great Letham centres the high lands +that bound this prospect on its nearer side, and from its outskirts +there strikes away a great shoulder of down that thrusts like a massive +viaduct straight and far to join the further hills. From a distance +this natural viaduct admits to minds however stubbornly practical the +similitude of a giant's arm. Rugged and brown and scarred it lies, not +green in greenest summer; and the humped shoulder whence it springs, +and the great mounds in which it swells along its path, present it as a +mighty limb out-thrust to hold away the hills in which its fist is +buried. Plowman's Ridge, they call it; and afoot upon it, it is kinder +of aspect. Aloof, aloft, alone, the wayfarer stands here, and breathes +or breasts the ceaseless wind that saunters or like a live thing +thunders down its track; and has on either hand a spreading valley, +whence curls the smoke of scattered hamlets, uprise the spires, come +the faint sounds of creature life and gleam the fields, as spread upon +a palette, coloured in obedience to this and that design of husbandry. + +The railway skirts the eastward vale; along the tranquil westward slope +the Burdon hamlets sleep. Viewed from the Ridge, they are ridiculously +alike; ridiculously equidistant one from the next; ridiculously +tethered, as it were, along the foot of the Ridge--like boats along a +shore; ridiculously small to have separate names, but named in their +order outwards from Great Letham: Market Roding and Abbess Roding and +Nunford--linked by those names with the monastic ruins at Upabbot in +the eastward vale; Shepwell and Burdon and Little Letham. They are +tethered to the Ridge, and the Ridge is the most direct communication +between them. Visitors from village to village, or from Great Letham +to any, climb the slope and use the Ridge, rather than plod the winding +roads that, as twelfth Baron Burdon has often declared, "take you about +two miles from where you want to get before they let you loose to go +there." + +He struck out along the Ridge now. + +Burdon village was his destination; and as he pressed his way towards +it, putting up his face to snuff the familiar wind, speeding ahead his +thoughts to what he came to seek, twelfth Baron Burdon showed himself a +very personable young man. His tawny hair he wore closely cropped +about his strong young head; beneath a straight nose he grew a little +clump of fair moustache shaved bluntly away at the corners of a firm +mouth. At a bold right-angle his jaw came cleanly from his throat; and +his chin was thick and round, matching his open grey eyes to advertise +purpose and command. A Burdon of Burdons Mr. Pemberton had named him. +A high-spirited young man, vigorous, alert; very boyish in mind, very +dominant of character. A Burdon of Burdons. Through a long line the +bone of whose quality was their "I hold!" twelfth Baron Burdon +inherited a spirit that, when crossed, was quick to be unsheathed as +from their scabbards the eager swords of remote ancestors were +quick,--dangerous as they. "Enormously high-spirited, difficult to +handle," Mr. Pemberton had told new Lady Burdon. It was handling he +could not brook. The lightest feel of the curb threw up his head as +the fine-tempered colt's. Brow and lips would assume signs that spoke, +even to one unacquainted with him, the imperious resolve of mastery. + +He was in pursuit of mastery now. + + +II + +As he came abreast of Burdon he edged down the Ridge, making towards a +little copse that ran up from a garden behind the last cottage in the +village street, the nearest to Little Letham. In the roadway this +cottage displayed, suspended from its porch, the notice, painted in +white letters on a black board: + + _POST OFFIC_ + + +(The painter had misjudged the space at his disposal but had added the +missing E on the back of the board, "Case," as he explained, "unnybody +be that dense as to turn her round to see what her do mean.") + +The cottage served in those days for the reception and distribution of +all the letters of the westward vale, a community little bothered with +correspondence; and "Post Offic" was conducted by a slight little woman +whom some called Postmum, some Miss Oxford. She was the daughter of a +former vicar of Little Letham; to twelfth Baron Burdon she was Audrey's +sister. + +Deep in the trees, as he approached the copse, the sharp white of a +skirt caught his eager eye. Taking a grassy path, he went noiselessly +down and presently was separated from his Audrey by the dense thorn +that hedged the tiny glade in which he found her. A basket of young +fern roots was beside her and she was stooped, her back towards him, +exploring in the undergrowth. + +He thought to steal up to her, and tried. The dense thorn locked him, +and she heard him and turned swiftly towards him. + +She was flushed with her stooping. Now a deeper flush rose beneath her +colour, sinking it in a warmer glow that stained her exquisitely from +throat to brow. The dark violet's shade was in her eyes; when her +colour abated, the pale rose's delicacy might have been shamed against +the fairness of her skin. She wore no hat; her soft brown locks +unruled the ribbon at her neck, and the breeze stirred her hair in +little waves about her temples. Her arms were bare where she had +thrust her sleeves beneath her elbows. She stood poised, as one might +say, upon the feet of surprise; and her lips were slightly parted, her +gentle bosom seeming to hold her breath as though she feared the +smallest sigh would waft away the sudden gladness that had caught it. + +She just whispered, "Roly!" + +"I'm caught in this da--infernal bush," Roly cried, struggling. + +"I wasn't to expect you for a week, you wrote." + +He began to writhe and wrench. "You needn't. I shall stay here +forever, I believe." + +She gave the merriest laugh: "You're simply fixed!" + +"Wait till I get at you!" He tried and was more firmly held. "I say, +what the _dickens_ has happened to me?" + +She put her hands together, enjoying his plight as a child that bends +forward at a play. "You'll never get through there, Roly. You'll have +to go back." + +He wrenched and struggled: "Go back! There's a great spike or +something sticking into me!" + +His struggles broke a network of branches at his waist. A thorny bough +sprang loose and whipped beneath his chin, forcing up his head. + +"Good Lord! Look here, Audrey, I shall cut my throat and bleed to +death; or this dashed spike will come slick through my back in a minute +and impale me!" + +"Roly! If you knew how funny you look!" + +Her tone, the way in which (as it presented itself to him) she +"squirmed" with childlike glee, caused him to laugh the jolliest laugh. +No quality of hers attracted him as this fresh and innocent and +childlike happiness that was her first characteristic; in none he found +so great delight as in the fount of innocence through whose fresh +stream came all her thoughts and words like young things at play. + +He laughed the jolliest laugh: "Well, I've not come all the way from +town just to look funny. I tell you, it's serious. I've never +imagined such a fix. I'm dashed if I can move a finger now. Audrey, +if you've got a woman's heart that feels, you'll help me out. This +infernal thing under my chin--just move that and I'll show you how we +fight in the dear old regiment--_Damn!_" + +"Oh, it has cut you!" she cried, all concern as a moment before she had +been all glee. + +A step brought her face within a hand of his. She found place for her +fingers between the thorns of the bramble beneath his chin. She drew +the branch downwards, and the action caused her to bend towards him +until their brows and eyes and lips were level. She looked directly +into his eyes and he directly into hers; and each read there those dear +and ardent mysteries that love far better images than ever love can +voice. + +He no more than breathed, "Kiss me, Audrey." + +She waited for the smallest part of a moment. Entranced, enthralled, +they only heard a lark that was a speck above them send down a tiny +melody, and far upon the down a sheep-bell's distant note. Love's +thralldom and Love's music to his thrall. The oldest play that mortals +play; and never know befooled were often meeter than enthralled, nor +better an ass to bray than some hymn seem to rise in benison. She +kissed him tenderly upon the lips; gave the smallest sigh and breathed, +"Dear Roly!" + +Comic were the word for such a thing. + + +III + +Comic, and comic that which followed when he, released, was with her in +the glade and, seated by her, took her hands and bent her to his +purpose. + +"Now, listen to me, Audrey. Put both your hands in mine." + +She responded as he bade her, performing surely the most beautiful +action in the world as she gave her hands to his. All human life has +no act more beautiful than the weaker hand confided to the stronger, +nor any nearer Godhood than when strong hand takes the weak. + +He enclosed her hands within his own. "Listen to me, Audrey," he +repeated; and, as her hands had been her spirit, he possessed and drew +her spirit on. + +Yet comic is the word: for here--he planning, she agreeing--they made +the plans they thought should make all bliss, all happiness their own; +here, in fact, trimmed wreckers' lamps to shipwreck happy lives. He +had determined upon secret marriage with her, and had determined it as +the perfect solution of difficulties whose consideration was in some +degree creditable to him. For as he told himself, and told his Audrey +now, nothing prevented him from openly declaring his intention of +contracting a marriage that would cause a breach between himself and +his grandmother; nothing but the impossibility of enduring such a +breach; that was unthinkable. + +"Passionately devoted to his grandmother," Mr. Pemberton had told; "and +she, for her part, making all the world of him." It was precisely this +uncommon devotion between him and his dear "Gran" that drove him into +torment of perplexity when first his heart informed him life without +Audrey was insupportable. With utmost content he had surrendered +himself into the object of Gran's adoring pride and, as such, into her +control of her dear possession. As he grew older, that control had +sometimes come to irk a little. "He sometimes chafed--chafed, if you +follow me," Mr. Pemberton had said. But the quality of that chafing +required better understanding than even Mr. Pemberton could give it. +It was not at conflict of will between himself and Gran that Roly +chafed; he knew his own determined character well enough to know that +if he liked he could override her will as he overrode that of others +who thought to oppose him. Where he chafed was where his devotion to +her pricked him. He could not bear the thought of giving her distress; +and he would sometimes chafe when--at this, at that, at some impulse or +boyish fling of his--he thought her distress unreasonable; unreasonable +because it shackled him unfairly; because either he would submit to it, +or, taking his way, would suffer greatly, be robbed of his pleasure, at +thought of having caused it. + +But always, when the thing was over, be glad he had given way to her or +most desperately grieved he had pained her. He knew that he was +everything to her; how hurt her then? + +With such the measure of his love for her, such the devotion between +them, and such that devotion's price, what a situation was presented +for his perplexity when Audrey came to occupy his heart! She had been +his playmate in his childhood at Burdon Old Manor, she at the Vicarage. +When her father died, Gran had expressed her fondness for his daughters +by using her influence to procure the establishment of a post-office at +Burdon and persuading the elder sister to conduct it, thus keeping +them, as she had said, "near us." That was one thing; a head of the +house of Burdon's marriage into so humble a degree--and that her +Roly--he knew to be unthinkably another. She had great plans for great +alliance for him--at some future date. At some future date! At her +great age and at his extreme youth she could scarcely think of him as +man--always as boy. It was one of the things that sometimes chafed +him. But when, as had happened, the subject of marriage came up +between them, and he would laugh at her immense ideas of his value, she +would always end so pathetically: "But, Roly, how shall I bear any one +to come between us?" + +Rehearsing it all, "How--how in God's name?" he had desperately cried +to himself, "can I tell her of Audrey?" She whom he could never bear +to distress--how give her this vital hurt? She from whom--for the +suffering it would cause her--he could never endure to be parted, how +deliberately put her away? He would tell her his intention; how endure +what she would say, or not say? He would carry out his purpose and she +would leave him and must shortly die; and how endure her death in such +circumstances? Or, haply, he would prevail on her to stay with him; +and she, supplanted, jealous of Audrey and gentle Audrey fearing her. +And how endure that? + +No--to create such a breach insupportable, and insupportable life +without Audrey. What then? + +It came to him as complete solution, and as complete solution he +pressed it now on Audrey, that he would marry Audrey first, then after +a little while tell. The more he examined it, the more obvious, the +less impossible of failure it seemed. "Gran, dear," he imagined +himself saying, taking his opportunity in one of those frequent moments +when, out driving with her or sitting alone with her in the evening, +she loved just to sit silent, resting her hand on his,--"Gran, dear, +I've something to tell you. I've done something and done it without +telling you, so as to have you go on living with me like we've always +lived together. Gran, I'm married--Audrey, Audrey Oxford; you +remember, dear?" + +Imagining it, he could imagine her arms about him. "Gran, I'm +married"--easy and kind. "Gran, I'm going to marry, going to marry +Audrey Oxford"--cruel, impossible! + +The solution removed also an obstacle to their mating on Audrey's +side--her sister. Their courtship had been carried on against her +sister's disapproval. Maggie was twenty years older than Audrey, more +mother to her than sister, and sharp-tongued in the matter of Roly's +frequent visits, the more surely to avert the disaster in which she +believed they must end. + +"In time--it's only a question of time," she had once said to Audrey, +"he will forget you, turn to his own position and responsibilities in +life--leave you broken-hearted. How else can it end?" + +And Audrey in tears: "What if I tell you he has asked me to marry him?" + +"He has asked you that?" + +"Maggie, he has." + +"Has he told Lady Burdon?" + +"Not yet, because--" + +"Ah!" + +And Audrey: "Oh, how can you say you love me?" + +And Maggie: "Audrey! Audrey!" + +And Audrey: "Maggie, I didn't mean that," + +And Maggie, steeling her heart: "But you think it: the first result of +him. You are girl and boy; you don't understand. Why, I, who would +die if you were to die, would rather see you dead than betrothed to +him. If it ended in marriage, it would end in misery." + +And later she had said to him: "If you break Audrey's heart, I will +never forgive you. That's a poor threat. I would find a way perhaps--" + +So there was Maggie stood in the way; and the solution found a way +round Maggie. And there was lastly all the clatter of his friends, all +the active disapproval of his elders; and the solution found an easy +way around that. He could not hurt Gran; he could not conciliate +Maggie; he could not face himself gossiped of, implored, advised, +reproved; and the solution offered an easy way around it all. Easily +winning Audrey to it,--her hands in his, his spirit possessing hers--he +came to details. He had examined and arranged everything. He had made +inquiries as to Registry Office marriages. They were both of age. +There was a residence formality: well, she was coming on a visit to a +girl friend in Kensington; he would take a room in a hotel in the +district. They would meet at the Registry "one fine day." Long leave +from his regiment was due. They would go on the continent--"all over +the place, the most gorgeous time"--and afterwards--easy as all the +rest was easy--Gran should be told. + +He ended: "Audrey--married!" + +And she: "Roly! ... Oh, Roly!" + +Comic were the word for such a thing. + + +IV + +Comic the word; but if, instead, you choose to judge them and to +consider preposterous his arguments of the case between his Gran and +his Audrey and preposterous his solution of it, beg you remember that +life is going to be an impossible affair for us, a thing to drive us +mad, if we are going to judge it by the standard of the correct and +noble characters that you and I possess. By some means or another we +must stoop down to the level of our neighbours and try to judge from +there. Dowered with all the virtues, as you and I are, it is the +easiest thing in the world to be impatient with another's folly, to +despise him for it, to indicate how little moral courage will rid him +of its effects; nay, to go further, and to declare it inconceivable +that such blunders and follies and misbehaviours, as for example those +upon which Roly and his Audrey were now embarked, can really have been +committed. But that is a stage too far. We must not run our excusable +intolerance of folly to the length of calling impossible even the most +absurd actions, even the most incredible weakness of character. The +whole history of mankind results precisely from these absurdities and +these incredibilities. On the one hand, we should still and should all +be in Eden if it were not so; on the other, there is the distinctly +moving thought that you and I, faultless, are dependent for our +entertainment on exactly these impossibilities of character in others: +but for them we should never enjoy the delicious thrill of being +shocked, never (the thing is unthinkable) be able to thank God we are +not as others are. + +No, we must accept these impossible follies on the part of our +neighbours: but to understand them--nay, if we are too utterly high and +they too utterly low for that, then merely to pay the poor devils for +the entertainment they give us--let us try to see as they see, feel as +they feel, become naked as they are naked to the bitter chill of +cowardice, of temptation, of God knows what indeed that strikes them to +the bone. + +Let us try, and coming to these two, let it for Audrey at least be +excused that she was the gentlest thing and all unschooled in any +heavier book of life than the airy pamphlet that begins "I love;" with +"I love" continues; with "I love" ends; and never asks, much less +supplies, what "I love" means, or what demands, or whither leads, or +how is paid. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +LOVE LEADS AN EXPEDITION INTO THE UNFORESEEN + +I + +He married her--and wearied of her. Within two months of when he +called her wife--and pressed her to him and kissed her for the fondness +of that name, and chaffed her with "Wife" in place of Audrey at every +lightest word--within two months of that tremendous day he was +discovering himself checked and irritated by the vexations, the +hindrances, the deceptions imposed by secret marriage upon his former +free and buoyant way of life. Within three he was openly irked, not +hiding from her that his temper was crossed when, stronger and more +frequently, incidents arose to cross it. Within four months--and still +their secret undeclared--he was often neglecting her, often silent in +her presence for long periods; brooding; frowning at her where she sat +or where she walked beside him; leaving her in a storm; returning to +her in remorse; assuring himself he did not love her less, nay, rather +loved her more--_But_...! Every way he turned and everything she did +and all the things she did not do, brought him and bruised him against +the bars of which that _But_ was made. + +All this most wretched and most pitiful, most excusable and most +inexcusable business may best be examined in the incidents that stood +out to mark its progress. Theirs was the oldest and most frequent of +human errors. They had jumped into the delights of the foreseen, and +behold! they found themselves in the swamp, in the jungle, in the +desert, in the whirlpool of the unforeseen. + + +II + +Audrey wrote and told Sister Maggie--a letter pledging her to secrecy, +posted on the very moment of departure for the Continent ("at our +wedding breakfast at the Charing Cross hotel, darling; and the train +just going") and breathing ecstasy of happiness, and breathing love all +atremble in its prayer for forgiveness. It informed Maggie that they +were to be Mr. and Mrs. Redpath until everybody was told; and "O, +darling Maggie, I shall not sleep until I get your letter--_Poste +restante_, Paris, dear--telling me you forgive me and how glad you are." + +Forgiveness was not to be discovered in the reply by the weeping eyes +that read it. "You have made a most terrible mistake," Maggie wrote. +"You say that you are happy, but you will find you can only be +miserable while you are living in deception." + +The wounding sentences were written in a firm, clear penmanship that in +itself was cold and bitter reprimand. As they appeared, so Audrey read +them. She did not know that they were written while the hand that made +them could be steadied from its trembling desire to send a message only +of devotion, only of prayer for Audrey's happiness, only of blessing. +The letter brought to Audrey's eyes the tears that Maggie hoped to +bring but ached to bring--forcing herself to be cruel in order to be +kind; also it brought belief that Maggie was and wished to be +estranged. It was never answered. Wisely intended, unwisely executed, +misread, it added to the record of human perversity another of those +immensely pitiful blunders that solely and alone are the cause of human +unhappiness. When Heaven holds its reassembly, Heaven, as we seek out +our loved, will surely ring with broken, loving greetings of: "I did +not know! I did not understand!" No more will need be said. All +tragedy, all sorrow is in those words; all tragedy, all sorrow removed +by them. + +Roly also had his letter. "If you cause her one single moment's +unhappiness--" and other wild words. He did not show it to Audrey. +Cause his darling unhappiness! He kissed away the tears her own letter +had brought and laughingly cheered her with an amusing account of an +incident in the hotel lobby. "We'll have to get out of this place, +Audrey. There's a man staying here and his wife that I know well. +Great pals of Gran's. I near as a toucher ran bang into them." + +It was the first glimpse of the Unforeseen. + + +III + +The first glimpse of the Unforeseen! At the moment neither recognised +it for such. At the moment it was merely "A dickens of a squeak. I +say, we'll have to look out for that kind of thing, old girl." Later, +and that before very long, incidents of the kind began to be realised +as the Unforeseen indeed. "That kind of thing" became, or seemed to +become, extraordinarily and exasperatingly frequent. What had promised +to be the fun of looking out for it became the strain of avoiding it. + +There came a day--in Vienna, an original item of their programme but +reached much earlier than intended owing to "That kind of thing's" +persistence--there came a day when signs of the strain were suddenly +evidenced, when, like a disturbed snake, unsuspected and sharply +alarming, the Unforeseen upstarted and hissed at them. Audrey had +struck up a pleasant hotel acquaintance, the matter of an hour's chat, +but related rather enthusiastically to Roly. At dinner that night she +pointed out her friend. "Right at the far end--look! By that statue +sort of thing. In pink, with that tall man; d'you see, dear?" + +He saw; and with concern she saw him set down the glass he was raising +to his lips and saw his face darken. He said: "Damnation! It's Lady +Ashington. It's maddening, this kind of thing. By God, it is. I'm +going. She'll spot me in a minute. I'm going." + +His violent words hurt her and frightened her. He got to his feet and +she made to rise also. That worsened the incident. "Stop where you +are," he said angrily. "Both of us getting up--making people look! I +can slip out behind here. Damn this business!" + +When she followed him to their room, she found his temper no better +that he had gone without his dinner. He had made arrangements, he told +her, for them to leave early in the morning, and he named their +destination. She tried to pretend not to notice his mood; but her +voice trembled a little as she said, "I've never heard of the place, +dear." + +He grunted, a little ashamed of himself: "I don't suppose anybody has. +I hope not. We must get off the beaten track. Badgered about like +this from pillar to post. It's getting on my nerves." + +She faltered, "I'm so sorry, Roly." + +Her tone pricked him. But these men hate above all things to feel in +the wrong when they are in the wrong. The effect of her humility was +to make him explain: "I don't know what possessed you, Audrey, 'pon my +soul I don't, to go palling up with that woman." + +Again she blundered. His reproach was so absurd that she laughed quite +naturally at it: "O Roly! how ridiculous! How was I to know you knew +her?" + +He turned on her, alarming her utterly. "You ought to have known!" + +Foolish, exasperating tears in her eyes: "How could I? How could I?" + +"I've told you--I've warned you; that's what I mean. I've told you +that every dashed soul I ever knew seems to be all over the Continent. +I've warned you to be careful. Asked you not to get in with people. +You absolutely don't care, seems to me. Perhaps you think it funny +dodging about like this--perhaps you enjoy it. Well, I don't. That's +enough. Let's drop the subject." + + +IV + +So and in this wise the miserable business jolted towards its climax; +deeper blunders at every step and every blunder additional to the load +that stumbled them into the next. Here was a young man that had taken +to himself pleasures, and lo! they were chains, rattling whensoever he +moved most grimly to remind him that now limits were imposed upon his +movements; that he who, by virtue of his rank, of the blood in his +veins, of his own high, careless, fearless air, that he who by virtue +of these was wont to look every man in the face more boldly than the +most of us, must now hide, dodge, shift, dissemble, or betray the +secret that, as to his torment he found, every day and every covering +deception made more impossible to discover to the world. + +Of all mankind's infirmities nothing than deception so quickly, so +deeply and so surely turns the quality of his behaviour; nothing so +cruelly tears, so acidly pierces his nerves; nothing so saps his +resolution, destroys his moral fibre. Honesty is sword and armour, +bread and wine; deception a voracious canker in the vitals, a clutch +out of hell dragging through fog of fear, through slough of sin, into +mire unspeakable. He was in its torments, he was writhing from them +into deeper blunders; he began to shudder at the thought of proclaiming +his marriage--yet. + +She saw his plight and, all unschooled in life, she contributed to the +disaster. Here was the gentlest creature, adoring and mated with an +impetuous mate that now was as a free beast trapped, goaded by the +sudden bars that caged him on every side, wildly seeking an outlet, +panicked at finding none. She searched her miserable pamphlet of "I +love," stained now with tears. It had nothing to give her. She read +into it that in marrying her Roly she thought to have brought him +nectar, and lo! it was a cup of poison she had given him, tormenting +him utterly. She blamed herself. Through wakeful nights she watched +him where he lay beside her--troubled often now in his sleep--and +sought and sought, fumbling her pamphlet, to know what amends she could +make him; and chid herself she was a burden to him; and would sit up in +the darkness and wring her poor young hands in her distracted grief. + +He noted the results that these distresses of her mind introduced to +her appearance and her behaviour. They did not aid the difficulties +with which he found himself beset. This was the beginning of the +period of neglect of her; of silence in her presence for long periods; +of brooding; of frowning at her where she sat or when she walked beside +him; of leaving her in a storm, returning in remorse; of assuring +himself he did not love her less, nay, rather loved her more--_But!_ + + +V + +At the end of August came their return to England, and immediately his +full realisation of the ghastly delusion of the idea that it were easy +to tell Gran--easy and kind--when the thing was done. Monstrous +delusion, ghastly folly! Why, the very fates were arrayed against it. +He returned to find Gran ailing, in bed. He went to the Mount Street +house, bracing his warped resolution to the pitch of telling her, and +it was to her bedroom he must go, and found her weak and stretching out +her arms to him and overjoyed--O God! so overjoyed!--to have her Roly +back. How tell her? Agony enough that she had no reproach for his +neglect of her through the summer, nor any that he was come now with +the news that he had run his leave to the last day and must at once +rejoin the regiment at Canterbury. Agony enough that she nothing +reproached, nothing questioned; unthinkable the agony of watching her +while he said, "Gran--Gran, dear, I'm married. Audrey, Audrey Oxford, +you know," and of hearing her poor lips falter, "Married? Married, +Roly? Audrey Oxford? Married, Roly?" + +Unthinkable! Impossible! + +But it was another blunder committed, another step deeper into the +coils, and he knew it for that when he left her, and ranged it with the +similar torments that possessed him: the mad initial folly; the blunder +of not proclaiming the marriage immediately he was married; the blunder +of each hour delayed during the weeks on the Continent. + +Now he was in the very jungle of the Unforeseen. Each step, every day, +lost him deeper in its fastnesses; and like one so lost indeed, its +dangers--encountered or suspected on every hand--preyed upon his mind, +robbed his remaining courage, lost him his moral bearings that remained +unwarped. His regimental duties kept him at Canterbury. He could not +have Audrey there. He took a tiny furnished flat in the neighbourhood +of Knightsbridge and there installed her, and there ran up to see her +as often as might be. And the inevitable began. The inevitable--the +chaff of his companions as to why he was forever "dodging up to town"; +the meetings with his friends and their "Roly, where the devil do you +get to these days?" the discovery that not only his men friends but his +larger circle of acquaintances--Gran's friends--were beginning to +gossip of his mysterious habits. The former put a man's interpretation +on his conduct, baited him that they would track him down "to see what +she was like." That thrice infuriated him: on Audrey's account; on the +fear that they might do it and disclosure be forced, to relieve her +from the horrible thing; and on the fact that what was implied was +detestable to his nature. The larger circle of his friends were not +more charitable, if more discreet. Gran, who was better again and had +gone for her health to Burdon Old Manor, sent letters that failed to +hide concern telling him of this, that and the other friend who had +written saying he denied himself to everybody, was frequently in town, +but never available and never to be found. Gran "hoped nothing was +wrong, dear;" but erased her suspicion with her pen, but not so well +that he could not read the words and picture the troubled thoughts that +wrote them. + +Ah! this was that grisly Unforeseen in shape new and most monstrous. +How meet it? How meet it? Just as he had shrunk from announcing his +intention of marriage because of the clatter of tongues and the +opposition that it would loose upon him, so now, but a thousand, +thousand times more, he shrank from the clatter that divulgement of his +secret would cause; from the resentment of his world at its befoolment +by him (as they would feel it); from the sneers and laughter at his +turpitude; from the apologies with which he must go round on his knees +to those he had deceived; from the interminable explanations he must +make. The Unforeseen in shape most monstrous! It rushed him as a host +of savage beasts that had snarled, that had threatened, that had come +at him singly and torn him but been whipped, but that now was on him in +the pack. How meet it? How meet it? God! What a lightsome, +harmless, innocent, mad, wanton, reckless thing he had done, and what a +turmoil he had loosed! + +Bitter days, these, in the Knightsbridge flat. That pamphlet of "I +love" all connoted now, written in tears, with what "I love" demands, +where leads and must be paid. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A LOVERS' LITANY + +I + +Bitter days--but suddenly breaking to dawn. There came to him, on the +rack of this torment, a thought that tortured him anew, yet made for +healing. Audrey? Even if, as in his extremity he debated, he dared +all and defied all--snatched himself out of this hell by publishing his +position and crying to all concerned, "Now do and say your +worst!"--even if he so made an end of it, to what would he bring her? +How would she be received, suddenly proclaimed his wife when this ugly +crop of suspicion and gossip was at its height? He knew, or through +his distraught imagination he believed he knew; and he writhed to +picture her--his gentle, unversed Audrey--thus introduced to the +suspicious, uncharitable, malicious atmosphere that well he was aware +his world could breathe. "Comes from a post-office somewhere, or a +shop was it? Married at such and such a date--_so he says!_" + +Thus the gate was slammed anew upon his resolution and locked and +double-locked: the way must somehow be prepared for Audrey, the gossip +by some means made to die, before he declared her. And with that there +was unlocked and opened wide the gate that had barred up his love. +Imagining the world's treatment of her, he realised his own. + +It was in the tumult of these discoveries that he presented himself at +the Knightsbridge flat and greeted his Audrey with a fondness that made +her cry a little for happiness; she frequently cried in these days, not +often for happiness. His fondness continued at that dear level through +the evening. It emboldened her to urge again the step that she +believed the best of all the many plans she ceaselessly revolved for +curing the trouble she told herself she had brought upon him. She +urged him to tell Gran. "Do tell her, dear. It will end all your +worry. You're so worried, Roly. I see it--oh, how I see it! And I +only add to it because I'm not--because I don't--because I vex you in +so many ways. I know I do. You used to be so happy. You will be +again directly this is all over. Do tell her, Roly! Roly, _do!_" + +She had been seated on the floor, her head resting against him where he +sat in a great armchair. Now, in this appeal of hers, she was turned +about and on her knees, her hands enfondling his, her face lifted +towards him. + +He made a little choking sound, all his love for her surging; all his +treatment of her wounding him; the thought of what he would bring her +to if he took the course she urged filling him with remorse and with +pity for her. He said in a strangled voice: "I can't; I can't," and +stooping, he raised her to him so that they lay together in the big +chair, their faces close, his arms about her.... + +For a little space, except that she was crying softly, they were +silent--clasped thus, most dear to one another; and then proclaimed +that dearness in scraps of murmured sentences, the gaps filled up by +what their tones and their clasped arms instructed them.... + +Just murmurs, and dusky evening in the room--light, faint as their +tones were faint, and in the shadows (how else seemed the air they +breathed at every breath to thrill them?) spirits of true lovers that +were winged down as, let us believe, lovers' spirits may when mortals +love. + +Just murmurs. + +He said: "Audrey, Audrey, I've been so cruel--angry--thoughtless." + +And she: "No ... no." + +And she again: "Go to her, then, Roly. Don't tell, if you think +not.... Just be with her for a little.... You'll be happy then.... +Leave me alone a little, dear.... Not even write." + +And he: "Audrey! ... Audrey!" + +Her voice: "I shall be happy ... if only you are happy..." + +And his: "I have been mad ... mad to treat you so.... Forgive.... +Forgive." + +Her voice--and close, close, all those lovers' spirits to hear this +lovers' litany: "When you are happy ... I am happy." + +And his--and all these murmurs chorused from lover's wraith to lover's +wraith, as watchers handing flame from hand to hand to instruct heaven +love still is here: "Audrey! ... Audrey!" + +And she: "My dear ... my dear!" + + +II + +Happy for her, happy for him, for all that have a smile and tear for +true love, to remember that from that moment never a hasty word or +thought passed between them. In that lovers' litany all such were +purged, the past wiped out as if it had never been. And, as if in +reward, into the night that surrounded Roly came a ray like a +miraculous rope thrown to one in a pit. + +The way must somehow be prepared for Audrey, he had said; the gossip +somehow be made to die before he could declare her. + +Sir Wryford Sheringham supplied the way. + +General Sir Wryford Sheringham had been his father's close friend, was +Gran's much-trusted nephew and her adviser in Roly's training. Gran +was sending him appealing letters in these days, imploring him to find +out what it was that was wrong with her dear Roly. Chance enabled him +suddenly to reply that, on the eve of his return to India, he was now +returning to take command of the Frontier Expedition that the +government of India had been saving up for a long time against three +Border tribes, and that he purposed taking Roly with him. He could +invent a corner to shove the boy into, he wrote; and she must not break +her heart nor shed a single tear except for joy that the chance had +come to get the boy away and to work. "Whatever it is he's been up +to," Sir Wryford wrote, "this'll pull him out of it and send him back +to you his father's son again." + +They walked into this last and supreme blunder as blindly as they had +gone into the first. Roly presented it as the opportunity more +wonderful than any that he could have invented to give this gossiping +the slip. When he returned ("loaded with medals, old girl," as, aflame +with excitement, he told her) it would all be forgotten; open arms for +him and open arms for her. + +Audrey's contribution to the folly was as characteristic. The news +struck her like a blow; but instantly with the shock came its anodyne. +He planned for her; every word of his rushing, thoughtless words was +drafted to scale of "Because I love you so;" though they had been +actual knives she would gladly have clasped such to her heart. + +Credit him that the night before the day on which he sailed he had a +sudden realisation of his madness. Credit him, at least, that now for +the first time in their misguided chapter, he saw a blunder before he +was irrevocably in it, and seeing it, tried to halt. He realised. He +told her it was impossible that he should leave her thus. He must +leave her in her right place. He must leave her with Gran. Gran was +in town to bid him good-by. He must--he would tell her that very night +of their marriage: in the morning take Audrey to her. + +But at that she broke down utterly--betraying for the first time the +flood and tempest of her agony at losing him and, while he strove to +soothe her, imploring him not to put upon her this last trial of her +strength. "I couldn't bear it, Roly!" she sobbed. "Roly, I couldn't +bear it!" Overwrought by the cumulative effects of the past months, +culminating in the sleepless agony of this last week and now in the +unendurable torture of good-by, she became hysterical at his proposal; +sobbed as if her reason were gone, shaking with dreadful spasms of +emotion that terrified him lest she would be unable to retake her +breath. His arms about her, and his loving pleadings, his earnest +promises to withdraw what he had said, joined with the sheer weariness +of her convulsive distress at last to relieve her. She passed into a +still, exhausted state and thence--utterly alarming him by her deathly +pallor and by the faintness of her voice--into imploring him in +whispers into the last, worst folly of all their pitiable blunders. +She could not be left, she implored him, with Gran--left alone with +her, left in such circumstances. "No, no! Roly, no! Together, Roly; +not alone, not alone!" And then she began to assure him of her +happiness if she might just wait here. "You can always think of me and +imagine me here: just waiting for you, and thinking of you and praying +for you; and not lonely, not unhappy. I _promise_ not lonely; I +promise, _promise_ not unhappy! You can't think of me like that if you +leave me with Lady Burdon. You don't know _what_ may happen to me; how +she may feel towards me or what I might imagine she felt and what I +might not do. I _could_ not--I _could_ not!" + +Try to understand him that he suffered himself to be convinced against +himself. So placed; so implored; so loved and so loving; so shackled +by the train of blunders he had committed, a hundred times more wise, +more strong a man than twelfth Baron Burdon would have given way as he +gave way. This was their farewell, and not to rob its fleeting hours +more he agreed, and turned with her to rehearse the plans for her +comfort in his absence. The flat was taken for six months ahead. +"Back in four! Now I bet you any money I'm back in four!" There was +money banked for her. Finally he wrote and gave her two letters, one +addressed to a Mr. Pemberton--"One of the best, old Pemberton"--the +other to Gran. He began to say, "If anything happens to me," but went +on: "If ever you get--you know--down on your luck--that kind of +thing--or feel you'd like to make it known about us before I come back, +just send those letters--just as they are; you needn't write or take +them yourself. They explain everything, they ... oh, don't cry.... +Audrey ... Audrey!" + +Within a few hours he was gone. Within four months they were building +a cairn of stones above him to keep the jackals from his body. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +WHAT THE TOOO-FIRTY WINNER BROUGHT MRS. ERPS + +I + +Come to her in the month of January. Bridge those long weeks wherein +she lived from mail day to mail day--as one not strong that has a weary +mile to cover and walks from seat to seat--and come to her there. + +She was at this time not in good health, suffered much from headaches +and was oppressed with a constant fatigue. In this condition fresh air +without exertion had become very desirable to her, and she formed the +daily habit of long rides outside the leisurely horsed tramcars of +those days. Study of a guide acquainted her with their routes. She +had a particular one for each day of the week, counting from Saturday +to Friday, and arranged on a little plan by which (as she made believe) +each journey was part of a long journey whose end was Friday's ride, +whence she returned home to find the Indian mail. Not only fresh air +was obtained by this means, but a sense of actively advancing towards +the day that brought the letters, round which she lived. + +On an afternoon of this January her ride was from Holborn, through +Islington and Holloway, to Highgate Archway. On the near side of the +Holloway road, half a mile perhaps below the stopping place, there is a +group of houses approached by shallow steps that have resisted the +overpowering inclination of the district to become shops and instead +support their tenants by providing apartments. The car that carried +her had stopped here. She had learnt to eke out the amusement of these +rides by attention to all manner of little incidents, and--employed +with one such--was wondering if her car would restart before it was +reached by a newsboy who ran towards them from the distance, his pink +contents-bill fluttering apronwise before him. Some one was a terribly +long time over the business of alighting or entering. The newsboy won. +A few yards from where she sat above him he stopped to sell a paper and +to fumble for change. The halt caused his fluttering pink apron to +come to rest. + + PEER + KILLED IN + FRONTIER + FIGHTING + + +Had something actually struck her throat? Was a hand actually +strangling there? Could they see she was fighting for breath? Was the +car really rocking--right up so she could not see the street, right +down and all the street circling? Could others hear that shrill and +enormous din that threatened to split her brain? + +Through the tremendous hubbub and the dizzy rocking she got down. If +this strangle at her throat did not relax, if this dizzy whirling did +not cease, this immense din silence.... + +A curious voice, leagues away, said: "Yer've got ter pye fer it, +y'know." + +She put her fingers in her purse and held out what she could gather. A +figure that had been going up and down in front of her seemed to take a +tremendous sidelong sweep and vanished. She was left with a paper in +her hands and knew what she must do. But if this din, this giddy +circling.... + +It suddenly stopped. Everything stopped. There was not a sound, there +was not a movement. + + +II + +London stands stock still in the middle of a windy, crowded pavement to +open its evening paper and to peer at the stop-press space for only one +particular purpose. While she thus stood and peered (and suddenly knew +this icy silence was the gathering of an immense tide that was +coming--coming) a woman who wore an apron over a capitally developed +figure, and a rakish cloth cap over a headful of curl papers, opened +the door of the house immediately beside her (appearing with the air of +one shot at immense velocity out of a trap) and called "I! Piper!" +She then exclaimed nearly as loudly "Ennoyin'!" and then saw Audrey. + +This lady's name was Mrs. Erps, and she knew perfectly well, and +rejoiced to observe an example of, the peculiarity in regard to +London's evening paper that has been noted above. Mrs. Erps rolled her +solid hands in her apron and came down ingratiatingly. A model of +correctness. "Excoose me, my dear," she began, "Excoose me, wot 'orse +won the tooo-firty? My old man--Ho, thenks, I'm sure--Ho, gryshus!" + +Relating the incident later in the evening to a lady friend, and acting +it with considerable dramatic power: "'Ands me the piper she does," +said Mrs. Erps, "as natural as I 'ands this apring to you and then +looks at me jus' as if I mightn't had been there, and then she says in +a whissiper 'Oh, dear!' she says. 'O Gawd!' and _dahn_ she goes +plump--dahn like that!" explained Mrs. Erps from the floor, very nearly +carrying her friend with her in the stress of dramatic illustration. + +But Mrs. Erps was more than a great tragedy actress; she was also a +kindly soul and there is to be added to this quality the genial warmth +aroused in her by the fact that the tooo-firty winner was Lollipop, +that Lollipop had cantered home at what she called sevings, and that +her old man was seving times arf a dollar the richer for the +performance. "Carry 'er in there," said Mrs. Erps in a very loud voice +to a policeman in particular and to a considerable area of the street +in general. "Young man, that's my 'ouse, and Mrs. Elbert Erps my nime, +and dahn in front of it the pore young thing's fell jus' as she was +'anding me this very piper wot 'ad come aht to see the tooo-firty +winner. 'Excoose me,' I says to 'er, 'excoose me--'" + +The policeman: "All right, mother. Now, then, you boys." + +Mrs. Elbert Erps, going backwards up the steps, hands beneath the arms +of that poor stricken creature: "There's a cleeng, sweet bed in my +first front, well-haired and wool blenkits, that lets eight and six and +find yer own, and could ask ten, and there she'll rest, the poor pretty +thing, dropped on me very doorstep, as yer might say, and standin' +there with the piper same as you might. 'Excoose me,' I says to 'er, +'excoose me--'" + +Mrs. Erps shot open her front door with a backward plunge of her foot, +the policeman closed it with a backward kick of his foot; and to the +continued recital in great detail of how it all happened, their burden +was carried to the first front and laid upon the cleeng, sweet bed, +well-haired, wool blenkits, eight and six and find yer own. + +They loosened her dress at her throat; beneath the constable's +direction made use of water and chafed her hands. "Marrit," said Mrs. +Erps, denoting the wedding ring. "Marrit, she is." + +Presently Audrey opened her eyes. + +"Why, _there_ you are!" cried Mrs. Erps in high delight. "There you +are, my pretty. Safe and sahnd as ever you was. There you are! You +recolleck me, don't you, my love? Wot you gave the piper to? 'Excoose +me,' I says to yer, 'excoose me,' I says--" + +Audrey's eyes went meaninglessly from Mrs. Erps to the constable, her +eyelids fluttered above them and closed. + +"_Stand_ aht of it!" said Mrs. Erps to the constable in a very sharp +whisper. "_Stand_ aht of it, frightenin' her. 'E won't 'urt you, my +pretty. 'E only carried of yer up. _Dahn_ you went, yer know, right +dahn. Where's your 'usbing, my pretty?" + +Her lips just parted. She moaned "Oh, dear! O God!" + +Mrs. Erps communicated to the constable: "Jus' 'er very words. _Dahn_ +she went--" + +The eyes opened again. + +"Your 'usbing, dear, I'm askin'. 'Usbing. Ain't you got a ma, my +dear? Ain't you got a pa?" + +She said: "Dead ... dead ... Oh, dear..." + +"Orfing," communicated Mrs. Erps. + +"Rambling in her mind," said the constable. "Not answering you, she +wasn't." + +"You pop off, young man," commanded Mrs. Erps with sudden hostility. +"Ramberling! Didn't I ask her, and didn't she give answer back to me? +Ramberling! You pop off. I'll fine where she lives, and my old man +'ll come to the station if so need be. 'E ain't afraid of yer, so +don't you think it. Served on a joory, he has, before now. +Ramberling! I'm going to rub 'er pore feet. That's what I'm goin' to +do. Ramberling! She knows me as spoke 'er fair before ever you came. +'Excoose me,' I says to her, 'excoose me--'" + +The policeman, from the door: "Yes, I've heard that." + +Mrs. Erps, bending over the stairs: "Pop off! That's what I'm telling +you. Pop off!" + + +III + +Mrs. Erps rubbed the "pore feet," put a hot bottle to them, covered the +poor, motionless form with two of the wool blenkits, called up her old +man when he came in; and in his presence and in that of the lady second +floor lodger and the young man first back lodger, trembling with +witnessed honesty, she opened the pretty dear's purse and searched her +pocket for any clue to her home. There was none. Mrs. Erps, having +counted the money in the purse, written down the amount and had the +paper signed by her old man, by second floor and by first back, bade +them pop off, and sat beside her patient with soothing words and +frequently a kiss to the reiterated "Oh, dear ... oh, dear ... O God!" +that came in scarcely audible sighs as from one numbed with pain and +utterly tired. + +So, only now and then sighing, eyes closed, she lay for close upon +three hours. Mrs. Erps stole away to cook up a nice bit of fried fish +for 'er old man, revisiting the first front at intervals, waiting to +hear that weary moan, and returning down-stairs increasingly troubled +with: "I don't like to hear her. Fair wrings my 'art, it does." + +A visit paid towards seven o'clock was better rewarded. Audrey opened +her eyes, looked full and intelligently at Mrs. Erps, standing there +with a lighted candle, and quite naturally addressed her. She +questioned nothing. She seemed fully to understand where she was and +why. In tones weak but quite clear and collected she made two +requests. Please let her stay here for the night and leave her quite +alone; she wanted nothing, just to be alone; and please send a telegram +for her. + +She dictated the message and it was sent--to Maggie, and with Mrs. +Erps' address added, and running: "Please come at once. He is dead. +Audrey." + + +IV + +Miss Oxford arrived in the early afternoon of the next day. All the +devotion of the years she had mothered Audrey, all the +longing--longing--longing of the past months for news, all the agony of +suspense in the train journey (the papers informing her as they +informed new Lady Burdon at Miller's Field), all a breaking heart's +distress was in the little cry she gave when she entered first front +and saw that strangely white, strangely impassive face lying on the +pillow. + +"My darling! Oh, my darling"--arms about the still form, tears raining +down. + +No responsive movement; just "Dear Maggie--dear Maggie." + +"Why did you never write?" + +"Dear Maggie..." + +There was no more of explanation between them. + +"Maggie, I want to be quite, quite still. Not to talk, Maggie darling. +Just hold my hand and let me lie here. Are you holding it?" + +"Audrey! Audrey! Yes--yes. In both mine." + +"I don't feel you." + +She seemed to feel nothing, to want nothing, and, though she lay now +with wide eyes, to see nothing. She just lay, scarcely seeming to +breathe. Once she said, in a very fond voice, "Yes, Roly," as if she +were in conversation with him. No other sound. + +After a long time Maggie told her: "Darling, I'm going to bring a +doctor to see you." + +No reply nor movement when Maggie released the hand she held and left +the room to seek Mrs. Erps. No interest nor response when the doctor +came, or while he examined her. He took Maggie aside. "She's very +young. How long has she been married?" + +"In June--the first of June." + +They spoke in whispers. When he was going, he repeated what he had +most impressed. "No fear of it happening so far as I can see. She +doesn't seem in pain. That numbness? Mental. Her mind is too +occupied. I don't think movement would bring it on; but don't move her +yet. We mustn't run risks. It would be fatal--almost certainly fatal +if it happened. Another shock would do it; nothing else, I think. +Well, there's no likelihood of shock, is there? You can guard against +that. See to that and you've no need to worry. She couldn't possibly +live through it in her present state. Otherwise--why, we'll soon be on +the right road and getting strong for it. I'll look in to-night." + +This was in the passage, and with Mrs. Erps in waiting at the front +door rehearsing in her mind: "As I was telling you when you come, +doctor, 'Excoose me,' I says to 'er, 'excoose me--'" But what Mrs. +Erps overheard caused her to let him escape and to say instead to Miss +Oxford, "Oh, the pore love! If any one makes a sahnd to shock 'er--not +if I knows it, they don't." + +Mrs. Erps knew quite well the meaning of that recurrent "it" in the +doctor's words. + + +V + +But it was not in Mrs. Erps's power to prevent the shock that came. + +It came in direct train of action from that "Yes, Roly" that Maggie had +heard, separated from it by the days of high fever, the mind wandering, +that almost immediately supervened. As one that falls asleep upon a +resolution and wakes at once to remember it and to act upon it, so, the +fever releasing her to her senses, Audrey took up immediately that +which lay in those words of hers. + +She had fallen into a natural sleep that promised the end of her fever. +She awoke, and directly she awoke sat up in bed. She was alone. Only +the one thought was in her mind; she got up and began to dress. + +The resolution of her mind governed the extreme weakness of her body. +She was no more aware of her feebleness than one strung up in battle +notices a wound not immediately crippling. She knew exactly what she +must do. She found her purse on the mantelpiece and took it and left +the house without being noticed--or thinking to escape or to give +notice. Only that one thought occupied her; a few yards down the +street she met a cab and hailed it. "Burdon House, Mount Street," she +directed the driver. + +"Yes, Roly," had been when Roly, visiting her more clearly, more real +than any other figure about her during that numb and impassive period +when she desired to be quiet in order to talk with him, had told her to +go to Gran, to comfort Gran, and to be comforted. + + +VI + +Old butler Noble admitted her. Events had caused old butler Noble to +be considerably shaken in his wits. A week ago the door would have +been closed to a young woman who asked for Lady Burdon and refused her +name. To-day, on the explanation, "The name does not matter. Lady +Burdon will be glad to see me," it was held open and the visitor taken +to the library. + +This was the second day of new Lord and Lady Burdon's visit for the +latter to make Jane Lady Burdon's acquaintance. Only that morning old +butler Noble had made the mistake of turning away a Miller's Field +friend who had called to see new Lady Burdon, carrying out a promise to +report how baby Rollo, left behind, was getting on. "Her ladyship is +seeing no one," Noble had informed her. The excellent Miller's Field +friend had been too overawed by his manner to explain exactly whom it +was she wished to see. She sent a note of explanation by messenger. +Noble delivered it to his mistress, who read it and sent him with it to +new Lady Burdon. The note was foolishly worded. New Lady Burdon, ill +at ease in this house, crimsoned to think it had been read. From the +outset, hostile and prepared for hostility, she had taken a sharp +dislike to this old man-servant; angry and mortified, she questioned +him and spoke to him as he was unaccustomed to be addressed. + +It was beneath the lesson of this incident that he admitted Audrey +without question. She was none of his mistress's friends. In the +first place he knew all such; in the second they did not call at the +impossible hour of half-past six in the evening, nor present the +strange appearance--white, not very steady, faltering in voice--that +she bore. + +He took the news of her arrival to new Lady Burdon. + +"Gave no name, do you say?" + +"She said your ladyship would be glad to see her." + +Lady Burdon hesitated a moment. She tingled with fresh hostility +against this man because she wondered whether he expected her to accept +that statement or to send him again for the name. She did not know and +hated him the more, and hated all the fancied resentment for which he +stood, because she did not know. + +Her mind sought a way out. She said with a little laugh: "Oh, I think +I know. Very well." + +She went to the library. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +WHAT AUDREY BROUGHT LADY BURDON + +I + +It was very dim in the library. Above the centre of the room light +stood in soft points upon a high chandelier. A fire burnt low within +the shelter of the great hearth. The rest was shadow. + +Lady Burdon came easily into the room, but in the doorway stopped; and +Audrey, who had made a forward movement, prepared words on her lips, +also stopped. There was something odd about this girl who stood there, +Lady Burdon thought, and her mind ran questing the cause of some +strange apprehension that somehow was communicated to it. There was +something wrong, Audrey thought; and she began to tremble. For a +briefest space, that was a world's space to Audrey's mind bewildered +and to Lady Burdon's mind suspicious, as they went hunting through it, +these two stood thus, and thus regarded one another. + +It was told of this library at Burdon House--Mr. Amber's "Lives" record +it--that in the days when gentlemen wore swords against their thighs, a +duel was fought here, that the thing went in three fierce assaults, +each ended by a bloody thrust on this side or on that, and that between +the bouts the rivals panted, sick with fatigue and hurt. + +Words for swords, and the first bout:-- + +Lady Burdon closed the door. She went a step towards Audrey and said, +"Yes?" + +Audrey, with fumbling hands, swaying a little where she stood: "I +think--I came to see Lady Burdon." + +Odd her look, and odd her tone, and strange the trembling that visibly +possessed her. Lady Burdon was about to explain. Her mind came back +from its questing like one that cries alarm by night through silent +streets. "Beware!" it cried to her. "Beware!" and for her explanation +she substituted: + +"I am Lady Burdon." + +The first thrust. + +Audrey put a hand against a chair that stood beside her. The trembling +that had taken her when, expecting to see Roly's Gran, this stranger +had appeared, began to shake her terribly in all her frame. This Lady +Burdon? For the first time since her will had got her from her bed and +brought her here, she was informed how weak she was. A dreadful +physical sickness came over her and all the room became unsteady. + +Respite enough, and the second bout:-- + +Lady Burdon demanded: "Who are you, please?" + +No reply, and that augmented her suspicion, and she came on again: "Who +are you, please?" + +Wave upon wave that dreadful sickness swept over Audrey and set her +brain aswim. Bewildered thoughts, like frantic arms of one that +drowns, tossed up upon the flood, and like such arms that gesticulate +and vanish, spun there a dizzy moment and spun away: This Lady Burdon? +... then this not Roly's house ... then what? ... then where? This +Lady Burdon? ... then all her life with Roly was dream ... had never +been ... none of her life had ever been ... what had been then? + +A third time: "Who are you, please? Why do you not answer me?" + +She made an effort. She said very pitiably: "Oh, how--oh, how can you +be Lady Burdon?" + +No wound--only the merest scratch, but increasing in Lady Burdon the +dis-ease that had come to her on entering the room and had heightened +at every moment. + +In her turn it was hers to give pause, but she engaged quickly for the +third bout. + +"I see you do not understand," she said. + +And Audrey: "Oh, please forgive me. No, I do not understand; I have +been ill. I am ill." + +"But I am afraid I do not understand you. I do not understand your +manner. If you will tell me who you are--what it is you want--I can +perhaps explain." + +But Audrey only looked at her. Only most pitiable inquiry was in her +eyes. Lady Burdon read their inquiry, that same "Oh, how can you be +Lady Burdon?" and the question and the silence brought vague, +unreasoning alarm in violent collision with her suspicions. Anger was +struck out of their conjunction. She said sharply: + +"You must answer me, please. You must answer me. What is the matter? +I am asking you who you are." + +Mr. Amber's account of the duel says that one contestant drove the +other the length of the room and had him pinned against the wall:-- + +Into Audrey's bewilderment, the dreadful sickness and the trembling she +could not control, these sharp demands came like numbing blows upon one +in the trough of the sea grappling for life. When Roly had come to her +as she lay stupefied and she had answered him "Yes, Roly," he had told +her clearly as if in fact he had stood beside her, what she should say +to Gran. She had come with the words prepared. They suddenly returned +to her now. + +The words she had made ready: "I am Audrey--" she said. + +Mr. Amber's account of the duel says that the one contestant, having +his rival pinned, was too impetuous and ran upon the other's sword:-- + +Lady Burdon said: "Audrey? Do you say Audrey? Are you known here?" + +And ran upon the other's sword:-- + +"I am Audrey--I am Roly's wife." + + +II + +As a dreadful blow sends the stricken, hands to face, staggering this +way and that on nerveless, aimless legs; or as a tipsy man, unbalanced +by fresh air, will blunder into any open door, so, at that "I am +Audrey--I am Roly's wife"--Lady Burdon's mind was sent reeling, +fumbling through a maze of spinning scenes--marriage? and what +then?--before it could fix itself to realisation. + +She stood plucking with one hand at the fingers of the other; and when +the whirl subsided and she came dizzily out of it her mind was leaden +and the first words she could get from it were none she wanted. + +Her voice all thick: "He was not married," she said. + +The reply, very gentle: "We did not tell any one." + +And to that nothing better than "Why?" + +"Roly did not wish it." + +Thick and heavy still: "Why do you come now?" + +And Audrey in a little cry: "Because he is dead!" + +Then Lady Burdon said dully: "You had better go," and at the +bewilderment that came into Audrey's eyes repeated more strongly: "You +had better go--quickly;" and then "Quickly!" with her voice run up on +the word, and her hands that had been plucking flung apart. + +Her mind was over its numbness and through the whirl of nightmare +meanings in that "I am Roly's wife;" and it came out of them as one +shaken by a fall and strung up for vengeance. Marriage! Impossible! +And she a fool to be frightened by it--at worst a horrid aftermath of +disgusting conduct. + +"Quickly!" she cried and then burst out with: "I see what you are--to +come at such a time--to this house of mourning--he scarcely dead--with +such a story--wicked--infamous--I know, I see now why you were +surprised to see me--an old lady you expected--grief-stricken--" + +She stopped, achoke for breath, and Audrey said: "Oh, please--please." + +Misgiving, that subtle, coward spy that spies the way for fear, cast +its net over Lady Burdon. The pleading, gentle air--no flush of shame, +no note of defiance hunted her mind back to its alarms. And Audrey +said: "He did not wish our marriage known;" and at "marriage" misgiving +turned and shouted fear to follow. + +She said slowly: "You persist marriage? There are proofs of marriage. +Where are your proofs?" + +The pleading look only deepened: "But I never thought--" Audrey said, +"--but I never thought--" She swayed, and swayed against the chair she +held. It supported her. "I never thought I would not be believed. +Lady Burdon will understand. I know she will understand. If I may see +her, please..." + +"If you were married--proofs." + +There was a considerable space before Audrey answered. Presently she +said very faintly: + +"I am very ill ... I am very ill ... I can bring proofs.... But she +will understand.... Please let me see her.... Please, please..." + +In advertisement of her state her eyelids fluttered and fell upon her +eyes while she spoke. Her voice was scarcely to be heard. + +Her condition made no appeal to Lady Burdon. The simplicity of her +words, her simple acceptance of the challenge to bring proofs, returned +Lady Burdon to that dull plucking at her hands; and presently she +turned and went heavily across the room and through the door, closed it +behind her and went a few paces down the hall--to what? At that +question she stopped, and at the answer her mind gave went quickly back +to the door and stood there breathing fast. What was shut in here? A +monstrous thing come to strike her down as suddenly as miracle had come +to snatch her up? And where had she been going? To publish it? To +impel the horrible fate it might have for her? To say to old Lady +Burdon and to Maurice: "There is a woman here who says she was married +to Lord Burdon?" To say what would spring into their minds as it tore +like a wild thing at hers:--"Yes, if marriage, a child ... an heir?" +At thought of how narrowly she had escaped the results of that action, +she trembled as one trembles that in darkness has come to the edge of a +cliff and by a single further step had plunged to destruction; and at +imagination of the bitterness, the humiliation that would be hers if +the worst were realised and she returned from what she had become to +worse than she had been, she writhed in torture of spirit that was like +twisting poison in her vitals. All her plans, all her dreams, all her +sweet foretasting sprang up before her, mocking her; all the +intolerable sympathy of her friends, all the secret laughter it would +hide, came at her, twisting her. + +Somewhere in the house a door opened and shut. She put a hand +violently to her throat, as though the shock of the sound were a blow +that struck her there. She found herself braced against the door, +guarding it; listening for footsteps, and strung up to keep away +whoever came. Silence! But the attitude into which she had sprung +informed her of the determination that had shaped unperceived beneath +the tumult of her thoughts. She was not going to fall beneath the blow +that threatened her! When she knew that, she was calmer, and set +herself to satisfy her fears. What was shut in here? A wanton.... +Wanton? Who never flushed, never railed, defied? A betrayed, then. +Well, what was that to her, and how was she concerned? A betrayed? +Who came with no story of betrayal that might or might not be, but with +assertion of marriage that was capable of definite proof or disproof? +Marriage? Impossible! A lie! Impossible? There came to her +recollection of that strange disappearance of which Mr. Pemberton had +told; was marriage the secret of it? There swept back to her that +vivid and hideous nightmare on the very night of the news when she had +cried "I hold!" and had been answered: "No, you do not--nay, I hold." +Was that foreboding? There flamed before her again the mock of her +plans, the humiliation of her downfall. She struck her clenched hands +together; and as if the violent action caused an assembly of her +arguments, she reduced her position to this: either the thing was true, +in which case it could be proved; or it was a lie, in which case no +consideration recommended her to do other than keep it to herself and +herself stamp upon it. + +That satisfied her and she reentered the room to act upon it. + +Audrey was on her knees by the chair. The sight shook her +satisfaction. Wanton? Betrayed? A lie? + +Audrey turned towards her: "I have been praying," she said. She got to +her feet and came forward a step: "She is coming to see me?" + +Lady Burdon said: "I have told her. She will not see you." + +She was committed. She stood agonisingly strung up in every fibre, as +one that waits an appalling catastrophe. She saw Audrey wring her +hands and heard her moan "Oh ... Oh!" + +She heard her own voice say: "You can bring your proofs." She had, as +it were, a vision of herself opening the street door and watching +Audrey pass her and go down the steps and out of sight. She was only +actually returned to herself when she found herself, as one awaking who +has walked in sleep, striving to make her trembling hands close the +latch of the door. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +ARRIVAL OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR + +I + +The driver of a four-wheeled cab, crawling down Mount Street, pushed +along his horse when he saw Audrey walking with very slow and uncertain +steps ahead of him. He drew into pace alongside her and began to +repeat: "Keb? Keb, miss--keb,--keb?" with a persistence and regularity +that suggested it was the normal sound of his breathing. + +She stopped and stared at him in a dazed way. He pulled up and went on +quite contentedly: "Keb?--Keb, miss--keb,--keb?" His voice and his keb +came presently into her realisation. There returned to her knowledge +of what she purposed. Her thoughts seemed to her to be drifting +shapes, and this one had floated away and she had been trying to reach +it--hanging there just above her--while she stared at him. She gave +him the address of the Knightsbridge flat and presently was driving +there and presently going up the stairs, very slowly, taking her key +from her purse, and then entering. + +The flat was in extraordinary confusion. She did not notice. The +woman who came daily to attend her wants had come twice to find her not +returned, and a third time with a gentleman friend (on tiptoe), taking +a stealthy and permanent departure an hour later with everything that +could be conveniently carried. The back of a drawer in a bureau had +not received this lady's attention. It contained all that Audrey had +come to seek: a box of carved wood, picked up on the Continent. Those +two letters Roly had given her for Mr. Pemberton and Gran were here. +Her mind had turned to them when she had realised the thing that had +never occurred to her: that she would not be believed. Here also was +her marriage certificate and all the letters Roly had written +her--before marriage and from India. + +She took up the box and began to retrace her steps. She had scarcely +got down the stairs when dizziness seized her again. The dreadful +sickness and the trembling that the shock of her first encounter with +Lady Burdon had caused her had been stamped out by the final blow that +made her wring her hands and cry "Oh ... oh!" and had sent her numbed +from the house and carried her numbed to this point. Her physical +senses had been drugged, just as they had been hypnotised by the +instruction to which she had answered "Yes, Roly." Now they were +suddenly released from the kindness of the drug. Dizziness--and while +all things spun about her--pain. It caught her with a violence so +immense that she believed her body could not contain it and would go +asunder. It drove her, as it seemed to her, through unconsciousness +and into a state in which she met it again with a quality in its +sharpness that she knew for death, as if she recognised death. It +dropped her back from where she had seen death, through the degree of +its first immensity, and down to a gnawing that told her it was +gathering force to rush up again and this time leave her there--gone. +In that respite she got to the cab. She would die at the next +onslaught--Maggie! If Maggie could hold her when it came! She did not +know the address in the Holloway Road; but knew it was there, and a +butcher's with a strange name--Utter--had caught her attention opposite +when she left the house. She tried to tell the driver, but her +condition overcame her speech. He saw her state and jumped down to +her, and she called tremendously upon herself and effected the words. +He more lifted than helped her in, and she continued to hold herself +until he got back to his box, then collapsed groaning. + +The cabman pulled up opposite the establishment of Mr. Utter and had +scarcely stopped his horse when from Mrs. Erps's house came Mrs. Erps, +plunging down the steps, and Miss Oxford, who stopped at the entrance, +not daring to come on. Mrs. Erps peered through the cab window and +then called back to Miss Oxford. "Told yer it was. Safe and sahnd!" +and began to tug at the handle and sharply addressed the cabman: "Ho, +ain't you got a nasty stiff door!" and cried through the window: "Why, +_there_ you are, my dear! Popping off like you hadn't ought to, give +us a fair ole turn!" and flung open the door and said, "Ho, dear!" and +turned a frightened face to Maggie, come beside her. + +The open door revealed how Audrey was collapsed, and showed the hue of +ashes that her face had, and gave the groaning that came from her. + +Miss Oxford went to her. "Audrey! ... dying! She is dying!" + +By common understanding they began to try to carry her out. The cabman +leant over from his box and presently saw Mrs. Erps come backing out +with violent movements and suddenly had her fist shaken in his +surprised face. "'Old your old 'orse, carng yer!" Mrs. Erps cried +furiously. "Joltin' of us! 'Old your old catsmeat, carng yer!" She +plunged round to the further door, and through that they lifted her +whose groaning terrified them utterly, carried her up-stairs, and for +the second time she was laid on the cleeng blenkits, well haired, eight +an six and find yer own. + +All Mrs. Erps's breath--no policeman to assist her--was this time +required for the exertion. But when their burden was laid she voiced +the extremity to which it was clearly come. "'Ad er shock, she 'as," +said Mrs. Erps. "Some one's done it on 'er." + +"Oh, bring the doctor," Miss Oxford cried. "Quick! Quick! Oh, my God +... my God!" + +She did what she could while Mrs. Erps was gone. She was praying, when +her prayer was so far answered that Audrey recognised her. "Maggie..." +and then "I am dying--forgive," and then caught up in her pains again +while Maggie cried: "Don't! Don't! It is for you to forgive me; you +will be all right soon--very soon." The pains drew off a little. +Audrey began to speak very faintly. "I went to Lady Burdon--" Very +feebly she told what had happened and Maggie, who had begged her, +"Darling, don't talk--don't worry," listened as one that is held +aghast. When the slow words failed, she did not at once realise that +Audrey's voice had stopped. Mrs. Erps and the doctor found her +kneeling by the still form with strangely staring, unweeping eyes. + +"She has had a shock," the doctor began. + +"They have killed her," Miss Oxford said. + +Bending over the patient he did not notice her words nor the intensity +of their tone; and there began to come very quickly a dreadful urgency +that caused agony of grief to override the agony of hate that had +possessed her. + + +There was a thin, new cry went up in the room: and that was life newly +come. And there was heavy breathing with dreadful pause at each +expiration's end and then the straining upward climb: and that was life +fluttering to be gone. Longer the pauses grew and harsher the upward +breath. Loud the thin cry struck in, and as though it called that +fleeting life, and as though that fleeting life, in the act of +springing away, turned its head at the sound, Audrey opened her eyes. + +There seemed to be a question in them. Miss Oxford bent closely over +her: "A boy, my darling." + +She seemed to smile before she died. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +ENLISTMENT OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR + +I + +That day of Audrey's death was in two minds at two breakfasts in +different quarters of London on a morning some while later. In the +Mount Street house Jane Lady Burdon, starting in an hour to make her +home with her sister in York, was reading to Lord and Lady Burdon a +letter just received from India. It was a sympathetic note from the +officer who had been with her Roly when he fell. "'His last words,'" +she read aloud with faltering lips, "'were: _Tell Gran to love Audrey_. +It was difficult to catch them, but I think that was it.'" + +Jane Lady Burdon laid down the letter and smiled feebly. "They have no +meaning for me," she said. + +And Lord Burdon: "Nellie! What's up, old girl?" + +Lady Burdon struggled with the dreadful agitation the words had caused +her. They had meaning for her. "_I am Audrey--I am Roly's wife._" + +"So sad," she exclaimed, "so sad--excuse me--I--" She rose shakily and +went from the room. After two days of suspense she had thought that +hideous alarm defeated and disproved. What now? And what had she done? + +The other breakfast was at Mrs. Erps's--also immediately before a +journey. "No one," Mrs. Erps had said, "no one hadn't oughter travel +on a nempty stomach," and had forced Miss Oxford to the table before +the start for Little Letham and "Post Offic." "I know you've had +bitter trouble as loved the pretty dear meself ever since 'Excoose me,' +I says to 'er, 'excoose me,' as I've told yer. An' Gord alone knows I +know what trouble is, as 'ad twings of me own pop off in one mumf. But +you've got the living for to think of. Same as I 'ad my ole man, +you've got this blessed ingfang what never know'd a muvver's breast and +took to the bottle like nothing I never did see." + +And to the blessed "infang" reposing in her arms while she talked: +"Didn't yer, yer saucy sossidge? That's what you are, yer know--a +saucy sossidge. Ho, yes yer are. No use yer giving answer back ter +me, yer know. A saucy, saucy sossidge, wot I should cook up with +mashed if I had me way with yer, bless yer." + +Maggie scarcely heard; but there was one sentence of Mrs. Erps that +joined her thoughts: "You've got the living for to think of." Yes, she +had that--and the dead to revenge. "They have killed her," she had +cried to the doctor. Through the long night, when she knelt beside the +still figure, that thought had burned within her and refused her tears. +It grew to an intolerable agony that pressed upon her brain as though a +band of steel were there. She understood what had bewildered +Audrey--who it had been that had said "I am Lady Burdon." Her +imagination pictured the woman. An orgasm of most terrible hate +possessed her, increasing that dreadful pressure on her brain, and +suddenly something seemed to her to have given way beneath the pressure. + +Hate or passion of that degree never filled her again. She was +strangely quiet in manner when Mrs. Erps came to her in the morning, +strangely quiet at the funeral in Highgate Cemetery while Mrs. Erps +wept in loud emotion, and always quite quiet in mind. The child was +going to live, she was somehow fully assured of that, and she was not +going to give him up--her Audrey's child--as, if she spoke, she might +have to give him up. He was going to live with her at "Post Offic" and +take his mother's place; and one day.... They had taken Audrey from +her. One day she would return to them Audrey's son. "I am Lady +Burdon" had murdered Audrey. One day, when "I am Lady Burdon" was +secure and comfortable in her possessions, and had forgotten Audrey, +Audrey's son should avenge his mother.... + +Nothing could go wrong, Miss Oxford thought. She went through all the +proofs in the carved box. Nothing was wanting. One day she would hand +them to him--and then! + +She wrote to her friend, Miss Purdie, at Little Letham, who had been +taking care of "Post Offic" for her and told her--for the village +information--that Audrey had lost her husband, and, on the shock, had +died, in giving birth to a son. "I have called him Percival--his +father's name--Percival Redpath." + + +"Look arter yerself," cried Mrs. Erps, as the train drew out of +Waterloo. "Look arter yerself. Can't not look arter him if yer +don't--and 'e 'll want lookin' arter, 'e will. 'E's going ter be a +knockaht, that's what 'e's going to be, ain't yer, yer saucy sossidge! +Sossidge! Goo'by, sossidge. Goo'by...." + + + + +BOOK THREE + +BOOK OF THE HAPPY, HAPPY TIME. THE ELEMENT OF YOUTH + + + + +CHAPTER I + +PERCIVAL HAS A PEEP AT THE 'NORMOUS + +I + +Young Percival was seven--rising eight--when he first saw Burdon Old +Manor. Miss Oxford had taken him for a walk, and they were in the +direction of the Manor grounds, a locality she commonly avoided, when +"There's a cart coming!" he warned her. He had lagged behind, +exploring in a dry ditch; and he raced up to her with the news, +catching her hand and drawing her to the hedge, for she had been +walking in the middle of the road, occupied with her thoughts. + +Percival had learnt to be accustomed to long silences in his Aunt +Maggie and to rescue her from them when need arose. They were +familiar, too, to all the villagers and to the "help" who was now +required for the domestic work of "Post Offic." Not the same but a +very different Miss Oxford had returned to "Post Offic" seven years +ago, bringing the news of poor, pretty Miss Audrey's loss of husband +and death, and bringing the little mite that was born orphan, bless +him. A very different Miss Oxford, for whose characteristic alertness +there was substituted a profound quietness, a notable air of absence, +preoccupation. It was held by the villagers that she had gone a little +bit strange-like. Her sister's death, it was thought, had made her a +little touched-like. The "help," a gaunt and stern creature named +Honor, who largely devoted herself to bringing up Percival on a system +of copy-book and devotional maxims which had become considerably mixed +in her mind, called her mistress's lapses into long silence symptoms of +an "incline," and in kindly, rough fashion sought to rally her from +them. Percival, nearest the truth, called them "thinking." When Aunt +Maggie lapsed into such a mood, he would often stand by her, watching +her face doubtfully and rather wistfully, with his head a little on one +side. Presently he would give a little sigh and run off to his play. +It was as though he puzzled to know what occupied her, as though he had +some dim, unshaped idea which, while he stood watching, he tried to +formulate--and the then little sigh: he could not discover it--yet. + +What was clear was that nothing ever aroused Aunt Maggie from her +strange habit of mind; and that at least is symptom of a dangerous +melancholy. What was plain was that her fits of complete, of utter +abstraction, embraced her like a sudden physical paralysis in the midst +of even an energetic task or an absorbing conversation; and that at +least is sign of a lesion somewhere in the faculty of self-control. +She divided her time between those periods of "thinking" and an intense +devotion to Percival; and the two phases acted directly one upon the +other. It was in the midst of loving occupation with the child, that, +perhaps at some look in his eyes, perhaps at some note in his voice, +abstraction would suddenly strike down upon her; it was from the very +depth of such abstraction that she would suddenly start awake and go to +find Percival or, he being near her, would take him almost violently +into her arms. + + +II + +In characteristic keeping with this habit, her action when now he ran +to her and drew her from the roadway with his cry, "There's a cart +coming! A cart, Aunt Maggie!" Her grey, gentle face and her sad eyes +irradiated with a sudden colour and sudden light that advertised the +affection with which, standing behind him to let the cart pass, she +stooped down to him and kissed his glowing cheek--"Would I have been +run over, do you think?" + +Percival was eagerly awaiting the excitement of seeing the cart come +into view around the bend whence it sounded. But he stretched up his +hands to fondle her face. "Well, I believe you would, you know," he +declared. "Of course they'd have shouted, but suppose the horse was +bobbery and wouldn't stop?" + +Aunt Maggie feigned alarm at this dreadful possibility. "Oh, but +you're all right with me," Percival reassured her. He had a quaint +habit of using phrases of hers. "I keep an eye on you, you know, even +when I'm far behind." + +She laughed and looked at him proudly; and she had reason for her +pride. At seven--rising eight--Percival had fairly won through the +vicissitudes of a motherless infancy. He had come through a lusty +babyhood and was sprung into an alert and beautiful childhood, dowered +of his father's strong loins, of his mother's gentle fairness, that +caused heads to turn after him as he raced about the village street. + +Heads turned from the cart that now approached and passed. It proved +to be a wagonette. Two women and a man sat among the many packages +behind. On the box-seat, next the driver, was a lanky youth, +peculiarly white and unhealthy of visage. Percival stared at him. In +envy perhaps of the sturdy and glowing health of the starer, the lanky +youth scowled back, and lowering his jaw pulled a grimace with an ease +and repulsiveness that argued some practice. Turning in his seat, he +allowed Percival to appreciate the distortion to the full. + +This was that same Egbert Hunt, whose power of grimace opened, as it +continues, our history. + +Percival directed an interested face to Aunt Maggie. "Is that a clown +sitting up there?" he asked her. He had accompanied Aunt Maggie into +Great Letham on the previous day, and had been much engaged by the +chalked countenance of a clown, grinning from posters of a coming +circus. + +Aunt Maggie answered him with her thoughts: "I think they must be going +to the Manor, dear. I expect they are Lord Burdon's servants." + +"Well, I'm sure he was a clown," Percival answered. But a few paces +farther up the road, stepping into it from a footpath over the fields, +a little old gentleman was met, whom Aunt Maggie greeted as Mr. Amber, +and who verified her opinion. + +"The family is coming down the day after to-morrow," Mr. Amber said, +"as I was telling you last week. Servants are to arrive to-day. I +think I saw them in the wagonette as I came down the path. And how are +you, Master Percival? I hope you are very well." + +Percival put his small hand into the extended palm. "I'm very well, +Mr. Amber, thank you. One of them was a clown, you know. He made a +face at me--like this." + +"God bless my soul, did he indeed?" Mr. Amber exclaimed. + +"Yes, he did," said Percival. "Just make it back again to me, will you +please, so I can see if I showed you properly?" + +But Mr. Amber declined the experiment. "The wind might change while I +was doing it," he said, "and then I should be like that always." + +"Oh, I shouldn't mind," Percival declared. + +"But I should," said Mr. Amber, and poked Percival with his stick. + +They were very close friends, Percival and this bent old librarian, +permanently located at Burdon Old Manor in those days and a constant +visitor at "Post Offic" for the purpose of enjoying the affection +displayed in his silvery old face as it watched the glowing young +countenance upturned to it. "But I should," said he; "and what would +they think of me in there?" + +Percival turned about. They had reached the boundary of the Manor +grounds and he pointed through the trees. "Is that where you live, Mr. +Amber?" + +"Yes, I live in there. Look here, now, here's a nice thing! You're +growing up nearly as big as me and you've never been to see me. That's +not friendly, you know." + +"Oh, but I've wanted to, you know," Percival cried. "We don't often +come this way, you see, do we, Aunt Maggie?" + +He bounded across the road to squint through the wooden paling that +surrounds the Manor park, and Mr. Amber gave a little sigh and turned +to Aunt Maggie. + +"How Percival grows, Miss Oxford! And what a picture, what a picture! +You know, he recalls to me walking these lanes twenty years ago, with +just his counterpart in looks and spirits and charm--ah, well! dear me, +dear me!" And he began to mumble to himself in the fashion of old +people whose thoughts run more easily in the past than in the present, +and to walk around poking with his stick in a fashion that was his own. + +He referred to Roly, Aunt Maggie knew. "You never forget him, do you?" +she said gently. She also was devoted to a memory. "You never forget +him?" + +"No--no," said Mr. Amber, poking around and not looking at her. +"Certainly not--certainly not." + +Percival's voice broke in upon them, announcing his observations +through the fence. "I say, you've got a lovely garden to play in, you +know," he called. + +They turned from thoughts that had a common element to the bright young +spirit in whom those thoughts found a not dissimilar relief. + +"Well, it's not exactly my garden," Mr. Amber replied in his deliberate +way. "I live there just like Honor lives with you. She looks after +the cooking and I look after the books, eh? Would you like to see my +books?" + +"Picture books?" + +"Why, yes, some have got pictures. Yes, there are pictures in some. +And fine big rooms, Percival. You would like to see them." + +Percival turned an excited face to Aunt Maggie, and Aunt Maggie smiled. +He took Mr. Amber's hand. "Thank you very much indeed," he said. "I +tell you what, then. I will see your books and then I think you will +let me play in your garden, please, if you please?" + +Mr. Amber declared that this was a very fair bargain. "Come in and +have some tea, Miss Oxford. Mrs. Ferris will be glad to see you. She +finds housekeeping very dull work, I am afraid, with only me to look +after." + +Aunt Maggie did not reply immediately. Percival looked at her +anxiously. He observed signs of "thinking," and thinking might be +fatal to this most engaging proposition. "If you possibly could, Aunt +Maggie!" he pleaded. + +But it was Mr. Amber's further argument that persuaded her. His words +acutely entered the matter with which she was occupied. "You know, +Percival must be the only soul in the countryside that hasn't seen the +Manor," he urged. "It was the regular custom for any one who liked to +come up in the old days. You recollect the Tenant Teas in the summer? +Why, it's his right, I declare." + +A little colour showed on her cheeks. "Yes, it is his right," she said. + + +III + +Percival was to enjoy another right before the day was out. The +decision to accept Mr. Amber's invitation once made, he had whooped +ahead through the Manor gates and flashed up the long drive at play +with a game of his own among the flanking trees. A noble turn in the +avenue brought him within astonished gaze of the house, and, very +flushed in the cheeks, he came racing back to his elders. + +"I say, it's a perfectly 'normous house you live in, Mr. Amber." + +"Aha!" cries old Mr. Amber, highly pleased. "I knew you would like it, +Master Percival!" + +"Why, I call it a _castle!_" Percival declares. + +They turn the corner and Mr. Amber points with his stick. "Well, +you're not quite wrong, either. That part--the East Wing we call +that--you see how old that is? Almost a castle once, that. See those +funny little marks? Used to be holes there to fire guns through. What +do you think of that?" + +Percival's face proclaims what he thinks--and his voice, deep with awe, +says, "Fire them bang?" + +"Bang? I should think so, indeed!" + +"Who at?" + +"Aha! Strange little boys, perhaps. I'll tell you all about it, if +you'll come and see me sometimes." + +Percival announces that he will come every single day, and runs eagerly +up the five broad steps that lead to the great oak door, now standing +ajar, and halts wonderingly upon the threshold to gaze around the +spacious hall and up at the gallery that encircles it. + +Aunt Maggie stops so abruptly and gives so strange a catch at her +breath that Mr. Amber turns to look at her. Following her eyes, and +reading what he fancies in them, "Why, he does make a brave little +picture, standing there, doesn't he?" Mr. Amber says. + +Her faint smile seems to assent. But she sees the child, framed in the +fine doorway, as his father's son surveying for the first time the +domain that is his own. + +They join him on the threshold and he turns to them round-eyed. "Why, +it's simply 'normous!" he declares. "Aunt Maggie, come and look with +me. It's simply 'normous." + +"Told you so!" cries Mr. Amber, vastly delighted. "Fine big rooms, I +said, didn't I, now?" + +"'Normous!" Percival breathes. "Per-feck-ly 'normous to me, you know;" +and after a huge sigh of wonder, pointing to the gallery, "What's that +funny little bridge up there for?" + +"Bridge!" says Mr. Amber almost indignantly. "Gallery, we call that. +Goes right around the hall, see? Except this end. Bridge! Bless my +soul, bridge!" For the moment he is really almost put out at this +slight done to a celebrated feature of the Manor, his concern betraying +the profound devotion to the house, the sense of his own incorporation +with it, that always characterises him when beneath its roof. That +devotion and that sense have deepened greatly during these years in +which the new Burdons have neglected the Manor and he, living in the +past, has grown to feel himself the custodian of the memories as he is +the author of the "Lives" of the house of Burdon. He has a trick, +indeed, as Percival comes to know, of speaking of "we" when he talks of +himself in connection with the Manor. He uses it now. "We are very +proud of that gallery, I can tell you. Do you know we've had--well, +well, never mind about that now. Come along, I'll take you all over +and up there, too. Come along, Miss Oxford. We'll find Mrs. Ferris +first." + +Mr. Amber takes Percival's hand and starts up the hall; and then pulls +him up short again, but with an exaggerated concern this time. "But +here, I say, young man, what's this? Cap on! Good gracious, you can't +wear your cap here, you know!" + +Percival goes almost as red as the jolly red fisher cap he wears, and +pulls it off, much abashed. He explains his breach of manners. "I +always do take it off in a house. But this doesn't feel like a house +to me, you know; it's simply 'normous!" + +"Ah, but that's a strict rule of ours here. No one but a Burdon may be +capped in the hall; a tradition we call it. There was a--a wicked man +came here hundreds of years ago and kept on his hat and they didn't see +his face properly and thought he was a good man; and the Lord Burdon +that was then came to speak to him, and the wicked man took out his +dagger and killed Lord Burdon. What do you think of that?" + +Percival seeks the proper touch. He asks: "With blug?" + +"Blug--blood!" Mr. Amber exclaims testily, a trifle injured that his +legends adapted to the use of children should lack conviction. "Why, +bless my soul, of course there was blug--blood. Blug--dear me--blood!" +and he puts so fierce an eye round where they stand, as if expecting a +stain to ooze through the floor and corroborate him, that Percival +draws back in haste lest he should be standing in the pool. + +That makes Mr. Amber laugh and he pats Percival's golden head and +concludes. "So ever since then, you see, we never let any but a Burdon +wear his hat in the hall here. It would be a sign of coming disaster +to the house, the tradition says." + +He turns to Aunt Maggie. "My lady was very particular about it," he +says. "She made a great point of observing all the traditions." + +Jane Lady Burdon, though she has been dead these four years, is always +"my lady" to Mr. Amber, as Roly remains to him "my lord" or "my young +lord." Aunt Maggie, standing a little aside, looking at Percival, +replies in her quiet voice: "I know--I remember. They are not so +foolish--traditions--as some people think, Mr. Amber." + +He nods his head in very weighty agreement, then turns again to +Percival who, gazing round, discovers a new amazement. "But _two_ +fireplaces!" Percival cries. + +"Big as a small room, too, aren't they?" says Mr. Amber, important and +gratified again. "Now, look at that! There's another story for you!" +He leads Percival to one vast hearth, high over which the Burdon arms +are carved in oak. "See those letters around there? That's our motto. +That's the Burdon motto: 'I hold!' That was the message a Burdon sent +to the king's troops when Cromwell's men--another wicked man, +Cromwell--were trying to get in. 'I hold!' he told his messenger to +say--just that, 'I hold!' and afterwards, when Cromwell was dead and +another king came back, the king changed the Burdon motto to that. 'I +hold!' Fine? Eh?" + +"I hold!" breathes Percival, mightily impressed. + +"Why, I tell you--I tell you," cries Mr. Amber, "there's a story in +every inch of this house. Better stories than all your picture books. +I'll just tell Mrs. Ferris about tea and then we'll go round. I know +all the stories; no one knows them like I do." And he toddles off to +Mrs. Ferris, absorbed in his lore and congratulating himself upon it, +and Aunt Maggie and Percival are left alone. + +It is then that Percival enjoys his second right of that day. + +Aunt Maggie calls him to her. "Put on your cap again a minute, +Percival--just for a minute." + +"Oh, but I mustn't, Aunt Maggie." + +She takes the cap from his hand and holds it above his clustering curls. + +He protests. "Mr. Amber said so, you know." + +"What did he say, dear?" + +"Only Burdons, Aunt Maggie." + +She placed the cap on his head and took his face between her hands and +kissed him. She looked up, and all about the hall, and high to where, +around the gallery, portraits of bygone Burdons looked steadily down +upon her; and her lips moved as if she spoke some message that she +signalled with her eyes. + +"Whoever are you talking to, Aunt Maggie?" + +She put her hands on his shoulders as he stood sturdily there, the +jolly red fisher cap on the back of his head, a puzzled expression in +his face, and she held him a pace from her. "Say the motto, Percival, +dear--the Burdon motto. Do you remember it? Say it while you have +your cap on--out loud!" + +"Is it a game, Aunt Maggie?" + +"Say it quickly, dear--out loud!" + +"I hold!" says Percival, clear and sharp. + +In the gallery behind him there was a sound of movement. He turned +quickly and saw a man's figure step hastily away. + +"Some one was watching us, Aunt Maggie." + +But Aunt Maggie was gone into her "thinking." + + +IV + +There followed for Percival the most delightful two hours. There was +first a prodigal tea in the housekeeper's room, where motherly Mrs. +Ferris set him to work on scones and cream and strawberry jam, and +where, as the meal progressed, he gladly gave himself over to Mr. +Amber's entrancing stories of Burdon lore, while Aunt Maggie and Mrs. +Ferris gossiped together. + +Mrs. Ferris confirmed the arrival of servants in advance of Lord and +Lady Burdon and gave some details of the visit. Her ladyship had +written to say they expected to stay about a month. They came for the +purpose of seeing if the fine air, for a holiday of that length, would +pick up Rollo. "An ailing child," said Mrs. Ferris. "Just the +opposite of that young gentleman, from all accounts," and she nodded +towards the young gentleman, who beamed back at her as cheerfully as a +prodigiously distended mouth would permit. "A lazy-looking lot," Mrs. +Ferris thought the servants were, and ought to have come earlier, too, +for there was work to be done getting the house ready, Miss Oxford +might take her word for it--all the furniture and the pictures in +dusting sheets--made her quite creepylike to look into the rooms +sometimes. Not right, she thought it, to neglect the Manor like these +were doing. She knew her place, mind you, but she meant to have a word +with her ladyship before her ladyship went off again. + +But the rooms had no creeps for Percival when at last the tea was done, +the jam wiped off, and the promised tour of inspection started. He put +a sticky hand confidingly into Mr. Amber's palm and breathed "'Normous! +Simply 'normous to me, you know," as each apartment was discovered to +him; and stood absorbed, the most gratifying of listeners, while Mr. +Amber, comfortably astride his hobby, poured forth the stories and the +legends that had gone into his cherished "Lives" and that he had by +heart and could tell with an air which called up the actors out of +their frames and out of the very walls to play their parts before the +child. Yet once or twice he stopped in the midst of a recital and +stood frowning as though something puzzled him, and once for so long +that Percival asked: "Are you thinking of something else, Mr. Amber?" + +"Eh?" said Mr. Amber. "Thinking? I'm afraid I was. Let me see, where +was I?" But he turned away, leaving the story unfinished; and as they +walked from the room Percival said politely: "I don't mind if you were, +you know. I only asked. Aunt Maggie does it and I just run away and +play." + +Mr. Amber pressed his old fingers closer about the young hand they +held. "Don't run away when I do it," he said. "Just wake me up. It +keeps coming over me that I've done all this before--held a little +boy's hand and told him all this just like I hold yours and tell you. +Well, that's a very funny feeling, you know." + +"'Strordinary!" Percival agreed in his interested way; and Mr. Amber +was caused to laugh and to forget the stirring in his mind of +recollections buried there twenty years down. Twenty years is deep +water. It was to be more disturbed, causing much frowning, much "funny +feeling," before ever it should clear and show the old librarian, +looking into the pool of his own mind over Percival's shoulder, +Percival's reflection cast up from the depths. + +The tour finished in the library. "Now this is the library!" announced +Mr. Amber at the threshold, much as St. Peter, coming with a new spirit +to the last gate, might say: "Now this is Paradise." + +"Now this is the library. This is my room. Now, we'll just wipe our +feet once again--sideways, too--that's right. And I think our fingers +are still a little sticky, eh? that's better--_there_!" + +"'Normous!" breathed Percival. "Simply 'normous, to me, you know." + +No dust sheets here, everything mellow with the deep sheen of age +carefully attended. Tier upon tier of books, every hue of +binding--dark red to brown, brown to deep blue, deep blue to white--and +all, however worn, however aged, exquisitely responsive to Mr. Amber's +soft chamois leather. + +Mr. Amber waved a proud hand at them. "I expect you'll live a long +time before you see another collection like this, Master Percival. And +I know every one of them--every single one just like you know your +toys. In the pitch dark--in the pitch dark, mind you--I could put my +hand on any one I wanted without touching another. What do you think +of that, eh?" + +Percival has no better thought for it than the old one. + +"'Normous!" he declares. "Simply 'normous to me, you know, Mr. Amber!" + +"And the care I take of them!" Mr. Amber continues, as pleased with his +audience as if Percival were the librarians of the House of Lords, the +Bodleian and the British Museum rolled into one. "You wouldn't find +enough dust on those books, _anywhere_, to cover the head of a pin!" +He points to the highest and furthest shelves: "You'd think there might +be dust right up there, wouldn't you? Well, you just choose one of +those books--any one, anywhere you like." + +"To keep for my own?" + +"Keep! Bless my soul, no! Keep! Dear me! dear me! No, just point to +a book." + +"That one!" says Percival, stretching an arm. "That one in the corner!" + +Mr. Amber accepts the challenge with a triumphant rubbing together of +his hands. "That brown one, eh? Very well. That's a rare +volume--Black Letter--Latimer's 'Fruitfull Sermons'--London, 1584. +Now, you see." He trots excitedly to a high, wheeled ladder, runs it +beneath the "Fruitfull Sermons," climbs up shakily, fetches down the +volume and presents it for Percival's inspection: "There! Run your +finger over the top of it; that's where dust collects. Ah, not that +finger; got a cleaner one? That'll do. Now!" + +It is getting dusk in the library, so Mr. Amber clutches the small +finger that has rubbed over the "Fruitfull Sermons," and they go to a +deep window where young head and old peer anxiously at the pink skin. + +"Not a speck!" Mr. Amber cries triumphantly. "Not a speck of dust! +What did I tell you?" + +And Percival, holding the finger carefully apart from its fellows: +"'Strordinary! Simply 'strordinary to me, you know!" + +Mr. Amber climbs laboriously up the steps again, and seats himself at +the top, and starts dusting all around the "Fruitfull Sermons," and +completely forgets Percival, who wanders about for a little and then, +hearing a sound, goes to the door. + + +V + +Here was the white-faced youth, our Egbert Hunt, who had grimaced at +him from the box of the wagonette. The white-faced youth stood on the +further side of the passage, paused beneath a window by whose light he +seemed to be examining a small phial held in his hand. + +Percival ran forward: "Hallo! Are you a clown, please?" + +The white-faced youth bit a pale lip and stared resentfully: "Do you +live here?" + +"No, I don't," Percival told him. "I've been having tea with Mrs. +Ferris." + +The white-faced youth developed the sudden heat characteristic of +Egbert Hunt in the Miller's Field days. "Well, don't you call me no +names, then," said Egbert Hunt fiercely. + +"I'm not," Percival protested. "You made a face at me when you were +driving in the road, and I thought you were a clown, you see." + +Egbert Hunt breathed hotly through his nose. "Saucing me, ain't you?" +he demanded. + +Percival had heard the expression in the village. "Oh, no," he said in +his earnest way. "I thought you had a funny face, that was all." + +His engaging tone and air mollified the sour Egbert. "I've got a sick +yedache," said Egbert. "That's what I've got--crool!" + +Percival looked sorry and sought to give comfort with a phrase of Aunt +Maggie. "It will _soon_ go," he said soothingly. + +"Not mine," Egbert declared. "Not my sort won't. I'm a living martyr +to 'em. Fac'." He nodded with impressive gloom and took three +tabloids from the phial he held in his hand. "Vegules," he explained; +and swallowed them with a very loud gulping sound. + +"What are you, please?" Percival inquired, vastly interested. + +"Slave," said Egbert briefly. + +"But you're not black," argued Percival, recalling the picture of a +chained negro on a missionary almanac in Honor's kitchen. + +"Thenk Gord, no!" said Egbert piously. "White slaves are worse," he +added. + +"And were those slaves in the carriage with you?" + +"Tyrangs," said Egbert Hunt. "Tyrangs and sickopants of tyrangs." + +Percival started a question; then, as a sound came: "That's my Aunt +Maggie calling me. Good-by! I hope your poor head will soon be +better." + +Egbert smiled the wan smile of one not to be deluded into hope: "You've +been kind to me," he said. "I like you. You ain't like all the rest. +What's your name?" + +"Percival. I really must go now, if you please. My Aunt Maggie--" + +He started to run in the direction of Aunt Maggie's voice; but Egbert +recalled him with a very mysterious and compelling "H'st!" and wag of +the head. + +"Was that your Aunt Maggie in the hall with you just now?" Egbert +inquired. + +A sudden recollection came to Percival. "You mean before tea? Was +that you?" + +"What she make you put your cap on for, and say 'I hold'? That was a +funny bit, that was." + +"Why, I don't know," said Percival. "Was that you up on the bridge?" + +Egbert did not answer the question. "You ask her," he said, "an' tell +me. Odd bit, that was." + +"Yes, I will," Percival agreed. "I say, I must go. What's your name, +if you please?" + +"Mr. Unt. Run along; you're a nice little chap; I like you." + +"I like you, too," said Percival, very interested in this strange +character. "I'm sorry I thought you were a clown. Good-by, Mr. Unt. +I say, there is my Aunt Maggie! Isn't this a 'normous house?" and he +scampered brightly to the sound of Aunt Maggie's voice. + +"Abode of tyrangs," said Mr. Hunt, moving swiftly in the opposite +direction. "Boil um!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +FOLLOWS A FROG AND FINDS A TADPOLE + +I + +The acquaintance with slave Egbert was very shortly renewed. The +afternoon of the Friday that was to see the arrival of the Burdons at +the Old Manor brought also a threshing-engine up the village street--a +snorting and enormous thing that fetched Percival rushing to the gate +and drew him after it and kept him in charmed attendance until "Post +Offic" was half a mile behind. Here the engine stopped, and the men +who accompanied it setting themselves to a deliberate meal, Percival +turned himself into a horse that had escaped from its stable and was +recaptured and began to trot himself home. + +He was in the lane that strikes out of the highroad towards Burdon Old +Manor when his quick eye caught sight of a frog in the grass-grown +hedge-side and "Whoa!" cried Percival and changed from escaped horse to +ardent frog-hunter. The sturdiest frog, it proved to be, a big, solid +fellow and wonderfully nimble at great jumps when Percival was found to +be in pursuit. He pressed it hotly; it bounded amain. He laughed and +followed--it was here--it was there--it was lost--it was found--it was +gone again. He grew stubborn and vexed in the chase. A frown stood on +his moist brow. He began to breathe hotly. The frog perceived the +change. It lost its wits. It dashed from cover, made with wild bounds +across the road, was closely followed, and lived to tell the frightful +tale by intervention of a shout before it, a stumble behind it, and the +barest pulling up of the Manor wagonette within a yard of fallen +Percival. + +Lord Burdon jumped out and lifted Percival in his arms before the +frog-hunter was well aware of what had happened. "Not hurt, eh? +That's all right! You young rascal, you--you might have been killed. +Haven't you got ears? What are those great flappers for, eh?" and Lord +Burdon tweaked a flapper and laughed jovially. "What were you doing, +eh?" + +"I was chasing a frog," said Percival, rubbing his ear and using his +elevation on Lord Burdon's arms to have a stare at the little boy and +the pretty lady in the wagonette. + +"A frog! Why here's a frog for you. Come and look at my frog in the +cart here." + +Lord Burdon carried him to the body of the wagonette. "Here's my frog! +tadpole, rather. Rollo, look here. You're only a little tadpole, +aren't you? Look what this fine air is going to do for you. Look at +this great lump of a fellow. That's what you've got to be like!" + +The little tadpole smiled shyly. Tadpole was an excusable description. +Rollo Letham at nearly ten might have passed for younger than Percival +at rising eight. He was very thin, pale, fragile; his head looked too +big for his delicate frame; his eyes were big and shy, his mouth +nervous. + +"A shame!" said Lady Burdon, smiling. "You're not a tadpole, are you, +Rollo? But this is a splendid young man!" And she stretched a kind +hand--nicely gloved--across the cart to Percival. + +Lord Burdon raised him to meet it. Bare knees, well-streaked with mud +and blood, came into view. + +"Oh, your poor little knees!" Lady Burdon cried. + +Percival caught Rollo's eye fixed in some horror on the wounds. "I cut +them every day!" he said bigly, and shot a proud glance at the tadpole. + +"Well, they're terrible. They must be washed. Bring him in, Maurice. +We'll wash him, as we've nearly killed him, at the house." + +"Yes, do! Yes, please do!" Rollo whispered, and his mother patted his +hand, pleased at the animation of the thin little face. + +Lord Burdon hesitated: "Take him to the Manor? Why, that may be miles +from his home, you know." + +"I suppose we can send him back in the trap, can't we?" Lady Burdon +said, a trifle disagreeably. "You're a regular old woman, Maurice. +Lift him in next to Rollo. You can see how Rollo takes to him, I +should have thought." + +"Didn't want to be had up for kidnapping, you know," Lord Burdon +responded cheerfully. "Would be a bad start in the local opinion--eh?" +And he laughed with the appeal and the apology with which he always met +his wife's waves of impatience. "Shove up, Rollo! In you get, +frog-hunter! Heavens! What a lump. All right. Drive on!" + +"Gee up!" cried Percival, highly entertained, and chatted frankly with +Lady Burdon as the wagonette bowled along. To her questions he was +nearly eight, he told her; he would have another birthday in a short +time; Honor gave him a sword at his last birthday and his Aunt Maggie +gave him a trumpet. "You may blow my trumpet, if you like," turning to +Rollo. "Honor says it is poison to blow it because I've broken the +little white thing what you blow through. But I blow it all right." + +Rollo flushed and smiled and put a thin little hand from beneath the +rug and took Percival's muddy fist and held it for the remainder of the +journey. Boy friends who did not laugh at him were new to him. + +"Miss Oxford's little boy," Percival explained to further questions. +"I live at the post-office, and we've got a drawer _full_ of stamps +with funny little holes what you tear off." + +Lady Burdon turned to her husband: "Ah, I know now. You remember? You +remember the vicar telling us about Miss Oxford when we first came down +here? Well, she's to be congratulated on her nephew. I'm glad. He'll +be the jolliest little companion for Rollo." + +Lord Burdon remembered. "Yes--this will be her sister's child. +Orphan, poor little beggar." + +And Lady Burdon: "We'll be able to have him up with Rollo as much as we +like, I've no doubt. Look how happy they are together," and she smiled +at them, chatting eagerly. + +Percival was twisting and bending the better to see the occupants of +the box-seat. A form that seemed familiar sat beside the driver. +"Why, that's Mr. Unt!" Percival cried brightly, and as the familiar +form turned at the sound of its name, "How's your poor headache, Mr. +Unt?" he asked. "Much better now, isn't it?" + +Mr. Unt's pallid face became slightly tinged with embarrassment. "The +young gentleman spoke to me at the Manor Wednesday, me lady," he +apologised. "Had come up to take tea with Mr. Hamber." He profited by +the touch of his hat with which he spoke to draw his hand across his +forehead; a sick yedache clearly was still torturing there. + +"His headaches are terrible," Percival explained. "I thought he was a +clown, you know. I saw him driving in this carriage with tyrangs." + +Egbert's back shivered. "Parding, me lady," said he, turning again. + +Lady Burdon laughed. "Hunt," she told Percival. "Not Unt. He speaks +badly." + +"You know, his headaches--" Percival began; and she added more +severely: "He is a servant." + +"He's my servant," Rollo said. "Hunt looks after me when I go out. I +hate nurses, so I have him. He'll be yours too, if you'll come and +play with me. Both of ours. May he, mother?" + +"You can tell Miss Oxford that some one will always be there to keep an +eye on you if she will let you come and play," Lady Burdon replied to +Percival. + +"So now he is yours and mine," cried Rollo, squeezing the hand he held. + +"Thank you very much," Percival said. "Of course, if his headache is +very bad we won't have him, because he will like to lie down." + +He spoke clearly; and a tiny little tremble of Egbert's back seemed to +advertise again the gratitude that sympathy aroused in him. + +"Oh, that's nothing," Rollo declared. "He pretends." + +The poor back drooped. "Tyrangs," Egbert murmured and furtively edged +a vegule to his mouth. + + +II + +In the dusk of that evening Percival went bounding home, immensely +pleased with his new friends and with the new delights in life they had +discovered for him. He had nice clean knees and a bandage on each--a +matter that caused him considerable pride. He had gladly promised to +come to see Rollo again on the morrow, and he would have stayed much +longer into the evening had not Lord Burdon (as Lady Burdon said) +"begun to fidget" and to persist that Miss Oxford must be getting +nervous at this long absence. + +"His aunt will naturally be glad when she knows where he has been," +Lady Burdon had exclaimed. + +Lord Burdon gave the smile that she knew came before one of his +annoying rejoinders. "That won't make her wild with joy while she +doesn't know where he is, old girl." + +She was irritable. The vexation of having to leave London, which she +enjoyed, for Burdon which she felt she would hate, was settling upon +her. She looked at him resentfully. "That is funny, I suppose?" she +inquired. "You are always very funny, aren't you?" and she gave orders +for Hunt to take Percival home. + +Down the road Percival chattered brightly to Egbert, holding his hand. +"I jump like this," he explained, capering along, "because I pretend +I'm a horse. Then if you want me to walk quietly you only have to say +'whoa!' you see." + +"Whoa!" said Egbert very promptly. + +Percival's legs itched to jump out the animation that events had +bottled into him. "Did you say 'gee up'?" he presently inquired. + +"No," said Egbert. + +"Oh," said Percival, and with a little sigh repeated "oh!" + +Egbert felt the appeal. "Fac' of it is, that jumping jerks me up." + +"Got another sick headache, have you?" + +"Crool," said the living martyr to 'em. + +Percival took another phrase of Aunt Maggie: "You must be thor'ly out +of sorts, I think." + +"Got one foot in the grave, that's what I've got," Egbert agreed. +"Fac'." + +Percival peered down at Egbert's legs. "Which one, please?" he +inquired. + +"Figger o' speech," Egbert told him, and explained: "Way of saying +things." He added: "Go off in the night one of these days, I shall;" +and commented with gloomy satisfaction: "Then they'll be sorry." + +Percival asked: "Who will?" He visioned Egbert running by night with +one foot embedded in a tombstone, and he was considerably attracted by +the picture. "Who will?" he repeated. + +"Tyrangs!" said Egbert. "Too late to be sorry then. Fac'." + +"Well, I should be dreffly sorry," Percival assured him. + +"Believe you," said Egbert, "and many thanks for the same. First +that's ever said a kine word to me, you are; and I'll be grateful--if +I'm spared." + +He looked at his watch and then down the lane. "Think you could get +home safe from here? Fac' is I'm behind with my vegules and left them +in my other coat." + +"Oh, yes," Percival agreed. "This is just by the corner, you know." + +"Well, then," said Egbert, halting, "you see, if I don't take 'em fair, +can't expec' them to treat me fair, can I?" + +Percival assented: "Oh, no." + +"Sure you'll be all right?" + +"Oh, yes. I'll be a horse, you see. Just say 'gee up!' will you?" + +"Gee up!" said Egbert. + +"Stead-_ey_!" cried Percival, prancing. "Stead-_ey_! Goodnight!" and +bounded off. + +"Nice little f'ler," commented Egbert; and hurried back to the vegules. + +Where the lane turned to the village, horse Percival was made, as he +declared, to shy dreff'ly. He galloped almost into the arms of two +figures that stepped suddenly out of the dusk. "Oh, Percival!" Aunt +Maggie cried and kissed him. "Oh, Percival, where _have_ you been?" + +"Say 'whoa!" cried Percival. "Say 'whoa!' Aunt Maggie. I'm a horse--a +white one, you know." + +Two heavy hands pressed the white horse's shoulders, stilling its +plunges. "You're a bad little boy, that's what you are," Honor +exclaimed, "running off and frightening your Auntie, and not caring nor +minding. Don't Care comes before a fall, as I've told you many times +and--" + +"_Pride_ comes before a fall," corrected Percival. "You've got it +wrong _again_, Honor," and Honor's flow was checked with the suddenness +that had become the established termination of attempts to reprove +Percival since he had learnt the right phrasing of her store of +confused maxims. + +She took his hand while she pondered doubtfully upon the correction, +and with Aunt Maggie holding the other, he skipped along, bubbling over +with his adventures. "I've got bandages on both my legs, Aunt +Maggie--oh, and Hunt has got one of his legs in the grave, just fancy +that! I've been having tea with Rollo; and Lady Burdon put on these +bandages and she wants me to go and play with Rollo every day. _Do_ +let me, Aunt Maggie. I say, you are squeezing my hand most dreffly, +you know." + +Aunt Maggie relaxed the sudden contraction of her fingers. "Lady +Burdon--yes?--tell from the very beginning, Percival dear." + +"Well, she said 'Promise to tell your Aunt Maggie I will come and ask +her to let you be Rollo's little friend and'--Aunt _Maggie_! You're +_hurting_!" + +She recollected herself again and patted the small fingers. "Tell from +the very beginning, dear. How did you meet them?" + +"Well, you understand, I was catching a frog--" + +"Post Offic" was reached, supper was swallowed, his merry head +beginning to droop and nod, while still he excitedly recounted all his +adventures. He was almost asleep when Aunt Maggie undressed him and +put him to bed. + +She sat a long time beside him, watching him while he slept. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +LADY BURDON COMES TO "POST OFFIC" + +I + +In the morning Lady Burdon came with Rollo to make her request that +Percival might spend much of his time at the Old Manor as Rollo's +playmate. In these seven years since the amazement at Miller's Field, +this was but her third visit to the estate, her first for the purpose +of staying any length of time, and the first that had seen Rollo with +her. Two days had been spent here when Jane Lady Burdon had been +brought to rest in Burdon churchyard; three when Mr. Maxwell, the +agent, had been troublesome and importunate in the matter of expensive +alterations on the property. Lady Burdon had come down then "to have +an understanding with him;" as she expressed it--"to see for herself." +The result had been as unfortunate for Mr. Maxwell (to whom she had +shown some temper) as it had been augmentative of the dislike she had +always felt for the property and its greedy responsibilities. The +result had been to filter over the countryside from Mr. Maxwell that +she was the controlling partner in the new representatives of the +house; that hers was the refusal to take up the urgently needed +irrigation scheme; hers the scandal (as it became) of neglect to carry +out improvements in the cottages over at Abbess Roding; hers the crime +(as it was held) of the selling-up over at Shepwall that entailed +eviction of tenants old on the land as the house of Burdon itself. + +On the other hand the result had been to return Lady Burdon to the +Mount Street life with at least a temporary stop put to the Maxwell +whinings and at least a lighter drain from the Mount Street expenses. + +Miss Oxford had not seen her on either of these visits. Miss Oxford +had only smiled in an odd way when she heard of the behaviour that had +set the countryside clacking. The better Lady Burdon flourished, the +more Lady Burdon exercised the prerogatives of her usurped position, +the riper she ripened for the blow, when there should be returned to +her the son whose mother she had murdered; that was the entertainment +Miss Oxford nursed through these years, living so gently and so +quietly, "thinking" so much, poor dear. + +"Strange-like?" "Silly-like?" Or dreadfully sane? For Miss Oxford's +own part, she knew only one thing of her mental condition. At very +rare intervals there seized her a state that was related to and that +recalled the tremendous pressure in her brain when she had knelt, +consumed with hate and desire for vengeance, by Audrey's death-bed. It +took the form of a sudden violent fluttering in her brain, as though a +live, winged thing were beating there, beating to be free. The +pressure that came by Audrey's death-bed had ended in a snap--in +something giving that left her extraordinarily, tinglingly calm, +possessed by the plan and certainty of revenge to be taken by Audrey's +son--one day. The fluttering, the winglike beating ended of its own +volition, and outside any command she could put upon it--sweeping up +all her senses in its beating, only leaving to her the terror that it +would end--in what? Sometimes it came in just the tiniest flutter, +without cause and gone as soon as come, just arresting her and +frightening her like a swift shoot of pain in a nerve. Sometimes in +the briefest flutter but with cause; such a case had been when Percival +told her of his meeting with the Burdons and she had caused him to +exclaim by clutching his hand. Once of much longer duration and of new +effect, and with revelation to her of the end it threatened. That was +when, a few days ago, she had stood alone with Percival in the great +hall of Burdon Old Manor. It was the fluttering that had bade her make +him put on his cap and cry 'I hold!' and she had been informed that if +it did not stop--if it did not stop!--if it did not stop! she would +scream out her secret--run through the house and cry to all that Lady +Burdon was-- + +It had stopped. The beating wings ceased. She was returned to her +quiet, gentle waiting. + + +II + +It always took the same form--the presentation of a picture. + +"They're coming! They're coming!" cried Percival, bursting into the +parlour with tossing arms, aflame with excitement, hopping on lively +toes, to announce Lady Burdon and Rollo. "They're coming, Aunt +Maggie!" and he was away to greet them at the gate. + +Aunt Maggie was at the table where post-office business was conducted. +The open door gave directly on to the garden path; and she heard voices +and then a step on the threshold and bent over the papers before her; +and then a pleasant tone that said "Good morning, I am Lady Burdon," +and immediately the beating wings, wild, savage, whirling, and she +transported from where she sat to watch herself in the picture that the +fluttering always brought. + +Immense beating of the wings, the sound drumming in her ears; seven +years rolled up as a stage-curtain discloses a scene, and she saw the +room in the Holloway road, herself kneeling there and Audrey's voice: +"... and then said 'I am Lady Burdon' ... O Maggie! O Maggie! ... and +I said 'Oh, how can you be Lady Burdon?' ... Maggie! Maggie!" The +beating wings drove up to a pitch they had never before reached. +Through their tumult--buffeted, as it were, by their fury--and from the +scene in which she saw herself, she looked up and saw Lady Burdon +smiling there, and heard Lady Burdon's voice: "Good morning, I am Lady +Burdon." Again, as in the great hall with Rollo, if it did not +stop!--if it did not stop!--if it did not stop! she must cry out: "You +are not! You said that to Audrey and killed her! Now--" + + +And again, and this time when the terrible fluttering had almost beaten +itself free and she had formed her lips to release it, it suddenly +stopped. As at the bedside, seven years before, she fell from paroxysm +of passion to unnatural calm, so now she was returned to her normal, +quiet self, content to wait, and she said quite quietly: "Percival told +me to expect you." + +Lady Burdon advanced pleasantly. "Ah, and I hope he also remembered to +tell you of my apologies. I am afraid we kept him with us much too +long last night." + +She looked around the room with the air of one willing to chat and to +be entertained, and Miss Oxford, murmuring there was no occasion for +apology, advanced a chair with: "Please sit down, if you will. This is +very humble, I am afraid. It is only the post-office, you know; and +only a toy post-office at that." + +She was quite herself again. Through this interview, and always +thereafter when she met Lady Burdon or thought of her, she was invested +with the calmness that had come to her by the death-bed. She knew +quite certainly that she had only to wait. She was not at all anxious. +She knew she could wait. She only feared--now for the first time, and +increasingly as the attacks became more frequent--that an onset of that +dreadful fluttering might descend upon her and might not go before it +had driven her to wreck the plan for which she waited--Percival, not +she, to avenge his mother. + +The fear caused in her a noticeable nervousness of manner. Lady Burdon +attributed it to natural embarrassment at this gracious visit, and that +made her more gracious yet. Miller's Field would have perceived in +Lady Burdon, as she sat talking pleasantly, a considerable change from +the Mrs. Letham it had known. She was very becomingly dressed. She +had grown a trifle rounder in the figure and fuller in the face since +Miller's Field gave her good-by, and that advantaged her. Her olive +complexion was warmer in shade, healthier in tinting than it had been. +The walk from the Manor had touched her freshly, and she had been +pleased by the respectful greetings of the villagers. Rollo, +completely in love with Percival, was brighter than she had ever known +him. She had hated the idea of burying herself down here for a month; +but she was beginning to entertain an agreeable view of taking up her +neglected position and dignity in this pleasant countryside. She was +very happy as she faced Miss Oxford: her happiness and all that +contributed to it made her very comely to the eye; and she was aware of +that. + +She spoke enthusiastically of Percival. "Such a splendid young man. +Such charming manners." She spoke most graciously of knowing all about +Miss Oxford and of how plucky of her it was to take up the post-office. +She said smilingly that Miss Oxford was not to take advantage of the +post-office by keeping herself to herself as the saying was; and when +Miss Oxford replied; "You are kind; we have no society here, of course; +with the one or two families the post-office makes no difference; we +are all old friends; with you, it is different;" she said very +winningly: "Not kind, in any case--selfish. It is Percival I am after. +We have taken so much to him. He and my Rollo have struck up the +greatest friendship, and that is such a pleasure to me. Rollo as a +rule is so shy and reserved with children. He has no child friends. +It will do him a world of good if Percival may play with him. Percival +will be the making of him." + +She smiled in confident and happy belief of her words, and Miss Oxford +smiled, too. It was not for Lady Burdon to know--yet--that Percival +was being brought up to be not Rollo's making but his undoing. + +But Miss Oxford only said that the friendship would be capital for +Percival also, since Lady Burdon permitted it. "There are no boys here +in Little Letham that he can make close companions," she said. "We +seem short of children--except among the villagers. I think Mrs. +Espart's little girl at Upabbot over the Ridge is the nearest." + +Lady Burdon nodded. "Mrs. Espart--yes, I am to go over there. She +left cards, thinking we had arrived. Abbey Royal, she lives at, +doesn't she?" + +"Abbey Royal, yes. One of our show places, you know. What Percival +would call 'normous," and Miss Oxford related the "'normous; simply +'normous to me, you know," of Percival's visit to the Manor. "We came +to 'enormous' when I was reading to him shortly afterwards," she said, +"and he exclaimed: 'I know! 'Normous, like Mr. Amber's house!' Mr. +Amber showed him round." + +"He is the sweetest little fellow," Lady Burdon laughed. "And reading +to him--I was going to ask you about that--about lessons, I mean. Does +he do lessons? Rollo's education has been terribly neglected, I am +afraid. I thought it would be so nice if he could join his new friend +in them while he is here." + +"Percival goes every morning to Miss Purdie--you would have passed her +cottage--next to the Church." + +"Capital," Lady Burdon said. "I will arrange for Rollo." + +"She will be delighted. Having Percival has already lost her a chance +of another pupil. Mrs. Espart was going to send her little girl over +daily, but didn't like the idea of the post-office little boy." + +"Ridiculous!" Lady Burdon cried. "I will tell her so." She turned at +the sound of much scrambling and laughter in the doorway. "Ridiculous! +Rollo, you are going to do lessons with Percival. Now won't that be +jolly, darling?" + +But it was Percival who was first in and came bounding to them with: +"Aunt Maggie! Aunt Maggie! Rollo has got a pony of his own in London +and rides it! Well, what do you think of that?" + +Aunt Maggie thought it splendid and was introduced to Rollo, and +"suddenly seemed to lose her tongue," as Lady Burdon told Lord Burdon +at lunch. "Hugged Percival as though she hadn't seen him for a year +and scarcely looked at Rollo. Jealous, I believe, at the difference +between their stations. Funny, that kind of jealousy, don't you think?" + +But it was not jealousy that had silenced Aunt Maggie and caused her to +clutch Percival to her breast. At sight of him with Rollo, and of Lady +Burdon smiling at him, that fluttering had run up in her brain, and she +had clasped Percival to restrain herself while it lasted. It had gone +while she held him; but she had almost cried: "Do you dare smile at +him? He is Audrey's son! Audrey's son!" + +Percival wriggled from her embrace and she heard Lady Burdon say to +Rollo: "Well, why not a pony here?" and heard her laugh delightedly at +the excited roar the suggestion shot out of Percival. + +"I wonder if there is anywhere here we could get a pony for Rollo?" she +heard Lady Burdon say, and heard the question repeated, and made a +great effort to come out of the shaken state in which the fluttering +had left her. + +"Over at Market Roding you might get a pony," she said dully. "There +is a Mr. Hannaford there. He has ponies. He supplies ponies to +circuses, I have heard." + +Lady Burdon kissed Percival good-by at the gate. "Lord Burdon shall +take you over with Rollo to this Mr. Hannaford," she told him. "That +Miss Purdie's cottage? We are going to look in on our way. Run back +to your Aunt Maggie. She is tired, I think." + +"Well, she's thinking, you know," said Percival. + +Lady Burdon laughed. "Thinking, is she, you funny little man? Of +what?" + +And Percival, in his earnest way: "Well, I don't know. It 'plexes me, +you know." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +LITTLE 'ORSES AND LITTLE STU-PIDS + +I + +The pony was obtained from Mr. Hannaford and lessons were arranged with +Miss Purdie. + +It was the happiest party that occupied the wagonette on that drive to +and from Mr. Hannaford's farm at Market Roding. Lord Burdon, Rollo, +Percival--each declared it that evening to have been the very jolliest +time that ever was. + +"Well, we have had a jolly day, haven't we, old man?" Lord Burdon said +to Rollo when he kissed him good night. Lord Burdon had worn a shabby +old suit and had told the boys stories till, as he assured them, his +tongue ached; and had walked with them about Mr. Hannaford's farm, with +Percival prancing on one side and Rollo quietly beaming on the other. +In London, in the life that Lady Burdon directed at Mount Street, such +careless, childish joys were impossible. Not since the day he had +spent with Rollo at the Zoological Gardens, when Lady Burdon was at +Ascot, had he so completely enjoyed himself--and not a doubt but that +the bursting excitement of young Percival was responsible for the far +greater joviality of this day at Mr. Hannaford's. + +"Did I tell you about when they came to the ditch while we were walking +over the farm?" Lord Burdon asked Lady Burdon. "That little beggar +Percival--" + +Lady Burdon looked at him over the book she was reading. "Not a sixth +time, _please_, Maurice," she said. "I'm really rather tired of +hearing it," and Lord Burdon assumed his foolishly distressed look and +for the remainder of the evening sat smiling over the jolly day in +silence. + +The jolliest day for Rollo! He had been the quiet one of the party +because to be retiring was his nature, but when Percival shouted and +when Percival jumped, Rollo's heart was in the shout and Rollo's spirit +bounded with the jump. He had never believed there could be such a +friend for him or so much new fun in life. Hitherto his chief +companion had been his mother, his constant mood a dreamy and shrinking +habit of mind. Vigorous Percival introduced him to the novelty of +"games," showed him what mirth was, and what vigorous young limbs could +do. The jolliest day! He fell asleep that night thinking of Percival; +in his dreams with Percival raced and shouted; awakened in the morning +with Percival for his first thought. + +And of course it was the jolliest day for Percival. "I never had such +fun, you know," Percival declared to Aunt Maggie. "I rode the pony all +alone and Mr. Hannaford said I was a Pocket Marvel; so I should like to +know what you think of that?" + +Mr. Hannaford, indeed, was mightily pleased with Percival. Mr. +Hannaford was an immensely stout man with a tremendously deep voice and +with very twinkling little eyes set in a superbly red face. He wore +brown leather gaiters and very tight cord-breeches and a very loose +tail-coat of tweed, cut very square. From his habit of never removing +his bowler hat in the house even at meals, the common belief was that +he slept in it, and he punctuated his sentences when he spoke, and +marked his alternate strides when he walked, by tremendously loud +cracks of a bamboo cane against a gaitered leg. It was his frequent +habit when he desired emphasis to bless what he termed his "eighteen +stun proper," and he caused Rollo to giggle by his trick of calling a +horse "a norse." + +Mr. Hannaford received his visitors by raising his hat as far from his +head as any one had ever seen it, by giving three terrific cracks of +his cane against his leg, and by extending to Rollo and Percival in +turn a hand of the size of a small shoulder of mutton. + +"Well, you've come to the right place for a little 'orse, me lord, +bless my eighteen stun proper if you haven't," Mr. Hannaford declared. +"And 'll want a proper little 'orse for your lordship's son, moreover," +continued Mr. Hannaford, after another tremendous leg-and-cane crack +and looking admiringly at Percival. + +Percival was quick with the correction. "Oh, I'm not his son. I'm +only a little boy, you know. I can ride, though, because sometimes I +pretend I'm a horse all day long; so I should like to know what you +think of that?" + +Mr. Hannaford was hugely delighted, and having begged his lordship's +pardon for the mistake, gave it as his deliberate opinion that a young +gentleman who could pretend he was a norse all day long was a Pocket +Marvel. + +The Pocket Marvel performed a prance or two in order to show that this +estimate of him was well merited, and they proceeded to the stables, +Mr. Hannaford, as they walked, making clear, to the tune of astonishing +leg-and-cane cracks, the reasons why the right place for a little 'orse +had been selected by his lordship. + +"There's money in little 'orses," said Mr. Hannaford. (Crack!) "And +I'm one of the few that know it." (Crack!) He broke off, stared towards +the house, face changing from its superb red to astonishing purple, and +to a distant figure roared "Garge!" in a voice like a clap of thunder. +"Garge! Fetch that pig out of the flower beds! You want my stick +about your back, Garge; bless my eighteen stun proper if you don't." + +"Pardon, me lord," begged Mr. Hannaford, bringing his stick back to his +leg from where it had flourished at Garge, and continuing: "There's +more demand for little 'orses than anybody that hasn't given brain to +it would believe, me lord. Gentlefolks' little girls want little +'orses and gentlefolks' little boys want little 'orses; gentlefolks' +little carts want little 'orses, young gentlemen want little polo +'orses, and circuses want little trick 'orses. Where are they going to +get 'em?" inquired Mr. Hannaford, and answered his question with: +"They're coming to me." (Crack!) + +"Capital!" declared Lord Burdon, who was finding Mr. Hannaford a man +nearer to his liking than any he had met within the radius of Mount +Street. + +"Capital's the word," agreed Mr. Hannaford. "Bless my eighteen stun +proper if it isn't!" (Crack!) "It will take time, mind you, me lord. +I'm doing it in stages. Stage One: circus little 'orses. I rackon I'm +level with Stage One now. Started with circus little 'orses because I +was in the circus line once and my brother Martin--Stingo they call +him, me lord--is in it now. Proper connaction with circus little +'orses I've worked up. They come to me when they want a circus little +'orse, bless my eighteen stun proper if they don't." (Crack!) "Stage +Two: little gentlefolks' little 'orses--just starting that now, me +lord. Stage Three: gentlefolks' little carts' little 'orses. Stage +Four: young gentlemen's little polo 'orses. What I want," declared Mr. +Hannaford with a culminating crack of tremendous proportions, "is to +make people when they see a little 'orse think of Hannaford. +Hannaford--little 'orse; little 'orse--Hannaford. Two words one +meaning, one meaning two words; that's my lay and I'll do it, bless my +eighteen stun proper if I won't!" (Crack!) + +"'Pon my soul it's a big scheme," said Lord Burdon, highly entertained +and beginning to realise that this was no common man. + +"Correct!" Mr. Hannaford assured him, and confided with a terrible +crack: "I call it a whopper. One of these days Stingo will settle down +and join me and there'll be no more holding us than you can hold a +little 'orse with your finger and thumb." + +"Settle down?" Lord Burdon questioned, greatly interested. "Younger +than you, eh?" + +"Three and a half minutes," returned Mr. Hannaford, and added, "Twins," +in reply to Lord Burdon's exclamation of surprise. "Not much in point +of time, but very different in point of nature. Wants settling down; +then he'll be all right. You'll see Stingo in a minute, me lord; he's +here," and Mr. Hannaford pointed to the line of sheds they had reached. +"On a visit," he explained; and added with a heavy sigh: "Here to-day +and gone to-morrow; that's Stingo." + +He unlatched a door. "This way, me lord. Only wooden stables at +present; brick, and brick floors, that's to come. This way, my young +lordship. This way, little master; don't you be a little 'orse now, +else maybe we shall make a mistake and tie you up in a stall." + +The interior was dim. Restless movements announced the presence of +several little 'orses, and presently was to be seen a line of plump +little quarters, mainly piebald, one or two more sedately coloured. + +"Gentleman to buy a little 'orse," announced Mr. Hannaford; and +immediately a face that was the precise replica of his own appeared +from over the side of a partition. + +"Well he's come to the proper place for a little 'orse," announced the +face in a very husky whisper and disappeared again. + +"Why, just my very words!" declared Mr. Hannaford with high delight. +"Just my very words, bless my eighteen stun proper if it wasn't! Step +out, Stingo. Lord Burdon, over from Burdon, with his young lordship +and a--" Mr. Hannaford stopped and stared around him. "Why, +wherever's that young Pocket Marvel got to?" + +"I'm here!" Percival called excitedly. "I'm stroking this dear little +black one and he knows me; so I should like to know what you think of +that?" He came dancing out from the stall of the little black one, his +face blazing with excitement, and simultaneously the replica of Mr. +Hannaford's face appeared again and a replica of Mr. Hannaford's figure +advanced towards them. + +"Proud!" declared the replica in a strained whisper, and raised his +hat. "You're doing well," he whispered to Mr. Hannaford. "You're +doing uncommon well." He extended his hand and the brothers shook +hands, very solemnly on the part of the replica, with beaming delight +on the part of Mr. Hannaford. + +"Steady down, boy; steady down and join us," Mr. Hannaford earnestly +entreated, holding Stingo's hand and gazing into his face with great +fondness. But Stingo slowly shook his head, and turning to Lord Burdon +again, raised his hat and after many severe throatings managed a husky +repetition of "Proud!" + +Mr. Hannaford heaved an astonishingly loud sigh, pulled himself +together with a leg-and-cane crack that caused all the little 'orses to +start, and addressed himself to business. Little master, he declared, +had a proper eye for a proper little 'orse. The little black 'orse +that little master had stroked might have been specially born for his +lordship's purpose; picked up at Bampton fair last spring, a trifle too +stout and not quite the colouring for a circus little 'orse and trained +to be the first of Stage Two: little gentlefolks' little 'orses. + +Concluding this recommendation, Mr. Hannaford put his head outside the +stable and roared "Jim!" in a voice that might have been heard at +Little Letham; Stingo put his head out and throated "Jim!" in a husky +whisper that nobody heard but himself; and presently there appeared a +long, thin youth wearing a brimless straw hat that was in constant +movement owing to an alarming habit of twitching his scalp. + +"Fix him up and run him out," commanded Mr. Hannaford, jerking a thumb +at the little black 'orse; "and keep your scalp steady, me lad, else +you'll do yourself a ninjury." He glared very fiercely; and Jim, +touching an eyebrow which a violent twitch had rushed up to the point +that should have been covered by the brimless straw hat, took down a +bridle and approached the little black 'orse with the air of one who +anticipates some embarrassment. + +Mr. Hannaford's stables looked on to a small enclosed paddock, much cut +about with hoofs and marked in the centre by a deeply trodden ring, +around which, as he explained, the little 'orses were put through their +circus paces. + +Rollo shyly held his father's hand; Stingo revolved slowly on his own +axis the better to keep a surprised eye on Percival, who pranced and +bounded with excitement; and presently the little black 'orse, with +tossing head and delighted heels, was produced before them. + +"Now!" said Mr. Hannaford, patting the little black 'orse with one hand +and extending the other to Rollo. "Up you come, my little lordship. +Nothing to be afraid of. Only his fun that. Steady as a little lamb +when you're on his back--perfectly safe, me lord," he assured Lord +Burdon. + +But Rollo hung back, nestling his hand deeper into his father's and +flushing with nervous appeal into Lord Burdon's face. His riding in +the Park did not accommodate the natural timidity of his nature to the +adventures of a strange mount, and less so to the doubtful prospects +that the spirit of the little black 'orse appeared to offer. Lord +Burdon understood, and patted Rollo's hand. "Not feeling quite up to +it, old man? Well, we'll ask Mr. Hannaford to send the pony over to +the Manor, and try him there, eh?" + +"Blest if you ain't right, me young lordship," declared Mr. Hannaford +tactfully. "Never be hurried into trying a new little 'orse. That's +the way. Jim shall bring him round for you, me lord, first thing in +the morning. Walk him up the field, Jim, to let his lordship see how +he moves." + +Jim clicked his tongue, the little black 'orse bounded amain, and +Percival, who had been watching with burning eyes, could control +himself no longer. "Oh, let me!" Percival cried. "Just one tiny +little ride! Lord Burdon, _please_ let me! I _'treat_ you to let me!" + +"Why, you can't ride," Lord Burdon objected playfully. + +"I could ride him _anywhere_!" Percival implored. "He knows me. Just +look how he's looking at me. Oh, please--_please_!" and he ended with +a shout of delight, for Lord Burdon nodded to Mr. Hannaford and Mr. +Hannaford swung Percival from the ground into the saddle. + +"Shorten up that stirrup-iron, Jim," said Mr. Hannaford, stuffing +Percival's foot into the stirrup on his side. "Catch hold this way, +little master. Stick in with your knees. That's the way. Run him +out, Jim." + +The straw-hatted youth made a clutch at the bridle, the little black +'orse jerked up its little black head, and Percival jerked up the +bridle and cried: "Let go! let go!" and kicked a stirruped foot at the +straw-hatted youth and cried: "He _knows_ me, I tell you!" + +"Pocket Marvel," commented Stingo huskily, watching the struggle. +"Pocket Marvel, if ever I saw one." + +"Why, that's just the very words that I called him, bless my eighteen +stun proper if it isn't!" cried Mr. Hannaford in huge delight; and +simultaneously the straw-hatted youth, with a terrible cry and a +tremendous jerk of the scalp, received a pawing hoof on his foot and +relaxed his hold on the bridle. + +Away went the little black 'orse and away went the Pocket Marvel +bounding in the saddle like an india-rubber ball; shouting with +delight; losing a stirrup; clutching at the saddle; saving himself by a +miraculous twist as the little black 'orse circled at the top of the +field; bumping higher and higher as the little black 'orse came gamely +trotting back to them, and finally shooting headfirst into Mr. +Hannaford's arms, as Stingo caught the bridle and the little black +'orse came to a stop. + +Mr. Hannaford placed Percival on his legs and he stood by the little +black 'orse's side, breathless, flushed, the centre of general +congratulations and laughter, from the deep "Ho! Ho!" and terrible +leg-and-cane cracks of Mr. Hannaford to the silent signals of +appreciation indicated by the rapid oscillation of the brimless straw +hat on the astonishing scalp movements of Jim. + +"Well, I'm afraid I got off rather too quickly, you know," he announced. + +"Not a bit of it!" Mr. Hannaford declared stoutly, rubbing that portion +of his waistcoat into which Percival's head had cannoned. "You got off +same as you stuck on; like a regular little Pocket Marvel, bless my +eighteen stun proper if you didn't." + +The Pocket Marvel went crimson with new pride and excitement. He made +to turn eagerly to the little black 'orse again; and there occurred +then an incident of which he thought nothing at the time, nor for many +years, but which secreted itself in that strange storehouse of the +brain where trivialities permanently root themselves and whence they +stir, shake off the dust and emerge, when the impressions of far +greater events are obliterated. As he stretched a hand to the bridle, +he caught a glimpse of Rollo's face. Distress not far removed from +tears was there. The boy was concealing himself behind his father. +His sensitive nature caused him to feel that the laughing group, when +it turned attention to him, would to his detriment compare him with +this bold young junior; he shrank from that moment. + +Percival turned away from the little black 'orse and ran to him. "Now +it's your turn, Rollo. You see, he knew me from the beginning, and +that's why he liked me to ride him. Now you try. I promise you I +shall run by his side and then, you see, he'll know you're a friend of +mine." + +He took Rollo's hand and drew him forward. "Sure you'd like to, old +chap?" Lord Burdon asked, and Rollo said; "Oh, yes," and mounted by +himself, as he had been taught in London. + +"There you are!" cried Percival, beaming up at him and clapping his +hands with delight. "There you are! Now, then!" And he set off +running alongside as he had undertaken, as the little black 'orse broke +into a trot. Once in the saddle, Rollo abandoned his fears and rode +easily. The little black 'orse outpaced Percival's small legs, and +Percival came running back and took Lord Burdon's hand and watched with +eager eyes and squirmed with delight. + +"He doesn't bump like I did, you see," he said. "Look how he turns +him!" and he freed his hand and clapped and shouted: "Well done, Rollo!" + +"'Pon my soul, Percival, you're a devilish good little beggar," said +Lord Burdon; and a similar thought was in the minds of the brothers +Hannaford when, the pony purchased, they watched the wagonette drive +from the farm. "I shall save up and come with my Aunt Maggie and buy +one too," Percival declared, giving his hand to Mr. Hannaford over the +side of the trap. "In my money-box I've got three shillings already; +so I should like to know what you think of that?" + +"Pocket Marvel, that little master," commented Mr. Hannaford, as the +wagonette turned out of sight. + +Stingo made three husky attempts at speech and at length whispered: +"Thought he was the young lordship when I first saw 'em." + +Mr. Hannaford beamed with delight and extended his hand. "Why, that's +just what I thought!" he declared; "bless my eighteen stun proper if it +wasn't. Steady down, boy, steady down and join us." + +But Stingo's handshake was limp, and he shook his head slowly. + + +II + +Then there were the lessons with Miss Purdie. Very considerably less +satisfactory, these, than the tearing excitements that the pony +provided, yet having plenty of fun for Percival's eager young mind, and +increasing along a new path the intimacy between the two boys. Rollo +was the more advanced; but his grounding! "Your grounding," as Miss +Purdie would cry, "is shoc-_king_! Grounding is _everything_! _Look_ +at this sum! _What_ is seven times twelve, sir? ... then _why_ have +you put down a six? How _dare_ you laugh, Percival? You are _worse_! +Rollo, it's _no_ good! You must begin at the _beginning_. Grounding +is _everything_!" + +Terribly frightening, Miss Purdie, when swept by her little storms. +Rather like a little bird, Miss Purdie, with her sharp little glances +from behind her spectacles. "_Don't_ put your tongue out when you +write, Percival! What would you think of me, if I moved my tongue from +corner to corner every time I write, like that? _Don't_ laugh at me, +sir!" + +"Well, it comes out by itself," Percival expostulates, "and I don't +even know that it is out, you know; so I should like to know what you +think of that?" + +"I don't think any thing _about_ it," says Miss Purdie, with a stamp of +her little foot. "That _stu_-pid question of yours! _How_ often have +I told you not to use it?" + +Very like a little bird, Miss Purdie, with her sharp little glances, +with her nimble little hops to and fro, and with her perky little +cockings of the head on this side and the other as she encourages an +answer. + +"Now the grammar lesson and I hope you've both prepared it. Gender of +nouns. Masculine, Govern-_or_. Feminine?" + +"Govern-_ess_," venture the boys, a trifle apprehensively. + +"Good boys! Masculine, Sorcer-er. Feminine?" + +"Sorcer-_ess_," says the chorus, gathering courage. + +"Masculine, Cater-_er_. Feminine?" + +"Cater-_ess_," bawls the chorus, thoroughly enjoying itself. + +"_Not_ so loud! Masculine, Murder-_er_. Feminine?" + +"Murder-_ess_," howls the chorus, recklessly delighted. + +"Good boys! Now be careful! Prosecutor? Take time over it. +Masculine, Prosecut-_or_. Feminine?" + +"Prosecutr-_ess_!" thunders the chorus, plunging to destruction on the +swing of the thing; and "Oh, you _stu_-pids! you _stu_-pids!" cries +Miss Purdie. "You intol-er-able _stu_-pids!" and the unhappy chorus +hangs its head and cowers beneath the little storm it has let loose. + +Delightfully appreciative, though, Miss Purdie, when the "break" of ten +minutes comes and when the boys gorge plum-cake and milk and make her +positively quiver with recitals of the terrible gallops on the pony; +and delightfully concerned, too, when, as happens once or twice, Rollo +is discovered to have a headache and is made to lie on the sofa in a +rug and with a hot-water bottle, while the lessons are continued with +Percival in fierce whispers and hissed "_stu_-pids." Delightfully +inconsequent, moreover, Miss Purdie, who at the end of an especially +exasperating morning, when Hunt is heard with the pony outside the +gate, will suddenly cry: "Well, _go_ away then, you thorough little +_stu_-pids; _go_ away!" and will drive them to the door and then at +once will go into ecstatics over the pony and hurry Percival in for +sugar, and quake with terror while the pony nibbles it from her hand, +and stand and wave at her gate while they go flying down the road, one +in the saddle, the other gasping behind. + +Delightfully appreciative, Miss Purdie, and they learn to love her for +all their terrible fear of her. + +Percival, Miss Purdie finds, is the more affectionate--also the more +troublesome. Rollo takes his cue from Percival and acts accordingly. +"You are the ringleader!" cries Miss Purdie, stabbing a forefinger at +Percival on the fearful morrow of the day on which truant was +played--whose morning had seen Miss Purdie running between her house +and her gate like a distressed hen abandoned by her chickens; whose +afternoon had seen the alarm communicated to Burdon Old Manor and to +"Post Offic"; and whose evening had discovered the disconsolate return +to the village of two travel-stained and weary figures. "_You_ are the +ringleader in everything, and I don't know whether you ought to be more +ashamed or _you_"--and she turns from the ringleader to stab her finger +at the ring, as represented by Rollo--"or _you_, for allowing yourself +to be led away by one so much younger." + +"I've told you," protests Percival, "I've told you again and again we +got lost; so I should like to know what you think of that?" + +"_Don't_ use that _abom_-inable phrase, sir! If you hadn't gone +off--tempted Rollo to go off--you wouldn't have got lost, would you?" + +Percival beams at her in his disarming manner. "Well, you see, we saw +a fox and went after it and kept on seeing it and _then_ found we were +lost; so I should like--" + +"_Don't_ argue. I tell you, you are the _ring_-leader!" + +She pauses and glares. "I should like to tell you," says the +ringleader, still beaming, "about a very funny thing we saw. We saw--" + +"_Stand_ in the corner!" cries Miss Purdie. "_Stand_ in the corner! +You are incorrigible!" and she turns to Rollo with "Geography, sir!" in +a voice that causes him to tremble. + + +III + +Certainly Percival is the leader. He has the instinct of leadership. +It is to be noted in the carriage and in the demeanour of his vigorous +young person. A sturdy way of standing he has: squarely, with his +round chin up, his head thrown back, his knees always braced, his arms +never hanging limply but always slightly flexed at the elbows as though +alert for action, his eyes widely opened, his gaze upwards and about +him with the challenging air of one who expects entertainments to arise +and would be quick to greet them. He is rarely still; he is rarely +silent. A brisk way of movement he has; a high young voice; a +compelling laugh with a clear note of "Ha! Ha! Ha!" as though the +matter that tickles him tickles him with the boniest knuckles wherever +he is ticklish. He has the instinct of leadership. When he is with +Rollo and an affair arises, he does not suggest a plan of action; he +immediately acts. On their rambles, when an obstacle or an emergency +is discovered, it instantly arouses in him a reflex action by which +vigorously, and without estimate of its difficulties, it is attacked. +"You are so thoughtless, Percival, so thoughtless!" Aunt Maggie cries +when he explains a mired and dripping state with "I jumped the ditch +and found I couldn't jump." + +"Well, but I wanted to get across, you see," Percival explains. + +"If you had looked first you would have seen you couldn't get across." + +"Well, but I _did_ get across!" + +"You didn't; you fell in, you stupid little boy." + +"But I got _across_," beams Percival; and Aunt Maggie undoes her +scolding by kissing him. She has marked this impetuous and determined +spirit in him; and she knows it for the "I hold" spirit that is his by +right of birth; one day he will present it to Lady Burdon. + +He had the instinct of leadership. At first, in the excursions with +Rollo, he unconsciously expected in Rollo a spirit equal to and similar +with his own. At first, when he ran suddenly, or suddenly took a great +jump, or set off at a quick trot towards some distant excitement, he +expected to find Rollo at his side and was surprised to turn and find +him hanging back, timid or tired. Very shortly he accepted the +difference between them and emphasized that he was leader. It became +natural to him that, with the action of starting to run or of storming +a stout hedge, he should give to Rollo a hand that would aid him along +or pull him through. It became natural, when a difficult place was +reached, to release the hand with a little confident movement that +implied "Stay;" to rush the obstacle; somehow to scramble to the +further side, and then turn and cry directions and encouragement, +ending always with "I'll catch you, you know; you'll be all right." + +And as the weeks went on, the complement of this hardy spirit became +natural to Rollo. Percival put out the hand of aid; the hand that +desired aid was always ready. Rollo's hand acquired the habit of +relying on Percival for physical support; his mind came to depend on +Percival for moral benefit. However they were employed, he took his +note from his leader. If Percival chose to be idle at their lessons, +Rollo also would be inattentive and mischievous. On the days when +Percival was immense in his promises to work hard, Rollo would +sedulously apply himself. Percival led; he followed. Percival called +the tune; Rollo danced to it. Percival stretched the hand; Rollo took +it. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE WORLD AS SHOWMAN: ALL THE JOLLY FUN + +I + +The stay at Burdon Old Manor came to an end; it had been so productive +of health and happiness in Rollo, he became, as years went on, so much +more and more devoted to Percival, that it was made the beginning of +regular visits. The Manor continued to doze for the most part under +the care of Mrs. Housekeeper Ferris, with Mr. Librarian Amber's library +the only room that had no dust sheets about the furniture; but there +were periodic openings: always a visit at Easter before the London +season began, always a visit in August reaching into October when the +London season was ended. + +The visits marked the fullest times of Percival's life, as they marked +the happiest of Rollo's; but life was steadily and joyously filled for +Percival in these days, and he with a zest for it that carried him +ardently along the hours. + +The years were passing; he grew apace. It was a period, the villagers +told one another, of rare proper weather: the winters hard with all the +little hamlets tethered along Plowman's Ridge sometimes cut off for +days together by heavy falls of snow; the springs most gentle and most +radiant, escaping with a laugh from Winter's bondage and laughing down +the lanes and up the hedgerows and through the fields, where every +mother, from earth that mothered all, was fruitful of her kind; the +summers glorious, with splendid days joining hands with splendid days +to form a stately chain of sunshine through the warmer months. + +Rare proper weather with the energy of its period in every hour, and +Percival that energy's embodiment. He grew properly, the villagers +said, and knew without a second glance what figure it was that went +scudding along the Down in the young mornings, and knew without a +second thought whose voice came singing to them as they stooped in +their fields or trudged behind their herds. He grew lustily; lissom of +limb, as might be seen; eager and finely turned of face, having an air +and a wide eye that caused chance tourists to turn and look again; very +big of spirit, as those knew who had the handling of him. + +"He's getting that independent there's no doing a thing with him," +stormed Honor one day, coming with Percival (both very red in the face) +to lay a passage of arms for arbitrament before Aunt Maggie. + +"Oh, Percival! And Honor is so kind to you!" + +"I know, I know; but she tries to _rule_ me, Aunt Maggie!" + +"And ruling you want," Honor cried, "as your Aunt Maggie well knows. +Spare the pickle and spoil the rod!" + +"You've got it wrong!" said Percival with scornful triumph, and after +he had stalked away, his head thrown up in an action that Aunt Maggie +well remembered in Roly, she sought to placate Honor with thoughts that +were frequently coming to her in those days. "He is getting big, +Honor. I think we forget how he is growing. We mustn't keep him in +too tightly." + +Then there was Miss Purdie. "To my face!" cried Miss Purdie, +fluttering into "Post Offic" one afternoon, "to my face he called the +sum a _beastly_ sum--the sum, mind you, I had set him myself! A +_beastly_ sum!" and then completely spoilt the horror of it by sighing +and winding up, "but he is such a _sweet_. So lovable! So merry!" + +"He's growing, you see," joined Aunt Maggie. + +"Of _course_, he is," agreed Miss Purdie. "It's just his spirit. He's +so _manly_!" and she gave herself a little shake and said: "Oh, I like +a _manly_ boy!" + +Still, the truculence of character that had brought her warring down to +"Post Offic" remained to be settled. Moreover, the boy's mind was +developing outside the range of Miss Purdie's primers and exercise +books. "He wants _Latin_," said Miss Purdie. "He wants _algebra_. He +wants _Euclid_!" and the ladies decided that his tuition had better be +handed over to Miss Purdie's brother, who could supply these +correctives. They shook hands on it and agreed that Mr. Purdie should +take over the duties on the morrow. On the doorstep Miss Purdie +repeated the necessity with terrible emphasis: "He wants _Latin_! He +wants _algebra_! But I shall miss our lessons together! Oh, dear, how +I shall miss them!" + +She hurried home with little sniffs which she strove to check by +repeating very fiercely: "He wants _Latin_!" + + +II + +Percival took up with immense zest the new freedom from petticoat +control and the new regimen of lessons. He liked the new subjects; and +it was notable in him that he carried into the exercise of his tasks +the same quickness and determination with which he entered upon--and +completed--all pleasanter affairs that came to his hand. Mr. Purdie, +for his part, was enchanted. Mr. Purdie was plump and soft, with +lethargic ways and pronounced timidity of character. In his youth Mr. +Purdie had been called to the Bar. A very small legacy came to him +thereafter, and his lymphatic nature led him at once to abandon town +life, to go to sloth at his ease with his sister at Burdon village. He +was vastly attracted by Percival. Very shortly after their +introduction as master and pupil, he came to Aunt Maggie with the +suggestion that Percival might spend with him some leisure as well as +the school-hours. "A boy can be taught in his play as well as his +work," he announced in his pompous manner. "At Percival's age, and as +he grows, there are things in which only a man can guide him." He gave +one of his shrill, absurd chuckles: "And I think Master Percival likes +me. Eh, Percival?" + +Percival eyed him doubtfully. He could not see stout and soft Mr. +Purdie contributing much entertainment to his rambles. "Well, if you +bring your tricycle, we might have some fun," he admitted. + +Ah, these were the happy days. Happy, happy time! There was fun in +alarming Mr. Purdie during their walks by taking him across fields that +had fierce cows; by climbing trees with the plump tutor imploring +beneath; by pretending to go out of depth when bathing in Fir-Tree +Pool, with the plump tutor beseeching from the bank like an agitated +hen that has hatched ducklings. There was particular fun in the +tricycle. + +The tricycle was an immense affair of remote construction, having the +steering-wheel attached by a bar behind and manipulated by handles on +either side of the seat that required almost as much winding as a +clock--"twiddling" Percival called it--when the machine was to be +deflected from a straight passage. Percival's legs were too short for +the treadles, Mr. Purdie's too soft for propulsion up even the gentlest +incline. Tricycle excursions took, therefore, the form of laborious +pushing, with inordinate perspiration on the part of Mr. Purdie, until +the brow of a hill was gained, when Percival would balance upon the +steering wheel bar, Mr. Purdie in considerable trepidation on the seat, +and away they would go with delighted shoutings from Percival--legs +dangling, hands clutching the plump tutor's coat--and anguished +entreaties of "Steady! steady! Don't touch my arms! Don't touch my +arms!" from Mr. Purdie, back-pedalling tremendously, clutching at the +brake, winding at the handles. Then the laborious ascent of the next +slope, Mr. Purdie dripping at every pore, Percival crimson in the face +and carrying on a long argument: "If you'd only _work_ when we get near +the bottom and not use that rotten brake, we'd get halfway up and not +have this awful _pushing_!" + +"Well, kindly do not push _me_," says Mr. Purdie, very hot. + +Happy, happy time! Disaster came on the day on which there entered Mr. +Purdie's eye the fly that he always dreaded. Mr. Purdie in the seat +was back-pedalling with immense caution down Five Furlong Hill; +Percival on the steering bar behind was peering ahead round the plump +tutor's ample girth and at intervals urging: "Now let her go!" + +It was the fly that let her go. Whack! came the fly into Mr. Purdie's +eye. "Whoa!" cried Mr. Purdie. "Bother! dear me! Whoa!" Up went Mr. +Purdie's knees in the twitch of pain; up came his hand to his tortured +eye; round went the released pedals; forward shot the tricycle. + +"Hurrah!" cried Percival. "Well done! Ripping of you!" + +Mr. Purdie, between agony of his eye and terror for his safety, gave a +shrill cry of dismay; took a grab at the brake and a grab back at his +eye; received two terrible blows on the backs of his legs that fumbled +wildly for the whizzing treadles, and barked out: "Brake! Brake! Fly +in my eye!" + +"Which eye?" Percival shouted, enjoying the speed enormously. + +The alarmed tutor bundled his words in a heap the better to get them +out and arrest the catastrophe that threatened. + +"Catchabrakeandontbesilly! Catchabrakeabekilled!" + +They whizzed! + +Percival bawled: "We don't want the brake! I can't reach the brake! I +like it! We're simply whizzing! Mind your legs!" His cap was gone. +His hair fluttered in the rushing wind. His face was crimson with +excited glee. His clear laughter on its strong note of "Ha! Ha! Ha!" +rose high above the rattling of all the machine's vitals and the cries +of the agonised bearer of the fly. He clung tightly to the podgy waist +and shouted: "Ha! Ha! Ha! We're whizzing! We're whizzing!" + +Mr. Purdie took another six hammers on his legs and struck a note of +new alarm. + +"I'm blind, you know! I can't see! I can't steer!" + +"A straight road!" Percival bawled. "Look out, though! A corner +coming!" + +"How can I look out? Draggle your legs on the ground!" + +"Twiddle to the left!" Percival bellowed. "Ha! Ha! Ha! Twiddle, Mr. +Purdie, twiddle!" + +Mr. Purdie twiddled frantically; the tricycle outraced his efforts. +"Look out for yourself!" from Percival, and with a loud and exceeding +bitter cry from Mr. Purdie, the machine plunged at the hedge, planted +Mr. Purdie very firmly into the midst, shot Percival firmly on top of +him, took a violent somersault across the ditch that skirted the hedge, +and poised itself above them. + +Mr. Purdie's last despairing cry cut sharply across Percival's peals of +laughter--then the crash. The fluttering beat of wings as a cloud of +chaffinches, terrified by this amazing avalanche, burst from the floor +of the wood beyond the hedge, then peal on peal of laughter again from +Percival. + +In muffled tones from the depth of the hedge: "It is a miracle we are +not killed. Where are you, Percival?" + +Percival checked his mirth sufficiently to reply: "Well, I don't know +_where_ I am! My head is down here, but where my legs are I don't +know." + +"One of them is under me and hurting me terribly. Move, please." + +Between the peals of laughter: "I can't move, Mr. Purdie. I'm +practically standing on my head, you know." + +"I don't know anything about it. My face is almost in something highly +unpleasant--a dead bird, I think. Please stop that laughter and try to +do something. The odour here is most noisome." + +"Well, but I can't stop laughing. Did you see us shoot?" + +"Please try to control yourself. I did not see us shoot." + +A mighty effort causes Percival's head and shoulders to come up with a +jerk; Mr. Purdie feels the weight of pupil and tricycle removed from +his back, and there follows another crash and further yells of laughter. + +In muffled agony from the hedge: "Now what has happened?" + +"Well, I'm bothered if I haven't fallen again! I've fallen out, +though." + +Out of the depths: "Percival! Percival! Don't be such a silly little +boy! Pull me out!" + +"Well, I'm all mixed up in this awful trike, you know. Now, I'm up!" + +"Pray pull me, then. I am retching with this noisome smell." + +"Well, there's nothing to pull!" cries Percival, plunging round the +tremendous stern that sticks out of the hedge. "Your trousers are +simply _tight_!" + +Out of the depths: "Tch! Tch! Push me sideways, then." + +The mammoth stern is pushed sideways and hauled backways, and presently +begins to rise, and presently the stout tutor is ponderously disgorged +from the hedge, and staggers forth with grunts and moans, and collapses +on the roadside, feet in ditch, very bedraggled and unfortunate looking. + +"Don't think I'm laughing at you," Percival says. "I'm really very +sorry for you. But you're not hurt, you know. Let me rub you down +with leaves." + +"I am terribly shaken. Do not touch me for a few minutes, please." + +"Is the fly still in your eye?" + +"I don't know where the fly is." + +"Your trousers are awfully torn." + +"Be silent, please. I am dazed." + +He remains dazed when at last they begin to trudge home, the wrecked +tricycle left for a cart. But at the top of the hill that plunged them +to disaster, the infectious spurts of laughter at his side challenge +his self-esteem and he sets out to sound his reputation in Percival's +regard. + +"I think I steered rather well, considering I couldn't see." + +Percival is always generous: "Splendidly! Oh, dear, I'm aching with +laughing!" + +"I was only afraid for you, Percival." + +"We whizzed, you know! We simply whizzed!" + +Mr. Purdie glances back down the hill and shudders to have whizzed it. +"Were you laughing all the way down?" + +"Anybody would laugh at a whizz like that." + +The plump tutor has a close acquaintance with one person who would not. +The remark pricks him and he finds a comforting answer. "Only very +silly people laugh at danger." + +"Well, I didn't know it was danger," said Percival; and Mr. Purdie +first looks at him thoughtfully and then gives one of his shrill, +absurd chuckles. + + +III + +Happy, happy time! There were the visits to Mr. Hannaford, always made +on a whole holiday because an early start was necessary, where the +little 'orse farm was progressing famously and where Percival was made +quite extraordinarily welcome. Terrible leg-and-cane cracks would +announce in which quarter of the farm Mr. Hannaford was to be found, +and Percival would discover Mr. Hannaford watching a little circus +'orse at exercise, or watching the builders at work in the brick +stables that were slowly displacing the line of sheds, and watching all +the time to the accompaniment of bellowing instructions punctuated by +leg-and-cane cracks of astounding volume. + +Percival would plant himself squarely by Mr. Hannaford's side in Mr. +Hannaford's position--legs apart, head thrown back--and would eagerly +follow the proceedings until Mr. Hannaford suddenly would observe him +and would cry in a voice the whole farm might hear: "Why, it's the +little Pocket Marvel! Bless my eighteen stun proper if it ain't! +However long a you been there, little master?" + +Percival, beaming all over his face and putting his small hand into the +tremendous shake of Mr. Hannaford's shoulder of mutton fist: "Only +about ten minutes, thank you, Mr. Hannaford. Don't you mind me, you +know. I like watching." + +"Ah, and I've got something for you to watch," Mr. Hannaford would say. +"Now you come over here with me. Got that little lordship with you?" + +"Not come back yet," Percival would reply, capering along, tremendously +happy. "How are you going along, Mr. Hannaford? Properly?" + +"Properly to rights! Look at that now!" And with a terrible +leg-and-cane crack Mr. Hannaford would pause before the new stables and +call Percival's attention to some new feature that had arisen since his +last visit. "Names on the doors, d'you see? 'Crocker's' on that door, +'Maddox's' on this door. Do a deal in little 'orses with Crocker's +circus; take your gross profit; set aside share of expenses; set aside +wear and tear; set aside emergency fund; take your net profit; build +your stable; call it Crocker's. Same with Maddox: deal, gross, share, +wear, emergency, net, stable--call it Maddox! What d'you think of that +for a notion?" + +"Why, I call it jolly fine, Mr. Hannaford," Percival replies. "I call +that a proper notion. Reminds you how you did it, doesn't it?" + +"Why, that's just exactly what it does do!" cries Mr. Hannaford, +enormously delighted. "Just the very notion of it, bless my eighteen +stun proper if it ain't! Now you come along over here." And Mr. +Hannaford would leg-and-cane crack, and Percival would trot and +chatter, over to another marvel, where a similar performance would be +gone through, owner and spectator tremendously happy, and both +profoundly serious. + +Mr. Hannaford would usually propose lunch after this. Mr. Hannaford +permitted no women in his establishment; but the long, low-roofed +dining-room in the old farmhouse was kept at a shining cleanliness, and +the meal was invitingly cooked, by a one-armed man of astoundingly +fierce appearance and astonishingly mild disposition, who answered to +the names of Ob and Diah accordingly as Mr. Hannaford preferred the +former or latter half of the Obadiah to which the one-armed man was +entitled, and who had left the greater part of his missing arm in the +lion's cage he had attended when travelling with Maddox's Monster +Menagerie and Royal Circus. + +Three places were always set at the table when Percival visited. One +for Mr. Hannaford at one end, one at the other end for brother +Stingo--"in case," as Mr. Hannaford would say--and one on Mr. +Hannaford's right for Percival. There was a tremendous silver tankard +of ale for Mr. Hannaford, a similar tankard for Percival--requiring +both hands and containing milk--and always, when Mr. Hannaford raised +the dish-cover, there developed from the cloud of steam a plump chicken +which Mr. Hannaford called chick_un_ and Percival chick_ing_ and which +they both fell upon with quite remarkable appetites. + +"Well, it's a most astonishing thing to me," Percival would say when +the cover went up, and the chicken settled out of the steam. "Most +amazing! You know I like chicking better than anything, and every time +I come you just happen to have chicking for dinner! Most amazing to +me, you know!" + +And Mr. Hannaford would lay down the carving knife and fork and stare +at the chicken and say: "Well, it is a chickun again, so it is, bless +my eighteen stun proper if it ain't!" and would give a tremendous wink +at Ob in order to enjoy with him the joke arising from the fact that +directly Percival was sighted on the farm a messenger was sent to Ob to +prepare the meal that Percival liked best. + +Then they would eat away, and pull away at the colossal tankards, and +Percival would always make a point of saying: "Stingo not home?" + +A long pull at the tankard and a heavy sigh from Mr. Hannaford: "Not +just yet, little master. Still restless, I'm afraid. Still restless." + +And Percival, in the old phrase and with the air of a grandfather: +"Well, he'll settle down, you know. He'll settle down." + +"Why, that's just what I say!" Mr. Hannaford would exclaim, immensely +comforted. "Settle down--of course he will! Just what I'm always +telling him, bless my eighteen stun proper if it ain't!" + +Always the same jolly lunch, always the same mingled seriousness and +jolly fun, always the same jokes. Percival did not know that much of +it was carefully planned by Mr. Hannaford that he might enjoy the +fullest relish of the Pocket Marvel's visit. There was the great +chicken joke, there was also the killing joke for the production of +which by Percival Mr. Hannaford would dawdle lunch to an inordinate +length. + +At length it would come: "Nothing I can have a ride on, I suppose, Mr. +Hannaford?" Percival would say with careful carelessness. + +"Never a norse fit for it," Mr. Hannaford would reply, equally off-hand. + +A heavy sigh from Percival: "Oh, dear! Sure, I suppose?" + +"Certain! Got a little brown 'orse--but there, you'd never ride him." + +"I bet I would! I bet I would!" + +Mr. Hannaford, looking terribly fierce and in a very violent voice: +"Bet you wouldn't!" + +"Try me, then! Only try me!" + +And Mr. Hannaford would bounce up and seize his cane, and they would +rush off, and the saddle would be put on the little brown 'orse, and +Percival would mount him and gallop him and cry "You see! You see!" +And Mr. Hannaford would pretend huge amazement and declare that +Percival was a proper little Pocket Marvel, bless his eighteen stun +proper if he wasn't. + +Once or twice Stingo would be there, and then the jolly fun would be +jollier than ever; and in the evening Mr. Hannaford's gig with the big +black mare would come around and the brothers would labour up into the +seat and Percival would squeeze in between them and they would let him +drive and he would pop the mare along at a lashing speed and there +would be the highest good-fellowship. He would be set down at the top +of Five Furlong Hill--nothing would induce Mr. Hannaford to come into +the village where women might be met. "Well, good night, Mr. +Hannaford; good night, Mr. Stingo. Thank you most awfully for all your +kindness to me. I hope I'll come again soon." + +The brothers would usually wait until he reached the turning to the +village; setting up, the one a husky shout, and the other a terrible +bellow, in reply to the faint "Good night!" that came to them through +the dusk. + +"I never in all my life took to nothing, not even a little 'orse, like +I have to that little master," Mr. Hannaford would say. "Never seen +such a proper one, never." + +And Stingo, with painful huskiness: "Ought to ha' been a little +lordship!" + +"Why, that's just exactly what I say," Mr. Hannaford would reply, +enormously pleased. "Bless my eighteen stun proper if it isn't!" + + +IV + +Happy, happy time! There were the visits to mild old Mr. Amber in the +library at Burdon Old Manor. Strongest contrast, the delights here, to +those enjoyed among the little 'orses. Strongest contrast, mild old +Mr. Amber with his stooping shoulders and his gentle ways, to +tremendous Mr. Hannaford with his lusty back and his vigorous habits. + +But the same eager welcome: "Well, well, Master Percival, this is +indeed a pleasant surprise! And we are just sitting down to our +tea--and I declare Mrs. Ferris has sent us some strawberry jam! Now if +that isn't too fortunate I don't know what is!" + +"Well, it's awfully jolly," Percival agrees. "Mrs. Ferris makes very +nice strawberry jam, doesn't she?" + +In the act of pouring tea, mild old Mr. Amber sets down the pot and +emphasises with his glasses. "My dear sir--my dear Percival, she makes +the very best strawberry jam! Mrs. Ferris has made that strawberry jam +for forty years--to our certain knowledge, for-ty years." + +Percival's rounded eyes show his appreciation of this consistent +industry. "Must have made a lot," is his comment. + +"Tons," says Mr. Amber. "My dear sir--my dear Percival, I should +say--tons." He stabs the glasses at his listener. "And every berry, +sir, every single berry, wet season or dry, from our own gardens!" + +It always comes back to that with Mr. Amber. The old Manor, the House +of Burdon, is his world and his life, and he is mightily jealous you +shall know their quality. + +There is generally a little interlude of this kind in the course of the +visit. Its effect stays for a few minutes, Mr. Amber slowly repeating +to himself "every berry--every single berry, sir," in the tone of one +impressively warning against any challenge of his statement; and then +he simmers down and recollects that his visitor is the Percival who +occupies a large portion of his heart. He likes to take Percival's +hand. He likes to feel that warm young grasp within his own chilly old +palm. He likes to lead the boy and feel those sturdy young fingers +twitch to the excitement of what tales he can tell or what treasures he +can show. + +"Now what have we got to show you in our shelves this evening? Nothing +much, we fear. Oh, yes, we have, though! Those folios--we've +rearranged them so as to fill the ninth and tenth in this tier. That +was your suggestion, wasn't it? I agree, you know, I quite agree. +It's an improvement." + +"Keeps them stiffer," says Percival, head on one side, rather proud. + +"Just exactly what it does! Keeps them stiffer. Lessens the strain. +We ought to have thought of that, Percival. We reproach ourselves +there, you know." + +There is a tinge of the self-reproach in his voice, and Percival +hastens with: "Of course you would have done it yourself, as you said, +but you get into your ways, don't you?" + +"Well, we do," agrees Mr. Amber, very comforted. "That's just what it +is--we get into our ways." + +At other times when Percival comes to the library, there is no answer +to his knock on the door. He turns the handle very gently; pokes in +his head very quietly; peers all about the apartment; cannot see Mr. +Amber; enters very cautiously; and presently espies him perched high +aloft on one of the wheeled book-ladders, sitting cross-legged, +catalogue on knee, pencil in hand, brow puckered in mental labour. + +Then Percival closes the door behind him, so that there shall be +scarcely the faintest click, and gives a tiny cough and says: "Very +busy, Mr. Amber?" + +"'M-'m," says Mr. Amber, wagging his head, waving the pencil and +frowning horribly. "'M-'m!" + +Percival tiptoes with enormous caution to the other ladder; wheels it +to a shelf where he has found entertainment; selects his book; perches +himself; and for an hour or more the two, each on his ladder, the child +and the man, the lissom young form and the withered old figure, sit +high among the books, entranced among the worlds that books discover. + +"'M-'m!" says Mr. Amber at intervals, frantically waving. + +"Only coughed," explains Percival. "Only that choking, you know. It--" + +"'M-'m! 'M-'m!" and they bury themselves again. + +That is the usual course. Once or twice there have been conversations +across the room from the tops of the ladders. Percival has looked up +from his book to find Mr. Amber turned towards him and regarding him +with eyes that do not appear to see his smile of greeting. "Mr. Amber, +is there anything funny about me that you look at me so?" + +Mr. Amber will start as though he had been dreaming. "Funny? Eh? +Why, no, Percival; nothing funny at all." + +"If it is my boots, they are quite clean. I gave them twelve wipes +each, like you told me." + +"It's not your boots." + +Silence between them. + +"Funny us two sitting up here like this, like two mountains in the sea. +Rather jolly, isn't it?" + +"It recalls to me," says Mr. Amber, "another little boy who used to sit +up there just as you sit.... In this dim light ... there are ways you +have, Percival..." + +Silence again. Twilight gathering in the corners of the vast room. A +moth softly thudding the window-pane. There is something in the +atmosphere that seems to hold Percival. At "Post Offic" he likes the +lamps to be lit when dusk draws down; here there is a feeling of +gentleness about him, with curious half-thoughts and with half-familiar +gropings and stretchings of the shadows. "Thinking without thinking, +as if I was in some one else who was thinking," he has described it to +Aunt Maggie. + +"Your voice, too," says Mr. Amber suddenly. + +Percival knows what is in Mr. Amber's mind. "Thinking of your young +lordship, aren't you, Mr. Amber?" + +"He used to sit there," Mr. Amber replies. "In this dim light ... +seeing you there..." + +Silence again. Twilight wreathing from the corners across the ceiling; +shadows grouping and moving in new fantasies; soft thuddings of the +moth as though a shadow beat to enter. + +Percival stretches a hand, and against the window's light perceives a +shadow he has watched drift caressingly about his fingers. + +Mr. Amber, little above a whisper, peering through the gloom: "Why do +you stretch your hand so, my lord?" + +"I'm touching a shadow that's come right up to me;" and then Percival +realises the last words, and laughs and says: "You called me 'my +lord!'--you did really, Mr. Amber!" + +"God bless me!" says Mr. Amber, shaking himself--"God bless me, we are +getting the shadows in our brains. Come down and watch me light the +lamps." + + +V + +Happy, happy time! Best of all when the family is at the Old Manor and +when the friendship with Rollo can be taken up where it was left, to be +deepened and to be discovered more than ever fruitful of delights. The +boys are older now. Childish games are done with; very serious talks +(so they believe) take the place of the chatter and the "pretending" of +earlier days: they discuss affairs, mostly arising from adventures in +the books they read; there has been a general election, and they agree +that the Liberals are awful rotters; there has been one of the little +wars, and they kindle together to the glory of British arms and wish +they might be Young Buglers and be thanked by the general before the +whole regiment like the heroes of Mr. Henty's books. + +Percival calls the tune, starts the discussions, constructs the +adventures. Rollo follows the lead, leaning on the quicker mind just +as he relies on the stronger arm and the speedier foot when they are on +their rambles together. It is Rollo who throws the acorn that hits the +stout farm boy driving a milk cart beneath them, as they perch in a +tree. It is Percival who scrambles down responsive to the insults of +the enraged boy, and takes a most fearful battering that the stout +boy's stout arms are able to inflict. + +"I ought to have fought him," Rollo says half-tearfully, with shamed +and shuddering glances at the bloody handkerchief held to the suffering +nose, the lumped forehead and the blackened eye. "He said the one that +hit him. It was my shot." + +Percival, in terrible fury, muffled from behind the handkerchief: "How +could you fight him? Dash those great clodhopping arms of his! A mile +long! I'll have another go at him, I swear I will." + +It is Rollo who cries: "Percival, it will kill us!" when the ram they +have annoyed comes with a fourth shattering crash against the boards of +the pigsty to which they have fled for safety. It is Percival who +cries: "Run, when he sees us!" whips over the palisade, springs across +the field, and takes the tail-end of an appalling batter as he hurls +himself through the far gate. + +"How ever could you dare?" Rollo asks, joining him in the road. "Has +he hurt you frightfully?" + +"How could you have escaped?" says Percival, limping. "He'd have got +you in that sty. I knew I could beat him. Dash the brute, it stings! +There's the kind of stick I want! I'll teach him manners!" + +It is Rollo who gives an appealing look at Percival when Lord Burdon +starts them in a race for sixpence. It is Percival who whispers as +they run: "We'll make it a dead heat." + +"It was awfully decent of you, Percival," Rollo exclaims, as they go to +spend the prize at Mrs. Minnifie's sweet shop. + +"Oh, it's rotten beating one another when people are looking on," +Percival replies. "I vote for lemonade as well, don't you?" + +It is the spirit between them that had its first evidence on the day +when the visit was made to Mr. Hannaford to purchase the little black +'orse. Then Rollo hung back while Percival jumped to ride; then +Percival brought him forward, encouraging him, to taste the fun. So +now, as the years sunder their natures more sharply, and as affection +more strongly bridges the gulf, the more sharply does the one lead, the +other follow; the more naturally does the one support, the other rely. + +Everybody notices it: Aunt Maggie, who only smiles; Lady Burdon, who +says: "Rollo, Percival's a regular little father to you, it seems to +me. Don't let him rule you, you know. Remember what you are, Rollo +mine." Even Egbert Hunt notices it. Mr. Hunt is still attached to +Rollo's person. Sick yedaches trouble him less frequently; but his +hatred of tyrangs has deepened with the increasing tenure of his +servitude. He spends less of his wages on vegules; much of it on +socialistic literature of an inflammatory nature; but he never forgets +the sympathy of Percival in the vegule days, and he is strongly joined +with all those who, meeting the boy, have a note stirred by his sunny +nature. + +"Always does me good to see you," Mr. Hunt says one day. "Something +about you. He'll never be a slave who works for you." + +"Well, who's going to work for me?" Percival inquires. + +"The point!" says Mr. Hunt with impressive gloom. "The very point." +He fumbles in his pocket and produces thumbed papers, just as he +fumbled and produced vegules at an earlier day. "It's in the +lowlier"--he consults a paper--"in the lowlier strata that you find the +men a man can follow, but the men that can't lead owing to the heel of +the tyrang. It's the Bloodsuckers we got to serve." He indicates the +paper: "Bloodsuckers, they call 'em here." + +"Silly rot," says Percival. + +"Ah, you're young," Mr. Hunt returns. "You're young. You'll learn +different when they begin to sap your blood for you. You're a higher +strata than me, Master Percival. Benificent influence of education, +you've had. But you're under the Bloodsuckers. Squeeze you out like +an orindge, they will, and throw yer away. Me one day, you another." +He indicated the paper again. "There's a strong bit here called +'Squeezed Orindges.' Makes yer boil." + +"I'm boiling already," says Percival. "It's a jolly hot day. If you +don't like being what you are, I wonder you don't be something else." + +"No good," Mr. Hunt tells him. "Out of one tyrang's heel and under +another. We've got to suffer and endure, us orindges, until the day +when they are swept away like chaff before the wind." + +Percival is rather interested: "Well, who's going to sweep them? and +sweep whom?" + +"Ah!" says Mr. Hunt darkly. "Who? Makes yer boil." + +"Well, I shouldn't worry, Hunt," says Percival, in the old "Have you +got one of your poor sick yedaches?" tone. "I shouldn't, really. I +feel angry sometimes, but you've only got to have a game of something, +you know. There's Rollo! Come on down and help us to build that raft +on Fir-Tree Pool. We'll have a jolly time. Rollo! Hunt's going to +help us, so we can get that big plank down now! Come on, Hunt!" + +He bounds away towards Rollo, and Mr. Hunt, watching before he starts +to follow, says: "Ah, pity there's not more like you! You ought to ha' +been one of them." He scowls horribly in the direction of Lady Burdon, +who is waving to the boys from the door. "One o' them, you ought to +ha' been. Makes yer boil!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +JAPHRA AND IMA AND SNOW-WHITE-AND-ROSE-RED + +I + +And there were three new friends who contributed to this happy, happy +time and who came vitally to contribute to later years. There were +Japhra and Ima, who lived in a yellow caravan that was sometimes +attached to that Maddox's Monster Menagerie and Royal Circus with which +Mr. Hannaford traded in little 'orses; and there was Dora, whose mother +was that Mrs. Espart of Abbey Royal at Upabbot over the Ridge who--as +Miss Oxford had told Lady Burdon--did not send her little girl to +lessons with Miss Purdie because of the post-office little boy. + +Percival first met Japhra and Ima on a day not long after the end of +Rollo's first visit, when--his playmate gone--he was temporarily a +little lonely. He came upon them by Fir-Tree Pool, stepped through the +belt of trees that surround the pool and halted in much delight at the +entrancing sight his eyes gave him. + +Here was a yellow caravan with little curtained windows, a thing most +pregnant of mysteries to eight-years-old. A big white horse, +unharnessed from the van, was cropping the turf. There was an iron pot +hanging above a jolly fire of sticks. On the steps of the van a girl +of about Percival's own age sat knitting. She was olive of face, with +long, black hair; her legs were bare and they looked very long, +Percival thought. By the fire, astride of a felled tree trunk, was a +little man with a very brown face that was marked like a sailor's with +many puckered little lines. He had a tight-lipped mouth with a short +pipe that seemed a natural part of it, and he wore a long jacket and +had a high hat of some rough, brown fur. He was reading a book; and as +Percival stood watching, he put a finger to mark his place and looked +up slowly as though he had known Percival was there but wished to read +to a certain point before interrupting himself. + +He looked up and Percival noticed that his eyes, set in that brown, +puckered face, were uncommonly bright. "Welcome, little master," said +he. "All the luck!" + +"Hullo!" said Percival. "Excuse me staring. This is funny to me, you +know." + +"Quiet, though," said the little man, his eyes twinkling; "and that's +the best thing in life." + +Percival came up to him, vastly attracted. "Do you live in that van?" + +"That's where I live, little master--Ima and I." + +Percival stared at the girl on the steps, who stared back at him and +then smiled. "Ima? That's a funny name," he said. + +"Maybe she's a funny girl," said the little man, twinkling more than +ever. + +Percival took it quite seriously. "Well, her legs are long," he said +appraisingly. + +"They can run, though, little master," said the girl. She had a +curiously soft voice, Percival noticed. But he was rather puzzled with +it all and remained serious. "Is your name funny, too?" he asked the +little man. + +The little man's tight lips were stretched in what Percival came to +know for his most advanced sign of amusement. He opened his lips very +slightly when he spoke, and the short pipe that seemed to grow there +did not appear at all to incommode his speech. "Why, try it for +thyself," said the little man,--"Japhra." + +"Well, I've not heard it before, you know," said Percival politely. +"You don't mind my asking questions, do you?" he added. "This is +rather funny to me, you know." + +"Why, I'm a questioner myself, little master," the little man assured +him. "I'm questioning always. I go through life seeking an answer." + +"What for?" asked Percival. + +"Why, that's the question, little master," said the little man. "What +for? Who knows?" + +Percival regarded him with the same puzzled air that he sometimes gave +to Aunt Maggie. "Well, if you don't mind," he said, "what are you, +then?" + +Far from minding, Japhra seemed to like it. Twinkling away: "Why, +that's another question I ask and cannot answer," said he. "What is +any man? One thing to one man and one thing to another--a riddle to +himself, little master. But I can unriddle thee this much: Wintertime +I am a tinker that mends folks' pots and pans; Springtimes I am +Punch-and-Judy-man that makes the children laugh; Summertimes I am a +fighter that fights in the booths. I have been prize-fighter that +fights with the knuckle; cattleman over the sea; jockey, and wrestler, +and miner, and preacher once, and questioner since I was thy size; +there's unriddling for thee." + +"It's a good lot," said Percival gravely. "What are you just now, +please?" + +"Or a bad lot," said Japhra. "Who knows?--and there's the question +again! No escape from it." He looked solemn for a moment and then +twinkled again. "Just now a fighter, little master. To-morrow I join +Boss Maddox's circus for the summer with my boxing booth." + +"Boss Maddox!" cried Percival. "Why, Mr. Stingo goes with Maddox's +circus. Do you know Mr. Stingo?" + +"None better," said Japhra. "I am of Stingo's crowd, as we say. Dost +thou?" + +"I know him very well," Percival declared. "I know his brother best. +They call me a Pocket Marvel, you know; so I should like to know what +you think of that?" + +"Why, I think that's what thou art," said Japhra. "A rare one. There +were fairies at thy christening, little master." + +"What for?" asked Percival and asked it so seriously that Japhra +twinkled anew and replied: "Why, there's the question again. What for? +Why that sunny face they have given thee? and those fine limbs? and +that straight back? What for? There's some purpose in it, little +master." + +He looked strangely at Percival as though behind his twinkling he +indeed questioned these matters and found, as he had said, a question +in all he saw. But when he saw how mystified he held Percival, he +stopped his searching look and asked: "Any more questions, little +master?" + +He had kept his finger on the open page of his book all this time; and +Percival pointed and said: "Well, what are you reading, if you please?" +and was told "Robinson Crusoe." + +"Why, I'm reading that!" cried Percival in much delight. + +"Then thou art reading one of the only three books a man wants," said +Japhra. "There's 'Pilgrim's Progress'--" + +"I've read that too! In Mr. Amber's library--" + +"And there's the Bible." + +"And that as well!" cried Percival. + +"Why," said Japhra--not twinkling now, but grave--"why, then, thou hast +read the beginning and end of wisdom. Crusoe and Pilgrim and +Bible--those are the books for a man. I read them and read them and +always read them new. They are the books for a questioner, and thou +art that amain. And they are the books for a fighter, and that is thy +part. I have unriddled thee so far, little master. I know the +fighting type. Mark me when the years come. A fighter, thou." + +He placed a blade of grass in "Robinson Crusoe" and put the volume +beneath his arm. He got up and took Percival's small hand in his horny +fist. "Come thou and see my van, little master," said he. "We are +friends--thou and I and Ima here." And then he twinkled again. "And +why? What brought thee whom the fairies attended and that has read the +books and is the fighting type? What brought thee here? Why, there's +the question again!" + +It was the beginning of Percival's chiefest friendship of them all. In +the rare proper seasons that followed one another through this the +happy, happy time, the van came more and more frequently Lethamwards. +Summertimes it was away with Stingo's crowd in Maddox's Monster +Menagerie and Royal Circus. But Wintertimes it would come tinkering, +and sometimes remain a week or more snow-bound, and Springtimes +Punch-and-Judying through the Burdon hamlets; and these were happy, +happy times indeed. There was all Japhra's lore, all his dimly +understood "questioning" to hear; and all his stories of his strange +and varied life; and all his reading aloud from his three books, who +could read them and put a meaning into them as none other could. And +there was the boxing to learn, with Percival a very apt and eager pupil +and Japhra insistent that it was a proper game--the only proper game +for a man. And once every summer there was the visit of Maddox's +Monster Menagerie and Royal Circus to Great Letham, where +Percival,--introduced by Japhra, sponsored by Stingo,--was made +enormously welcome by rough, odd van folk who were of "Stingo's crowd." +He learnt the sharp and growing difference between Stingo's crowd and +Boss Maddox's men. Boss Maddox was boss and of increasing wealth and +weight: attracting showmen to his following from many parts of the +country and incorporating them in his business, but unable to win the +allegiance of the little knot of independents who called Stingo "Boss," +and hating them for it. Rough, odd men who made an immense deal of +Percival and had rough, odd names: Old Four-Eyes, who wore spectacles +and had a Mermaid and a Mummified Man; Old One-Eye, whose left eye was +gone and had a Wild West Rifle Range; Old 'Ave One, who was given to +drink ("'Ave one, mate?") and had the Ring 'em where Yer Like--A Prize +fer All; and the rest of them. Percival never mixed with the Maddox +crowd but once, when he boxed, and to the immense delight of Japhra and +all the Stingo men, defeated, a red-haired, skinny youth of his own +age, whom Boss Maddox was introducing to the public as the Boy Wonder +Pugilist. "Looks like a fox to me," Percival said aloud, when he first +saw the Boy Wonder. The Boy Wonder heard, and the men who stood about +heard and laughed; there certainly was a foxy look about the Juvenile +Wonder's cunning face with its red head. The Wonder furiously resented +the remark and the laughter; expressed a desire to shut Percival's +mouth; succeeded in shutting one of his eyes, but was certainly beaten. + +He became Percival's first enemy--and chance set aside the first enemy +for further use. + + +II + +Ima, when the van came Lethamwards, was Percival's first girl friend, +and chance had use also in store for her. She was a strange, quiet, +very gentle thing, but one that could run, as she had told him, and +bold and active stuff for any ramble. With odd ways, though. + +"Ima, you do look at me an awful lot," Percival told her in the early +days, catching her large eyes fixed upon him. + +"Well, thou art not like other boys I see," she told him; and a little +while after she asked him, "Dost thou know little ladies with white +skins like thine, little master?" + +"I'm brown!" said Percival indignantly. + +She shook her head. "But little ladies?" + +"I know one," said Percival. "White! Well, you'd stare if you saw +her, Ima. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red, I call her," and in his tone was +something akin to the mingled admiration and awe with which small +schoolboys speak of their cricket captain. + +She was silent for a moment; then, "Well, tell me, little master," she +said. + +It was of Dora that he told her. + +When Lady Burdon had returned that call paid on her by Mrs. Espart from +Abbey Royal she had been as greatly captivated by Dora as she had been +taken by Dora's mother. She found in Mrs. Espart a curiously cold and +high-bred air that appealed to her--being a quality she was at pains to +cultivate in herself--and appealed the more in that it very graciously +unbent towards her. Its unbending was explainable by the quality that, +for her own part, she presented to Mrs. Espart--that of her rank and +station. + +Mrs. Espart had been married in her teens, brought from school for the +purpose, by a mother whose whole conception of duty in regard to her +daughters was wealthy marriage, and who had fastened upon it in this +case in the person of Mr. Espart--a nice little man, an indifferently +bred little man, but a most obviously well-possessed little man. The +girl was hurriedly fetched from her finishing school, whirled through a +headachy fortnight of corseting and costuming, and put in Mr. Espart's +way and then in his possession with the docility of one educated from +childhood for such a purpose. Used as a woman who never had realised +there was a life beyond the cloisters bounded by lessons in deportment, +in the nice languages and the nice arts; as a wife who never yet had +been a child but always a young lady, Mrs. Espart discovered that she +was mated with a vulgarian, Mr. Espart that he had married, as he +expressed it, "a frozen statue." She thought of him and despised him +as the one; he thought of her, feared her, and adored her as the other. +The chill she struck into his mind communicated itself in some way to +his bones, and very shortly after he had bought Abbey Royal--her +command being that he should nurse the local political interests, +enrich the Party from his coffers and so win her the social status her +sisters had--he began to shrivel and incontinently died--frozen. + +Mrs. Espart proceeded to bring up the child born of this marriage +precisely as she had herself been brought up,--in narrow cloisters, +that is to say, in dutiful obedience and for the ultimate purpose of +suitable marriage. She repeated in Dora's training the training she +had received from her own mother, its object the same, with this +difference--that whereas in her case that object was a wealthy match, +in Dora's--Mr. Espart having made wealth unnecessary--it was position. +Time was absurdly young for any plans when Mrs. Espart first met Lady +Burdon, but plans had crossed her mind when she drove out to leave +cards at the Manor: she had heard of Rollo. She made Lady Burdon very +welcome when Lady Burdon came. + +Dora was two years younger than Rollo, Lady Burdon found. When, on the +occasion of this visit, she was brought to the drawing-room--a +strikingly pretty child in a curiously unchildish way--she already +showed marks of the machinery that ordered her life. She was curiously +prim, that is to say, of noticeably trained deportment; curiously +self-assured and yet not childishly frank; curiously correct of speech +and with a dutiful trick of adding "Mamma" to every sentence she +addressed to her mother. + +She was her mother's child; similarly trained; similarly developing. +"A very well brought-up child," as Lady Burdon afterwards commented to +her husband, and noted in her also the strong promise of the beauty +that later years were to realise. She was to be notably tall and was +already slim and shot-up for her years; she was to be notably fair of +complexion and showed already a wonderful mildness and whiteness of +skin, curiously heightened by the little flush of colour that warmed in +a sharply defined spot on either cheek. Lady Burdon rallied her once +during their conversation--the subject was French lessons, which it +appeared she found "Terribly puzzling, Lady Burdon, do I not, Mamma?" +and her face responded by a curious deepening of the red shades, her +cheeks and brow gaining a hue almost of transparency by contrast. + +It was that quality and that characteristic that made Percival--meeting +her when she was brought over to tea with Rollo--call her, as he told +Ima, Snow-White-and-Rose-Red. + +The name was from his fairy book, and to his mind fitted exactly this +fragile and well-behaved and reserved Miss who he thought was the most +beautiful thing he had ever seen. It fitted her more surely yet when +he came to know her when she was fourteen and just returned, Rollo also +having come to the Manor, for her first holidays from the highly +exclusive school to which she was sent. + +By then the friendship between Lady Burdon and Mrs. Espart had grown to +closest intimacy. They met, and Dora and Rollo met, intimately in +London; and Abbey Royal was rarely closed when Burdon Old Manor was +opened. Mrs. Espart had suffered to lapse that attitude towards the +little post office boy which Lady Burdon had termed "ridiculous." She +never liked, and certainly never encouraged, Percival, but she accepted +him as undetachable from Rollo, whom by now she encouraged greatly in +friendship with Dora, and it was thus that Dora at rare intervals +contributed to these days of the happy, happy time. + +At fourteen she was actively advanced in her first term at the +exclusive school by the machine that was shaping her. Strikingly now +she promised, as always she had hinted, what should be hers when full +maidenhood was hers. The singular fairness of her complexion was the +grace that first struck the observer; and with it was to be noticed +immediately the curious shade on either cheek that flushed to a warm +redness when she was animated, and, flushing sharply within its +limitations, sharply threw into relief the transparent fairness of her +skin. Her head, small and most shapely, was poised with the light and +perfect balance of a flower on its stem. Her features were small, +proportioned as a sculptor would chisel the classic face--having the +straight nose, the delicate nostrils, and the short upper lip of high +beauty. Her eyes were well-opened, strangely dark for her fair +colouring, well-lit, with the light and shade and softness of dew on a +dark pansy when the sun first challenges the flowers at daybreak. Her +abundant hair, soberly dressed in a soft plait that reached her waist, +was of a dull gold that in some lights went to burnished brass. She +was poised upon her feet with the flower-grace of her head upon her +throat. She was of such a quality and an air that you might believe +the very winds would divide to give her passage, afraid to touch and +haply soil so rare a thing. + +Percival in these days went beyond even his first wonder at her. He +had never believed there could be such a beautiful thing, and at their +meetings he was very shy--regarding her with an admiration that was +very apparent in his manner. He, certainly, if not the winds, had in +her presence a feeling of necessity to be gentle with so rare and +strange a thing. He could class her nowhere except with +Snow-White-and-Rose-Red; and to him that was her meetest +class--belonging to a different race and to be indulged as an honoured +guest should be; permitted to have caprices; expected to be strange. + +She came occasionally to tea at the Old Manor. The boys would take her +then for a walk in the grounds--sometimes further afield. Percival, +never free from the wonder she caused in him, always had much concern +for her on these occasions. He constantly inquired if they were not +going too far for her; he would always propose they should turn back if +they came to a muddy lane. It happened once that a lane desperate in +mud could not be avoided. He showed her the drier path against the +hedge, but this was so narrow as to require some balancing to keep it. + +"You must hold my hand," he said. + +To shake hands with her had always been a matter of some diffidence. +Now he was to support her while she picked her way. He took her little +gloved hand in his. It lay warmly within his grasp; and concerned lest +he should hurt so delicate a thing, he let it rest in his palm, passing +his fingers about her wrist where there was bone to feel. + +"Tell me if I hurt you," he said. "I'm trying not to--and not to +splash"--and he trod carefully, above his boot soles in the mire. + +She told him: "You're not, thank you. These lanes are wretched. I +hate them." + +Much of her weight was on him. There was a perfume about her person, +and it came to him pleasantly: he had never walked so close to her +before. The soft plait of her hair was about her further shoulder, +hanging down her breast. With her free hand she held her skirt raised +and closely against her legs for fear of brambles in the hedge. +Percival looked at her daintily-shod feet, picking their way, and he +gave a funny little laugh. + +"What are you laughing at?" she asked him. + +"My boots--and yours. You must have funny little feet." + +She half withdrew her hand. + +"I think you are the rudest boy I have ever met," she said. + +"Oh, I didn't mean to be rude," Percival declared. + +She told him in her precise way: "You are rude, although you are nice +in some ways. I think I have never known any one stare at me so +frightfully as you stare. I have seen you often staring." + +Percival gave for explanation: "If I stare, it's because I've never +seen any one like you." + +She gave the slightest toss of her chin. + +He went on: "Do you know what I call you? I call you +Snow-White-and-Rose-Red." + +He saw the blush shades on her cheek very slightly darken. It sounded +a pleasant thing to be called. But she said: "It sounds stupid; what +is it?" + +"From a fairy tale. Don't you know it?" + +"I don't care about reading." + +"What do you like doing best of all?" + +"I think I like going for drives--and that;" she half slipped and +added, "I simply hate this." + +"I've got you perfectly safe," Percival assured her. + +She said nothing to that, either of doubt or thanks; and they finished +the lane in silence. But when dry ground was reached and she withdrew +her hand, she thanked him prettily. With Rollo--who had no wonder of +her and whom she saw more frequently--she was on easy terms; and now +the three walked back to the Old Manor more companionably than was +usual with them. When Dora left, she surprised Percival by thanking +him again; she surprised him more by showing him a little mark on her +hand he had held and playfully protesting his grasp had caused it. +Thereafter when they met she had a smile for him. + +He liked that. + +She came to be very frequently in his mind, though why he did not know. +Once he came to Aunt Maggie with a dream he had had of her. "The +rummiest dream, Aunt Maggie. I dreamt I was chasing her, and chasing +her, and calling her: 'Snow-White! Snow-White! Rose-Red! Rose-Red!' +and every time I nearly caught her Rollo came up and caught hold of me, +and away she went. And fancy! I fought Rollo! Aren't dreams absurd?" + +Aunt Maggie put her hand to her forehead. "Was that the end, dear?" + +"Why, the end was more absurd than ever. Although I tried, I couldn't +hit Rollo--simply couldn't. He hurt me, but I couldn't do anything, +and he threw me down and went off with Dora. Doesn't it show how +ridiculous dreams are? Fancy dear old Rollo being stronger than me! +Is your head hurting, Aunt Maggie?" + +"Just a shoot of pain--it's gone now." + +While he described his dream, and while she pictured it, one of those +flutterings had run up violently in her brain. It passed, but left its +influence. "Absurd!" she agreed. "If ever you did quarrel with him--" + +Percival laughed. "I never could, in any case." + +"Are you very fond of him, Percival?" + +Rollo was returning to London that day. "I simply hate his going +away," Percival said. "I wish to goodness he lived here always. He +wishes it, too." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +BURDON HOUSE LEASED: THE OLD MANOR OCCUPIED + +I + +It happened that within a very short time of that wish it was granted. +Burdon House in Mount Street was let; Burdon Old Manor was permanently +occupied. + +This began in a visit that Lady Burdon, very decidedly out of temper, +paid to Mr. Pemberton at the office in Bedford Row. Relations between +Lady Burdon and the little old lawyer had radically altered since that +occasion of their first meeting at Miller's Field. Mr. Pemberton, who +in these years had relinquished to his son all the business save the +cherished Burdon affairs, had long been aware that the misgivings which +had clouded his first happy impression of Lady Burdon had been the +juster estimate of her character. He had perceived the dominance she +exercised over her indulgent husband; he had accepted, after what +protest he dared, that the management of the estate was in her hands. +He had foreseen the fruits of the wilfulness of a woman thrown out of +balance by the sudden acquisition of place and possessions; it was +because these fruits were now being plucked that he preferred to keep +the Burdon affairs in his own hands. He could not bear the thought of +handing over to his son this honoured trust in shape that would cause a +lifting of the eyebrows: "Father, I've been going through the Burdon +papers. I say, they seem in a precious bad way ... I don't +understand...." + +He could not endure the thought of that. + +On this day when Lady Burdon came angrily--and defiantly--to Bedford +Row, the position was raised very acutely between them. + +"I know--I know," Mr. Pemberton was saying. "But, Lady Burdon, you +must perceive the possibility--nay, in the circumstances, the extreme +probability--that though Lord Burdon countenances in the smallest +particular all you find it necessary to spend--and on the property not +to spend--he yet may not appreciate the state of affairs--the +imperative necessity that a halt be called. I have written to him +frequently. The replies come from you." + +She parted her lips to speak, but he had already had sufficient taste +of her mood to make him hasten with: "I know. I know. Lord Burdon has +told us both that he hates business and that he likes to encourage you +in the pleasure you find in it. That is admitted, Lady Burdon. We +have no quarrel there. My point is--how far is Lord Burdon to be +suffered to indulge his dislike? how long is he to be kept in +ignorance? I think no longer. That is why I purpose making a call on +him. I purpose it, again, because I believe Lord Burdon's +influence--when he understands--may join with mine to move you, where +mine alone causes you annoyance." + +He indicated the papers that littered the table. "You see the +position. I tell you again--I tell you with all the seriousness of +which I am capable--that the crash is as near to you as I am near to +you sitting here. I tell you that it is not to be averted unless for a +period--a mere few years--Burdon House is given up. It will let +immediately on a short lease. There, alone, will be more than +relief--assistance. It will save you much that you now find +necessary--there is the relief of the whole situation." + +She broke out: "It would never have come to this but for the cost of +this irrigation scheme on the Burdon property. That is your +doing--yours and Mr. Maxwell's. I tell you again I was amazed--amazed +when I heard of it." + +"And I have reminded you, Lady Burdon, that when I approached you in +the matter you desired not to be troubled with it. I had often and +often urged it upon you. This time you said it was to be left entirely +to our discretion--Maxwell's and mine." + +"I shall repudiate the contract. The work is not begun. You can get +out of it as best you can." + +He said very quietly, "That is open to you--of course." He paused and +she did not speak, and he went on. "You would have no case, I think. +The authority is too clear. But I do not mind saying I would try to +get out of the contract or--. Our firm could not be involved in a +lawsuit against the house we have served these generations." He +dropped his voice and said more to himself than to her: "No--no. Never +that!" He looked up at her and assumed a cheerful note: "You have to +think of your son, you know, Lady Burdon. What is he to come into? +This irrigation scheme will be the making of the property--the land +cries for it. If you can cut off the Burdon House establishment for a +few years, young Mr. Rollo will have reason to bless you when in +process of time he assumes the title. If you decide--" + +She rose abruptly: "I must be going." + +Mr. Pemberton hobbled after her down the stairs to attend her to her +carriage. A bitter wind was blowing. The coachman was walking the +horses up and down. The footman who waited in the doorway, rugs on +arm, ran into the street and beckoned to him. Lady Burdon watched the +carriage, tapping her foot on the ground and frowning impatiently. A +large piece of pink paper came blowing down the pavement, somersaulting +along in a ridiculous fashion--heels over head, heels over head, +grotesquely like a performing tumbler. + +"Cold!" said Mr. Pemberton, briskly, rubbing his hands together. "Very +cold!" + +She made no reply. She was much out of temper. She was considerably +beset. She was stiffening with an angry determination against +abandoning her life in town. She was freshly aroused against Mr. +Pemberton for his devoted loyalty to her husband's house--he had stung +her by the manner of his acceptance of her threat to repudiate the +contract; and by his reference to Rollo--he had hit her there. + +The tumbling paper--a newspaper contents bill she could see--flung +itself flat a few yards from them, throwing out its upper corners as it +came to rest, for all the world like an exhausted tumbler throwing out +his arms. The carriage drew up. + +With a foot on the step: "You need not call on Lord Burdon till I have +written to you--to arrange a date," she said. + +Mr. Pemberton replied: "I certainly will not. I will await your +letter, Lady Burdon." + +She settled herself in her seat, drawing her furs about her. He was +certainly a doddering old figure as he stood there--shrunken in the +face, bent in the body, his few white hairs tumbled in the wind. + +"Your house is very dear to me, Lady Burdon," he went on. "You must +believe I act only in your best interests--in what I believe to be--" + +She nodded to the footman, turned towards her from the box, and the +carriage began to move. The tumbler contents bill leapt up with an +absurd scurry, somersaulted down to them, and flung itself flat with a +ridiculous air of exhaustion. + +"Tragedy in the House of Lords," she read idly, and drove away. + + +II + +Lady Burdon drove straight home. She arrived to be apprised she was +concerned in the "Tragedy in the House of Lords" that the tumbler bill +had brought somersaulting down the street. As the carriage drew up, a +maid hurried down the steps and gave her the news: "His lordship"--the +girl was scared and breathless--"His lordship, my lady--taken ill in +the House of Lords--fell out of his seat in a faint--brought him home +in Lord Colwyn's carriage--carried him up-stairs, my lady--fainted +or--a doctor is with him, my lady." + +Lady Burdon wrestled with the confused sentences, staring at the girl, +not moving. "Fainted or--" + +She threw back the rug from about her lap and sprang from the carriage. +A newsboy rushing down the street almost ran into her, and she had to +stand aside to give him passage. Her eye caught the pink bill +fluttering against him where he held it: "Tragedy in the House of +Lords." + +God! The tragedy was here. She ran swiftly up the steps and up the +stairs. At the door of Lord Burdon's room terror leapt at her like a +live thing so that she staggered back a step and could not turn the +handle. "Fainted or--?" She caught her hand to her bosom, her poor +heart beat so. She had a vision of him dead, being carried up the +steps. There flashed with it a vision that showed him tired after +lunch and her saying: "If you knew how elegant you look, lounging +there! You ought to go to the House. You never go. You can sleep +there;" and he saying, "Right-o, old girl." + +Sleep there? Had she driven him to die there? Fainted or--? + +She entered the room. A man wearing a frock-coat stood by the +dressing-table. She stared, and stared beyond him to the bed. She put +her hand to her throat and strangled out the word "Maurice!" The man +turned to her and began to speak. She ran past him and flung herself +beside the bed and took Lord Burdon's hand and pressed it to her face. +She burst into a terrible sobbing, raining tears upon the hand she +held. From the threshold she had seen the eyes open, the faint twist +of a smile of greeting upon the white, pained face. + +Alive! That was sufficient! For the moment, in the first agony of her +distress, she required nothing more. Between the recovery from her +first shock at the news, and the terror that had held her back when she +reached his door, remorse, like bellows at the forge, quicked her every +memory of him to burning irons within her. Happen what might, she was +to be suffered to slake their torture. + +She felt the hand she held move in her grasp. It was his signal of +response to her sympathy. He said very weakly, in an attempt at the +old tone: "Made an--awful ass--of--myself, old--girl." He groaned and +breathed: "O God! Pain--pain!" + +She would not speak to the doctor. She desired nothing but to be left +there holding that hand, feeling it move for her and pressing it +against her face that was buried upon it when it moved. She desired to +be told nothing, to do nothing. This was between him and her--let them +be left to it while yet they could be left! A procession of pictures +was marching through her mind. In each she saw herself in a scene of +her neglect of him or her impatience with him. She had the feeling +that while she might hold that hand and feel it move, each picture +would pass--atoned for, forgiven, erased. This was between him and +her--let them be left to it while yet they could be left! + +Movements, the opening and closing of the door, whispering voices, came +to her. Some one touched her. She shook herself at the touch and +crouched lower. This was between him and her!--for pity's sake!--if +you have pity, let us be left to it while yet we can be left! + +The movements continued. They seemed to be closing about +her--impatiently waiting for her. They began to force themselves upon +her attention so that her mind must leave its pictures and distinguish +them. She crouched lower ... if you have pity! She heard stiff +rustlings and fancied a nurse was in the room. She heard a heavier +step and presently felt a touch that seemed to command obedience. + +She raised her head--A nurse, the man she had first seen, another +man--older. He pointed at the figure on the bed and motioned with his +head towards the door. Maurice seemed to sleep. She rose with a +little shuddering gasp and looked at them, twisting her hands +together--if they had pity! ... what did they require of her? + +The older man was bending over the bed, whispering with the younger. +The nurse came to her, smiling gently, and nodded towards him: "Sir +Mervyn Aston. He will speak to you outside. Will you not leave us +just a moment? Quite all right." + +She remembered the name. It was the specialist Maurice had sometimes +consulted. She had not bothered much about it: but she remembered the +name. Sir Mervyn looked towards her and moved across the room. She +looked again at the bed. The nurse nodded brightly. She followed Sir +Mervyn to the door. + +"Down-stairs," he said, and trod heavily down before her. He was a +great man and took the privilege of bad manners. In the library he +turned to her: "Did you send for me?" She had not expected that. She +had expected sympathy--at least information. She stared at him, +momentarily surprised out of her grief. His face was stern; she +believed his manner accused her. + +"No," she said. + +"You expected this?" + +Expected it! Of what could he be thinking? + +"I've told Lord Burdon repeatedly that this life--I've warned him again +and again to get out of it. Hasn't he told you?" + +Now she knew that he was accusing her. She never had cared to listen +when Maurice told her he had been to Harley Street. She stood twisting +her hands together, nervous before this brusque man. + +"Hasn't he told you?" + +"No." + +He looked sharply at her. He was a great man and had learned to read +between the lines that his fashionable patients presented him. "A +pity," he said briefly. "This might have been averted for many years." + +"Tell me"--she said, and could say no more: "tell me--" + +His tone became a little kinder. "We must hope for the best, you know. +There is always that. I will look in again at midnight. They are +making him quite comfortable up-stairs." + +He said a little more that she did not catch. Presently she realised +that he had left her. "This might have been averted for many years!" +She ran to a bureau and fumbled frantically for pen and paper. She was +in a sudden panic to do one thing that she believed would soften that +dreadful sentence if the worst came. She was in a panic to get it done +before there might be a sound from above and a horrid running down the +stairs. She found her writing materials. Pen in hand she listened, +trembling violently. No sound! As quickly as she could write she +scrawled to Mr. Pemberton: "I have decided. We are going to Burdon Old +Manor at once. Make arrangements to let the house, please." + +Whatever happened now, she had begun her share of the bargain she +prayed to press on death. If death would spare him, she would devote +her life to him! + +As she was sealing the letter Rollo came in. He had been to a matinee +with Mrs. Espart and Dora, at home for her holidays. Lady Burdon gave +a little motherly cry at the sight of him and took him in her arms. + +They went up-stairs together. + +The doctor had gone. The nurse told her Lord Burdon was asleep; but +when she went to her former position on her knees beside the bed and +took his hand again, he opened his eyes and his eyes smiled at her; and +then closed; he seemed desperately weary. + +She did not cry now. There was this bargain to be forced on death; +and, as with the letter, so now with her promises, she was in a panic +to get them done, believing that if death--God, as she named it--might +know all she offered to pay, he must accept the price and hold his hand. + +She was not the first that has believed death--or heaven--is open to a +deal. + +Through the long evening she knelt there, Rollo with her. Thus and +thus she promised--thus and thus would she do--thus and thus--thus and +thus! Mostly she bargained, frantically reiterating. At intervals she +would turn to protest--protesting that her sin was very light for so +heavy a threat. What had she done? She had done no wrong. She had no +flagrant faults--she was serenely good, as goodness is judged. She was +devout--she was charitable. Only one little failing, heaven! She had +desired to enjoy herself, and enjoying herself had neglected him. But +he did not care for the things she liked. Indeed he did not! He was +happiest when she was happy. Indeed he was! Yet she saw the error of +her way. If he might be spared, heaven--thus and thus--thus and +thus--thus and thus! + +Physical weariness overcame her as she heaped her promises, leading her +mind astray and tricking it into nightmare dreams whence she would +struggle with trembling limbs. The dreams took gross or strange forms. +She would be running down the street pursued by the tumbler +contents-bill, somersaulting behind. It caught her and fell flat, +flinging out its armlike corners, and she saw it was Maurice. She +stooped to him, and it was the bill again, gone from her on the wind. +She pursued it, and saw it take semblance of Maurice, and pursued it +with stumbling feet and could not catch it. + +She struggled from these horrors and found her mind again. She was +intensely cold, she found. Sir Mervyn had come and was bending over +her husband. Sir Mervyn nodded to her and sat down by the bed. She +dared ask no questions. She crouched lower where she knelt. The night +went on--Sir Mervyn still there. She prayed on--thus and thus! thus +and thus! She was tricked into the nightmare dreams. She was with +Rollo's friend, Percival, and running to Rollo, who seemed in distress. +A woman stopped them. She recognised in her the girl who had come with +that claim to be Lady Burdon years before. The girl caught Percival +and held him and Percival held her. She struggled to be free, for +Rollo was calling her wildly. His cries grew louder, louder, louder, +and burst as a real cry suddenly upon her. + +"Mother! Mother!" + +She started up. Rollo was on his feet, bending towards his father. + +"Lift! Lift!" Lord Burdon murmured. + +Sir Mervyn raised him. She clutched his hand. He rallied upon the +strength of life's last pulse and flutter, and smiled, and murmured, +"Poor old girl!" + +Then she saw death come; and she turned and threw her arms about her +son. + + + + +BOOK FOUR + +BOOK OF STORMS AND OF THREATENING STORM. THE ELEMENT OF LOVE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +PLANS AND DREAMS AND PROMISES + +I + +Three women were counting the years now. The years were rolling +up--curtain by curtain, like mists from a distant hillside; and behind +them the ultimate prospects for which Lady Burdon waited, Mrs. Espart +waited, and Aunt Maggie waited began to be revealed. Mrs. Espart had +conveyed to Lady Burdon her ambition--formulated long ago--with regard +to Dora and Rollo. Lady Burdon reckoned the union as very desirable +and gave its consummation a first place among her aspirations for her +Rollo. Aunt Maggie saw the hour of her revenge approaching so that its +years might now be estimated on the fingers of one hand. + +So near the desirable ends were approaching that the women began to +name dates for their arrival. Youth, with only a few years lived and +so enormous an experience gained in those years (as youth believes), +cannot endure the thought of planning ahead for a space that is a fair +proportion of its whole lifetime. Five years is a monstrous, an +insupportable period to youth that has lived but four times five or +less. Age, with fewer years to live than have been lived, and with the +knowledge of how little a decade has to show, will plan for five years +hence with nothing near so much of sighs and groanings as youth will +suffer if it must wait five months. + +The women began to name dates. Those very close friends, Lady Burdon +and Mrs. Espart, spoke of dates frequently. Mrs. Espart and Dora had +already "come into the family" as Mrs. Espart smilingly expressed it, +when, at Lord Burdon's death, and on being acquainted with her dear +friend's intention to let the Mount Street house on a short lease and +retire to Burdon Old Manor, she had offered herself as lessee. The +offer had been most gratefully, most gladly accepted. The great town +house was made over to Mrs. Espart for a seven years' term and thus, in +Mrs. Espart's phrase, "remained in the family"--ready for Rollo and +Dora, as the ladies plotted. + +And now they were naming dates. "When Rollo is twenty-four," Lady +Burdon said to Mrs. Espart, come over from Abbey Royal to lunch at the +Manor one day, "look, dear, he is just on twenty now. You know my +plans. Next year he is to go to Cambridge. His illness has thrown him +back. But next year will be time enough. Three years at Cambridge, +then, and that will bring him almost to twenty-three. Then I wish him +to go abroad--to travel for a year. That is so good for a young man, I +think. Then when he comes back he will be ready to settle down and he +will come back just the age for that tradition of ours--celebrating +comings-of-age at twenty-four instead of twenty-one. That would be so +splendid for the wedding, wouldn't it?" + +"Splendid!" Mrs. Espart agreed. "Splendid! That old Mr. Amber of +yours was trying to tell me the other day how that twenty-four +tradition arose. But, really, he mumbles so when he gets excited--!" + +"Oh, he's hopeless," Lady Burdon agreed. Her tone dismissed his name +as though she found his hopelessness a little trying, and she went back +to "Yes, splendid, won't it be? When I look back, Ella, everything has +gone wonderfully. From the very beginning, you know--the very +beginning, I planned a good marriage for Rollo. It was so essential. +To be your Dora--well, that makes it perfect; yes, perfect!"--and Lady +Burdon stretched out her hands and gave a happy little sigh as though +she put her hands into a happy future and touched her Rollo there. + +"And I for Dora," Mrs. Espart said. "From the very beginning, too, I +arranged great matches for Dora in my mind. That it should be your +Rollo,"--she gave a little laugh at her adaptation of the words--"that +it should be your Rollo--why, really, perfect is the word!" + +They were silent for a space, enjoying the beauty of the hillside that +the thinning years were disclosing. + +"You've never said anything to Rollo?" Mrs. Espart asked. + +"Oh, no--no, not directly, anyway. It will come about naturally, I +feel that. They are so much together. And in any case Dora--Dora is +so wonderfully beautiful, Ella. I couldn't conceive any man not +falling in love with her. In a year or so's time, developing as she +is--why, you'll change your mind perhaps--when they're all worshipping +her!" + +She laughed, and her laugh was very reassuringly returned. "But it is +Rollo she will marry," Mrs. Espart smiled. "With her it is as you say +with him--it will come naturally. In any case--well, she is being +brought up as I was brought up. She is dutiful. You find so many +girls encouraged in independence nowadays. Nothing is so harmful for a +girl ultimately, I think." + +Lady Burdon nodded her agreement. "How happy Rollo will be!" she said, +and spoke with a little sigh so caressingly maternal and with eyes so +fondly beaming that Mrs. Espart put out a hand to touch her and told +her, "I love your devotion to Rollo, Nellie." + +"He is everything to me," Lady Burdon said softly. "Everything!" + +"I know he is. Why, you look different again when you speak of him +even! Do you know, you were looking wretchedly ill when I came this +morning, I thought." + +"I had slept badly." Lady Burdon looked hesitatingly at her friend as +though doubtful of the expediency of some further words she meditated. +Then, "I had my nightmare," she said; and at the question framed on +Mrs. Espart's lips went on impulsively: "Ella, I've never told you +about my nightmare. I think I shall. It worries me. Do you know, +just after we came into the title a girl came to see me and said she +was the former Lord Burdon's wife." + +"_No_! What happened?" + +"Oh, nothing, of course--nothing serious. I sent her away. She said +she would bring proofs; but I never saw her again." + +"You wouldn't, of course. One of those creatures, I suppose," and Mrs. +Espart curled her lip distastefully and added: "I suppose some young +men will do those things--no doubt that's what it was; but it's rather +disgusting, isn't it? And how very horrible for you! But, Nellie, +where does the nightmare come in?" + +"With the girl," Lady Burdon said and gave a little uneasy movement as +though even the recollection worried her. "With the girl. I dream of +her whenever--that's the odd thing--whenever something particular +happens. See her just as I saw her then and say 'I am Lady Burdon,' +and she says 'Oh, how can you be Lady Burdon?' Then I get that +dreadful nightmare feeling--you know what it is--and say 'I hold!' and +she says 'No, you do not--Nay, I hold!' It's too silly--but you know +what nightmares are. And it only comes when something particular +happens--or rather is going to happen. The night before we heard of +old Lady Burdon's death, that was once. Then the night before we came +down here for that stay when Rollo met his friend Percival and we began +to come regularly. Then the night my husband died." She stopped, +smiled because Mrs. Espart was smiling at her indulgently, as one +smiles at another's unreasonable fears, but went on, "and now last +night!" + +Mrs. Espart laughed outright: "Why, what a hollow moan, Nellie!--'and +now last night!' I'd no idea you were such a goose. You've let the +silly thing get on your silly nerves." + +"Only because things have always happened with it." + +Her concern, however foolish, was clearly so genuine that Mrs. Espart +changed banter for sympathetic reassurance. "Why, Nellie, really you +must be more sensible! Why, dreaming it last night proves how silly it +is. What's happened to-day? Look, I'll tell you what's happened +to-day, and it's something to settle your wretched girl and your omens +once and for all. She nightmared you last night and to-day we've +settled how happy we are all going to be with our young folk married! +There! Tell her that with my compliments if she ever comes again!" + +Her air was so brisk and stimulating that Lady Burdon was made to +laugh; and her facts were so convincing that the laugh was followed by +a little sigh of happiness, and Lady Burdon said: "Why, Ella, it's +funny, isn't it, how in this life some things _do_ go just as one +wishes, for all that people say to the contrary?" + +That was to be proved. Down at "Post Offic," while the ladies planned, +a date was also being named. + + +II + +"But when? When?" Percival was saying to Aunt Maggie. "I'm +eighteen--eighteen, but you still treat me like a child. I ought to be +doing something. I'm just growing up an idler that every one will soon +be despising. But when I tell you, you ask me to wait and say I've no +need to be anxious and that I shall be glad I waited when I know what +it is you are planning for me." + +"You will be, Percival," Aunt Maggie said. + +But he made an impatient gesture and cried again: "But when? When? +That satisfied me when I was a boy. It doesn't now. I'm not a boy any +longer. That's what you don't seem to see." + +That indeed he was boy no more was written very clearly upon him as he +stood there demanding his future--not for the first time in these days. +He was past his eighteenth birthday: his bearing and his expression +graced him with a maturer air. The mould and the poise of head and +body that as a child had caused a turning of heads after him were +displayed with a tenfold greater attraction now that they adorned the +frame of early manhood. There was about the modelling of his +countenance that air of governance that is the first mark of high +breeding. The outlines and the finish of his face were extraordinarily +firm, as though delicate tools had cut them in firm wax that set to +marble as each line was done. The chin was rounded from beneath and +thrown forward; and to that firm upward round the lower jaw ran in a +fine oval from where the small ears lay closely against the head; +deeply beneath the jaw, cut cleanly back with an uncommon sweep, was +set the powerfully modelled throat that denotes rare physical strength. +The eyes were widely opened, of a fine grey--unusually large and of a +quality of light that seemed to diffuse its rays over all the brow. +The forehead was wide, with a clear, sound look. Outdoor life had +tinted the face with the clean brown that only a fine skin will take; +the hair was of a tawny hue and pressed closely to the scalp. He was +of good height and he carried his trunk as though it were balanced on +his hips--thrown up from the waist into a deep chest beneath powerful +shoulders. He held his arms slightly away from his sides in the +fashion of sailors and boxers whose arms are quick, tough weapons. +After all this and of it all was a gay, alert air, as though he were +ever poised to spring away at the call of the first adventure that came +whistling down the road. His face was not often in repose. Ardent +life was forever footing it merrily up and down his veins, delighting +in motion and in its strength, and his face was the mirror of its +discoveries. + +Just now, voiced in his "I'm growing up an idler that every one will +soon be despising," it was discovering restrictions that his brow +mirrored darkly. "It's not fair to me, Aunt Maggie," he said. "I +ought to be doing something for myself. I must be doing something for +myself. But you put me off like a child. You tell me to wait and +won't even tell me what it is. You tell me to wait--when? when?" + +Aunt Maggie said pleadingly: "Soon, Percival, soon." + +"No, I've heard that--I've heard that!" he cried. "I want to know +when." + +She named her date. "When you are of age, dear. When you are +twenty-one." + +He cried: "Three years! Go on like this for three years more!" + +He swung on his heel and she watched him go tremendously down the path +and through the gate. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +FEARS AND VISIONS AND DISCOVERIES + +I + +Percival took the highroad with the one desire to be alone--to walk far +and to walk fast. The prodding of his mind that goaded him, "I'm +growing--I'm losing time--I'm settling into a useless idler!" that +tortured him he was in apron-strings and likely to remain there, +produced a feverish desire to use all his muscles till he tired them. +His feet beat the time--"I must do something--I _must_ do something!" +and he swung them savagely and at their quickest. It was not +sufficient. He was extraordinarily fit and hard; the level road, +despite he footed it at his fiercest, could scarcely quicken his +breathing. A mile from "Post Offic" he struck off to his right and +breasted the Down, climbing its steepness with an energy that at last +began to moisten his body and to give him the desired feeling that his +strength was being exercised. "I must do something!" he spoke aloud. +"I must--I can't go on like this--I won't!" and taxed his limbs the +harder. If he must feel the chains that bound him in idleness, let him +at least make mastery of his body and rebuke it till it wearied. + +At the crest of Plowman's Ridge he paused and drew breath and turned +his face to the wind that ever boomed along here and that had come to +be an old friend that greeted his ears with its jovial, gusty Ha! Ha! +Ha! + +Far below him he could see "Post Offic" with its garden running to the +wood. From his distance it had the appearance of a toy house enclosed +by a toy hedge, the toy trees of the wood rigid and closely clipped +like the painted absurdities of a child's Noah's Ark. As he looked, a +tiny figure came from the house and went a pace or two up the garden +and seemed to stand and stare towards him up the Ridge. Aunt Maggie, +he was sure, and had a sudden wave of tenderness towards her, looking +so tiny and forlorn down there. He remembered with a prick at heart +that, even in the heat of his anger in the parlour half-an-hour ago, he +had noticed how small she looked as she stood pathetically before him, +gently replying to his impatience. He thought to wave to her with his +handkerchief, but knew she could not see him. He remembered--and +another prick was there--that she had said, seeking, no doubt, to win a +moment from his violence, "Do you see my eyeglasses, dear? I'm getting +so shortsighted, Percival." He flushed to recollect he had disregarded +her words and had threshed ahead with his "It's not fair to me--not +fair to me, keeping me here doing nothing!" He had been unkind--he was +unkind--and she was so small, so gentle, so loving, so tender to his +every mood. + +But that very thought of her--how small she was, how gentle--that had +begun to abate his warring mood, returned him suddenly to its +conflicts. That was just it!--so small, so gentle, so different from +him in every way that she could not understand his situation and could +not be reasoned with. No one understood! No one seemed to realise how +he was growing, and how blank the future, and hence what he was +growing. They all laughed at him when he spoke of it. + +They all laughed! Mr. Purdie laughed--Mr. Purdie had laughed and said, +"Oh, you're not a man yet, Percival!" and had given his absurd, +maddening chuckle. + +"His silly, damned chuckle!" cried Percival to old friend wind at the +top of a wilder burst of resentment against the world in general and +for the moment against Mr. Purdie in particular. + +Rollo laughed--Rollo had laughed and declared: "Oh, don't start on +that, Percival! That'll be all right when the time comes." + +"When the time comes! Good lord! The time has come," Percival told +old friend wind. "It's slipping past every day. All very well for old +Rollo--all cut and dried for him. For me! I'm to be idling here when +he goes to Cambridge, am I? And idling like a great lout when he comes +back!" + +Lady Burdon laughed--they all laughed, thinking him foolish, not +realising. Ah, they would laugh in another way--and rightly so--when +they did realise, when they saw him standing among them idle, useless, +helpless, dependent on Aunt Maggie. They would all laugh--they would +all despise him then. Everybody.... + + +II + +As he came to that thought--visioned some distorted picture of himself, +overgrown, hands in pockets in the village street, and all his friends +going contemptuously past him--there came a sudden change in old friend +wind that for a moment left him vacant, then somehow changed his +thoughts anew. Old friend wind, that had been buffeting him strongly +in keeping with his turbulent mood, dropped, and he was in silence; +then came with a different note and bringing a scent he had not +apprehended while it went rushing by. Nothing odd that he should be +responsive to this change. The wind on Plowman's Ridge was old friend +wind to him, and everybody who is friends with the wind knows it for +the live thing that it is--the teller of strange secrets whispered in +its breezes, the shouter of adventures thundered in its gales. Who +lies awake can hear it call "Where are you? Oh, where are you?"--who +climbs the hill to greet it, it welcomes "Welcome--ho!" Sometimes, to +those who are friends with it, it comes lustily booming along in high +excitement ("This way! This way! There's the very devil this way!"); +sometimes softly and mysteriously tiptoeing along, finger on lip +("Listen! Listen! Listen! Hush--now here's a secret for you!"). + +In this guise it came to him now--dropped him down from the turbulence +of spirit to which it had contributed, caught him up and led him away +upon the cloudy paths of the scent it gave him. The fragrance it bore +in this its whispering mood stirred, in that quick and certain manner +that scents arouse, associations linked with such a fragrance. There +was in the scent some hint of the perfume that was always about Dora; +and immediately he was carried to thought of her.... + +She to see him idler! She to pass him by contemptuously! His mental +vision presented her before him as clearly as if she were here beside +him on the Ridge. He saw her perfect features, with their high, cold +expression; the transparent fairness of her skin; that warm shade of +colour on either cheek that, as though she saw him watch her, deepened +with their strange attraction even as he visioned her. He visioned her +clearly. He could have touched her had he stretched a hand. And he +was caused--he knew no reason for it--a slight trembling and a slight +quickening of his breath. + +She to see him idler! ... In rebuke of such a thought he released his +mind to wild and undisciplined flights that showed himself the champion +of tremendous feats--of arms, of heroism, of physical +prowess--performing them beneath the benison of her eyes, returning +from them to receive her smiles.... + +For a considerable space he stood lost among these clouds. They had +drifted upon him suddenly. He found them delectable. Then he began to +find them strange and puzzling--scenes that were meaningless, +sensations that could not be determined. It is to be remembered of him +that, though he was now advanced to the period when the sap is up in +youth and quickening in his veins, he did not pursue the life nor was +he of the nature that encourages the amorous designs. A sluggish habit +of mind and body is the soil to nurture these: he was alert and braced, +eager and sound from foot to brain--a thing all fibre and fearless, +whose only quest was what should give him the challenge of movement, of +light, and ring back tough and true when he taxed it. No room was +here, then, for the disturbances that sex throws up; and yet these very +qualities that such disturbance could not undermine conspired to arouse +him very mightily when he should turn him to enquire what this +disturbance was, and discovering, should launch himself upon it. + +He was near to the brink of that launching now. Dora with her rare +beauty always had exercised upon him a feeling different from any he +commonly knew; he never yet had troubled to suppose that it was caused +by any emotion outside his normal life. She had astonished him by her +grace of form and feature on that day when he had discovered her to be +Snow-White-and-Rose-Red of the fairy book. Thereafter she had remained +to him a delicately beautiful object--set apart from the ordinary +fashion of persons he knew; not to be treated quite as he treated them; +a very dainty thing, making him aware of the contrast that his own +sturdy figure, strong limbs, brown face, and hard young hands +presented. As a boy he had always been caused a manner of awe in her +presence; as he grew older the awe went back to the sheer admiration +that she had caused in him at their first meeting. Out of her company, +in the long months that frequently separated her visits, he rarely +thought of her; though sometimes--and he had no reason for it--he would +find her pretty figure in his mind or in his dreams. When he +reencountered her, the admiration sprang afresh; he liked to watch her +face, to stand unnoticed and expect, then see, her cold smile part her +lips, or those strange shades of colour deepen and glow upon her +cheeks; he liked in little unobserved ways to protect her as he had +protected her that day in the muddy lane; it caused him a strange +rapture to have her thank him for any service. + + +III + +These were his relations to her through the years. He never had +thought to analyse them nor question why he so regarded her--never till +now. Now for the first time as he stood on Plowman's Ridge he mused +among the misty tangle of the sensations that old friend wind had +brought, lost and astray among the visions presented to his mind by +estimate of how Dora would consider his idle plight--now for the first +time he suddenly questioned himself what she was to him. + +He was all unused to the sensations in which, by an effort recalling +himself from his musings, he found himself suffused. They were +all--that slight trembling and that slight quickening of his breath +that possessed him--foreign to his nature, and he made a sharp movement +as though they were tangible and visible things that he would shake +from about him. Useless!--they had him wrapped.... Quicker his +trembling, and his breath quicker. What was she to him? Up sprang the +answer, answering with a triple voice that demanded his acknowledgment. +Up sprang the answer, causing him a physical thrill as though indeed +there burst at last from within him some essence that had been too long +held and now was loosed like fire through his veins. With a triple +voice, clamouring he should recognise it! What was she to him? Her +face and figure stood in all their beauty before his mental eye--that +was one voice and he trembled anew to hear it. What was she to him? +Memory of a light speech of Rollo on the previous day came flaming to +his mind: "And mother, I believe, has a plot with Mrs. Espart that I +shall marry Dora then and settle down"--that was a second voice and +stung him so that he knit his brow. What was she to him? Of them +all--of all who would laugh and have him in scorn when he was taskless +idler--bitterest, most intolerably goading, that she should hold him +so--that was the third voice and drew from him a sharp intake of the +breath as of one that has touched hot iron. + +What was she to him? In triple voice he had the answer, demanding his +acknowledgment, clamouring for his recognition. By a single word he +signed the bond. None was by to listen, and yet he flushed; there was +none to overhear, and yet he spoke scarcely above a whisper. He just +breathed her name--"Dora!" + +An intense stillness came about him. He stood enraptured, all his +senses thrilled. Out of the stillness, echo of his whisper, seemed to +come her name of Dora! Dora! Dora! floating about him as petals from +the bloomy rose. He raised his face to their caress and was caught up +in sudden ecstasy--believed he was with her, touching her; and saw and +felt her stoop towards him, bringing her perfume to him as the may-tree +stoops and sheds its fragrance when first at dawn the morning breathes +in spring. + + +IV + +So for a space he stood etherealised--awed and atremble; youth brought +suddenly through the gates and into the courts of love where the strong +air at every tremulous breath runs like wine to the brain, to the heart +like some quick essence. For a space he stood so; then was aware that +old friend wind was up again and drumming Ha! Ha! Ha! upon his ears as +one that mocks. + +What was she to him? The answer, now he had it, stirred to wilder +tumult the feelings that had brought him turbulently breasting up the +Ridge. He looked again towards "Post Offic," toylike below, and had no +tender thought for it--bitter vexation instead, as of the captive who +goes to fury at the chains that bind him. + +That he should submit to be thus chained, thus apron-stringed! That +Dora should laugh! That she should know him idler! Goading +thoughts--maddening thoughts, and he flung himself, bruising himself, +against them as the captive against his prison walls. That she should +laugh! It should not be! It was not to be endured! He threw up his +head in determination's action, his hands clenched, his body braced, +resolve upon his angry brow. + +Ha! Ha! Ha! drummed old friend wind--Ha! Ha! Ha! + +He gave a half cry and turned and strode away along the Ridge, taking +the direction that led him from home, and exerting himself under new +impulse of the desire to rebuke his body and haply ease his mind. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A FRIEND UNCHANGED--AND A FRIEND GROWN + +I + +An hour at that pace brought him above Great Letham, clustered below. +He paused irresolutely. From among the roofs, as it were, a crawling +train emerged. He watched it worm its way along the eastward vale, +then abruptly turned his back upon it as upon a thing more fortunate +than he--not bound down here, as he was bound. Brooding upon the +landscape, he suddenly became aware of a thin wisp of smoke that +pointed up like a grey finger from the valley beneath him. It mounted +in a steady, wand-like line from the belt of trees that marked Fir-Tree +Pool, and its site and its appearance braced him to an alert attention. +It had signalled him before. Only one person he had ever known lit a +fire down there: only one hand in his experience contrived a flame +which gave quite that steady, grey finger. He remembered Japhra +showing him how to get the heart of a fire concentrated in a compact +centre; he remembered Ima laughing at the sprawling heap, burning in +desultory patches, that had come of his first attempt at imitation. + +"If only it is Japhra!" he said aloud; and he struck down the +Ridge-side for a straight line across country to where the smoke +proposed that Japhra might be. + +More than a year had passed since last the van had visited the +district. Even Stingo, met sometimes over at Mr. Hannaford's, could +give him no better news of it than that Japhra had not taken the road +with Maddox's these two seasons. The disturbed state of mind that now +vexed Percival could be soothed in no other way, he suddenly felt, than +by the restful atmosphere that Japhra always communicated to him. +Japhra would not laugh at him. Japhra would understand how he felt. +Japhra would advise in that quiet way of his that made one see things +as altogether different from the appearance they seemed to present. If +only it were Japhra! + + +II + +It was Japhra! + +As Percival came quickly through the trees that enclosed the water he +caught a glimpse of the yellow van. As he emerged he heard Japhra's +voice: "Watch where he comes!" and he pulled up short and cried +delightedly: "You knew! You were expecting me!" + +Clearly they had known! Not surprise, but welcome all ready for him, +was in Japhra's keen little eyes that glinted merrily, and on Ima's +face, that was flushed beneath its dusky skin, her lips parted +expectantly. Even old Pilgrim, the big white horse that drew the van, +had its head up from its cropping and looked with stretched neck and +seemed to know. Even tiny Toby, that was Dog Toby when the Punch and +Judy show was out, was hung forward on his short legs like a pointer at +mark, and now came bounding forward in a whirl of noisy joy. + +Japhra was astride of a box, a piece of harness between his legs, a +cobbler's needle in his right hand, and the short pipe still the same +fixture in the corner of his mouth. Ima was on one knee, about to rise +from the fire whose smoke had signalled. + +"You knew! You were expecting me!" Percival cried again, and went +eagerly to them as they rose to greet him, his hands outstretched. + +"Father knew thee before I heard thy footsteps," Ima told him. "The +fire crackled at my ears or I had known." + +She seemed to be excusing herself, as though not to have heard were +short of courtesy; and Japhra, who had Percival's hand, gave a twist of +his face as if to bid him see fun, and teased her with: "Thou didst +doubt, though, Ima, for look how I had to bid thee 'watch where he +comes.'" + +Percival thought she would toss her head and protest indignantly as +when he used to tease her when they had trifled together. Instead, her +eyes steadily upon his face, "Nay, for I knew it was he," she replied +simply. + +He no more than heard her. At a later period he found that the words +had gone to the backwaters of his mind, where trifles lie up to float +unexpectedly into the main stream. Years after he recalled distinctly +her tone, her words, and the look in her eyes when she spoke them. + +Now he laughed. "You two can hear the world go round, I believe." He +turned to Japhra: "But how on earth you could tell--" + +"Footsteps are voices, little master, when a man has lived in the +stillness." + +Percival laughed again--laughed for pure happiness to hear himself +still given that familiar title, and for pure happiness to be again +with Japhra's engaging ideas. "You're the same as ever, Japhra--the +same ideas that other people don't have." + +"Ah, but 'tis true," Japhra answered him. "Footsteps have tongues, and +cleaner tongues than ever the mouth holds. Look how a man may oil his +voice to mask his purpose--never his feet. Thine called to me, how +eagerly they brought thee." + +"Eagerly!--I should think they did! You're just the one I want. I've +not seen you for a year--more. Eagerly--oh, eagerly!" + +Japhra's bright eyes showed his delight. "And we were eager, too. We +have spoken often of little master, eh, Ima? Not right to call him +that now, though. Scarcely reckoned to see him so grown. Why, thou'rt +a full man, little master--there slips the name again!" + +He twinkled appreciatively at Percival's protest that to no other name +would he answer, and he went on: "A full man. Ten stone in the chair, +I would wager to it. What of the boxing?" + +"Pretty good, Japhra. The gloves you gave me are worn, I can tell you." + +"That's well. Never lose the boxing. It is the man's game. Ay, thou +hast the boxer's build, ripe on thee now as I knew would be when I saw +it in thee as a boy. The man's game--never lose it." + +"I'm keener than ever on it," Percival told him. "I'm glad you think +I've grown. I've got a punch in my left hand, I believe." His spirits +were run high from his former despondency, and he hit with his left and +sparkled to see Japhra nod approvingly and to hear him: "Ay, the look +of a punch there." + +"Yes, I've grown," he said. "You've not changed, Japhra--not a scrap." + +Japhra nodded his head towards the fir trees. "Nor are the old limbs +yonder. They stay so till the sap dries, then drop. Nary change. +Only the young shoots change. What of Ima?" + +She had turned away while they talked. She was back at the fire, and +Percival turned towards where she stood, about to lift from its hook +the cooking pot that hung from the tripod of iron rods. As he looked, +she swung it with an easy action to the grass. The pot was heavy: she +stooped from the waist, lifted and swung it to the grass with a +graceful action that belonged to her supple form, and, as the steam +came pouring up and was taken by a puff of breeze to her face, went +back a step and looked down at her cooking from beneath her left +forearm, bare to the elbow, raised to shield her eyes. + + +III + +That was Percival's view of her. She had put up her hair, he noticed, +since last he saw her. It was dressed low on the nape of her neck; +evening's last gleam delighted in its glossy blackness against her +olive skin. Beneath the arm across her face he saw the long lashes of +her eyelids almost on her cheeks, as she stood looking downwards. Her +mouth was long, the lips, blending in a dark red with her brown +colouring, lying pleasantly together in the expression that partners +the level eye and the comfortable mind. She was full as tall as +Percival--very slim in the build and long in the waist that was moulded +naturally from her hips to spread and cup her bosom, and therefore +taller to the eye. She wore a blouse of dark red cloth; her skirt was +of blue, hung short of her ankles, and pressing her thighs disclosed +how alert and braced she stood. She wore no shoes nor stockings, and +her feet, slender and long, appeared no more than to rest upon the +short grass that framed them softly. + +"What of Ima?" + +"Ima?--Ima has grown, though," Percival said. "Why, she's simply +sprung up!" + +"Ay, grown," Japhra agreed. "Grown fair," he added, watching her. + +Percival said, "Yes, she is pretty." The vision of Dora's high +fairness came to his mind, challenged and rebuked his favour of another +of her sex, and returned him swiftly to the stress that had brought him +down here for comfort and that the first reencounter with Japhra had +caused to be overshadowed. His eyes lost their brightness. He +remained looking dully at Ima, not seeing her; and presently started +and flushed to realise that he was hearing a repeated question from +Japhra. + +"What ails, master?" + +"Ails? I heard you the first time, Japhra. I was thinking. I'm +troubled--sick. That's what ails." + +His face flushed with the same cloudy redness that the beat of rising +tears drives into the faces of children. On the Ridge he had put +against his trouble the stiffness that was of the bone of Burdon +character. Down here was sympathy--and he was very young; it sapped +the stubbornness. + +"That's what I'm here for," he said thickly. "To tell you, Japhra." + +Japhra had a keen look to meet the misty countenance that was turned to +him. + +"Food first, then," he said, and gave a twinkle and a sniff at the +savour from Ima's cooking that made Percival smile in response. +"Naught like a meal to take the edge off trouble. There'd be few +quarrels in the world if we all had full bellies always." + +"Well, food first, then," Percival agreed, making an effort; and he +raised his voice: "What's Ima got for us?" + +She turned at the sound of her name and smiled towards him, and the +smile caused beauty to alight upon her face as a dove with a flashing +of soft wings comes to a bough. He saw it. Her beauty abode in her +mild mouth and in her seemly eyes. Her parted lips discovered it to +step upon her face; her raised eyes released it, starry as the stars +that star the forest pool, to star her countenance. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +IMA'S LESSONS + +She had odd ways, Percival found--oddly attractive; sometimes oddly +disconcerting. She did not at first contribute to the conversation +while they ate. She was very quiet; and that, and the way in which, as +he noticed, she kept her eyes upon him, was in itself odd. Dusk was +veiling the camp as they took the stew she had prepared. They had the +meal on the grass near the van, and Percival, not eating with great +ease in the squatting pose, noticed how erect she sat, as though her +back were invisibly supported--her plate on her lap, the soles of her +bare feet together. + +He deferred his trouble, as Japhra had proposed, till the meal should +be done. He was interested to know where the van had been all these +months; and when he questioned Japhra, "We have had the solitary +desires, Ima and I," Japhra told him. "The solitary desires, master, +whiles thou hast been growing. A sudden wearying of Maddox's and all +the noisy ones. North to Yorkshire, we have been; west to Bristol's +border; deeper west to Cornwall. The road has had the spell on +us--calling from every bend and ever keeping a bend ahead, as the road +will to those who are of it. Summers we have passed the circus on its +tour and laid a night with old Stingo and then away, urgent to move +quicker and lonelier. Trouble has worsened in the circus crowd." + +"What, between Stingo's men and Boss Maddox's?" + +"Ay," said Japhra. "Boss Maddox is the biggest showman in the west +these days. He rents the pitches at all the fairs before the season +begins; and the Stingo crowd, who must take what he gives, he puts in +the worst places. His hand is heavy against them. One fine day the +sticks will come out and there'll be heads broken, as happened on the +road back in '60. I was in that and carry the mark of it on my pate to +this hour. Pray I'll be there when this one falls." + +"I'd like to be with you, Japhra." + +Japhra showed his tight-lipped smile: "Well, a camp fight with the +sticks out and the heads cracking is a proper game for a man, master. +Thou'dst be a handy one at it, I warrant me." + +Ima broke in with her first contribution to their talk. She said +quickly: "Shame, Father. Not for such as he--fights and the rough +ways." + +But she was silent again and without reply when Percival sought to +rally her for this opinion of him; and Japhra twinkled at him and said: +"There's one would like to meet thee, though--sticks or fists"; and +went on, when Percival inquired who: "Thy friend Pinsent. Thy name of +Foxy for him has stuck to him and he has not forgiven thee. A fine +fighter he has grown--boxed in some class rings for good purses in the +winter months, and in the summer is a great attraction at the fairs. +Boss Maddox is fond of him. Boss Maddox has fitted him with a booth of +his own and he gets the crowds--deserves 'em, too. But 'Foxy' has +stuck to him--and suits him. He hates it; and's not forgotten where he +owes it." + +Percival laughed. "Well, if he's done so well, I ought to be proud to +have given him something to remember me by. He could wallop me to +death, of course." + +"There's few of his weight he could not hand the goods to," Japhra +agreed. He looked estimatingly at Percival and added: "One that could +keep the straight left in his face a dozen rounds'd serve it up to him, +though. Foxy has no bowels for punishment. I have watched him." + +And again Ima broke in. "Ah, why dost talk so?" she addressed her +father. "He is nothing for such ways--fights and the fighting sort." + +This time Percival would not let her opinion of him escape without +challenge. "Why, Ima!" he turned to her, "that's the second time +you've said that. Seems to me you think I ought to be wrapped in +cotton-wool." + +His voice was bantering, but had a note of impatience. The events of +the day had not made him in humour to take lightly any estimate of +himself that seemed to reflect on his manliness. + +She noticed it. Her voice when she answered him had a caressing sound +as though she realised she had vexed him and would beg excuse. "Nay, +only that thou art not for the rough ways--such as thou," she said; +and, mollified, he laughed and told her: "Well, you never used to think +so, anyway. You've changed, you know, Ima, changed a lot since I last +saw you." + +"And should have changed," Japhra announced. "Scholar with lesson +books, she has been these winter months." + +Percival thought that very quaint. "Scholar, Ima; have you?" he asked +her, and saw the blood run up beneath her dusky skin. "I can't imagine +you at lessons!" + +"Nor those who taught me," she replied; and paused and added very +gravely, speaking in her gentle voice, "Yet have I learnt--and still +shall learn." + +Percival asked: "Learnt what?" + +Odd her ways--oddly attractive, oddly disconcerting; speaking steadily +and more as if it were to herself and not to listeners that she spoke. +"Learnt to sit on a chair," she told him, "and to sit at a table +nicely; to wear shoes on my feet, and stockings; to go to church and +sing to God in heaven; to talk properly as house folk talk; to sleep in +a bed; to wear a hat and stiff clothes; to abide within doors when the +rain falls and when the stars alight in the sky--these have I learnt." + +Percival was tempted to laugh, but her gravity forbade him. "How +terrible it sounds--for you! But why, Ima, why?" + +She did not answer the question. She smiled gently at him and went on +with the same air of speaking to herself: "Lessons from books, also. +Figures and the making of sums; geography--as capes and bays and what +men make and where; of a new fashion of how to hold the pen stiffly in +writing; of nice ways in speaking--chiefly that I should say 'you' when +I would say 'thou'--that is hardest to me; but I shall learn." + +Something almost pleading was in her voice as she repeated, "I shall +learn;" and Percival turned for relief of his puzzlement to Japhra: +"Why, whatever's it all for, Japhra?" + +Japhra gave his tight-lipped smile. "Woman's reasons--who shall +discover such?" But Ima made a motion of protest, and he went on: +"Nay, the chance fell, and truly I was glad she should have woman's +company--and gentle company. In Norfolk where we pitched the winter +gone by was a doctor I had known when we were young--he and I. He +shipped twice aboard a cattle boat with me, having the restlessness on +him in those days. Now I found him stout and proper, but not forgetful +of an indifferent matter between us. He brought his lady to the van, +and she conceived a fancy for Ima, holding her a fair, wild thing that +should be tamed. Therefore took Ima to her house and to her board, and +taught her as she hath instructed thee. Thus was the manner of it; as +to the wherefore--why, woman's reasons, as I have said," and he smiled +again. + +Ima got abruptly to her feet. The meal was ended, and she began to +collect the plates. Her action plainly rebuked the further questions +with which Percival was playfully turning to her. He offered instead +to help her with her washing of the dishes, but she told him: "Nay, +maid's work this. Abide thou with father, and talk men's talk." In +the action of moving away she turned to Japhra and added her earlier +plea: "So it is not of boxing and the rough ways." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +JAPHRA'S LESSONS + +I + +Japhra took up Ima's words when she had left them. "Nay, but the +boxing is my business," Japhra said, filling his pipe. "I'm for the +boxing again this summer. Money's short and old Pilgrim yonder has +full earned his rest and must have another take up his shafts. Another +horse is to be bought, wherefore a sparring booth again for me." + +Percival asked: "When are you going?" + +"To-morrow. I pick up the circus by Dorchester. My lads are waiting +me. Ginger Cronk, I have--thou mind'st Ginger?--and Snowball White, a +useful one. Stingo seeketh another for me. A good lad, I must have, +if the money's to be made, for Foxy Pinsent hath a brave show that will +draw the company--two coloured lads and four more with himself." + +Percival was silent. "I wish I could go with you," he said presently: +"And you're going to-morrow, you say?--to-morrow?" + +"At daybreak, master." + +"Ah!" Percival gave a hard exclamation as though feelings that were +pent up in him escaped him. "Now I had found you again, I hoped I was +going to see you often for a bit. My luck's right out," and he gave a +little laugh. + +Japhra lit his pipe. "So we come back to thy trouble," he said. + +His voice and a motion that he made invited confidence. Percival +watched through the dusk the glow from his pipe, now lighting his face, +now leaving it in shadow. He had longed to tell Japhra; he found it +hard. + +After a moment: "Hard to tell!" he jerked. + +"How to bear? That is the measure of a grief." + +"Impossible to bear!" + +"Tell, then." + +"There's little to be told. That's it! That's the sting of it--so +little, so much. A man must do something with his life, Japhra!" + +"Ay, that must he, else life will use him, breaking him." + +"Why, that's just it! That's what will happen to me! I'm a man--they +think I'm not; there, that's the pith of it!" He was easier now and in +the way of words that would express his feelings. He went on: "Look, +Japhra, it's like this--" and told how he was growing up idler, how +Aunt Maggie answered all his protestations for work for his hands to do +by bidding him only wait--and he ended as he had begun: "A man must do +something with his life!" + +He stopped,--aware, and somehow, as he looked through the dusk at +Japhra, a little ashamed, that his feelings had run his voice to a note +of petulance. He stopped, but a space of silence came where he had +looked for answer. Evening by now was full about the camp. Night that +evening heralded pressed on her feet, and was already to be seen +against the light in the windows of the van where Ima had lit the lamp. +From the pool was the intermittent whirring of a warbler; somewhere a +distant cuckoo called its engaging note that drowsy birds should not +make bedtime yet. In the pines a song-thrush had its psalm to make; at +intervals it paused and the air took a night-jar's whirr and catch and +whirr again. Old Pilgrim cropped the grass. + + +II + +Percival said: "What are you thinking of, Japhra?" + +"Of life." + +"What of life?" + +"How hot it runs." + +"Meaning me--I'm in a vile temper, I daresay you think." + +"How hot it runs, master--how cold it comes and how little the profit +of it." + +Percival said heavily: "What is the use of it, then?" + +Japhra bent forward to him and Percival saw the little man's +tight-lipped, firm-lined countenance with the tranquil strength of mind +that abode in the steady aspect of the bright eyes, deep beneath their +strong brows. + +"The use?" Japhra said. "Nay, that is the wrong way of estimate. For +thee in thy mood, for all men when life presses them, inquire rather +what is the hurt of it. How shall so small a thing as life, a thing so +profitless, that soon becomes so cold, returneth to earth and is +nothing remembered nor required--how shall so small a thing offend thee +and make shipwreck of thy content? Thus shouldst thou judge of it." + +"Some men are not soon forgotten, Japhra." + +"Ay, master, and what men? They that have seen how small a thing is +life and have recked nothing of it." + +"How have they done great things, then?--fought battles, written books?" + +"Why, master, how wrote Bunyan in chains or Milton in blindness?" + +"They didn't mind." + +"Even so. Profitless they knew life to be, and cared not how it tasked +them." + +"But, Japhra, that's--that's all upside down. Are there two things in +a man, then--life and--?" + +Japhra said: "So we come to it--and to thee. Truly there are two +things: life which is here in the green leaf, and gone in the dry; and +the spirit which goeth God knows where--into the sea that ever moves, +the wind that ever blows, the sap that ever rises--who shall say? But +knoweth not death and haply endureth forever if it were mighty +enough--as Milton, as Bunyan. Look at me, master, for that is the +plain fact of it and the balsam for all thy hurts." + +He stopped and drew slowly at his pipe with little puffs that floated +to Percival like grey thistledown dropping through the night. + +"Go on," Percival said. "Go on, Japhra." + +"Why, there thou hast it," Japhra told him. "Lay hold on thy +spirit--let that be thy charge; and of what cometh against thee take no +heed save to rebuke it as a boxer rebuketh the cunning of him that is +matched against him. So was the way of Crusoe, of old Bunyan's +Pilgrim, and of the Bible men, and that is why I call them the books +for a fighting man. Here's my way of it, master--there's force in the +world that moves the tides and blows the winds and maketh the green +things grow. Out of that force I unriddle it we come, and back to it +return. In some the spirit is utterly swallowed up in life, and at +death crawleth back suffocated and befouled and only fit to come again +in some rank growth--so much a lesser thing than when it came springing +to a human breast that the force of the world whence it came is by so +much lessened and can give birth to a flower less and a toadstool more." + +"And then there's the other way about," said Percival, attracted by +this argument. + +"Ay, truly the other way about, master. The way of the mighty men in +whom the spirit rebuketh life and increaseth, and at death goeth +shouting back--so quickening the force of the world that, just as the +cup spilleth when much is added, so there be mighty storms when great +men die--thunders and rushing winds, great lightnings and vast seas." + +Percival drew a long breath. "Why, it's a fine idea, Japhra--fine." + +"Look at a case of it," Japhra said. "My Bible in the van there hath +one. I have it by heart. Look when Christ died. Never a man than He +cared less how life tasked Him; and at His death--when there went +shouting back the spirit that He had increased beyond the increase of +any man--look thou what came: 'And behold the veil of the Temple was +rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth quaked; and the +rocks rent and the graves were opened.' And again: 'And it was about +the sixth hour; and there was darkness over all the earth until the +ninth hour; and the sun was darkened.'" + +He stopped; and Percival breathed long and deep again: "Fine, +Japhra--fine. I never thought of it like that. Fine--I think I see." + +"Surely thou dost, master; or any man that giveth thought to it. Take +it to thine own case--that is my word to thee. Reck nothing how life +assaileth--hold on only to thy spirit. Thou wouldst be doing something +and art irked by the bonds that hold thee--never fear but that in its +time the thing will come. I have seen men--I know the fashion of them. +Thou art of the mould and mind to which adventures come. See to it +thou art ready for them when they arrive--trained as the boxer is +against the big fight." + +Percival said heavily: "What's the prize, Japhra?" Now that the +application of this engaging view was pressed to his own case he had a +dark vision of what it required of him. "What's the prize?" + +"Why, content! Look, little master, here's happiness, here's +content--and content is all the world's gold and all its dreams. +Whatever cometh against thee, whether through the flesh or through the +mind, get thou the mastery of it. How? Every man according to his +craft. The philosophers, the reckoners--theirs to judge bad against +good and find content that way. That was old Crusoe's manner of it. +Thou art the fighting type--the Ring for thee." + +Percival got abruptly to his feet. At the same moment Ima opened the +door of the van and stood above them--held, as it were, upon the light +that streamed from the interior. + +"The Ring for thee," Japhra repeated, "there to meet and conquer all +thy vexations. Make a boxer of thy spirit. Step back through the +ropes then and take up the champion belt marking thee thine own man, +thine own master: a proud and jewelled thing to wear--content." + +Ima's voice broke in upon them. "The champion belt?" she said. "What, +is it still boxing, thy talk?" + +Japhra turned his face up to her and the lamplight showed the twinkling +with which he met the reproach in her voice. "Why, it is my trade," he +said, "and thine. In two days thou'lt be taking the money at the door +of my booth." + +"Not his trade, though," she answered. + +Percival said: "Japhra, would I be a likely one for your booth, do you +think?" + +He was holding out his hand in the action of farewell. Japhra got up +and took it and held it. "Why, if I get as proper a build as thine for +my third lad I will put a polish to it that would vex Foxy Pinsent +himself. Keep up the boxing, master. Art thou going?" + +Percival said abruptly, "Yes, I'm going." He released the hand and +went away a step. "I'm going. I've a longish way home and things to +do before bedtime. You'll be gone at daybreak?" + +"At dawn, little master." + +"On the Dorchester road?" + +"Ay, to Dorchester." + +"All the luck with you, Japhra. I'm better for seeing you." He spoke +jerkily as though his throat were full and speech difficult. He +stopped abruptly, and half turned away; then, recollecting Ima, went +back to the van and stretched up his hand to where she stood: "Good +night, Ima." + +She stooped down to him. The action brought her face into the darkness +and he noticed how her wide eyes, as she stooped, seemed actually to +light it. "Farewell!" she said. + +It was perhaps that he had so obviously only attended to her as an +afterthought that her throat, for all the sound her word had, might +have been as full as his. Some thought of the kind--that he had been +churlish to her--crossed him. He said more kindly: "I say, though! +your hand is cold, Ima." + +She withdrew her fingers, giving him no reply. But as he turned away +and went a step, "What of thy way home?" she cried, and cried it on a +sudden note as though it went against her will. + +"By the Ridge," he told her. "By Plowman's Ridge and then along." + +She answered him: "Yes, I am cold. I will warm me to the Ridge with +thee--if thou wilt suffer me." + +In the mood that was on him he had preferred to be alone. But under +the same apprehension of having been churlish to her, "Why, that's +jolly of you," he said. + + +III + +She went within the van a few moments; and while he waited he had a +last exchange with Japhra: "You've helped me, Japhra. But I shall +disappoint you if I'm tried too hard. Content--I'll make a fight for +it. But I shall not endure it very well if I am still to be idler." +He gave a hard little laugh. "When it's a fight for mastery of myself +I shall disappoint you, I believe." + +Japhra told him: "I have seen men, master, and know the fashion of +them. Thou wilt not disappoint me." + +"You can't say that of any one--for certain." + +"I say it of thee. Though thou failest a score times thine is the +mould that comes again--for that I shall look. Listen to me, little +master--that name clings: I cannot shake it from me. Listen to me. +Thy type runneth hot through life till at last it cometh to the big +fight. Send me news of that." He struck a match to relight his pipe +and cupped the flame against his face. "Send only 'The Big Fight, +Japhra,'" he said. + +The flame of his match built up the dusky night in walls of immense +blackness. In their heart Percival saw the kindly face with its tight +lines and keen eyes. "I shall know the winner," Japhra said; and the +cup of light within his hands shadowed and lit again his face as he +nodded. + +The Big Fight was drawing towards Percival. Aunt Maggie had the very +date of it, and the articles reckoned and ready. When it rushed +suddenly upon him and he was in its stress and agony, he remembered the +lighted face, the confident nod and the message that was to be sent. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +WITH IMA ON PLOWMAN'S RIDGE + +I + +Ima had put on shoes and stockings when she reappeared from the van and +joined Percival to accompany him to the Ridge. The two were come +almost to the Down's skirt before they exchanged words. "I have things +to do before bedtime," Percival had told Japhra; and as he walked he +was too occupied by the thoughts of what he purposed--hunted by them as +the tumult of his concerns had hunted him earlier in the day--to give +attention to Ima who had come with him when he had preferred to be +alone. She was perhaps aware of that. She followed the half of a pace +behind the short, impatient steps that partnered--and signified--his +mood, her eyes watching what of his face she could see and ever and +again turning swiftly ahead, as though she feared he might catch her at +it and feared that might offend him; so a dog that knows itself +unwanted may be seen, wistful at its master's heels--with little wags +of a timid tail and with beseeching glances; eager to communicate some +succour to this angry mood; afraid to hazard what may further vex. + +Yet he was pleasant when presently he spoke to her. + +They stepped from a dense lane about whose mouth and overhead the +arching brambles trailed as though to curtain a sanctuary from trespass +by outer dust and breeze and light. Before them the Down ran smooth +and grey to where, beneath the moon, it took a silver rim along the +line of Plowman's Ridge. A harsher scent was here than briar and wild +rose breathed within the lane and jealously entwined to hold there; the +breeze came with a swifter touch to the face; the light challenged the +eyes that the gloom had rested. + +Together their effects aroused Percival's senses from his thoughts to +his companion. + +"Warmer now, Ima?" he asked. + +"Warmer now, little master," and she smiled and added: "unseemly to +call thee that, now thou hast grown so." + +He moved with her to a gate that faced the Down. "Let's rest a bit," +he said. "Why, we've both grown, Ima, since the last time I saw you. +You've grown. You've put up your hair--properly grown up. I shall +have to treat you with terrible respect." + +She did not respond to his light tone. Her eyes that looked quietly at +him had a grave air. "I am a gipsy girl to thee," she said. "I am not +for thy respect--such as me. For ladies that." And before he could +answer her she went on: "What of that little lady thou hast told me +of--Snow-White-and-Rose-Red as thou didst name her to me?" + +He did not notice a changed tone--to be described as stiff--in her +voice. It did not occur to him that in the matter of his respect she +made comparison between herself and her whom she named with his fond +name for her; he was only surprised and only grateful to have that name +spoken to him. + +"Why, she's grown," he said. "Fancy you remembering her, Ima!" + +Eagerness was in his voice. "I am cold again," she told him, and drew +away. "Let us go up the Down." + +He did not follow her movement or her words, but pursued his own +"--remembering that I called her that, anyway," he said. + +If it had been her purpose to dismiss the subject, at least she earned +herself his full attention by the swiftness with which she turned upon +him and by the swiftness of her reply. "It is thee I remember," she +answered him. "Not her--or any such. Thou wast my friend when we +played boy and girl together. All thou hast done with me, all thou +hast told me, point me the way to thee as remembered marks along the +road point to a camping-place--no more, and of themselves nothing." + +She had his attention; but he attributed the quickness of her speech +and her odd thought and simile only to the general oddness of her ways. +"Well, you needn't go back to those days in future," he told her. +"We're friends now just as much as then." + +She shook her head and smiled. "Nay, after this day I must needs go +farther back," she said, her voice smooth again. "Thou dost not +understand--playmate days I seek. I lie in my bed on the fine nights +with the van door wide, and watch the stars and play I walk among +them--from star to star and round about among the stars, high to the +van's roof and low to where the trees and hills stretch up to them: +thou with me as when first I knew thee--in that wise I seek thee; not +thus"--she broke off and changed the note of her voice. "What talk is +this?" she smiled. "Childish fancies--they are not for thee," and she +moved away and he followed her up the Down. + +"Ima, they're pretty fancies, though," he said. "And, you know, you'll +lose them all if you aren't careful--if you go making yourself stiff +and proper with those extraordinary lessons of yours. What are they +for, those lessons? They'll spoil you, Ima. They'll make you quite +different. All that kind of thing is for--for the others--for what +you'd call fine ladies." + +"Even so," she said; and pronounced the words as if--though to his mind +they explained nothing--everything was explained by them; and said no +more until the crest of Plowman's Ridge was reached. + + +II + +He was willing enough for his own part to relapse into his own +thoughts. He went so deeply into them that, coming to the Ridge and +involuntarily pausing there, he was twice told by her "Here I return," +before he was aroused to her again. Bemused, he stared at her a moment +as one stares that is aroused from sleep, and his mind jumped back in +confusion to the last words that had passed between them. "Well, if +you were so anxious for the lessons, why did you give them up when the +winter was over?" + +She answered him--sadness in her voice rather than reproach--"We have +done that talk long since. Thou dost not heed me. It is that I am +going that I am telling thee." + +He knew he had been careless of her again, and sought to laugh it off. +"Well, it is why you stopped your lessons that I am asking thee," he +mimicked her. "Woman's reasons, Ima?" + +She threw out her hands towards him in a gesture of appeal. "Ah, do +not toy me woman's reasons," she said. "Think me less light than +that--if thou thinkest of me. Not woman's reasons bade me back to the +van when winter broke. Not woman's reasons. I knew me there were +green buds in the ditches beneath the dead wet leaves. I had +discovered them to the sun and the breezes many years--turning back the +leaves and smelling the smell they have. How could I stay beneath a +roof when I had thoughts of such?" + +She drew a deep and tremulous breath of the mild night air as though +she inhaled the scents of which she spoke, and he watched her gaze +across the eastward vale with those starry eyes that, as she went on, +never the lids unstarred, and she said: "Thoughts of such--of green +buds in the ditches beneath the moulding leaves that waited for me to +uncover them and knew me when I came; of the first cloud of dust along +the road--dust, ah! of tiny sprigs on every bough that I might run to +see; of busy birds stealing the straws and coming for the bits of cloth +and wool they know I place for them; of early light with all the trees +and fields wet and aglisten; of gentle evenings when the new stars come +dropping down the sky; of the road--the road, ah!--I sitting on the +shafts; of the cool brooks, and leading Pilgrim in and hearing him suck +the water and hearing him tear the grass; of the running stream about +my feet and the soft grass that sinks a little--these bade me back." + +She turned to him and said in the low voice in which she had been +speaking: "Not women's reasons these." She changed her voice to one +that cried: "Remember me that if I am not like fine ladies I cannot +help be what I am with these things speaking to me. Now I am going," +and she went swiftly from him and was a dozen paces gone before he +called her back. + + +III + +"Ima!" While she spoke he had envisaged what she told, setting its +freedom and its elemental note to his own desires as one sets music +that stirs the breast. Shaking himself from the spell, "Ima!" he +called, and went to her. "Don't go like that. Say good-by properly." + +She stopped short and put her hand to her side as though his call had +launched a shaft that struck her. She did not turn--as though she +dared not turn--until he was close up to her, touching her. Then she +turned, and he saw her eyes amazingly lit, and as they met his, saw the +light pass like a star extinguished. It was as if she had expected +much and had found nothing; and it was so pronounced that he said: +"Ima! Why, what did you think I was going to say?" + +There was a wild rose in the bosom of her dress that she had plucked as +they came through the lane. She bent her head to it and put her hands +to it in the action of one that seeks to cover lack of words by some +occupation. She drew the flower from her breast and placed it in his +coat, pinning it there. + +"That's right," he smiled. "I'll keep that to remember you by. What +did you think I was going to say? You seemed as though you expected +something--then as if you were disappointed. What was it?" + +She was very careful in settling the flower. Then she dropped her +hands and looked up at him. "I asked nothing," she said. "How should +I be disappointed?" + +"Asked! No! I saw it in your eyes." + +She answered swiftly, almost as one speaking in menace of offending +words: "What in mine eyes?" + +"Why, what I tell you. As though you expected something and were +disappointed." + +"No more?" she inquired, and repeated it--"No more?" + +"No more--no. But I want to know why--or what?" + +She gave a gentle laugh and relaxed her attitude that had been +strained, in keeping with her voice. She seemed to have feared he had +derived some secret that she had; and she seemed glad and yet a little +sad her eyes had not betrayed her. She gave a gentle laugh and threw +her hands apart as if to show how small a thing was here. + +"Why, little master, there is nothing in that," she said. "The eyes +light for that the heart runneth to peep through them as a child to the +window." + +He laughed at the pleasant fancy: "Well, what did your heart run to +see?" + +"Nay, I have not done," she told him. "Look also how one may see a +child run happily past the window--from the van I have seen it: so +sometimes the heart but passeth across the eyes with a glad face, +singing from one happy thought to where another waits. I think my +heart passed so and thou didst catch the gleam." + +He heard her take in a quick breath as her words ended. Then, "Suffer +me to go now," she said. "Keep my pretty flowers;" and turned and went +swiftly from him down the slope; and was dim where the moonlight faded; +and was gone in the further darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +ALONE ON PLOWMAN'S RIDGE + +I + +She was as quickly gone from Percival's mind as from his sight. Now +that he was free and alone--as he had wished to be alone--he faced +about with an abrupt movement and began to set homewards at a swift +pace along the Ridge; simultaneously his mind returned to his own +business. + +He had reached a sudden determination while he talked with Japhra; he +found his mind carried forward to the scenes of its prosecution, and he +was made to breathe deeply and to walk fast as he visioned them. A +conflict possessed him and tore at him as he went. Before he got to +bed that night he would have from Aunt Maggie what she purposed for his +future--he would have it in definite words--he would not be put off by +vague generalisations--he would accept nothing in the nature of "next +year will be time enough to decide"--nay, nor "next month," nor "next +week"--he would have it definitely, clearly, unmistakably now. That +was his determination; thence arose the conflict. He assured himself +as he walked that let him but know Aunt Maggie's intentions, and +however cruel, however impossible, however unendurable they might be, +he would follow wise Japhra's advice--would meet in the ring as if it +were a physical antagonist the passionate impulse to reward all kind +Aunt Maggie's love by violent refusal to obey her--would meet and would +defeat it there. + +He threw up his head as he so thought and had his fists clenched and +his jaw set. The action made him conscious of old friend wind. At +this the pitch of his heat, "Ha! Ha! Ha!" shouted old friend wind in +his ears. "Accept idleness if Aunt Maggie so desires, will you?--and +the laughter and contempt, eh? Ha! Ha! Ha!" + +He put down his head again. The wind was getting up; it took some +buffeting. + +He began to reason now that he should have argued with Japhra when +Japhra laid down the law of self-discipline and moral conduct. + +"You can't make one rule to cover everything!" he said aloud, driving +along against the wind. "A man must do something with his life!" he +cried. + +He suddenly realised that he was dallying; he suddenly knew that he was +weakening. He was persuading himself that the hour of the fight would +fall when he questioned Aunt Maggie; he suddenly realised that the +battle was already begun. + + +II + +The knowledge brought him to a dead halt. His thoughts had fallen in +train with his steps: he had the feeling that he was being beaten while +he walked--only could be master of himself while he stood still and +centred all his faculties on defeating the impulses that goaded him as +they had goaded him earlier in the day. As the sufferer on a sick-bed +tosses wearily through the sleepless night and comes from weariness to +savage groans and curses that rest is not to be found nor a cool +position discovered, so he lashed in spirit to find a stable thought +that would support him amid the tumult that possessed him. He strove +to image Aunt Maggie with gentle eyes; he could command no more than a +glimpse before she was presented to him again as not understanding--not +understanding!--unkind, unkind! He directed his mind at Japhra and +strove to see how small a thing, how childish, how petty was his +trouble; in a moment, "Preposterous! preposterous!" shouted the tumult. +"A small thing to others? Easy for them to think that. Let them apply +it to their own concerns! How can they judge what is your affair +alone? If you are struck, can they feel your pain? If you are +starving, can they measure your hunger?" And again, with greater +cunning: "Why, what a damnable philosophy is this that calls upon a man +to suffer any rebuke, and smile and submit, and declare it is a small +thing, unworthy of notice, and cover himself with sophistries as that +life is too big, the sea too deep, the hills too high, for such an +affair to cause affront! What, is that a man's part, do you think? A +man's part--or a coward's?" + +"Not the right way to put it!" Percival struggled. "A false way to +look at it!" + +And his adversary, with deeper cunning yet: "Is it fight you would, as +Japhra bade you? You did not explain all the circumstances to him. A +man must do something with his life--he admitted that. Is it fight you +would? Why, fight then! Choose your own life. Make your own life. +For that a man should fight! Get into the world and prove yourself a +man! You are no better than a baby here--worse than a baby; you're a +lout. What sort of a lout will you be in another year or so? What +will they think of you then? Ah, go on; make this precious +ring-business of your life. Rebuke yourself--your natural desires, +your rightful ambitions; win your fight as Japhra bade you win it, and +then when all laugh at you or ignore you for a contemptible lout--then +tell them, tell all the village what a rare prize you have really +won--tell it to Rollo, tell it to Dora!" + +The poor boy cried aloud: "Oh, these infernal thoughts! These infernal +thoughts! If only I could get them out of my head--think of something +else!" He was going mad over it, he told himself. His head +ached--ached. It would all come right--there was no cause for all this +worrying. He had often thought about it before--never till now, till +to-day, this wild, maddening, throbbing fury of trouble. What was it? +What was it that caused these feelings and all this pain--why, why was +he so taxed and tormented? If only he could get it out of his mind, +could think of something else till he got home! There would be the +jolly, jolly little supper with Aunt Maggie awaiting him; after it they +would talk quietly, happily together, and he would tell her how he +really must be doing something, and she would understand and everything +would be put right. If only he could get it out of his mind--if he +went back now as he was, why, he was not in a fit state of mind to go +near her--and why? why? why this sudden difference, this sudden, +maddening, throbbing state that goaded and tortured like a wild live +thing within his brain? why? + + +III + +More reasoned thoughts these--at least a consciousness of his condition +and an attempt to plumb its cause. More reasoned thoughts--and they +brought him suddenly to a calmer moment and there to the answer he +sought: Dora. + +He was not far in person from the very spot where earlier in the day +the vision of her had come to him and he had breathed her name and had +her name come floating about him--Dora! Dora! Dora! soft as rose petals +fall, sweet as they. He was not far in person from that +spot--realising her in spirit he was aswoon again in that vision's +ecstasy; and suddenly knew what reason urged his burning mood, and +suddenly discovered why he burned to do. She the sweet cause of all +this new distress!--hers the dear fault that life was now thus changed! + +Further than that he might not go--nor cared to seek. It was not +his--nor ever belongs to youth suddenly under the sex attraction--to +know a new ichor was mingled with his blood, causing it to surge and +boil and test the very fibre of his veins. Not his to know a sap that +had been storing in his vigour was now released whence it had +stored--touching new strengths that had not yet been felt; flushing the +brain in cells not yet aroused; and crying, and crying to be relieved; +and causing in his strength a tingling vibrancy, as a willow rod that +has been bent springs upright and vibrates when its constraint is cut. +Not his to know, nor care to seek, how love manifested itself within +him, nor what love was, nor why he loved, nor if, indeed, love were +this sudden thing. He only knew that what had served his boyhood could +not suffice now Dora filled his mind; he only knew that in all the +world to bring to Dora's eyes the light of admiration was his sole +desire; he only knew that to have her hold him in contempt--even in +slight regard--was to endure an outrage unendurable; he only knew he +was possessed to challenge mighty businesses--of arms, of strength, of +courage, of riches--that he might win her smile. + +He had the new thoughts now for which he had cried while the tumult of +right and wrong conduct vexed him. She filled his mind, suffused his +being, stood with her exquisite face before his eyes. Peace in the +guise of ardour came where conflict in passion's flame had burned. "If +only I could see her before I go home!" he thought. + +The recollection came of a hot day earlier in the week when, at lunch +with Dora and Rollo at the Old Manor, they had conspired to abuse the +sultry weather. "But the evenings are worth it," Dora had said. "In +London it is different;" with her mother she had just come from London +for a few days at Abbey Royal before she went, for her last term, to +the "finishing" school near Paris. "In London it is different--of ten +more stifling at night than in the day. But here! Here the evenings +are worth it. Always after dinner I stroll in the garden--and love it." + +If only he could see her before he went home! He looked at his watch +beneath the moonlight. Almost nine o'clock it told him. That would be +about her hour. He could strike across to Abbey Royal in fifteen +minutes if he ran. There was just the chance!--just the chance of a +glimpse of her, the first glimpse since this new and adorable sense of +her had come to be his. He might even speak with her--hear her voice. +Hear her voice!--it was the utmost desire he had in all the world! +There was just the chance!--if it failed, still he could see the home +where she lived, see it with the new eyes that now were his--her home, +the grounds her feet had trod, the gates her hand had touched, the +flowers perhaps her dress had brushed or she had stooped to breathe. + +There was just the chance!--along the Ridge, down to Upabbot, behind +the church and so to her home. His mind leapt across his route, eager +to urge his pace. He pocketed his watch and set towards the shrine +that had his heart. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +WITH DORA IN THE DRIVE + +I + +There was just the chance! "Ah, Chance be kind!" his prayer, but in +the simpler form: "If only I can see her!" For he could not have told +himself precisely what he desired of her. The new condition of mind +and body that possessed him was too newly come for him clearly to +understand towards what it impelled him. We speak of love as an +intoxication. He was as it were beneath the first and sudden influence +of a draught of wine more potent than the drinker knows--causing an +elevation of the spirits, that is to say, a sharper note in the +surroundings, something of a singing in the ears; a readiness for +adventure, but not a clear notion as to the form of adventure required; +a sudden comprehension that there is more tingling stuff in life than +ever the dull round has revealed; but a sense that it is there and must +be found rather than an exact knowledge of what it will prove to be. +He only knew he wished to see her; that seemed the goal; he had no +thoughts nor fancies to take him to what might lie beyond--then reached +the Abbey gates and saw the drive, and saw her there, and stopped as if +a hand suddenly rebuked him in the throat. + +That he felt a surge run through his being and flame upon his face, +that he felt suddenly abashed and could not dare to make his presence +known--these marked his nearness to knowledge of his state. + + +II + +The night was very clear. By now the full moon had disdained more +trifling with the clouds that earlier had joined hands about her. Far +to the west they trailed their watery burdens to the hills: she queened +above them--queenly serene, aloof in the unbounded vault that all her +empery of stars about her ruled and divided subject to her rule. The +Abbey gates stood wide. Between their pillars little breezes came to +him and brought to him the fragrance of the flowers that banked the +drive on either hand. He saw they also stirred the dress and some +light scarf that Dora wore. + +Mystery was here. He knew not what--only that, conditioned by some new +sense that caused him strangeness, he was upon the threshold of things +as yet unknown. + +He watched--afraid as yet. She was stooped above a cluster of pansies. +While he looked, she plucked a blossom here and there, her hand now +hovering above their shade and now caressed amid their bloom, and +raised them to her face. + +She turned then and came towards him; and he drew back a step. Mystery +was here; not yet, not yet to challenge what it held! + +She reached the gates and paused a moment. The little breezes that had +brought the flowers to him stopped their play; her scarf's floating +ends--gossamer and delicately painted--came softly to her sides. You +might have said that the night airs had heralded her here, had taken +form in her scarf's ends to attend her as she walked, and now awaited +which way she should please to move. + +Snow-White-and-Rose-Red! The childish appreciation of her, aroused in +him years before, returned to him again. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red--that +was she! As when a child he had been caused a childish wonder and a +child's unspoilt delight at so rare a thing as she appeared to him, so +now, seeing her for the first time with the new eyes that belonged to +his new condition, he felt himself amazed and almost awed that beauty +could have this degree. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red! All she had promised +in her girlish years dowered her now in the burgeoning of her +maidenhood--and dowered more than it had told, as all the beauty of the +opening bud scarcely can hint the opened blossom's beauty; and dowered +more than it had told by the increasing strangeness, as she grew, of +this rare perfection of each feature in one face. Rare, strangely +rare, the transparent fairness of her skin; rare, rare that almost +crimson shade on either cheek, sharply defined, not blended, as it were +frozen there; rare the dark pansy of her wide and stilly eyes; rare, +most rare of all, transcending all, the high air with which she bore +herself--that her chaste and faultless face maintained, with which her +eyes looked and that her presence seemed to make. + +He saw her dress. He saw her scarf to be some filmy veil about her +shoulders and that beneath it all her throat was bare. He saw that it +was turned about her throat in a loose fold that lay where her bosom +was disclosed by the silk evening gown she wore, draped low, but +maidenly discreet. At throat, at breast, at arms, at hands, he saw +this filmy thing was challenged of its whiteness and seemed to take a +shade. + +She moved; he thought to speak. Mystery was here and held him on its +threshold. + +Watching her he had a sudden new conception of her quality. Later, +when he had spoken to her, when he had left her, when he trod again +each passage of their meeting, recalled her voice, her mode of speech, +and how she bore herself, he recalled that conception and knew it was +most proper to her, and thrilled to know it so. + +As he looked, and afterwards as he remembered, he conceived the word +that estimated all her beauty, all her quality and her degree--frozen. +Frozen and thus invested with the strange rareness that frozen beauty +has. Frozen and thus most proper that those flames upon her cheeks +never could stain beyond themselves, as blood that will not run in +snow; proper the quaint precision of the words she used, as icicles +broken in a cold hand; proper the high pitch of her voice, curiously +hard, without modulations, as winter sounds are hard. + +Snow-White-and-Rose-Red--and frozen snow and frozen red. She was that +in his new discovery of her: and was that better than he knew; +caparisoned and trained for that. + + +III + +She raised to her face the pansies he had seen her gather, caressed +them a moment against her lips, then turned and went a few steps back. +And then he spoke--stepped from the pillar's shadow and into mystery's +doors and called her--"Dora!" + +The little breezes ran among the flowers: "Bend! Bend! you sleepy +things and blow her your caresses where she moves again!"--ran among +the tree-tops high above the borders: "Salute! Salute! you sentinels, +and show your joy, she comes!"--chased from her path a daring leaf or +two--sprung to her person and bade her veil attend her--caught his low +whisper and tossed it from her ears. + +Tiny the stir; yet stiller all the voice he made. He waited; breathed +her name again--"Dora!" and then she heard. + +She gave the faintest start; turned, and said, "Why--Percival?" and +then a little laugh, and then spoke "Percival!" again. + +He went to her. "Did I frighten you? I'm sorry." + +He went into the mystery that barred him at the gate. Her surprise +caused the shades upon her cheeks to flame to sudden crimson, promoting +her beauty to its most high effect. Her lips--also of her +surprise--were lightly parted, alert, with the aspect of some nymph of +the woods and glades, startled and poised to listen. Not yet, not yet +his to know all the truth of what influence had him here. He only had +known he wished to see her: he only knew now that he wished to stay and +talk with her. He was in the mystery--not yet of it; but already, at +this first contact with her presence, a glimmering, a suspicion +arose--softened his voice, quickened his senses. + +"I ought to have been frightened," she said. "I never heard you come. +But I scarcely was startled. It is the most curious circumstance, but +I happened to be thinking of you." + +As icicles broken in a cold hand! + +He did not cry, as love might have directed him--"Thinking of me! +You!" Not yet, not yet the knowledge that would give that ardour. He +only was boyishly pleased. He only said: "Were you, Dora? I'm awfully +glad you were." + +And she, no more aware of deeper things than he: "Well, they were not +particularly nice thoughts I had of you," she said, and gave a little +laugh that toned with the clear pitch of her voice. "Indeed, I was +vexed with you." + +He laughed back an easy laugh: "I wonder what I've done?" + +"It is what you have not done, Percival--or did not do. I was at the +Manor all the afternoon and had the dullest time that anybody could +imagine. Your fault. Rollo was expecting you to tea, and was looking +out for you all the time, and was the most ungracious person. To me, +you know, it is ridiculous how he seems to dote upon you." + +And Percival laughed brightly again. Happy, happy to be with +her--alone, alone at this hour, in this still place! "Old Rollo!" he +laughed. "Well, anyway, if I failed him, I've seen you." + +She asked him. "But why have you come--so late?" and at that his +laughter left him. + +"I wanted to see you," he said. "I don't know why," and paused. + +He did not know; but in declaring it to her, and in that pause, came a +step nearer discovery. Some nameless reason held his speech, and, +while she waited, fluttered in his eyes and communicated its influence +to her also. In that pause suspicion came to both of some strange +element that trembled in the air--fugitive, remote, but causing its +presence to be known as a scent declares itself upon the breeze. She +saw a tinge of redness kindle in his face. He saw the faintest trace +of deepening colour in the shades upon her cheeks. + +Not yet, not yet the truth! Transient the spell and quickly gone. +Only, a little shaken by it, "You're going away soon, Dora," he said. +"I think that's why I came." + +Free of it: "But that's not a reason," she answered him lightly. "I am +not going so suddenly--not till the end of the week." + +"Saturday--it's the day after to-morrow." + +"Ah, well, time goes so slowly here." + +"Dull for you--I can imagine that. To this French school, are you +going, Dora? I heard you telling Lady Burdon of it." + +"It's not a school. No more school for me, and I am very thankful." + +"Tell me what you do there." + +She went into a sudden break of laughter. She had somewhere picked up +a single vulgar phrase that consorted most strangely with her precise +manner of speech. "Your coming here like this," she laughed, "and +asking such very funny things!"--then used her phrase--"it tickles me +to death." + +The piquancy of it delighted him, and he laughed delightedly, and for +some reason had a stronger sense of her rare beauty. Not yet, not yet +the truth, but nearer yet, even as such truth advances by the strangest +and most secret steps. + +"Tell me, though, Dora!" + +"Oh, how it can interest you I am puzzled to imagine! Pleasant enough +things, then. There are twelve of us there, all English, I am glad to +say. We never speak English, though--always French; and then there are +German and Italian days; they make us laugh very much." + +As icicles broken in the hand! + +Her laughter had caused the shades on her cheek to glow. He gazed at +her in sheerest admiration; felt a new stirring of his blood; felt his +breath quicken. She was close, close to him. The little breezes that +had attended her, and had gone as if asulk at his intrusion, came with +a sudden little fury to win her back again, and smote him full with all +the fragrance that she had, and tossed her scarf and tossed her skirt +against him. + +She drew back her skirt, using the hand that held the pansies she had +gathered. The action brushed his hand with hers and with her flowers. + +Not yet, not yet the truth, but almost come! He slipped his fingers +about her wrist, holding her hand mid-breast between them. "Give me +those flowers, Dora." + +She slower in approaching it, but suspicious again of some strange +element in the air, as a fawn that lifts a doubtful head to question a +new thing in the breeze. "You have one buttonhole already," she told +him, her voice not very easy. + +He looked down at Ima's wild rose in his coat. "That's nothing," he +said, and began to remove it whence it was pinned. + +He was clumsy, for his hand trembled--the other still had hers. He was +clumsy. Thoughts, thoughts, were at hammer in his brain--new to him, +fierce to him and, as from iron in a forge, striking a glow that glowed +within his eyes. + +She saw the glow, saw how his hand shook. "It is well fastened," she +said. + +He broke off the rose at its head, jerked it aside and drew down the +stalk. She suffered him to take her flowers, and very carefully then +he placed them where the rose had been--hers! hers! That she had +plucked! That she had held! He was at the truth and he looked at her. + +She almost there. + +The glow in his eyes was turned full upon her and she stepped back from +it. The secret thing the night had was full about her and she had +alarm of it. "I find it rather chilly standing here," she said, "--and +late. I must be going in." + +He watched her take the veil about her shoulders another turn about her +throat, and watched her move away a pace. He started after her as +though he burst through bonds that held him. He walked beside her, +moving his tongue in his mouth as though it were locked from words and +sought them; and he could hear his heart knock. + +So, without words--in silence that shouted louder than speech--they +came to where the drive bent towards the house. She paused, and he +knew his dismissal. + +His face was red, as a child reddens when control of tears is on the +edge of breaking. His voice, when he spoke, had a strained note as the +voice is caused to strain when only one thought can be spoken and a +hundred press for speech. And strange--as between them--the words at +last he found: "Dora, you'd hate a man--wouldn't you?--with +nothing--who just poked along and did nothing?" + +It was the door that should introduce her to the knowledge wherein he +struggled. But she was only surprised, not recognising it; and +surprised, relieved indeed. "Any one would," she said. + +He flung wide the door. "Ah! Do you suppose I am going to?" + + +IV + +Love is an instinct and is played by instinct. Struggling in the +knowledge, in the mystery, that had drawn him here and that now +engulfed him, he scarcely yet was aware that he loved, but by instinct +was put in command of all the cunning of the game. His question +fronted her with personal issue between them; it is the first, the +last, the essential strategy. + +"Why, Percival!" she said and stopped--saw the door wide; and he saw +the colour deepen where her colour lay. "Why, Percival, why ever +should I suppose it of you?" + +He could control his voice no more. The strained note went. He said +thickly: "But you'll begin to think it. In time you're bound to--if I +let you. And then scorn me. If I just idled here you're bound to +scorn me. Any one would--you said it." + +Nervous her breathing. "But you--you never could be like that, +Percival. I've always thought of you as doing things. Every one +thinks it. I have noticed how they do." + +All the distress he had suffered earlier in the day was back with him +now, joined in fiercest tumult with what caused his heart to knock. He +cried "They soon won't!" and cried it on a bitter note that made her go +an unthinking step towards what waited her. "Percival, they always +will," she said. "I always will, Percival." + +The redness went from his face. His own clear voice came back to him. +All, all his being braced from storm to his control. He breathed +"Dora! Will you?" + +The stress that had been his was hers. She found no words; she only +nodded--moved her lips for "yes" but made no sound. He had come slowly +to the truth, by blundering ways that sometimes brought him near and +sometimes went astray. She was suddenly come--and come, not of +herself, but of as it were a flame that his voice as he spoke, his +ardour as he bent towards her, seemed to communicate. She was suddenly +come, was a degree bewildered, wanted even yet some further light. She +only nodded. + +"Dora, you are going for a long time. I heard you tell--" + +She said very low: "For a year." + +"Dora! A year!" + +"I am to be a year away. It is the last time. It is to finish." + +"A year! A year! Oh, Dora, a year!" + +Her face was close to his, her lips a shade apart, her wide eyes lifted +to him. Rare, rare he had thought her; perfect he knew her. That +mystic thing the night had held, held them mute, magnetised, privy from +all the world, alone. They stood so close the air he drew had first +caressed her. They stood so close that her young bosom almost told him +how she breathed. Slowly, as he were drawn to it, he stooped towards +her; steadily, as she were held, she suffered his face to approach. +Their lips touched, stayed for a space--smaller, infinitely less, than +mind can conceive; wider, immeasurably more, as their joined spirits +reckoned time, and rushed through time in bliss of ecstasy, than mind +can reckon space. + +And then he kissed her. + +Crimson she flamed in the places of her colour--flaming and more +flaming and deeper yet their flame. Their sharp limitations drove her +driven white about them; from throat to flame and flame to brow as lily +was her hue. She did not move nor speak, and he, amazed before her +rareness, drew back a step. She might have been a statue, so still she +stood. She might not have breathed, nor thought, so motionless her +breast, her eyes so wide, so still her gaze. Only that glowing scarlet +on her cheeks, only her skin's transparency--soft, deep, as if beneath +it some jewel gave a secret light--declared her mortal and proclaimed +she lived. + +A space passed. She came from the trance in which she seemed to be. +She gave a little sigh. As if she had been struck, not kissed; as if +she had been robbed, not possessed. "Oh! Percival!" she said. + +And he: "Oh! Dora!" + +He sprung to her, took both her hands; clasped them in his and adored +her with his eyes; bent his head to them and raised them to his lips. + +"Oh, Dora, have I hurt you? Oh, Dora, I love you so!" + +"Let me go in, Percival!" + +He held her hands against his breast. "I could not help it! I could +not help it! I love you, Dora! I've always loved you! I suddenly +knew I'd always loved you!" + +She spoke so low he scarcely could hear her voice: "Percival, let me go +in!" + +"Oh, Dora, have I hurt you? Dear, dear Dora, you are all the world to +me. I love you so, I love you so!" + +The faintest movement of her head gave him his answer and gave him +ecstasy. + +"I have not hurt you? You are not angry? I knew--or I would not have +kissed you. Speak to me, dear Dora." + +She only whispered: "Percival, I would like to go in. I am afraid." + +He cried: "I know. You are so beautiful--so beautiful; not meant for +me to love you." + +"You are hurting my hands, Percival." + +He kissed her hands again--fragile and white and cold and scented, like +crushed, cold flowers in his grasp. He told her: "From the very first +I loved you--but could not know it then. From that day when I first +saw you! Look how I must have been born to love you--you'll not be +frightened then. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red I called you. Smile, darling +Dora, as you smiled when I told you in the muddy lane that day. Do you +remember?" + +She had no smile: still seemed aswoon, still scarcely breathed, as some +bewildered dove--captured, past fluttering--which only quivers in the +hands that hold it. + +"If only you can sometimes think of me. You will understand then and +think again perhaps, and know all my life is changed, and know that +everything I do I shall do for you. I'll not see you again. I'll not +be here when you come back." + +At that he felt her fingers move within his hands. + +"I cannot stay here now--now that I love you. I shall go." + +He felt her tremble, and she breathed: "Oh, why? Oh, where?" + +"How could I face you again and still be idling here? I don't know +where, Dora. I only know why--because I love you so. Anywhere, +anything to get me something that will give you to me!" + +She whispered "Percival!" and stopped as though she had not strength +for more. And he breathed "Dora!" as though he knew what she would say +and by intensity of love would draw it from her. + +She slowly drew her hands from his. She took them to her breast, and +faltered again--again as she were wounded, afraid, struck, threatened, +atremble at some fearful brink, robbed of some vital virtue: "Oh, +Percival!" and caught her breath and said "Oh, Percival, what is +it--this?" + +"It is love!" he cried. "Dora, it is love!" + +She gave a little sigh; she unclasped her hands; seemed to relax in all +her spirit; suffered her hands, like cold white flowers floating +earthwards, lovewards to float to his. + +"Tell me!" he breathed. + +Soft as her hands fell, "I always shall think of you," she told him. + +He besought her "Tell me!" + +She whispered "Always!" + +In a man's voice, out of a sudden and terrible review of his +condition--possessed of nothing, chained to do nothing--and of her high +estate: "Others will love you!" he cried. + +As they would nestle there and there abide, her fingers moved within +his hands. + +In a man's voice, full man as full love makes, "Tell me," he besought +her. + +Scarcely perceptible her answer came; scarcely her lips moved for +it--faint as the timid breeze ventured to the innermost thicket, soft +as the hushed caress of summer rain along the hedgerows, "I shall +always love you," she breathed. + +Shortly he left her. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +WITH AUNT MAGGIE IN FAREWELL + +I + +It was past eleven when Percival got back to "Post Offic." He had been +absent seven hours. He felt himself removed by thrice as many years +from the moment when he had flung away from Aunt Maggie to work off by +active exercise the feelings aroused in him when, to his demands that +he must be doing something with his life, she had prayed him only wait. + +Day then, night now, and he as changed. + +The mood he brought her was unlike any he had proposed should be his +case. On Plowman's Ridge before he saw Japhra he had imagined for his +return a petulant, a trying-to-be-calm scene in which he should repeat +his purpose that an end must be made of the purposeless way of life in +which she was keeping him. By Fir-Tree Pool, with wise Japhra +propounding how a man must encourage his spirit and defeat his flesh, +he had imagined himself gentle with dear Aunt Maggie; gently showing +her what restlessness had him, persuading her to his ends, or, of his +love for her, accepting her wishes. Now he was come back and neither +case was his. Day then, night now, and he as changed. Now he had +lived that hour with Dora in the drive; now he had kissed her; now had +heard her breathe "I shall always love you." Gone every thought of +petulant distress; gone Japhra's counsels--gone boyhood, manhood come! + +The change was stamped upon his face, figured in his air. Aunt Maggie +looked up eagerly as he entered. She had waited him anxiously. He +stood a moment on the threshold of the room and looked at her with +steady, reckoning eyes. She saw; and she greeted him fearfully. "Why, +Percival, dear, how very late you are," she said. + +He replied: "It took me longer to get back than I expected." + +His tone matched his aspect and the look in his eyes. Aunt Maggie's +voice trembled a little: "You must have been a long way, dear?" + +"A good many miles," he said, and came forward and went to his place at +the table where supper was laid, and sat down. + +"Are you very tired, dear?--you look tired." + +"No--no, thank you, Aunt Maggie." + +His voice was absent--or stern; and absently--or sternly--he looked at +her across the table. + +She caught her breath and hesitated, and began pathetically to try by +brightness to rally him from his mood. + +"At least you must be terribly hungry," she smiled. "Here comes Honor +with just what you like." + +A tray tanged against the door, and was borne in by Honor, uncommonly +grim of the face. + +"Now wasn't that clever of Honor!" Aunt Maggie went on. "Five minutes +ago--after waiting since seven--she said she knew you would be just in +time if she began to cook the trout then; and here it is ready, and +most delicious, I'm sure, just as you arrive." + +Honor's actual words had been: "Time and tide wait for no dangerous +delays, Miss Oxford, and I don't neither--not a single instant longer. +I'll put these troutses on now which ought to have been on at ten +minutes to seven, and I'll cook 'em, and cook 'em and cook 'em till I +drop fainting on my own kitchen carpet and till they're nasty black +cinders that will serve him right. Lost his way! lost his nasty bold +temper! It's no good talking different to me, Miss, not if your voice +was tinkling trumpets, it isn't!" She had burst in with her tray +prepared to repeat her wrath to Percival's face, but caught the +appealing look in Aunt Maggie's eyes, perceived that something was +seriously amiss with Percival, and exchanged her heat for the affection +he had won in her from the first moment, years before, of his +arrival--the sweetest bundle of shawls--at "Post Offic." + +"Cooked to a turn, Master Percival, dear," Honor said, uncovering +before him the steaming dish. + +"And only just caught," Aunt Maggie smiled. "Rollo brought them in +just before supper time." + +And Honor: "And want it you do, as I can see. Nasty pinched look +you've got, Master Percival." + +And Aunt Maggie: "And look at that beer, dear. You'd scarcely think it +was a new cask, would you? As clear as crystal." + +And Honor: "Ah, 'Pitch that cask about,' I says to the man when he +delivered it. 'Pitch that cask about, my beauty, and you can pitch it +back into your waggin', I says. 'Young master don't want to eat his +beer with a knife and fork, not if you do,' I says sharp." + +And Aunt Maggie: "You see what care we take of you, Percival, although +you leave us all day long." + +And Honor: "And now I'll just get your slippers down for you. Nothing +like slippers when you're tired. And then you'll be to rights." + + +II + +So these fond women, perceiving him amiss, strove, as women will, to +heal him with their sympathy; and reckoned nothing--as is woman's +part--that he nothing responded to their gentleness nor anything abated +his set and brooding air. The world may be chased up and down to find +men conspired to soothe a woman's brow and scarcely will disclose a +single case. Men weary or wax impatient of such a task. But every +household at some time shows women gently engaged against a bearish +man. It is the woman's part--womanly as we say: using a rare word for +a beautiful virtue. + +At another time--in the days before that evening's magic, in the life +that preceded his present only by that hour in the drive with +Dora--Percival had long been won from moodiness by their solicitude for +him. Not now! Those days were only a single hour gone; its events +sundered them from the present by an abyss that had a lifetime's depth, +a lifetime's breadth from marge to marge. New feelings were his and +they enveloped him against old appeals as a suit of mail against +arrows. New prospects held his eyes and they blotted out homelier +visions as the changed scene of a play is dropped across an earlier +background. He was not preoccupied and therefore unaware of the loving +sentences addressed to him. His case was this--that he was a new man, +and as a stranger, therefore, listening to affections that did not +concern him. That he found himself insensible to their appeal was not +that he loved Aunt Maggie less or had suffered abatement of the +affection he had for hot-tongued, warm-hearted Honor. None of these. +It was this only--that he loved another more; this only--that the fires +of his love had sprung out in a new place and there burned with heat +infinitely more fierce than the flame where formerly his affections had +warmed their hands. + + +III + +Such of his meal as he required--and that was what habit, not appetite, +demanded--he ate in silence. To silence also Aunt Maggie went, shortly +after Honor had left them. She attempted once or twice to continue to +persuade him from his mood--protested that he was eating nothing; +sought to rally him with little scraps of gossip, with questions +touching his afternoon. Of no avail. Presently she clasped her hands +together on the table before him, and only watched him, and only sought +to discover from his face what thing it was his face betided, and only +felt her fears increase. + +When he was done he pushed back his chair and she dropped her eyes, for +his were now upon her and had the steady, reckoning look she had +observed--and feared--when he regarded her for that moment at his +entrance. She could not endure the feeling that he watched her, and +watched her so. "You will go to bed soon, Percival," she said. "You +do look so tired." + +He replied: "I am not tired. I have something to ask you first, Aunt +Maggie;" and after a pause he went on: "Aunt Maggie, I was telling you +this afternoon that I thought I ought to be doing something. Well, +more than that I thought I ought to be doing something, and more than +merely telling you--because I know I was in a great state about it and +went off in a great state." + +She answered, "Yes, Percival?" + +"You said there was plenty of time for that." + +"Yes, Percival." + +"There isn't, Aunt Maggie." And he went on quickly: "there isn't +plenty of time to think about what I am going to do. I am not a boy +any longer. Even if I started to-morrow I should be starting late. +Every one at my age is doing something." + +His tone was firm and quiet but was kind. She said that which made it +take a harder note. + +"Percival, you need only wait," she said, "till you are twenty-one." + +She saw his face darken in a change as swift and chill as sudden shadow +along the sea. "Oh, that!" he cried. "That! I don't want to hear +that any more or ever again! Is that all you have for me?" + +She clasped and unclasped her hands on the table before her. He waited +several moments for her answer. Then he said: "And what am I to do +till then?" + +She told him: "Only wait with me, Percival." + +He said very quietly: "No, I will not wait. I will not stay with you. +I am going away." + +The stress that each suffered was broken out of them by his +announcement. The thought of losing him, the thought of how a word, +revealing her secret, would keep him, broke from her in her cry: "No, +no, Percival! Oh, Percival, no!" + +Her sudden voice and its anguish smote him to his depths in his own +stress as a sudden cry in the night that shocks the heart. He uttered +in a voice she had never heard--most hoarse, most atremble: "Oh, +understand! For pity's sake try to understand. I am so that I will +never sleep again--never again till I have earned my sleep. Oh, +understand that I am a man!" + +She saw his dear face, his handsome face, his face that she loved so +and was to lose unless she spoke, all twisted up as though he writhed +in pain. She cried: "Percival, don't look like that. I can keep you. +I cannot let you go." + +He looked at her with eyes that told his anguish of this scene and of +his spirit. "You cannot keep me," he said. "I am going." + +She breathed: "By telling you I can keep you." + +He said: "Tell me, then."' + +She began, her tongue heavy as a key is rusty that is to turn in a lock +closed eighteen years; "Rollo--" she began, and stopped. + +He had for a moment believed that she intended to tell him this matter +affecting his future that he knew must be delusion--some wonderful +plan, as wonderful as impossible, such as a woman leading Aunt Maggie's +retired life might have--whose delusion, having it before him, he could +at last show her. But at her "Rollo," disappointed, he broke out, "Oh, +what has old Rollo to do with it?" + +Her voice was making a stumbling effort to hold on at turning the key. +But his "Old Rollo" caused her to halt, afraid, as one turning a key in +very fact might halt and draw back at a footstep. + +He saw her face go grey with the hue of ashes. "Aunt Maggie!" he +cried, and got up quickly and went to her. "I don't mean to be unkind. +I must go. I cannot stay. But I'm not going angry--not running away. +I love you--love you, you know how I love you. Just think of it as +going on a visit. It's no more than that. I'm going with old +Japhra--that's not like going, being with him, is it?" + +She just said: "When, dear?" + +"Darling, in the morning. At daybreak." + + +IV + +She began to cry, and clung to him. But it was more than losing him +had made that ashy hue in her face that had wrung his heart. It was +realisation of a sudden thing that menaced her revenge--a thing +suddenly arisen in its long, long path whose end she now was reaching. +Thinking, when the hour came, the more dreadfully to strike Lady +Burdon, she had deliberately made possible and had encouraged the +friendship between Percival and Rollo. Had she gone too far? What +when she told Percival and he saw it was "Old Rollo" he was to +displace, "Old Rollo" upon whom he was to bring disaster--what if--? + +She dared not so much as finish that question. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +WITH EGBERT IN FREEDOM + +I + +In the morning when he came early to her room, she was easier and able +only to suffer her distress at losing him. Thoughts had come to her, +helping her; and helping her the more in that they were of a part with +the fatalism which had assured her at Audrey's death-bed that nothing +could go wrong in her scheme. His resolve to go away was surely, she +thought, fate's contribution to her success. Always she had planned +for twenty-one--when he should be of age, and qualified himself to +avenge his mother. Last night, in agony at losing him, she had nearly +robbed herself of that. Fate, in guise of her panic realisation of his +affection for Rollo, had interfered to stop her. Last night she had +thought it insupportable to be left without him. While she lay +sleepless--and heard her darling pacing his floor in the next +room--fate had again encouraged her heart by showing her that this was +well, not ill--that this was fate working for her; well that he should +now, in the last period, be separated from Rollo. + +Thus supported she was saved from the uttermost extremity of the +collapse that came upon her when fondly he kissed her as she lay in +bed, left her, returned to press her to him again.--"Think of it as a +visit, Aunt Maggie, only that. Just a visit to give these idle +whacking great hands something to do"--and then was gone. + +One or two--up thus early--who saw him go by and came to Aunt Maggie +when it was noised that he had gone away, told her how stern he +looked--how strange. Miss Purdie, early in her garden, had noticed it. +"Oh, Miss Oxford, if I had _known_! Oh, to _think_ he was going when I +saw him! Oh, and I _suspected_ something was wrong. There was +_something_ in his face I had _never_ seen there before. I thought to +myself 'Now _what_ is the matter with you, I wonder?' And I _stood_ +and _looked_ after him, and dropped one of my garden gloves and never +_knew_ I had lost it until I was back in the house and found I had only +_one_ to take off. Oh, when I _think_ of all his sweet ways and his +handsome face...." + + +II + +Stern he looked and strange, and stern his thoughts and difficult. His +plans ran to coming up with Japhra on the Dorchester Road and joining +him. Beyond?--he could supply nothing beyond. His urgent desire went +to being away from home, and for his own respect and for his mind's +ease working to earn his food. Beyond?--he could see nothing beyond. +His thoughts and all his heart and all his being went to his Dora, to +her exquisite beauty, to the rapture of their kiss, to the divine +ecstasy of her whisper, "I shall always love you;" beyond?--black, +black beyond, most utter black, most utter hopeless; emptiness most +utter, mock most shrill, most sharp. + +He laughed, poor boy; and "Fool! Fool!" cried, "abject fool!" He +groaned, poor boy, and "Dora! Dora!" cried, "oh! Dora!" He set his +teeth, poor boy, and braced his strength; threw up his chin and +clenched a fist, and "Somehow! Somehow!" cried, "Somehow!" + +Most to be pitied then, poor boy, as old friend wind, in whose path now +he came, knew and mocked, or might have known and surely +mocked--buffeting him with "Ha! Ha! Ha!" tossing his "Somehow! +Somehow!" from his lips and chasing it and tearing it as old friend +wind had heard resolves and mocked and tossed and chased and torn them +from end to end along its course since mankind first resolving came. + +But he was helped by that strong "Somehow!" as by resolve mankind--and +youth the most of all--is ever helped. More stern, not less, it made +him, but launched a shaft of light into the darkness of that +Beyond--showing the adventure, not the desert there; inspiring him that +somehow stuff was to be found there that somehow he would wrest to +himself, somehow shape and beat to win him fulfilment of all his hopes. + +Thus he was in brighter mood when presently he brought the white riband +of the Dorchester road into view, in mood bright enough to laugh when, +striking towards the spot where he proposed to pick up the van, he saw +on a gate there a lank figure, bundle over shoulder, that suggested to +him it could be no one but Egbert Hunt. He laughed--then had a tender +look in his eyes, for his thoughts, as he made along in the direction +of gate and figure, went to Rollo. + + +III + +On his way home, when he had left Dora on the previous night, he had +called in at Burdon Old Manor to bid Rollo good-by. Lady Burdon had +gone to bed. He found Rollo in the billiard room, Egbert Hunt marking +for him, and it was what had passed between them that had emphasised +the endearment in his tone when he had said "Old Rollo" to Aunt Maggie. + +Tender his look when he recalled how "Old Rollo," hearing he was going +away, had dropped his cue and stared at him in blank dismay, then +questioned him, and then had listened with twitching mouth when he had +cried, "Oh, Rollo, things are so steep for me, old man. I can't +explain. I must get out of this, that's all!" + +For the first time--and the only time--in all their friendship it had +been Rollo's to play the supporter. "Why, Percival, dear, dear old +chap," he had cried, "don't look like that. For God's sake, don't. +Whatever's wrong I can help you. We are absolute, absolute pals. No +one ever had such a pal as you've been to me--now it's my turn. Stay +here with us a bit, old man. Yes, that's what you'll do. Let's fix +that, old man. That will make everything right. Everything I've got +is yours--you know that, don't you, old man?" + +And when he had shaken his head and had explained that it was +work--work for his hands he wanted, and was going to find with Japhra, +Rollo had vented his feelings on Egbert Hunt with "What the devil are +you standing there listening for, Hunt? Get out of this! Didn't I +tell you to go? Get out!" And when they were alone, and when he had +seen that Percival was not to be moved, had revealed his affection in +last words that brought a dimness to Percival's eyes as he recalled +them. + +"Men don't talk about these things," Rollo had said, "so I've never +told you all you are to me--but it's a fact, Percival, that I'm never +really happy except when I'm with you. I've been like that ever since +we met, and in all the jolly days we've had together. You know the +sort of chap I am--quite different from you. I don't get on with other +people. I've always hated the idea of going to Cambridge this October +because it means mixing with men I shan't like and leaving you. You're +everything to me, old man. It's always been my hope--I don't mind +telling you now you're going--that when I settle down, after I come of +age--you know what I mean--it's always been my hope that we'll be able +to fix it up together somehow. I shall have business and things to +look after--you know what I mean--that you can manage a damn sight +better than I can. And I'll want some one to look after me--the kind +of chap I am; a shy ass, and delicate. And you're the one, the only, +only one. Just remember that, won't you, old man?..." + + +IV + +Percival was aroused from his warm recollection of it by the figure on +the gate hailing him. Egbert Hunt it was. "Good lord!" Percival +cried. "What on earth are you doing here--this time in the morning and +with that bundle?" + +"Coming with you," said Hunt. + +"With me! Do you know where I'm going?" + +Egbert Hunt pointed up the road where Japhra's van came plodding. "In +that. Heard you tell Lord Burdon last night. Heard you say that Mr. +Stingo's crowd was short of hands. The life for me. Fac'." + +Percival stared at him--a grown man now, lanky, unhealthy, white of +face. + +"Does Rollo--does Lord Burdon know? Did he say you might go?" + +"Told me to go to 'ell." + +Percival laughed. "You'll find it that--you frightful ass." + +"I'll be free," said Egbert darkly. "No man's slave I won't be any +more. Every man's as good as the next where you're bound, I reckon. +No more tyrangs for me. You're my sort, and always have been." + +The van was up to them and pulled up with Japhra's surprised hail of +greeting. Percival went to him where he sat on the forward platform. +"Japhra, here's a hand for one of your crowd--a friend of mine. Is +there work for him?" + +Japhra looked at Egbert with unveiled belittlement. "There's work for +all sorts," he said drily. "For him perhaps. Get up behind," he +addressed Egbert. "I'll let old One Eye have a look at thee. He wants +a hand." + +Percival swung up beside Japhra and smiled good morning at Ima, who had +come to the door. "Go on, Japhra." + +"That's a poor lot, that friend of thine," said Japhra, clicking his +tongue at Pilgrim. "How far dost thou come with us, little master?" + +"All the way, Japhra." + +Japhra looked at him keenly. "To Dorchester?" + +"Farther than that. I'm going to be third lad in your boxing booth, +Japhra. Go on; I'll explain." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +WITH JAPHRA ON THE ROAD + +I + +It was two years--near enough--before Percival came again to Burdon +Village. Egbert Hunt found work with old One Eye who had the Wild West +Rifle Range. Percival became "Japhra's Gentleman" (as the van folk +called him), living with Japhra and Ima in the van, and earning his way +in Japhra's booth. + +A tough life, a quick life, a good life; and he "trained on," as they +said in the vans of beast or man or show that, starting fresh, slipped +into stride and did well. He trained on. Little room for trouble or +for brooding thoughts. Up while yet the day was grey; stiff work in +boots and vest and trousers in taking down the booth and loading-up, +harnessing and getting your van away before too many kept the dust +stirring ahead of you. Keen appetite for the breakfasts Ima cooked, +eaten on the forward platform with the van wheels grinding the road +beneath. The long, long trail to the next pitch,--now with Ima as she +sat, one eye on the horse, the other on her needle, sewing, darning, +making; now plodding alongside with Japhra, drinking his quaint +philosophy, hearing his strange tales of men and countries, fights and +hard trades he had seen. Now forward along the long line of waggons, +now dropping back where they trailed a mile down the road; joining this +party or that, chaffing with the brown-faced girls or walking with the +men and listening to their tales of their craft and of their lives. +Sometimes the road from pitch to pitch was short; then the midday meal +would be taken at the new site and there would be an hour's doze before +the booths were set up and business begun. Usually the journey took +the greater part of the day--frequently without a halt--and work must +begin immediately on arrival; the boxing booth built up--first the +platform on which Percival and Japhra, Ginger Cronk and Snowball White +paraded to attract the crowd--a thing of boards and trestles, the +platform, that by sheer sweating labour must be made to lie even and +stable whatever the character of the ground; three uprights at either +end that sometimes must be forced into soil iron hard and sometimes +must be coaxed to hold firm in marshy bog. The booth itself to be +rigged then--the wooden framework that must be lashed and nailed and +screwed; the wide lengths of canvas eyeletted for binding together; +stakes for the ring to be driven in; seats to be bolted together and +covered--and all at top, top speed with a mouthful of nails and screws +and "Who in hell's got that mallet?" and "A hand here! a hand sharp! +Blast her! she's slipped again!" and many a bruised finger and always a +sweating back. And then sharp, sharp into the flannels, and out with +the gloves; and parade till the booth was full; and spar exhibition +rounds alleged to be for weighty purses; and fight all the challengers +from the crowd four rounds apiece, any weight; and top-up with a stiff +six rounds announced by Snowball White: "A sporting gentleman having +put up a purse for knock-out or win on points match between Ginger +Cronk, ten stun champion of the west,--who beat Curly Hawkins in eight +rounds, knocked out Alf Jacobs after a desperate ding-dong o' fourteen +rounds, defeated Young Philipps in five rounds, and Jew Isaacs in +sixteen,--and Gentleman Percival, a lad with a future before him, whom +you'll be proud to have seen, gentlemen, discovered this summer by +Gipsy Japhra, the man who held the lightweight champion belt for four +years in America and who has trained with all the great ring heroes, +bare-knuckle men, gentlemen, of a glorious Prize Ring period of the +past. You are requested to pass no remarks during the progress of this +desperate encounter, but to signify appreciation in the usual manner. +Gentlemen, Mr. Ginger Cronk, Mr. Gentleman Percival--TIME!--" And so +on; and winding up with "a remarkable exhibition in which Gipsy Japhra, +partnered by Gentleman Percival, will show the style and methods of the +old P. R. gentlemen"--and then back to the platform again, to parade, +to fill the booth, to fight--and so till the last visitor had left the +fair to night and to its hoarse and worn-out workers. + +A tough life, a quick life, a good life; ... and Percival trained on. +At first he had been considerably tasked by the rough and tumble, +ding-dong work in the boxing booth following the strenuous labour of +the day, with no time lost between pitch and pitch. Aching limbs he +had dropped on his couch when at last rest came, and tender face, +bruised from six or seven hours' punching, that even the soft pillow +seemed to hurt. But he trained on. In a few weeks it was tired to bed +but unaching, unhurt--only deliciously weary with the wearyness of +perfect muscles and nerves relaxed to delicious rest; early afoot, +keen, and sound, and vigorous; brisk, ready smiling to jump into the +ring for the last P. R. exhibition with old Japhra as for the first +spar with Ginger Cronk or Snowball White. "Thou art the fighting +type," wise Japhra had told him years before; and those exhibition +rounds with the old man were each of them lessons that brought him to +rare skill with his fists. + +While they sat together before their turn Japhra would instruct what +was to be learnt this time, and while they sparred "Remember!" Japhra +would call, "Remember! Good! Good!--Weak! Weak!--Follow it! Follow +it!--Speed's thy game!--Quick as thou canst sling them!--See how that +hook leaves thee unguarded!--Again!--All open to me again!--Again!--ah, +take it, then!" and _clip!_ to the unprotected stomach, savage as he +could drive it, would come old Japhra's left; and Percival go gasping, +and Ginger Cronk to the spectators: "With that terrible punch, +gentlemen, Gipsy Japhra knocked out Boy Duggan and took the +championship belt at Los Angeles. Put your hands together, gentlemen, +and give 'em a 'earty clap." When the round was ended Japhra would go +over it point by point. When they sat or walked together, at meals or +on the road, he was forever imparting his advice, his knowledge, his +experience. He waas never tired of teaching ... and Percival trained +on. + + +II + +There came a day when "Thou must go slow with me," Japhra said after +they had finished their round. "I have put skill to thy youth and +strength. Thou must go slow with me or the folks will see nothing of +the parts I am to show them." There came a day when he was given +demonstration--if he had cared to recognise it for such--that the van +folk knew him for a clever one with his fists. Foxy Pinsent supplied +it. + +In all the crowd of tough characters that made up Maddox's Royal Circus +and Monster Menagerie with its attendant booths Foxy Pinsent alone gave +him a supercilious lip or darkling scowl where others gave him smile +and welcome. Foxy Pinsent had an old grudge against him--as Japhra had +said--and lost no opportunity to rub it. The fact that "Japhra's +Gentleman" was in the way of becoming a rival attraction to his own +fame among the crowds that flocked to the fairs sharpened his spleen. +The ever increasing bad blood between the two factions--Maddox's and +Stingo's--gave him chance to exercise it. + +Percival came hot to Japhra one day: "Damn that man Pinsent, Japhra. +He's going too far with me. He's been putting it about the vans that I +am too much the gentleman to go with a Maddox man--that I said in his +hearing I refused to go with Dingo Spain to buy bread yesterday because +I would not be seen in his company by decent people." + +Japhra looked up at the angry face: "Let him bide. Let him bide." + +"I'm not afraid of him." + +"Nor I of adders, but I do not disturb their nests--nor lie in their +ways." + +On a day the reason came for Percival to cross the adder's way. Egbert +Hunt knocked over a bucket in which one of Pinsent's negro pugilists +was about to wash. The man used his fists, then his boots, on Hunt, +sending him back brutally used. Percival sought out the black, +outfought him completely, and administered a punishing that appeared to +him to meet the case. Then came Pinsent. + +"You've put your hands to one of my men, I hear--to Buck Osborn?" + +"An infernal bully," said Percival. + +"You've put your hands to one of my men!" + +"And will again if he gives me cause!" + +Foxy Pinsent came nearer, thin mouth and narrow eyes contracted in his +ring expression. "Watch me, my gentleman; my lads' quarrels are mine. +Watch out how you go your ways." + +Percival glanced behind to see he had room: "You can leave that to me. +I'll not have my friends knocked about." + +"It's you in danger of the knocking about, my gentleman! That fine +face of yours would take a bloody mark." + +Percival slipped back his right foot six inches and glanced behind him +again: "Try it, Pinsent." + +Foxy Pinsent noticed the action. He moved his left fist upwards a +trifle, then dropped it to his side and turned away with a laugh: "I +don't fight boys; I thrash 'em." + +"You know where to find me," Percival said. + + +III + +So and in this wise he trained on to the tough, quick, good life; and +in spirit developed as in body. The deeper he knew Japhra, the wider +became his comprehension of life. He had failed once in the struggle +with self, and that on the very night of Japhra's instruction of how +that struggle should be fought: he was training on now not to fail +again if ever the Big Fight should come. "What, art thou vexed again?" +Japhra would say when sometimes he fell to brooding. "Get at the +littleness of it--get at the littleness of it. It will pass. Remember +what endureth. Not man nor man's work--only the green things that fade +but come again Spring by Spring; only the brown earth that to-day +humbly supports thee, to-morrow obscurely covers thee; only the hills +yonder that shoulder aside the wind; only the sea that changeth always +but changeth never; only the wind on our cheeks here, that to-day +suffers itself to go in harness to yonder mill and to-morrow will wreck +it and encourage the grass where it stood. Lay hold on that when aught +vexeth thee; all else passeth...." + +He trained on. Trifle by trifle and more and more he received and +held, understood and stored for profit the little man's philosophy; +trifle by trifle, more and more, developed qualities that made for the +quality of self-restraint that ripened within him. Whatever his mood +there was always peace and balm for him in the van. Many signs +discovered to him that he was not merely an accepted part of Japhra's +life and Ima's but a very active part; the little stir of welcome told +him that--the little stir that always greeted him when he came on them +sitting together. + +They called him "Percival" now, at his desire. To Japhra he was still +sometimes Little Master; to Ima never. But in Ima's ways and in her +speech he noticed altogether a change in these days. The "Thou" and +"Thee" and "Thine" of her former habit were gone: she never appeared +now with naked feet, but always neatly hosed and shod. Gentle in her +movements too, and seemly in her dress, Percival noticed, and he came +to find her strange--a thing apart--in her rough surroundings; strange +to them and remote from them when she sat plying her needle, attending +to his hungry wants and Japhra's, or mothering some baby from a +neighbour's van. He came to think her--contrasted thus with all the +sights and sounds about her--the gentlest creature that could be; her +voice wonderfully soft, her touch most kind when she dressed a bruise +or nursed him, as once when he lay two days sick. She mended his +clothes; made some shirts for him; passed all his things through her +hands before he might wear them; and never permitted him clothes +soiled, or lacking buttons, or wanting the needle. + +He was leaving the van once to go into the town against which they were +pitched. She called him back. The scarf he wore was soiled, she said, +and she came to him with a clean one. + +He laughed at her: "It's absolutely good enough." + +"No, soiled," she said, and took it from his neck and placed the other. + +He playfully prevented her fingers. "I'm like a child with a strict +nurse--the way you look after me." + +She replied, smiling but serious: "It is not for you to get into rough +ways." + +"They're good enough for me." + +She shook her head. "You are not always for such." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +LETTERS OF RECALL + +I + +The first winter of this life Percival spent with Japhra in the van; +the second took him, for the first time since he had broken away, back +to "Post Offic." Ima left them, when the circus broke up in that first +October, to go to her doctor friend in Norfolk, there to continue the +education she had imposed upon herself. Egbert Hunt took her place, +and the three started to tour the country till Spring and the +reassembly of Maddox's should be round again. But winter on the road +proved inclement to Mr. Hunt's nature. A week of frost in early +December that had them three days snow-bound and on pinching short +commons decided him for less arduous ways of life. He left them for +London, his pockets well enough lined by his season's apprenticeship to +old One Eye; they had news of him once as a socialist open air speaker +in company with some organisation of malcontents of his kidney; once as +prominent in an "unemployed" disturbance and in prison for seven days +as the price of his activities. + +"He will know gaol a longer term ere he has done," was Japhra's +comment. "A weak, bad streak in him." + +Percival laughed. "Poor old Hunt. More bitter than ever against +'tyrangs' now, Japhra. He's been shaping that way since I first knew +him--often made me laugh with his outbursts." + +"Best keep clear of that kind," Japhra said. "The stick for such." + +They pushed North. Neither had a feeling for roofs or fireside that +winter. The tinkering and the Punch and Judy kept them in enough funds +scarcely to draw upon the season's profits. Japhra plied him at the +one; Percival took chief hand in the other. A tough life, a quiet +life, a good life. With only their two selves for company they talked +much and read much of the three fighting books that were Japhra's +library. Percival was almost sorry when Maddox's was picked up again +and Ima rejoined them. He welcomed the second winter when it came; +chance fell that it had him scarcely a month alone with Japhra when it +saw him leave the van, and homeward bound to Burdon. + + +II + +Two letters gave him this sudden impulse. Both were from "Post +Offic"--one forwarded thence--and seemed to have partnered one another +on a long and devious search before finding him. One was from Aunt +Maggie. The other he opened first and opened with hands that trembled +a little. Well he knew that regular, clear writing! He had only seen +it in notes to Rollo, invitations to tea, in the days gone by, but it +was as memorized to him as in him every memory of her was +graven--Dora's! + +His hands trembled that held this the first sign of her since he had +left her in the drive at Abbey Royal on that night eighteen months +before, and his breath ran quick. The first sign! He had urged her at +their parting he might write to her. She had desired he should not. +Letters at the French school might only come, it appeared, from +parents, or in handwriting authorised by parents, and only to such +quarters might be addressed. He had accepted the fate. Nay, well it +should be so, he had told her. He would not--could not, for he loved +her so!--see her again, be the time never so long, till somehow he had +won some place in the world; very well, not even write to her. Their +hearts alone should bind them: "For, Dora, you are to be mine. Somehow +I shall do it--not see you till I have. You will remember--that is +all, remember." + +How had she remembered? He broke the seal and held his breath to read. + +She wrote from Burdon House in Mount Street: explaining the address as +though he had not known Mrs. Espart had taken it on lease at the time +of Lord Burdon's death:-- + + +DEAR PERCIVAL, + +We returned here yesterday from the South of France, where we have been +with Rollo and Lady Burdon. Did you know that Mother has taken Rollo's +house here until he wants it and turns us out? I am writing for Rollo. +I think you will be distressed to learn that he has been very +ill--beginning with pneumonia. But we left him better, and they are +following us to London soon. He most urgently desired me to tell you +this, and that you must come and see him then. He says that he must +see you again; and, indeed, he is forever talking of you. As to that, +I must tell you that when I was with him we saw in an illustrated paper +some pictures entitled "Life among the Showmen;" and in one, on a tent +was to be seen "Gentleman Percival." From what Rollo told us, that was +your tent. He was very excited about it; and to me it was very +singular to have come upon it like that. + +Well, I have written his address on the back of this, and you must +certainly write to him or he will think that I have not told you and +that I side with Lady Burdon and Mother in estimating that you are +"very wild," which I do not. + +I address this to your home; but it is hard to know if it will ever +reach you. + +Yours sincerely, + DORA ESPART. + + +How had she remembered? No trace of any memory of love was in the +lines he carried to his lips and read again and many times again. He +reckoned nothing of that. He read what he had expected to find. He +read herself, as in the months that separated that magic hour in the +drive he had come again to think of her--as one as purely, rarely, +chastely different from her sisters as driven snow upon the Downside +from snow that thaws along the road; as one that he should never have +dared terrify by his rough ardour into that swooning "Oh, Percival, +what is it, this?" Realising that moment of his passion, he sometimes +writhed in self-reproach to think how violently he must have distressed +her: sometimes hoped she had forgotten it--else surely shame of how her +delicacy had been ravished at his hands would make her shrink at +meeting him again. So this letter that had no hint of memory of love +rejoiced and moved him to his depths. Unchanged from his boyish +adoration of her, it revealed her, and unchanged he would have her be. +Its precise air, its selected words, its stilted phrases, spoke to him +as with her very voice--"It was very singular to me;" "It is hard to +know:" as icicles broken in the hand! Snow-White-and-Rose-Red--and +frozen snow and frozen red! + +He was ardent and atremble in the resolve that he must get to London on +Rollo's return and make old Rollo the excuse to see her again--touch +her, perhaps; speak to her, ah!--then, and not till then, bethought him +of his second letter. From Aunt Maggie; and he drew it from his pocket +with prick of shame at his neglect of it. He had from time to time +written to Aunt Maggie. Her letters were less frequent; easier to +write to "Post Offic" than for "Post Offic" to write to him, ever on +the move. + +Three closely-written sheets came from the envelope. They contained +many paragraphs, each of a different date--Aunt Maggie waited, as she +explained, until she could be sure of an address to which to post her +letter. There was much gossip of a very intimately domestic nature, +each piece of news beginning with "I think this will interest you, +dear." Before he was through with the letter the recurrence of the +phrase, speaking so much devotion, caused a moisture to come to his +eyes. "I think this will interest you, dear"--and the matter was that +Honor burnt a hole in a new saucepan yesterday. "I think this will +interest you, dear"--and "fancy! fourteen letters were posted in the +box to-day." "I think this will interest you, dear"--and would he +believe it! "one of the ducks hatched out sixteen eggs yesterday." + +The more trivial the fact, the more Percival found himself affected. +He was touched with the profound pathos of Aunt Maggie's revelation of +how he centered each smallest detail of her remote and lonely life; he +was rendered instantly responsive to the appeal with which at the end +of her letter she cried to him to come home to see her--if only for a +night. "This will be the second Christmas that you have been away. +The days are, oh! so very, very long for me without my darling boy." + +He told Japhra that he must go--not for long, and if for longer than he +thought, at least the first of the new year would see him back. They +were in Essex. Urgent with this sudden determination that had him, he +took train for London on the next morning, and before midday was set +down at Liverpool Street Station. Holiday mood seized him now that he +had taken holiday. He counted again and again the sixty-five pounds +that, to his amazed joy,--he, who till now had never earned a +penny!--Japhra paid him for two seasons' wage and share. It seemed a +fortune--forced up the holiday spirit as bellows at a forge; and on the +way to Waterloo he ridded his burning pockets of a portion of it in +clothes and swagger kit-bag for this his holiday, and in presents that +brought parcels of many shapes and sizes into his cab--for Aunt Maggie, +for Honor, for Mr. Amber, for Mr. Hannaford, for all to whom his heart +bounded now that he was to see them again. + + +III + +In these delights he missed his train. Two hours were on his hands +before the next, and as he contemplated them a daring thought (so he +considered it) came to him. He took a hansom cab and bade the man +drive him to Mount Street,--through Mount Street and so back again. He +would see where she lived! + +"Drive slowly up here," he told the man when the cab turned into the +street for which he watched. "Do you know Burdon House?" + +It was pointed out ahead of him. "Set down there many a time. Lord +Burdon's 'ouse it was. Another party's got it now." + +Percival leant back, not to be seen--not daring to be seen!--and +stared, his pulses drumming, as he was slowly carried past. + +Might there have troubled him some vague, secret feeling of association +between himself and that brown, massive front of Burdon House with its +broad steps leading to the heavy double doors, with its tall, +wrought-iron railings above the area, with its old torch extinguishers +on either side the entrance, with its quiet, impassive air that large +old houses have, as of guardians that know much and have seen +much--brides come and coffins go, birth and death, gay nights and sad, +glad hours and sorry--and look to know more and see more? Might he +have felt, as he told Aunt Maggie he had felt at Burdon Old Manor, +"thinking without thinking, as if some one else were thinking," as he +passed those steps where one that he might have called Father often had +gaily passed, where one he might have called Mother had gone wearily up +and come fainting, dizzily down? + +He felt, nor was disturbed, by none of those. He only gazed, gazed as +he would pierce them, at all its solemn windows, riveted its every +feature on his mind; but only because it was where she must have +looked, because it sheltered her where she must be. It was a new +setting against which he might envisage her; he only thought of it as +that. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +MR. AMBER DOES NOT RECOGNISE + +I + +It was in dreams that night that vague, secret influences of his sight +of Burdon House came stealing about him--if such they were; he +attributed them to the disturbance of an event that greeted him within +a few hours of his gay arrival at "Post Offic." + +He had announced his coming by telegram. He took Plowman's Ridge on +leaving the train at Great Letham, old friend wind greeting him with +most boisterous Ha! Ha! Ha! and as he came down the slope two figures +broke from the little copse and came fluttering up the Downside towards +him--one slight with running tears, and outstretched, eager arms; the +other gaunt and grim, uncompromising of visage, but with eyes aglisten. + +"Aunt Maggie! Aunt Maggie!" + +"My boy! My Percival!" + +Her boy's arms went about her: for a space neither moved after that +first cry. He only held her--close, close to him; she only clung to +him, her face to his, and felt his dear face stop her flowing tears. + +He held her from him then at arm's length, the better to gaze at her; +and she overcame her foolish tears and told him: "How you have grown! +How handsome you have grown!" + +And Honor grimly, with grimness spoilt by chokey utterance: "Ah, +handsome is as handsome don't make fine birds!" + +"You've got it wrong, you frightful old goose!" cried Percival; and +there was Honor's bony cheek to be kissed, her bony hug to take. + +Then the disturbing even:-- + +Mr. Amber, Aunt Maggie told him, was dying. He had been told Percival +was coming and had begged to see him. There had only been a brief +interval of consciousness in the last twenty-four hours; Percival had +better go at once. + + +II + +Percival went immediately. The Old Manor had the deserted aspect he +remembered when, as a little boy, he used to seek Mr. Amber in the +library; and it was to the library he now was taken. Mr. Amber had +been carried there. He knew he was to die. He had begged to die in +the apartment he loved--among his books. + +There Percival found him. He lay on a bed that had been placed in the +centre of the room. He was asleep, breathing with a harsh, unnatural +sound. A nurse sent over from Great Letham attended him, and Percival +inquired of her: "I am Percival; has he been asking for me?" + +She shook her head: "Since this morning only for Lord Burdon. Before +that, frequently." + +Percival went on one knee by the bedside. The mild old face that he +had always known silvery and smiling seemed white as the pillow where +it lay, pathetically lined and hollowed. On a sudden the eyes very +slowly opened and looked full into Percival's bending above him. +Percival experienced a shock of horror at what followed. Burning +intelligence flamed into the dim eyes; the blood rushed in a crimson +cloud to the white face; the thin form struggled where it lay. + +"My lord! my lord!" Mr. Amber whispered; and "lift me--lying down +before my lord!" + +"Mr. Amber! I am Percival! You remember me!" + +The nurse raised him, and with practised hand the pillows also, so that +he reclined against them. "It is your friend Percival. Lord Burdon +will soon come, perhaps." + +He gave her no attention. He smiled at Percival in something of his +mild old way. "We are very weak, my lord," he said. "Very weak." + +"Mr. Amber! I am Percival! You remember what friends we were. You +will get strong, and we will have some more reading together--you +remember?" + +Mr. Amber still smiling, his eyes closed again. "On the ladders." + +"Yes--yes. On the ladders. You remember now--Percival." + +Mr. Amber's smile seemed to settle upon his face as though his lips +were made so. "Hold my hand, my lord." + +He began to slip down in the bed. The nurse eased his position. He +seemed back to unconsciousness again, his breathing very laboured. +Night had drawn about the room and was held dusky by the candles. +There stole about Percival, as he knelt, atmosphere of the memories he +had recalled in vain attempt to arouse Mr. Amber's recognition. Again +dusk here, and he with mild, old Mr. Amber. Again shadows wreathing +about the high ceiling, stealing from the corners. Again a soft +thudding on the window-pane, as of some shadow seeking to enter--death? +Again the strange feeling of "thinking without thinking as if some one +else were thinking"--and on that, worn out perhaps with his long day, +perhaps carried by some other agency, he went into a dream-state in +which vague, secret influences of his ride through Mount Street came +upon him. He thought he was in Mount Street again and come to Burdon +House, and that the door opened as he ascended the steps. He found the +interior completely familiar to him, and for some reason was frightened +and trembled to find it so. He went from familiar room to familiar +room, afraid at their familiarity as though it was some wrong thing he +was doing, and knew himself searching--searching--searching. What he +searched he did not know. He just opened a door, and looked, and +closed it and passed on. There were persons in some rooms--once Dora, +once Rollo, once Lady Burdon. They stretched hands to him or spoke. +He shook his head and told them "I am not looking for you," and closed +the doors upon them. He climbed the completely familiar stairs and +searched each floor. The fear that attended him suddenly increased. +He had a sudden and most eerie feeling that some presence was come +about him as he searched. He heard a voice cry: "My son! My son! We +have waited for you. Oh, we have waited for you!" Fear changed to a +flood of yearning emotion. He tried to cry, "It is you--you I am +looking for!" He could not speak, and wrestled for speech; and +wrestling, came back to consciousness of his surroundings. He was +streaming with perspiration, he found. He saw next that Mr. Amber's +eyes were open and looking at him, and heard him say, "Percival!" + +Had that been the voice in that frightful dream? + +"Mr. Amber! I knew you would know me!" + +Recognition was in the eyes, but they were filming. + +"Yes, he knows you," the nurse whispered. + +Quite firmly, firmer than he had yet spoken: "Hold my hand--my lord," +Mr. Amber said, and ended the words and ended life with a little +throaty sound. + +The nurse disengaged their hands. "But I am so glad he did just +recognise you," she said kindly. + + +III + +Old friend wind was in tremendous fettle that night. Percival battled +along Plowman's Ridge on his way back and had battled twenty minutes +when he cried aloud, venting his grief, and answering the nurse's +words, "He didn't recognise me!" + +And old friend wind paused to listen; came in tremendous gusts, Ha! Ha! +Ha! and hurled the words aloft and tossed and rushed them high along +the Ridge. + +"Something was wrong with me in there," Percival exclaimed. "Did I +speak sense to him? What was happening to me? Was I dreaming? What +was it?--oh, damn this wind!" + +Ha! Ha! Ha! thundered old friend wind, staggering him anew--Ha! Ha! Ha! + +An absolutely irrepressible party, old friend wind. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +DORA REMEMBERS + +I + +Percival was not the only one that in this period was disturbed by +uneasy dreams, by vague and strange half-thoughts, by "thinking without +thinking," as though some other influence were temporarily in +possession of the senses. Lady Burdon was thus disturbed; Aunt Maggie, +too. But of the three Aunt Maggie only knew the cause. If Lady +Burdon, if Percival, had brought their unrest to her for explanation +she might have explained it as she was able to explain her own--the +"fluttering" that very often came to her in these days of Percival's +visit home. She might have told them, as she told herself, that it was +occasioned for that the years were closing in now--the prepared doom +gathering about them all and they responsive to its nearness as +gathering storm gives vague unease, headaches, depression when its +emanations fall. + +For her own part Aunt Maggie had herself in hand again--was again +possessed by the certitude that nothing could go amiss with her plans. +It had supported her through all these long years. It had been shaken, +but had recovered again, by fear of Percival's affection for Rollo. It +tore at her frantically, like a strong horse against the bridle, now +that only a few months remained for its release in her revenge's +execution. In little less than a year Percival would be twenty-one. +She no more minded--relative to her plans--the proof of the fondness +still between him and Rollo shown in his leaving her to stay with Rollo +in town, than she minded--relative to the same purpose--his +determination to be with Japhra again when winter ended. She suffered +distress both at the one and the other in that they robbed her of the +object of her heart's devotion; she felt no qualm that either would +hinder her revenge. "Strange-like?" "Touched-like?" The villagers, +when she passed them without seeing them in these days, were more than +ever sure of that, poor thing; but she was more than ever sure--lived +in the past and in the near, near future and had scenes to watch there. + + +II + +Rollo's return to town was delayed longer than Dora had supposed in her +letter to Percival. It was not till February that his doctors and his +mother gave way to his protestations that he would never get fit if he +could not go and have a glimpse of old Percival while he had the +chance, and then it was only for a week--a passage through town to get +some things done and to pick up the Esparts for a spring sojourn in +Italy. + +Thus Percival was several weeks with Aunt Maggie before he left her for +Rollo--and Dora. Pleasant weeks he found them, reclaiming all the old +friends (save that one whose grave only was now to be visited) and in +their company, and in the new affection that they gave him for his +strong young manhood, retasting again the happy, happy time of earlier +days. There were jolly teas with the Purdies, brother and sister; +plump Mr. Purdie never tired of saying, with quite the most absurd of +his shrill, ridiculous chuckles, "Why, you've grown into a regular man +and I expected to see a swarthy gipsy with earrings and a red +neckcloth!", birdlike little Miss Purdie, more birdlike than ever with +her little hops and nods and her "Now _fancy_ you coming to take me to +the Great Letham Church Bazaar! I was _wanting_ to go. But you're +_not_ to be extravagant, Percival. At Christmas you were _dreadful_. +You _don't_ know the value of money!" And there were almost daily +visits to Mr. Hannaford, Stingo with him now till the road was to be +taken again, who found Percival a proper full-size marvel now, and +blessed his eighteen stun proper if he didn't, whose little 'orse farm +was developing amazingly, who displayed it and who discussed it with +Percival to the tune of leg-and-cane cracks of almost incredible +volume, and who placed at Percival's entire disposal a little riding +'orse, three parts blood and one part fire, that showed him to possess +a seat and hands that any little 'orse oughter be proud to carry, +"bless my eighteen stun proper if he didn't!" (Crack!) + +And there were thoughts of Dora ... who soon must be met and whom to +meet he burned (his darling!) and feared (his darling and his +goddess!--too rare, too exquisite for him, as tracery of frost upon the +window-pane that touch or breath will break or tarnish!). Thus he +thought of her; thus to help his thoughts often walked over to closed +Abbey Royal; thus never could approach the gates without the thought +that if, by some miracle, he met her there he could not dare approach +her. He would steal away at her approach, he knew. Watch her if, +unseen, he might unseen adore her--mark her perfect beauty, breathless +see her breathe; watch her poised to listen to some bird that hymned +her coming; watch her stoop to greet some flower's fragrance with her +own. Watch the happy grasses take her feet and watch those others, +benisoned and scented by the border of her gown; watch the tumbling +breezes give her path and only kiss her--see them race along the leaves +to give her minstrelsy. Speak to her?--how should he dare? + + +III + +What his condition then when at last in London he came face to face +with her? Rollo and Lady Burdon stayed their week at a private +hotel--Baxter's in Albemarle Street. He was immediately made their +guest (against Lady Burdon's wish, who desired now in the approach of +the consummation of her own plans--and Mrs. Espart's--to detach the +friendship she had formerly encouraged; but he did not know that). +Rollo met him at Waterloo station and took him direct to the hotel. +Eager to meet old Rollo again he was touched by the pathetic devotion +of Rollo's greeting, touched also at the frail and delicate figure that +he presented. The emotions were violently usurped by others when +Baxter's was reached and he was taken to the private sitting-room Lady +Burdon had engaged. + +"Here's mother!" Rollo cried, opening the door. + +Here also were Mrs. Espart and Dora. + +The elder ladies were seated. Percival greeted them and fancied their +manner not very warm. He had a swift recollection of the letter's +advice that they joined in estimating him "Very wild"; but while he +shook hands, while he exchanged the conventional civilities, his mind, +nothing concerned with them, was actively discussing how he should +comport himself, what he should see, when he turned to the figure that +had stood by the window, facing away from him, when he entered. + +"Never in London before--no," he said. "I have passed through once, +that is all." + +Then he turned. + +She had come down the room and was within two paces of him. Her dress +was of some dark colour and she wore fine sables, thrown back so that +they lay upon her shoulders and came across her arms. A large black +hat faintly shadowed the upper part of her face; her left hand was in a +muff, and when he turned towards her she had the muff nestled against +her throat. She gave the appearance of having watched him while he +spoke, reckoning what he was, with her face resting meditatively upon +her muff, her tall and slim young figure upright upon her feet. + +There was no perceptible pause between his turning to her and their +speaking. Yet he had time for a long, long thought of her before he +opened his lips. It took his breath. So still she stood, so serene +and contemplative her look, that he thought of her, standing there, as +some most rich and most rare picture, framed by the soft dusk that +London rooms have, and surely framed and set apart from mortal things. + +She dropped her muff to her arm's length with a sudden action, just as +a portrait might stir to come to life. She raised her head so that the +shadow went from her face and revealed her eyes, as a jealous leaf's +shade might be stirred to reveal the dark and dew-crowned pansy. She +had not removed her gloves and she gave him her small hand--that last +he had held cold, trembling and uncovered--gloved in white kid. She +spoke and her voice--that last he had heard aswoon--had the high, cold +note he thrilled to hear. + +"It is pleasant to see you again," she said. + +He never could recall in what words he replied--nor if indeed he +effected reply. + +Conventional words went between them before she and her mother took +their departure; conventional words again at a chance meeting on the +following day and again when the parties met by arrangement at a +matinee. His week drew to a close. As its end neared he began to +resist the mute and distant adoration which he had felt must be his +part when he had thought of meeting her again and which, without pang, +he at first accepted as his part now that they were come together. But +when the very hours could be counted that would see her gone from him +again he felt that attitude could no longer be endured. Insupportable +to pass into the future without a closer sign of her!--insupportable +even though the sign proved one that should reward his temerity by +sealing her forever from his lips. He nerved himself to the +daring--the very opportunity was hard to seek. Rollo, in the slightly +selfish habit that belongs to delicate persons accustomed, as he was +accustomed, to their own way, was ever desirous of having Percival to +himself alone. He saw plenty of Dora at other times, he said +(deliberately avoiding a chance of meeting her on one occasion); and +when Percival, not daring to do more, made scruples on grounds of mere +politeness, "But, bless you, she'll think nothing of it," Rollo said +carelessly: "She's made of ice--Dora. I like her all right, you know. +But she's not keen on anything. She's got no more feeling than--well, +ice," and he laughed and dismissed the subject. + +Had she not? It was Percival's to challenge it. + +The chance came on the eve of the morrow that was to see his friend's +departure for Italy and his own for a farewell to Aunt Maggie and so +back to Japhra again. The Esparts came over to dinner at Baxter's +hotel--came in response to Lady Burdon's private and urgent request of +Mrs. Espart. The week of Percival's visit had tried her sorely. Night +by night and every night, as she told Mrs. Espart, she had had that +dreadful nightmare of hers again--that girl to whom she cried "I am +Lady Burdon," and who answered her: "Oh, how can you be Lady Burdon?;" +to whom she cried "I hold," and, who answered her, "No, you do +not--Nay, I hold." + +Aunt Maggie might have explained it. Mrs. Espart laughed outright. +"That? Good gracious, I thought you had forgotten that long ago." + +"So I had--so I had. I never thought of it again from the day I told +you until last Wednesday night--the day Percival came to us. Since +then every night..." + +She paused before the last words and stopped abruptly after them. + +"Well, my dear! You're not putting down to poor Percival what must be +the fault of Mr. Baxter's menus, surely?" + +Lady Burdon said without conviction: "No--no, I'm not. Still, it began +then--and I don't like him now--don't care for Rollo to be so attached +to him now--and had words with Rollo about it--and perhaps that was the +reason and is the reason. Anyway, do come to dinner to-night--distract +my thoughts perhaps--I can't face that nightmare again. It's on my +nerves." + +Mrs. Espart permitted herself the tiniest yawn, but promised to come; +and came, bringing Dora. + + +IV + +So Percival's chance came, or so came, rather, his last +opportunity--for he ran it to the final moment. Announcement of the +Esparts' carriage brought their evening to an end, and he went down +with Rollo to see them off. Baxter's preserved its exclusiveness by +preserving its old fashions; the staircase was narrow, so the hall. +Mrs. Espart went first, then Rollo. Percival followed Dora. + +As she came to the pavement she turned to gather her skirts about her. +In the action she looked full at him. + +The end? + +He said: "Dora--do you ever remember?" + +Her skirts seemed to have eluded her fingers and she must make another +hold at them. He saw the colour flame where her fair face showed it, +swiftly, deeply scarlet in that shade on either cheek. He saw her +young breast rise as though that red flood drew and held it--saw her +lips part for words, and held his breath to catch her voice. + +"I have not forgotten," she whispered. + + + + +BOOK FIVE + +BOOK OF FIGHTS AND OF THE BIG FIGHT. THE ELEMENT OF COURAGE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +BOSS MADDOX SHOWS HIS HAND + +I + +Ima asked: "Of what are you thinking, Percival?" + +"Of when I shall leave you all--and how." + +She replied: "Strange, then, how thoughts run. It was in my mind also." + +Stranger how tricks and chances of life go! This trick and that--and +this was to be his last night with the van folk. That chance and +this--and within a few hours he was to be returned to Aunt Maggie, bade +good-by at the close of his visit scarcely four months since. This +trick and that, that chance and this, and he was to be put in the way +of winning Dora--a way that never had seemed so obscure, never so +impossible of attainment as when he came back to Japhra with her "I +have not forgotten," at once shouting to him that she loved him and +mocking him with the difference between her estate and his. + +Already the tricks and chances were afoot. He was alone with Ima upon +a rising bluff of common land. Considerably below them, so that they +looked down as it were from a cliff to a valley, the fair was pitched +and in full swing--that it was in full swing and he idle was the first +step in the freakish hazards that were to encompass him this night. + + +II + +A stifling evening had succeeded a burning day. Here on the bluff a +breeze moved cool and soft as it had been waftings from the dusky cloak +night dropped about them; below was heat and crowded life and clamour, +rising in the waving reek of the naphtha flares; in shouts of the +showmen; in shrill laughter from village girls at fun about the booths, +or horseplay with their swains; in ceaseless rifle-cracks from the +shooting-galleries--in drum-thumpings, in steam organs, in brazen +instruments; occasionally, high above it all, in enormous +_oo-oo-oomphs_ from the caged lions in the huge marquee that housed +Boss Maddox's Royal Circus and Monster Forest-bred Menagerie--a +tremendous sound, as Percival thought when it came booming across the +clamour, that was a brute's but that seemed, like some trump of protest +against the din, to make brutish the human cries and shouts it governed. + +Two crowds, leaving and entering, jostled one another at the entrance +to the Royal Circus and Forest-bred Menagerie; stretching on either +hand from where they pressed ran the minor shows under Boss Maddox's +proprietorship, forming a noisy, flaring street that ended, facing the +circus marquee, with "Foxy" Pinsent's Academy of Boxing and School of +Arms. Maddox's Royal Circus and Forest Bred Menagerie at one end, +Pinsent's fine booth at the other--between them Maddox's Living +Pictures, Maddox's Wild-West Shooting Gallery, Maddox's Steam +Switch-back and Aerial Railway, Maddox's Original Marionettes, Maddox's +Premier Boatswings, Maddox's Monster Panorama, Maddox's Royal Theatre +and Concert Divan, Maddox's Elite Refreshment Saloons, Maddox's +American Freak Museum, and all Maddox's smaller fry--coker-nut shies, +hoop-las, Living Mermaid, Hall of Strength, Cave of Mystery, Magic +Mirrors, and the rest of them; owned by Boss Maddox, financed by Boss +Maddox, or, if of independent ownership, having the Boss's favour and +acknowledging the Boss's ownership. + +No booths whose proprietors called Stingo Boss were open: and that was +one step in the tricks and chances of the day. + +The gaunt figure of Boss Maddox, watchful and urgent this night for the +very reason that the Stingo booths were closed, passed now along the +further side of lights towards Foxy Pinsent's pitch. Head bent towards +his left shoulder; hands clasped behind his back; uncommonly tall; +uncommonly spare--that was Boss Maddox anywhere. + +A further mark, as he moved through his little kingdom, proclaimed him +who he was and what he was. Frequent nods of his head he made in +response to hat touchings or greetings in the crowd; frequent stoppings +to exchange a few words with some figure that stepped into his +path--and broke away from others or pushed others aside to step there: +the local tradesmen these, or members of the local Borough Council, +anxious to be in with Boss Maddox and so to secure the considerable +patronage in victualling and provender he was able to distribute; or +anxious to let fellow-townsmen observe on what familiar terms they were +with the Boss, and concerned to know that he found his pitch to his +liking. A mighty man, the Boss in these days, who bought up his +pitches and paid handsomely for them a year in advance, who on a famous +occasion had fallen into dispute with a Borough Council, refused their +district the honour of his shows, and thereby--by loss of entertainment +and loss of revenue--had caused the Borough Councillors to suffer +defeat at the next election. Things like that were remembered up and +down the west of England; Boss Maddox in the result was reckoned a man +to be placated, to be done homage, and to have his interests preserved. +Only the old Stingo gang resisted him, and this day he had paid them +dear for their want of allegiance. + +His parade brought him at length to "Foxy" Pinsent's Academy of Boxing +and School of Arms. Foxy Pinsent had risen to be his lieutenant and +right-hand man in the management of his business, and Boss Maddox was +come to compare notes on how the Stingo crowd were taking their +set-back. + +Eight pugilists in flannels--two of them negroes--displayed themselves +upon the raised platform outside the Academy of Boxing and School of +Arms. Pinsent, in a long fawn coat reaching to his shoes, paced before +them, crying to the assembled crowds their merits, their prowess, their +achievements and their challenges. He swung a great bundle of boxing +gloves in his right hand and, amid delighted shouts of the spectators, +sent a pair flying to venturesome yokels here and there who pointed to +one or other of the eight stalwarts in acceptance of combat. + +As Boss Maddox pushed his way to the front the eight turned and filed +into the booth. He raised a hand. Foxy Pinsent tossed a last pair of +gloves to the crowd, came down the steps from the platform and joined +him. + +"How are they taking it, Boss?" + +"Pretty tough. Move round with me and let 'em see we're watching. In +a while I'm to have a word with Stingo and Japhra--you with me, boy." + +Foxy Pinsent spat on the ground. "We've fixed the ----s this time," he +said venomously. + + +III + +The fixing of the Stingo crowd had been Boss Maddox's culminating +stroke in the heavy hand he had pressed these many seasons upon those +who named Stingo Boss. The bad blood between the two factions of which +Japhra had told Percival years before had steadily increased with Boss +Maddox's increasing dominance and position. Waxing more and more +determined to crush under his rule the little knot of Stingo +followers--or to crush them out--Boss Maddox had this day given them an +extra twist--and they had made protest by refusing to erect their +booths. + +A new Fair ground had been marked out here since the last visit of the +showmen. A broad stream marked one boundary, bridged only by the +highroad bridge a mile up from the new ground. The new ground was +small. Maddox's would require it all, the Boss announced. Beyond the +stream was common land, free to all. "Yonder, you!" said Boss Maddox +to the Stingo crowd. "Yonder, you!" and pointed across the stream with +his stick. + +It meant going back a mile and a mile down again so as to come to the +common land. It meant worse than that, with a discovery that changed +the first demur to loud and bitter protest: "No bridge except the +highroad bridge? Then how were folk going to get over from the Fair +Ground? No bridge? What game's this, Boss?" + +"Your game," Boss Maddox told them in his stern and callous way. +"Naught to do with me that the Fair Ground's changed. Your game. Get +out and play it." + +The angry crowd went to Stingo and Stingo to Boss Maddox. Boss Maddox +could not refuse parley with Stingo, and gave it where the great pole +of his circus marquee was being fixed--his own followers grouped about, +enjoying the fun; Stingo's packed in a murmuring throng behind Stingo's +broad back. + +The interview was very short. "You're going too far, Boss Maddox," +Stingo said in his husky whisper. "This ain't fair to the boys. Grant +you the ground's too small. After your tent and Pinsent's there the +rest should fall by lot. That's fair to all. It was done on the road +Boss Parnell's time when you and me were boys." + +"It's not done in mine," said Boss Maddox, and his words called up two +murmurs--approval and mocking behind him, wrath before. + +Stingo waited while it died away, then went close with words for Boss +Maddox's private ear. "You've been out to make bad blood these three +summers, Maddox," he said. "Have a care of it. I'll not be answerable +for my boys here." + +His tone was of grave warning, as between men of responsible position. +But it was Foxy Pinsent, standing with Maddox, who replied to him. +"We'll drink all we may brew," Foxy Pinsent said, and sneered: "We're +not fat old women this side, Stingo." + +The flag of a temper kept in control but now burst from his command +came in violent purple into old Stingo's face. His huskiness went to +its most husky pitch, "By God, Foxy! I'll stuff it into ye, if need +be," he throated. + +He took a calmer and wiser mood back to his followers, joining with +Japhra in counselling a making the best of it across the stream +to-night and a deputation to Boss Maddox, when heads on both sides were +cooler, on the morrow. They would not listen to him. They would stay +where they were, they told him. They could not open their booths +here--they would not open them there; here, to assert their rights, +they would stay. What was Boss Maddox's game?--to rid himself of them +altogether?--they who had worked the West Country boy and man, girl and +woman, in this company before Boss Maddox was heard of? Were they +going to be turned adrift from it--from the roads they knew and the +company they knew? Not they!--not if Boss Maddox and his crowd came at +'em with sticks! Let 'em come! Ah, let Boss Muddy Maddox and his +crowd try 'em a bit further and the sticks would come out in their own +hands as they came in their fathers' in the big fight that sent the +Telfer crowd north in '30.... + + +IV + +So the Stingo vans remained where they had been driven up on the edge +of the Fair ground. The men for the most part shared their afternoon +meal in groups that sullenly discussed their hurt. Some broodingly +watched the erection of their rivals' booths. A few gathered about +Egbert Hunt, who had oratory to deliver on this act of oppression. The +winters Hunt had spent with "unemployed" malcontents had given a flow +of language to a character that from boyhood had shaped away from +honest work and towards hostility against authority. In the vans, +among men who sweated as they toiled, and worked in the main for their +own hands, he was commonly an object of contempt. To-day he found +audience. He had words and ranted his best--"Tyrang!" the burden of +it; rising, as he tossed his arms and worked himself up, to "'Boss' +Maddox is he? 'Oo appointed 'im boss over you or over me? 'Boss' +Maddox? Tyrang Maddox--that's what I name 'im." + +He observed a titter run round those who listened to him; turned to +seek its cause; with Tyrang Maddox found himself face to face; and +before he could make movement of escape was sent to the ground with a +stunning box on the ear. He shouted a stream of filthy abuse and made +to spring to his feet. Boss Maddox's hand pinned him down and Boss +Maddox's whip came about his writhing form in a rain of blows that, +when they were done and he had taken the kick that concluded them, left +him cowering. + +"Whose hand are you, you whelp?" Boss Maddox demanded. + +Egbert Hunt looked up at him. He was gasping with sobs of pain and +sobs of rage. He looked up, hate and murder in his eye, and pressed +his lips between his sobs. + +The whip went up. "Whose hand?" + +Egbert cowered back: "Old One-Eye's." + +"Keep to his heel. Cross my sight again and the same is waiting for +you." + +Boss Maddox stalked away. A crowd had gathered from all parts of the +camp, attracted by Egbert's screams. Egbert raised himself on one arm +and looked at the grinning faces before him. He got stiffly to his +feet, mumbling to himself, his breast still heaving with sobs. "Me, a +full-grown man, to be used like a dog! Cross his path!--ill day for +him when I do!" + +He went a few paces, walking parallel to those assembled. Suddenly he +turned to them, tears running down his face, and threw up his clenched +hands. "I'll put a knife in 'im!" he cried. "By God, I'll put a knife +in 'im!" + +The crowd laughed. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +IMA SHOWS HER HEART + +I + +Percival suggested to Ima that they should use in a stroll the leisure +evening that the trouble in the vans had given him. Some drink had +been passing as the day wore on, and the heat between the two factions +was not better for it. Here and there bickerings were assuming an ugly +note.--"Let's get out of it," Percival said. "Come along, Ima, up to +the top over there--Bracken Down they call it." + +It was close upon nine o'clock as they left the Fair. They picked +their way along the paths through the tall bracken that gave the place +its name--reaching a clearing in the thick growth, by mutual accord +they dropped down for a glad rest. + +Very still and cool here among the fern, the Fair a nest of tossing +lights, faint cries and that lion's trump of _oo-oo-oomph_ beneath +them; a remote place of silence, and silence communicated itself to +them until Ima broke it by her question "Of what are you thinking, +Percival?" and to his reply--that he thought of when he should leave +them all, and how--told him "Strange then how thoughts run. It was in +my mind also." + +Stranger how tricks and chances of life go! Looking back afterwards, +recalling her words, Percival realised how events had run from one to +another upon the most brittle thread of hazards. The trouble in the +vans had sent him out here with Ima; that was the merest chance; that +was the beginning of the thread. + +Very cool and remote here among the bracken. He had gone back to +silence after her last words. It was she who spoke again. + +"Are you weary of it?" she asked. + +He was lying at his full length, face downwards, his chin upon his +clasped fingers. She sat upright beside him, one knee raised and her +hands about it. + +He turned his cheek to where his chin had been and looked up lazily at +her: "Why, no, not weary of it, Ima. I like the life. I've been at it +a long time. When the day comes I shall be sorry to go." + +She was looking straight before her. "A sorry day for us, also," she +said. + +"Will you be sorry, Ima?" + +"Of course I shall be sorry." + +He gave a sound of mischievous laughter. Lying idly stretched out +there, the warm night and the unusual sense of laziness he was enjoying +stirred in him some prankish spirit, or some spirit of more warm +desire, that he had never felt in Ima's company. "Yet you are always +trying to get rid of me," he said; and he laughed again on that +mischievous note, and snuggled his cheek closer against his hands, and +felt that spirit run amicably through him as he stretched and then +released his muscles. + +She looked down at him, smiling. "Unkind to return my conduct so," she +said. "No, I have but reminded you you are not always for the rough +ways." + +He had watched her face as he lay there, seen how her hair, her brow, +her eyes, alone in all the shadow about Bracken Down caught the light +from where the light was starred across the sky, and how her lips +seemed also to attract it. Now when she looked down and smiled, it was +as if some gentle radiance were bent upon him, or as if Night, in +visible embodiment, gracious as Summer night, starred, tranquil, cool, +stooped to his couch. + +He got quickly to his feet, that spirit tingling now. + +"Going?" she asked, and the lamp of her face was turned up to him so +that he looked full into it. + +"No," he said, pronouncing the word as he had made his laugh--as if +some inward excitement pressed its escape. + +"No." He came in front of her, went on his knees and sat back on his +heels. That brought him close to her, facing her. + +"Ima," he said, "you've got six--seven stars on your face, do you know +that?" + +She smiled, unaware of his mood. + +Himself he was scarcely aware of it: "Well, you have, though," he said. +He approached a finger towards her and pointed, and almost touched her +while he spoke. "You have, though. Two on your hair--there and there. +One on your forehead--there. One in each eye--that's five. Two on +your mouth--one here, one there: seven stars!" + +"Foolish talk," she smiled. "We had a Romany woman once with us who +told fortunes. Just so have I heard her speak to village girls. +When--" + +His eyes betrayed him. Concern and worse leapt into hers. She thrust +out a hand to stop him, but he bent forward swiftly and strongly. +Urged by the spirit that laziness and the warm, still night had put +into him, that had led him on in mischief and that now suddenly +engulfed him--"Stars on your mouth!" he cried, and caught his arms +about her to kiss her. + + +II + +He felt her twist as she were made of vibrant steel and strong as +steel. His lips missed hers, and scarcely brushed her face. He tried +for her lips again, laughing while he tried, and pressed her to him and +felt her twist and strain away with a strength that surprised him while +he laughed. + +"Only a kiss, Ima! Only a kiss!" + +She was of steel, but he held her. She spoke, and the strangeness of +her words made him release her. "Ah, ah, Percival!" she gasped. "How +you despise me!" + +He let her go and she sprang away and upright, as a bow stick released. +He let her go, and stared at her where she stood panting fiercely, and +stared in more surprise when, checking her sobbing breaths, she spoke +again. + +In their struggle her hair had loosened and it fell, half-bound, in a +heavy cascade upon one shoulder and down her breast. The starlight +gleamed on it and on her dark face framed against it. She had a wild +look, as if her mild beauty had suddenly gone gipsy; her sobbing voice +had a wild tone, and he noticed the drop back to the "thee" long absent +from her speech: "Ah, this to happen!" she cried. "This! Ah, what a +thing I must be to thee!" + +The strangeness and the violence of her distress astonished him. What +had he done? Tried for a kiss? In the name of all the kisses snatched +from pretty girls--! "Why, Ima?" was all he could say. "Ima?" + +She dropped to the ground with a collapsed action as though, oppressed +as she was, standing were insupportable. She covered her face with her +hands, ceased her sobbing breaths; but he saw her trembling in all her +frame. + +Rising, he went to her, put a hand on her shoulder, and, at the +convulsive movements he felt, made deeper the contrition for his +careless act that her distress now caused him. "Ima, what have I done? +Only tried to kiss you in fun. A sudden, silly thing--I don't know +why--I never meant it--but only a kiss in fun." + +He waited a moment, grieved for her, half-vexed with her--then had his +answer and was faced with emotions as sudden and unexpected as when a +moment before, without premeditation, he had her struggling in his arms. + +She drew a deep breath and answered him. "That is it--in fun!" she +said. She threw out her arms across her raised knees--the palms +upward, the fingers curved in a most desolate action. "In fun!" she +said intensely. "I would to God--I would to God thou hadst done it in +passion." + +He came in front of her. "Tell me what it is I have done to you," he +said firmly. + +The intensity went from her voice. She spoke then and thenceforward +very softly, as if she were making explanation to a child, and in her +answer she used again the term that went with the days of the "thee" +and "thou" now returned to her. + +"Used me," she answered him softly, "used me as any wanton is to be +used, little master." + +He cried, "Ima! After all these years we have known each other--a kiss +in fun!" + +But she went on: "What maids are kissed in fun? That a man weds does +he use so? That the sisters of such as thou art does he so use? That +give him cause for regard does he so use? What maids, then?" and +answered herself, "Such as I am!" + +"Oh!" he cried, wounded with pity for her, "Oh, Ima--Ima, dear, don't +talk like that. What can you mean? I am sorry--sorry! Forgive me!" + +Her sad eyes almost smiled at him. "I have nothing to forgive thee," +she said. "It was but a foolish fancy that I had. Well that it should +be broken--ended that;" and she looked again across the dark bracken, +her arms extended upon her knees in that desolate pose. + +It wrung him with pity--his dear Ima! "But tell me!" he pressed her, +anxious to soothe her. "Tell me what you mean by fancy--by saying +'ended that!'" + +She answered: "That all I had tried should be broken suddenly--suddenly +as a star falls. I had not minded if I had been warned." + +"What have you tried, Ima?--I want to know--to show you how sorry I am." + +She was silent for a considerable space. When she began to speak she +spoke without pause, without modulations of her low tone, without +notice of the stammered exclamations that her words broke from him. + +"Hear me, then," she said. "The thing is no more mine--thou mayst know +it. To what shall I go back for when I first knew that I loved thee?--" + +"_Ima!_" + +"Why, from the first I knew it and began to try to fit me for thee. +Why went I to shut myself in roofs and walls, to learn hard books and +gentle ways and how to speak in thy fashion?--so thou shouldst not +scorn me, so I might make me to be seemly in thy sight--" + +"_Ima! I never dreamt--!_" + +"--Why have I gone my ways so--winter by winter leaving my father's +van? Because I loved thee since I first saw thee--" + +"Don't! Don't!" he cried. There was something completely terrible to +him in this avowal from a woman--immodest, shameful, horrible--that +must cause her violation of her most sacred feelings as they would be +violated were she thrust naked before him; that caused him agony for +her suffering, and agony that he should see it, as he would endure +agony for her and for himself if made to see her nudity. "Don't, Ima! +Don't! I understand--I see everything now. I ought to have known!" + +But she went on--it might have been some requiem she made to some poor +treasured thing now dead in her extended arms. She went on: "Because I +loved thee--ah, worshipped all thy doings, all thy looks--loved thee +with all the love that men and women love--as mothers love, as lovers +love, as friends love, as brothers love,--there is no love but I have +loved thee with it, and I have thought them all and loved thee with +each one the better to enjoy my love--" + +"_Ima!_" + +"--Why cried I 'this to happen!' Because by thy kiss I saw that I was +nothing to thee--and less than nothing. All my poor trying suddenly +proved of no avail. All my poor fancy that haply thou mightst turn to +me if I could be worthy of thee suddenly gone to dust that the winds +sport. Why cried I 'ended that!'--" + +She sighed very deeply. Her trembling had in some degree communicated +itself to him. He trembled for the shame he knew she must be +suffering, and for the effect upon him that her gentle, even voice had, +crooning its tragedy in the darkness of their remote and silent +situation, and for the effect upon him of that long sigh--rising and +then falling away to tiniest sound, as it had been the passing of some +spirit released to glide away across the bracken. + +"--Why cried I 'ended that'?" and then her long, sad sigh; and then: +"Because all is nought, little master;" and he saw her fingers extend +and her head bow a little.... + +She arose then, slowly, and he went back to give her room. Her hair +had slipped the last coil that held it, and was in a black sheen to her +waist before one shoulder and in a black sheen to her waist behind her +back. She began to loop it up with deft but tired fingers and looked +at him while she twined it. Her face was very kind to him; the stars +caught it, and he saw those stars upon her mild mouth that had tricked +him to his wanton act: they seemed to show her almost smiling at him. + +He asked: "Are we going now?" + +She smiled then, gently. "Nay," she said. "I have left my poor +secrets here--suffer me to go alone." Then turned and left him; and he +watched her form swiftly merging to the darkness--now high among the +bracken, now lower and lower yet, as though it were a deepening pool +she entered. Now gone. + + +III + +It seemed to Percival, left alone, as if some horrible and most +oppressive trouble had befallen him. This piteous thing had struck so +suddenly that for some moments he remained only numbed by it, as +numbness precedes the onset of pain from a blow. When the full meaning +returned to him, "Good God!" he cried aloud, "What a thing to have +happened!" and most tenderly--with increasing tenderness, with +increasing grief--he went through all she had revealed and how she had +revealed it. It was surely the most monstrous pitiful thing that ever +could be, her secret plots and strivings to fit herself for what she +yearned--tasking herself in "gentle ways," in speech of his fashion, in +hard books, in the life between walls and under roofs; he ached for her +in every bone as he thought of her thus schooling herself--for him. +"Oh, horrible, horrible!" he muttered, writhing for her to remember all +her little cares for him--her attention to his clothes, her concern +that he should not get into "rough ways"; horrible! horrible! now that +he knew their loving purpose. And then her revelation of it! He must +rise and pace, the better to endure the recollection of that. How +terribly she struggled in his arms! "God, what a beast a man can be!" +he cried. What agony must have wrung that cry, "Ah, Percival, how you +must despise me!" What agony that "This to happen!" What pain, what +bleeding of her heart, that lamentable ending--"Because all is naught, +little master!" Happy, happy time when first she used to call him by +that quaint endearment; in what travail, in what blackness, it had come +from her now! What had she done? Why fastened such a love upon him +whose love was utterly pledged away? Nay, the torment was What had he +done? What vile and brutal ends had he used to knock her to her +senses? What manner of sympathy had he given her when she lay bleeding? + +"I must go to her," he said abruptly; and at the best speed the +darkness would admit he twisted his way through the paths among the +bracken towards the distant nest of lights. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +PERCIVAL SHOWS HIS FISTS + +I + +He ran in two moods. First he was earnest above all things to hold her +hands and comfort her--to explain, to soothe, to endear. To hold her +hands and tell her how fond, how very, very fond he was of her, of how +they should be sister and brother, and the happiest and fondest sister +and brother that ever were. To thank her, thank her for all her sweet, +devoted ways. To tell her how good she was, how he admired her. That +was one mood. The other was a savage and burning anger at himself, +partly for his wanton act towards her, partly born of his agony of +discomfort at the revelation she had made. The moods were +intermingled. He yearned to comfort her for her suffering, he writhed +to think he had witnessed that suffering. He was in the one part utter +tenderness towards her--in the other flame, furious flame, most eager +for vent. + +The tricks and chances of life had fuel for the flame, not outlet for +the tenderness, as he came to the nest of lights. + +He went quickly to Japhra's van. It was end-on to him as he +approached; and as he came to the shafts he saw a group of men there +talking,--Japhra, Stingo, Boss Maddox. He supposed--and was confirmed +by the words he caught as he passed them--that they were discussing the +dispute. "I'll ask Pinsent," he heard Boss Maddox say, and saw and +heard him turn and call "Pinsent! Here, Foxy, where are you?" as +though Foxy Pinsent had been of the group a moment before. + +He passed quickly to the tail of the van and himself found Pinsent. +"Angry, my pretty duck?" Foxy Pinsent was saying. "Angry? Chuck! +chuck!" + +It was to Ima that he was saying it; and with his last words, lolling +against the entrance steps, he put out a hand to chuck her chin. She +stepped out of his reach, and in relief cried, "Ah, Percival!" as +Percival approached. + +Flame, furious flame most eager for vent! + +Choked for words by the flame's fierce leap and burn, "Clear out of +this!" Percival said. + +Foxy Pinsent turned his head slowly from Ima to Percival and looked +Percival coolly up and down with the foxy smile. He put his elbows +back to lean against the van, and very deliberately crossed one foot +over the other. "Go to hell, won't you?" he said mildly. + +It was a double smart he took to wipe the studied insolence from his +face and to plant venom there. Percival's open hand that struck his +mouth--a tough, vicious jolt with the arm half-crooked, a boxer's +hit--drove his head against the van; and his "Ah, curse you!" followed +the sharp smack and thud quick as if the three sounds--clip, thud, +hiss--belonged to some instrument discharged. + +He sprang forward, head back, hitting quickly with both hands, like the +rare boxer he was--feinted with his right, drove his left against +Percival's forehead, took a sharp _one-two!_ on mouth and throat, and +they were engaged, fighting close, fighting hard, and savage and glad, +and fierce and exultant, each of them, at last to spring their common +hate. + +In its suddenness and fury, in its briefness and the manner of its +check, the thing was like the sudden _woof!_ of flame of a spark to a +handful of gunpowder. There is the belch and blinding flash of heat, +then the thick cloud of smoke. There was the swift drum of blows, then +the rush of feet--Stingo, Japhra, Boss Maddox, men from here, men from +there, in that trap-door swiftness with which commotion throws up a +crowd--and the two were grasped and pulled apart and held apart, +struggling like terriers that have had the first taste of blood and to +collect the glut are gone blind to blows or authority. + +Stingo from behind threw his two immense arms about Percival and leant +with all his weight the better to lock them. Boss Maddox thrust his +tall form before Pinsent, and snatched a wrist and gripped it in his +long fingers. Japhra was at Percival's hands that tore at Stingo's. + +"Lay on here, some of you!" Boss Maddox called, struggling with +Pinsent's arm. "Get that other arm!--Dago! Frenchy! Jackson! +Darkie! Look alive with it! Drop it, Foxy! Drop it! What the +devil's up with you?" + +And Stingo's strained whispers, in jerks and gusts by reason of his +exertions: "Easy, Percival! Easy with it! Easy, I say! You can't +shift me, boy! Get that hand, Japhra! Get that hand!" + +Then the smoke clears and there remains only the acrid smell of the +burning, and the sense of heat. + +The two were dragged apart till a safe space separated them and they +fronted each other before the groups about them--their faces furious, +their bodies still, but their hands plucking at the hands that held +them as they made their answers. + +"Struck me!" Foxy Pinsent shouted. "Struck me! By God! I'll teach +him! I've been saving it up for him a long time. Let me go, Boss! +What's the sense of holding me like this? Struck me, the whelp, I tell +you! I've got to have him first or last! Let me go!" + +And Percival: "And more to give you, Pinsent! Teach me, eh? If I +could get!--Japhra! Stingo! It's no business of yours, this! Damn +your interference! Japhra! Japhra! Let go my hands!" + +They cooled a little as the hands still held them and their +explanations were demanded. Boss Maddox left Pinsent to other +constraint and came and stood in the little space between the two +groups, hands behind his back in the familiar posture, shoulders +slightly hunched, head on one side, and turning it this way and that as +Percival or Pinsent spoke. + +Presently he looked at Stingo. "That boy's right," he said, with a +jerk back at Pinsent. "He's been struck. He's Foxy. This can't end +here. He's got to have his rights." + +"He'll get 'em," Stingo said, with as much grimness as his huskiness +could convey. "He'll get 'em if I let this lot loose. Don't you let +him worry, Boss." + +Boss Maddox turned squarely on Pinsent. "Give it a rest till the +morning, Foxy. You boys can't fight in this darkness--not you two." + +Pinsent laughed: "I'm not going to fight him. I'm going to thrash him." + +"Let me go, Japhra! Boss, let's have hands off! It's our show--no one +else's." + +Boss Maddox went back to his first contention. "This can't end here, +Stingo," and Japhra answered him: "Nay, there's blood to be let, Boss. +We can't stop it--nor have call to." He released Percival while he +spoke, but kept a hand on him, and motioned Stingo's arms away. He +spoke in his slow habit, and with seeming reluctance, but there was a +glimmer of relish in his voice. "They've to settle it, Boss." + +"Will you fight him, Pinsent?" Boss Maddox asked. + +Pinsent shook off the clutches upon him. He came forward two +deliberate paces, and with great deliberation stretched himself, and +with great deliberation spat upon the ground. Then fixed his eye on +Percival. "If he likes to get out of it with a whipping," Pinsent +said, "I'll learn him the manners he wants with your whip and let him +off at that. If he's got the guts to stand up, I'll roast him till he +lays down." He thrust forward his body towards Percival and said +mockingly: "Which way? Which way, my pretty gentleman?" + +Percival's face was a white lamp in the dusky night. "Give us room!" +he said. + +Then Pinsent's voice lost its deliberate drawl and rasped out in a rasp +that showed his breeding and showed his hate: "I want light to serve +you up, my gentleman! Light and a pair of shoes! Christ! I've waited +too long for this to spoil it. I've a pattern to put on that pretty +face of yours--not in this dark. Where'll I fight him, Boss? Where?" + +"Along the road in the morning." + +Percival came up. "I'll not wait, Boss. You've heard him. I'll not +wait." + +Pinsent rasped: "Morning be withered! Now! Now, while I'm hot. +Where'll I fight him?" + +Boss Maddox peered at his watch, then looked across the booths. "Nigh +midnight--few left yonder. We'll be shut down in twenty minutes. At +one o'clock." + +And Japhra, a strange tremble in his voice: "In your tent, Boss. The +boys will want to watch this. Room there, and good light." + +Boss Maddox turned to Pinsent: "Good for you? The circus tent?" + +"The place for it," Pinsent said. "Sharp at one. Japhra, you and me +are ring men; come and settle a point." + +"Come thou to me," Japhra answered him sturdily. "Thou and I!--I knew +the ring, the knuckle ring, before thou sucked." + +"Come to the tent," Boss Maddox interposed. "Best settle there." + +Japhra took Percival a space away. "Lay thee down," he said. His +voice was frankly trembling now, and he pressed both Percival's hands +in his. "Bide by my words; bide by them. Lay thee down till I return +to thee. Forget thy spite against yonder fox. Ima!" + +She was at his side, her hands clasped together, her face white and +strained. + +"Forget him his spite, and what comes, Ima. While he lies, with a rug +and with his boots from his feet, bide thou there and read to +him--Crusoe, eh? Stingo and I will make for thee, master. I am not +long gone." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +FOXY PINSENT _V._ JAPHRA's GENTLEMAN + +I + +Visitors to the booths who had stayed late that night went home +complaining of the abruptness with which the shows were closed and of +the uncouth way in which showmen who had fawned and flattered for their +patronage suddenly seemed no more occupied with them than to bustle +them off the ground and set their faces townwards. + +But visitors were not in the line of communication that flashed that +amazing news around the camp: + +"Heard it?" + +"No!" + +"Foxy Pinsent's to fight Japhra's Gentleman in the marquee!" + +"What of it?" + +"What of it, yer muddy thick? What of it? Not a show--private! Had a +scrap and to fight it out!" + +"Eh? Fac'? No! When?" + +"One o'clock. When the ground's clear." And, with a nod at the +sightseers, "Get 'em out, mate! Get 'em out! Stars and stripes! What +a knock-out!" + +So, as the Fiery Cross among the Highland glens rushed with incredible +swiftness, leaving in its wake a trail of mad commotion, the message +flashed from mouth to mouth, booth to booth, van to van--received with +utter incredulity, grasped with wildest excitement, relished with a +zeal that caused every other thought and object to be abandoned, and +resulted in a tide of feverish agitation to be at leisure for details +and for the business that drove out naphtha flares and visitors alike +as it swept across the ground. For there was more in the fight than +the rare thrill of fight itself. It was accepted everywhere as the +meeting by champion of the two factions; and the bickerings of many +months, the final poison of that day's events, rushed a savage zest +into the appetites that waited the encounter. Foxy Pinsent was Boss +Maddox's party, coat off to put that Stingo crowd properly in its +place; Japhra's Gentleman was the Stingo following, girt at last to +collect a little on account for much outstanding debt. When, towards +one o'clock, the surging crowd outside the marquee made a sudden +movement forward and into the tent, it entered with rival cries, +taunts, faction jeers--and separated, as a barrier had divided it, into +two bodies that faced in mutual mock across the ring that had been +formed. + +They found preparations at the point of completion, done by half a +dozen principles that Boss Maddox had called in, who stood conferring +with him now on final arrangements--Stingo, with Ginger Cronk and +Snowball White of Japhra's booth; Foxy Pinsent, hands in the pockets of +his long yellow coat, with Buck Osborn and others of his Academy of +Boxing and School of Arms--Pink Harman, Dingo Spain, Nut Harris. At a +little distance Japhra stood with Percival. He had towels on his arm, +a sponge in his hand, and as the crowd took up their places he turned +and called a single word across the arena to the group within the ring. + +"Gloves?" he called. + +Pinsent answered him. Pinsent took his hands from the pockets of his +coat and curved up two brown fists. "There's no gloves between us," he +called back; and at his words the two groups of spectators drew as it +were one long breath of relish--"Ah-h-h!" that hardened to murmurs of +grim satisfaction, each man to his neighbour--"The raw 'uns!" "The +knuckle!" "The knuckle!" "The raw 'uns!" and broke into individual +bickerings, cries of derision, across the ring; and thence into a +sudden wordless shouting, one party against the other--a blaring vent +of old antagonism fermented by new cause that made the animals in the +menagerie cages at the end of the arena leap from uneasy slumber to +spring against their bars and join their chorus to a chorus brutish as +their own. + + +II + +To a renewed outburst of that clamour--the thing was on the tick of +beginning--Ima raised the flap that covered the entrance to the marquee +and stepped within. Simultaneously the shouting stilled with a sudden +jerk that left an immense silence--Foxy Pinsent had stepped into the +ring. + +She stopped as if the sudden stillness struck her; and she took in the +scene, her hands clasped against her breast. + +The ring had been contrived within the inner circle that forms the +working part of a circus arena. The canvas belt, some two feet high, +that surrounded this circle during a performance, had been taken up as +to the arc farthest from where she stood and brought forward to the +great pole of the marquee. The wide half circle thus bounded was made +the ring for the fight. Around the tent the lights above the seats had +been extinguished; the great lamp of many burners that encircled the +mast enclosed the ring in its arc of clear light. In the surrounding +dimness, as Ima paused and watched, were the high tiers of red-draped, +empty benches. Within the light's arc she saw the rival crowds on +either hand; straight before her the gap that separated the two +clusters and declared their enmity. At the centre front of each, +against the canvas that bounded the ring, was a little caving-in of the +throng where men in their shirt-sleeves knelt. Pinsent had just +stepped out from this knot on the one side: in the other she saw +Percival seated on her father's knee. A hundred men and more were +behind Pinsent, behind Percival forty or fewer; there was significance +in how each throng stood closely packed, refusing the accommodation +that the ample space between them offered--hatred was deep that +preferred the discomfort of jostling and tiptoe standing to easier view +at the price of mingling. Every face was beneath a peaked cap or +dented bowler hat and above a scarfed neck; a pipe in most caused, as +it were, a grey, shifting bank of smoke, cut flat by the darkness above +the lamp's reflection, to be swaying above the caps as though they +balanced it. Here and there were clumps of colour where women in +blouses of red or white clustered together. Sweat, for the place was +hot, glistened on this face and on that as if the grey, shifting bank +above them exuded drops of water. There was something very sinister, +very eerie, in the complete silence that for a moment held the scene; +and Ima started to hear a sound of breathing and of restless movement. +She looked around. On either hand of where she stood the menagerie +cages were banked. Dark or tawny forms were coiled or stretched there; +in one cage was a big wolf, head down, nose at the bars, that watched +the light as she watched it. + +She went quickly forward to where she saw her father. Impatient way +was made for her. Japhra was talking earnestly to Percival, and they +scarcely seemed to notice her. She slipped down beside them, her knees +against the canvas, and sat on her heels, her hands clasped at their +full extension. She had said she would not come. She had found she +must. While she had been with Percival waiting Japhra's return after +the scene with Pinsent he had begun the contrition he had come to her +to express. She suffered him nothing of it. "That is left where we +laid it among the bracken," she told him. "Let it abide there. Look +already what has come of it. If I had stayed with thee, this had not +happened." + +But her leaving him, and why she left, and his following her, and what +came then, were of the train of the tricks and chances that shaped for +him this day. + + +III + +Boss Maddox spoke. "They're going to fight," he said, taking up a +position against the mast and addressing the gathering in his dry, +authoritative way--"They're going to fight, and you can count +yourselves lucky to see it. If any one interferes--out he goes. +Everything's settled. If any one sees anything he don't think right or +according to rule he can go outside and look for it--keep his mouth +shut while he's going and go quick. Three minute rounds. One minute +breathers. Ten count for the knock-out. Stingo 'll stand here with +the watch. I'm referee. And I'm boss--bite on that. Come along, +Foxy." + +Pinsent, who had stepped over the canvas and strolled to the centre of +the ring as Ima entered, was still in the long yellow coat, still with +his hands in his pockets. He liked to have all those eyes upon him. +He liked to give pause and opportunity for the thought that this fine +figure standing here had fought in class rings and bore a reputation +that gentlemen in shirt-fronts had paid gold to see at battle. He +suffered usually a slight nervousness at the first moment of stepping +into those class rings: to-night and here he had an exultant feeling, +and he carried it with a most effective swagger. He knew Percival +could box. He had watched him spar in Japhra's booth. He knew, to +express his own thoughts, there 'd be a little bit of mixin' up at the +outset; but he knew, as only Japhra among them all also knew, that to +his own skill that had put him in a good rank of his weight he added +the experience, the craft, the morale of a score and more class fights, +and that such a quality is to be reckoned as a third arm against that +poor thing--a "novice." "A novice, Boss!" he had said to Boss Maddox +an hour before. "A novice--I lay there's more'n a few 'ud stop this +fight if they knew what I was fighting. 'Strewth! I'd not do it +myself but for what I've been saving up against the whelp!" + +What he had been saving up came poisonously to his mind as he stood +there, driving away even the flavour of the admiration he felt he was +receiving. At last the price for that "Foxy" he had been dubbed and +had endured. At last that price! Folk had come to the booths to see +Japhra's Gentleman, had they!--A price for that! That smack in the +mouth an hour ago!--A price for that! a big price and he would have it +to the full! + +The foxy smile contracted his mouth and eyes as he began to draw the +scarf from his neck, slipped the long yellow coat, and peeled a +sweater. A delighted cry went up from his supporters--good old Foxy +had done them the honour of appearing in his class ring kit! Japhra, +whispering last earnest words in Percival's ear, looked up at the cry, +and twisted up his face at what he saw. Naked but for the tight boxing +trunks and boxing boots, Pinsent declared himself a rare figure of a +fighting machine. Japhra knew the points. Pinsent threw out his arms +at right angles to his sides and drew a long breath. Japhra saw the +big round chest spring up and expand as a soap bubble at a breath +through the pipe--the cleft down the bone between the big chest +muscles; the tense, drumlike look of the skin where it swept into waist +from the lower ribs; the ridge from neck to shoulder on either side +where the head of the back muscles showed; the immense span of the +arms, rooted in great hitting shoulders that, at such length and along +such well-packed arms, would drive the fists like engine rods. He +scaled a shade over ten stone, Japhra guessed. Percival would be +little above nine-and-a-half; and in Pinsent's uncommonly long +legs--their length accentuated by the brief boxing-drawers--Japhra saw +a further and most dangerous quality in his armoury. He swung an arm +and side-stepped to his left as Japhra watched; and Japhra's lips +twitched. The left leg not slid the foot but lifted it and put it away +and down, more with the ease of an arm action than of a leg--as a +spider lifts and places; up, two feet away, the body perfectly poised +on the right; down, and in a flash the body alert upon it--down, and in +a flash the arm extended and back again with the stab of a serpent's +tongue. There went up a murmur of applause at the consummate ease of +the action, and Japhra turned to Percival with whispered repetition of +last words. + +"Thou seest that?" he whispered. "Thou must follow, follow; press him; +give him no rest. In-fighting, in-fighting, quick as thou canst hit!" + +Earnest anxiety was in his voice as he spoke and in his lined face that +was all twisted up so that every line became a pucker, as a withered +apple that is squeezed in the hand. + +"Now bide me a last time," he said. "He hath no bowels for punishment. +There is a coward streak in him--I have seen it. That thou must find +by following, following--quick as thou canst sling them. Good for thee +that he has chosen the knuckle. Thou hast used thy hands. That fox +yonder hath been too fine a swell these years to pull and carry, shift +and load as thou hast done. He will rue his choice when his knuckles +bruise; thine like stone. He will use his tongue on thee, mocking +thee. Pay no heed to that. He will use his ring tricks. Watch for +them. Up now! they are ready for thee. My life is in this fight, +little master--punish, punish, punish; give him no peace--it resteth on +that. All the luck!" + +He slipped Percival's coat, and Percival stepped across the canvas and +went where Pinsent waited him in the centre. He wore the dress in +which he boxed in the booth--white flannel trousers, a vest of thin +gauze, white canvas shoes with rubber soles. He carried his arms at +his sides, twisting up his fingers to make toughest those fists that +Japhra had said were like stone. He held his head high, looking +straightly at Pinsent; stopped within an arm's length of him and turned +his eyes informatively to Boss Maddox, then direct into Pinsent's again. + +His covered limbs joined with his few pounds' lesser weight to make him +appear the slighter figure of the two. "Going to eat him!" a voice +behind Pinsent broke out. + +"Going to muddy well eat him!" and Pinsent's mouth and eyes contracted +into their foxy smile at the words. + +"Ready?" from Boss Maddox. "All right, Stingo. Get along with it." + +"Time!" said Stingo's husky whisper; and, as a hand laid to the wire of +dancing puppets, the word jerked both figures into movement. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A FIGHT THAT IS TOLD + +I + +They tell that fight along the road to-day. Old men who saw it want +never a listener when the talk turns on boxing and they can say: "Ah, +but I saw Japhra's Gentleman and Foxy Pinsent back in Boss Maddox's +time." + +I tell it as it is told. + +Why (the old men say), why, this Japhra's Gentleman, mark me, he was +one of the quick-ones--one of the movers, one of the swift-boys, one of +the dazzlers, one of the few! He come in _tic-tac! tic-tac! +tic-tac!_--quicker'n my old jaws can say it: _Left-right! left-right! +left-right!_--like his two fists was a postman's knock. Pinsent never +see nothing like it. He was one of the class ones, this Pinsent--one +of the pretty ones, one of the sparrers, one of the walk-rounds, +talk-rounds, one of the wait-a-bits; never in no hurry, the class-ring +boys--all watching first to see what a man's got for 'em. He muddy +soon saw, Foxy! Foxy never see nothing like it. First along, he prop +this quick-boy off, an' prop him off, an' prop him off; an' catch him +fair and rattle him, an' smash him one and stagger him, an' side-step +an' shake him up; but still he come, and still he come, and still he +come; _tic-tac! tic-tac! tic-tac!_ ah, he was one of the quick-ones, +one of the dazzlers, one of the steel-boys. + +Pinsent never see nothing like it. He come back after the first round +thinking this was novice stuff--going all out like that from the +gong--and laughin' at the bustle of it, an' Buck Osborn an' Nut Harris +an' his boys laughin' back at him. Second round he come back an' give +a bit of a spit on the ground an' ease up his trunks an' look +thoughtful. Third round he step back slowly 's if he'd a puzzle to +think about,--third round I mind me Dingo, Dingo Spain, chip him +friendly while he pass the sponge over him, and Foxy turn on him like +he had the devil in his eyes. "What in hell's that to you?" he give +him. "Keep your grins in your ugly mouth," he give him, "lest you want +me to wipe it for you!" He was rattled some, that foxy one; not hurted +much--one of the tough ones, Foxy--but bothered by it an' not quite +sure what to make of it, like a man with a wops buzzin' round his +head--that was the like of it with that quick-boy comin' at him, an' +comin' at him, an' comin' at him. + +Ay, but he was one of the tough ones, Foxy--one of the lie-lows, one of +the shifty ones, one of the snaky-boys, one of the cautions! He went +out fourth round for to serve it up to that quick-boy with some of his +crafty bits. I like a bit o' craft meself. I was a Maddox man, me, +an' I set up a holler, an' we all holler, take my word, when we see +Foxy servin' of it up to that quick-boy like he lay hisself to do then. +Give his tongue to him a treat, he did. Walkin' out to him--tiptoe an' +crouchin' at him. "What, you're in a hurry, my gentleman!" he chips +him. "You'll make yourself hot, my pretty pet, if you don't steady +down," he chips him. "That's not lady's manners, runnin' about like +you've been," he chips him. + +That quick-boy come at him an' he slip a bit of craft on him quick as a +snake. Side-step, he did, that foxy one; an' duck an' say, "Where's +your manners?" an' rake his head across an' butt that quick-boy's +stomach so he grunts; an' up an' hook him one, an' follow him an' lash +him one, an' "Mind your manners, you bastard!" he says an' half across +the ring an' waitin' for him. Three times he butt him so, an' each +time hook him one, an' all the time lip-lippin' of him, an' us boys +hollerin' an' Stingo's boys hollerin' an' the animals in the cages +hollerin' back on us. Holler!--I mind me I was in a fair muck sweat +with it. + +Back he goes again, next round, that foxy one, an' "Why, dear, dear, +you've got some beauty-spots on your face, my pretty gentleman!" he +chips him. "Come an' let's paint 'em up a bit for you, my little +lady!" he chips him. Ay, that was a round, that one! That Japhra,--a +rare one that Gipsy Japhra--had been talkin' to that quick-boy whiles +he had him on his knee; an' when he comes in, an' that foxy one goes to +rake him with buttin' him again, he step back, that quick-boy, for to +cut him as he come out. I see the move--but that foxy one! All craft +that foxy one was--one of the snaky ones, one of the tough boys, one of +the coves! 'Stead o' swingin' through with his head, he swing up and +hook his left 'un with it, an' chin that quick-boy one, an' "Paint!" he +says, "There's paint for you, you dog!" an' lash him one where he had a +little mouse-lump over his eye; an' true enough, the paint splits +across an' comes streaky down that quick-boy's face. + +You'd ha' thought--I lay me I know what that foxy one thought. Blood +fierce went that foxy one when he see that blood, an' in he goes, +fierce after blood, for to finish it; leaved off his craft and went in +for to hammer him. He muddy soon goed back to craft again, Foxy! That +quick-boy shook his head an' run back; an' draws a breath an' meets +him; an' throats him one an' staggers him; an' draws a breath an' +follows him; an' pastes him one an' grunts him; an' _tic-tac! tic-tac! +tic-tac!_ an' follows him, an' follows him, an' follows him. Like a +wops he was--like a bull-tamer he was, an' that foxy one gets all +muddled with him, an' runs back puzzled with him, an' then catches hold +of hisself, an' stops hisself--I reckon he wondered where 'n hell he'd +be soon if he didn't--and puts in that duck an' butt craft again; an' +that quick-boy steadies for him like old Japhra bin teachin' of him; +an' when that foxy one swings across, that quick-boy smashes up under +him--_crack!_ like a stone-breaker with his hammer; an' that foxy one +come back to us with his mouth split, an' his chin red; an' while he +sit blowin' take a toof out; an' while he sit blowin' get it drip-drop +on his chest from where the blood run to his chin. + + +II + +But Percival had suffered under the punishment of these savage +encounters, and under the immense exertions of that unceasing +in-fighting to which Japhra had urged him. Back on Japhra's knee, +"I've dosed him, Japhra," he said. "He's taking all I can give him." +There was a sob in his quick breathing as he spoke, and he smiled +weakly and leant back against Japhra's shoulder. + +Japhra's eyes were sunk in his twisted face to twin points of +glistening light. His voice trembled, and his hand as he plied the +sponge. "He will not drink much more," he said. "Thou art hot after +that coward streak in him. I mark the signs of it. Keep up the dose, +master! Never such a fight--and never thy like! never thy like! +Follow him, son of mine--follow him! follow him! A last call on +thyself! Watch him where he sucks his tender knuckles." + + +Pinsent knew better than Japhra the tenderness of those bruised +knuckles of his: he knew too that he was housing an uneasy feeling +beneath his belt, born of the bewildering persistence of his opponent +and of the punishing fists which that persistence pressed upon him, +giving him no peace. He was sore; he had reached the point when blows +were beginning to hurt him--and that was a point beyond which he knew +it was dangerous for him to delay proceedings. + +Again! He came forward with a trick in his mind that he had seen and +that he had once playfully practised on Buck Osborn. Thought of it +helped him to his foxy smile that was a grotesque burlesque of itself +as he made it with his swollen mouth; but again!--again that +steel-springed fury was on him, following him, following him, following +him. Pinsent must needs use his fists to try to check its rushes; when +he effected a savage blow the jar at his knuckles made him wince. +Twice he went backwards round the ring--a third time and feinted a +stumble as he moved his feet. It made his chance. Percival, coming +too quick, ran full into him. He ducked, then drove up his head with +all his force beneath the other's jaw. + +The trick succeeded better than when he had seen it and marked it for +future use. Jarred to the point of unconsciousness, Percival staggered +back, his arms wide. At the exposed throat Pinsent drove his left fist +with all the driving power his body and legs could give it; with the +dull _wup!_ of a wet sheet beaten on stone Percival went his full +length and full length lay. + +"Time!" throated Stingo; and at the word the facing crowds, that as one +man had caught their breaths, went into two tumults of jostling +figures, tossing arms, and of brazen throats before whose thunders, +beating the air like thunder's self, Japhra, Ginger Cronk, Snowball +White, and One Eye bent their heads as they came rushing forward. + +"Time!" Japhra snarled at Pinsent. "Out of this, thou foul-play fox!" + +"Out you!" Pinsent shouted. He stood over the prostrate form, +breathing quick, one arm curved back as if it held a stabbing sword: +"Out you! Enough o' this! Private between him an' me now. Stand out +and let him up for me! Out!" + +"Boss! Boss!" Japhra called, and dropped on his knees by Percival, +dizzily rising on an elbow. "Boss! Boss! What's this? Order him +out! Have him out!" + +"Play fair!" "Fight fair!"--with cries and oaths the Stingo men pressed +to the canvas, shaking fists aloft; with cries and oaths and tossing +fists were answered. A Stingo man put his leg over the canvas and half +his body into the ring: a leg and flushed face struck out on the other +side. Then in a rush men broke across the canvas, poured into the +ring, and met in two raging, foul-mouthed banks that strained about the +boxers. + +Boss Maddox thrust his way forward. "Ge' back! Ge' back! I'll have +'ee out the tent, every man of 'ee! Ge' back! Ge' back! By God, I'll +have the lamp out!" And he fought his way back to the mast and +stretched his hand to the chain that released the extinguishers upon +the burners. + +A Stingo and a Maddox man, catching each the other's eye as the two +sides bayed and jostled, made private cause of the common brawl, and +closed with clutching hands. Another pair engaged, and now +another--whirled in that tossing mob, and flung the crowd this way and +that in their furious grappling, like fighting tigers in a stockade +breaking in pieces at their violence. + +Boss Maddox's iron throat like a trumpet across the din: "The light +goes! The light goes!" + +It flickered; savage hands tore at the fighters, savage feet kicked +furious commands; flickered again--and suddenly the immense clamour +went to a cry, to a broken shout, to peace. + +Pinsent pushed his way to the front. "Easy, Boss--I want that light. +I've a job to finish," he said; and in the laugh that went up, added, +"The boys 'll be all right." He threw his arms apart in gesture of +command. "Out o' the ring!" he cried. "You're robbin' me of it. +Gettin' his wits back! I'd ha' cut him out by now!" + +Three parts supporting Percival, Japhra with Ginger Cronk and the rest +had taken him back through the mob and supported him while they tended +him.... The tumult gave him five minutes, and he was sitting up as the +men returned growling to their places. He looked at Ima, crouching by +him, read the entreaty in her eyes, and answered it and at the same +time answered Japhra's trembling "How of it, master?" by shaking his +head. "No!" he said, "No!" and felt Japhra's arms tighten about him. + +Another heard him and pressed forward. It was Egbert Hunt, tears +running down his face. + +"You ain't going on?" he cried. "You ain't going on! Stop it, Mr. +Japhra! Stop this murder!" + +Japhra's left arm was about Percival's body, his right hand used the +sponge. Those near him for the first and only time heard him use a +coarse expression. As he were some tigress above a threatened cub, he +drew Percival closer to him and turned savagely up at Egbert's pallid +face. "Shut thy bloody, coward mouth!" he cried at him. "Men's work +here! Quit thee, thou whelp!" + +The ring was clear. Pinsent came out, sucking a fist. Percival got to +his feet, stood a moment, the blood that had dripped to his chest the +red badge of courage flying there--then walked forward. + +Somewhere in the crowd a woman's voice shot up hysterically: "God love +yer, Gentleman!" it shrilled--"Y're pluck! Pluck!" + + +III + +That foxy one (the old men say) he come out sucking his fistses that +were gone more like messy orindges than any fistses ever I see. He see +that quick-boy rockin' a bit on his feet where he stood, an' he spit +his fist out his mouth an' he run slap down at him for to knock him off +his legs by runnin' into him. He run at him hard as he could pelt, +that foxy one; an' that quick-boy stan' 's if he was dreamin' an' never +see nothin' of him. Ah, but that quick-boy could have fought if he was +asleep, I reckon me! He slip aside, squeeze aside, twist aside jus' as +that foxy one reach him; so quick he twist, us what was watchin' the +ground for to see him go there never see him move. I reckon that foxy +one never did neither. He muddy soon knowed, though, Foxy! He go +sprawlin' by, an' as he go that quick-boy clip him one an' help him go +an' stumble him. Round he come, that foxy one, savage with it; an' +that quick-boy dreamin' there again; an' rush him for to rush him down +again; an' this time that quick-boy, too tired for to shift by the look +of it, let him have it as he come fair under the eye, an' Foxy jus' +swing him one on the cheek, an' that shift him like he shift hisself +before; an' he clip that foxy one the other fist a clip you could ha' +heard far as yonder tree; an' clip that same eye again; an' us see the +blood run up into Foxy's peeper; an' that foxy one shake his head, an' +shake his head, like he was blinded with it. He shake a muddy lot +more, Foxy, afore he was through! He set in for to do the rushing +then, like that quick-boy had done first along; an' that quick-boy's +turn, dreamin' there, for to do the proppin' off. But he not rush like +that quick-boy rush. He shake his head an' have a go at him; an' that +quick-boy prop him off an' wait for him; an' he shake his head an' walk +round a bit, an' _ur!_ he go, an' rush at him; an' that quick-boy wake +hisself an' prop him off; an' he suck his fist an' wipe his eye, an' +_ur!_ he come again: and that quick-boy twist hisself an' give him +one--_crack!_ my life, his fistses was like stones, that quick-boy's! + +Ah, my word! my word! then they got at it. That old Japhra--a rare +one, that Gipsy Japhra!--sing out "Cut in! Cut in! little master!" and +that quick-boy gives a heave of hisself an' they meet, those two, +slapper-dash! slapper-dash! this way! that way! punchin', punchin'! an' +they fall away, those two, an' breathe theirselves, an' pant +theirselves; an' that foxy one has his mouth all anyhow an' fair +roarin' of his breath through it; an' his head all twisty-ways with +only one eye for watchin' with; an' they rush those two--my life! they +were rare ones! Hit as they come, those two--an' that put the stopper +on it. Like stones--_crack!_ like stones--my word on it, their fists +met, an' Foxy drop his left arm like it was broke at the elbow. Then +he takes it! Like a bull-tarrier!--like a bull-tarrier, my word on it, +that quick-boy lep' at him. _One!_ he smash him an' heart him, an' I +see that foxy one glaze in his eye an' stagger with it. _Two!_ that +quick-boy drive him an' rib him, an' I hear that foxy one grunt an' see +him waggle up his hanging arm an' drop it. _Three!_ that quick-boy +smash him an' throat him, an' back he goes, that foxy one; an' crash he +goes! an' flat he lies--an', my life! to hear the breathing of him! + +Life of me! there was never a knock-out like it; never one could do it +like that quick-boy done it! Never no one as quick as that quick-boy +when first along he come _tic-tac! tic-tac! tic-tac!_ left-right! +left-right! left-right! Never one could come again after he was bashed +like that quick-boy come. Never his like! One of the rare ones, one +of the clean-breds, one of the true-blues, one of the all-rights, one +of the get-there, stop-there, win-there--one o' the picked! + + +IV + +Quivering in silence the facing crowds stood while the count went. + +"Nine!" throated Stingo--scarcely a whisper. + +Stillness while perhaps five seconds passed. Then Boss Maddox opened +his hands towards the ring in an expressive gesture. + +Then men came rushing to Pinsent and shook him: "Up, Foxy! Up!" Then +Pinsent drew up his knees, groaned, and seemed to collapse anew. Then, +then the storm burst in a bellow of sound, in a rush of figures. All, +all of clamour that had gone before--of exultation, hate, defiance, +blood-want, rage--seemed now to bind up in two clanging rolls of +thunder that in thunder went, in thunder thundered back, and thundered +on again. Percival turned and saw Japhra running towards him, an arm's +length in advance of the mob that followed. He fell into Japhra's +arms, felt himself pressed, pressed to Japhra's heart, heard in his +ears "Never thy like! Son of mine, never thy like!" He knew a driving +mob behind his back, before, and all about him--heard curses, +grapplings, blows. Heard Japhra's cry "Up with him! Up!" felt himself +borne aloft and dimly was conscious that his bearers were staggered +this way and that by the flood that surged about them.... Sudden +darkness, and sudden most delicious air and sudden most delicious rain +was his next impression--they had got him outside the tent.... At his +next he was in the van, on his couch, smiling at those who bent above +him. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE STICKS COME OUT--AND A KNIFE + +I + +"How dost thou go?" Japhra asked. + +"Why, my face is sore," Percival said--"sore! it feels as if I had only +a square inch of skin stretched to cover the lot. I'm right as rain +otherwise. That was a fight, Japhra!" + +"Never its like!" Japhra answered him huskily--"never its like! Thou +art the fighting type, my son. Long ago I said it. This night hath +proved me!" + +Percival sighed most luxuriously. Pleasant, pleasant to be lying +there--bruised, tired, sore, but weariness and wounds bound up with +victory. He put up a hand and took Ima's fingers that touched his face +with ointment. "That's fine, Ima!" he smiled at her. "I saw you +crying. You oughtn't to have been there. Did you think I was done +for?" + +She shook her head; tears were still in her eyes. + +"Well, it's over now," he said affectionately. "Dry those eyes, Ima!" + +She gave a catch at her breath. "Well, I am a woman," she told him, +and her gentle fingers anointed his face again. + +Their caress assisted him into drowsiness. Without opening his eyes he +inquired presently: + +"What's all that row? There's a frightful noise somewhere, isn't +there?" + +Japhra, who was looking through the forward window into the early dawn +of the summer morning, turned to Ima and shook his head. She took his +meaning and answered Percival: "It rains heavily. There is a storm +coming up." + +He dropped into slumber. + + +II + +But the noise he had heard was heavier than the rain that streamed upon +the van's roof; there raged outside a fiercer storm than the +thunder-clouds massing up on the wind. It had been many seasons +brooding; it was charged to the point of bursting when the two factions +came shouting from the marquee after the fight. Swept up with arrogant +glee, the Stingo men paraded with hoots and jeers before the Maddox +vans. A stone came flying through the gloom and cracked against a tall +man's cheek. He stooped for it with a curse, sent it whistling, and +the crash of glass that rewarded his aim was the signal for a scramble +for stones--smashing of windows, splintering of wood. + +There came a wild rush of men from behind the Maddox vans. Japhra, +watching from his window, turned swiftly and took up the stout limb of +ash he commonly carried. He gave it a deft twirl in a tricky way that +spoke of the days when single-stick work figured at the fairs, and +looked at Ima with his tight-lipped smile. + +"The sticks are out!" he said grimly. "I knew it would end thus;" and +as he opened the door and dropped to the ground there came to him from +many throats the savage cry--glad to the tough old heart of him that +once had told Percival, "Ay, a camp fight with the sticks out and the +heads cracking is a proper game for a man"--of "Sticks! Sticks!"; and +one that came running past him toward the press shouted to him: +"Japhra? Good on yer! The sticks are out! The ----s ha' come at us +with sticks!" + +It was Snowball White. "This way with it, boy," Japhra told him as +they ran. "Thy stick thus--with a hand at each end across thy head. +Crack at a pate right hand or left when thou seest one--then back to +overhead to guard thine own again. I have been out with the sticks. I +know the way of it." + + +III + +Weight of numbers had told their tale when Percival got a glimpse of +the fierce work. + +"I'm fit--I'm absolutely fit, I tell you!" he had told Ima when, +awakened by the sounds that now had raged close to the Stingo vans, and +recognising them for what they were, he had shaken off her protests and +entreaties and had come to the scene. + +"Lie here while they're fighting us! Why, you'd be ashamed of me, you +know you would!" he had cried; but when he was outside, and had gone a +few steps in the rain that now was sheeting down, he was informed how +weak he was, and was caught and spun dizzily back by a sudden mob of +men driven towards him, and was held dizzy and fainting by the panting +breaths and by the reek of sweating bodies that wedged him where he +stood. + +He was packed in a mob of his Stingo mates, half of whom could not free +their arms for use and about three sides of whom the Maddox mob were +baying, driving them further and further back against the vans with +sticks that rattled on sticks and on heads like the crackling of trees +in a wood fire. Two forms, taller than the rest, upstood clearly--near +Percival old Stingo, hatless, blood on a cheek, and throating "Hut! +Hut, boys! Hut!" with each stroke he made; further away Boss Maddox, +pale, grim and iron of countenance as ever even in this fury, and using +his long reach to strike with deadly precision at heads half a dozen +men in front of him. + +The two were working towards one another, Percival could see, and a +sudden surge of the crowd brought him almost within reach of Boss +Maddox's stick. It was at that moment that he felt a jostling at his +ribs as of someone burrowing past him from behind, looked down and +recognised Egbert Hunt--shut in by accident and trying to escape, +Percival guessed. + +"Hullo! You're going the wrong way to get out," he told him. + +Egbert Hunt thrust up and filled his lungs as a diver might rise for +air. He peered in the direction of Boss Maddox, and went down again. +"I know which way I'm going," he said, and squirmed ahead--feeling and +thrusting with his outstretched left hand, his right in the pocket of +his coat. + +Stingo and Maddox met. Each stood high above those about them and each +had a cry of challenge for the other as their sticks joined. "Hut!" +grunted Stingo and slashed to Boss Maddox's shoulder. + +Percival saw the stick caught where it had slipped from its mark and +gone into the press; saw Boss Maddox shake himself for freer action and +the crowd give way from about him; saw him swing up his arm and poise +his stick a dreadful second clear above Stingo's unprotected head--then +saw him give an awkward stagger, saw the raised stick slip down between +his fingers, heard him grunt and saw him drop down and disappear as a +man beneath whose feet the ground had opened. + +There arose almost simultaneously, high above the din of sticks and +oaths, a scream of shocking sound and horrid meaning--"A knife! A +knife!" the scream shot up--"A knife! Some bastard 's used a knife!" + +It swept across the struggling men, stopped them, and was cried from +throat to throat as though through the night there jarred some evil +bird circling with evil cry: "A knife! A knife! Some one's knifed!" + +And then again that first voice screamed: "Boss Maddox's knifed! The +Boss is murdered!" + +And another, most beastly: "Christ! it's pourin' out of 'im. Boss! +Boss! 'Oo's done it on yer?" + +And a third: "Boss! Boss! God ha' mercy!--he's dead! dead!" + +And one that sprung up in panic and smashed a panic blow at the man +behind him: "Dead! Dead! Gi' us room, blast yer!" + +And one that sprung upright, held in his hand aloft that which caught +the dull morning gleam, and screamed "Here y'are! Here's what done it! +Blood on the haft!" + + +IV + +A thud of hoofs broke into the silence in which the crowd stood held. +A jingle of accoutrements; a sharp voice that called: "What's up? +What's wrong here? Who called murder?" a breaking away right and left +of the mob; and into the lane instinctively formed to where the body +lay a mounted constable rode, pulled up his horse and cried again: +"What's up? What's wrong here?" + +He was answered. Scarcely the fearful whisper "Police! Police!" had +run to the outskirts of the crowd, when one that had knelt sprung +raving to his feet, tossed aloft two hands dark with blood, and +shouted: "I called murder! There's murder here! Boss Maddox 's got a +knife in him!" His shouting went to a scream: "One o' they's done it!" +he screamed. "One o' they! One o' Stingo's bastards!" + +There had been mutterings of thunder and swiftly gathering darkness +that submerged the summer morning's gleam. Tremendous upon that +accusing scream there now broke out of heaven great reverberating rolls +of sound as of heaven demanding answer to that cry. The sheeting rain +burst with a torrent's fury--a great stab of lightning almost upon the +very camp; then pitchy black and thunder's roll again. + +To the Stingo crowd it gave the last effect to the mounting panic that +had mounted in them on successive terrors of "A knife!" "Boss Maddox's +knifed!" "Boss Maddox 's dead!" "Police! Police!" and "One o' they! +One o' they! One o' Stingo's bastards!" + +Murder had been done. The Blue Boys were out. With one of their own +number lay the guilt. There cried to them "Away! Away!", all the +instinct that, since first law came on the land, has bade roadmen, +gipsies, outlaws, take immediate flight from trouble. "Away!" it +screamed; and by common impulse there was a break and a rush to their +vans of the Stingo men; and in the pitchy blackness and in primeval +shudder at every roll of thunder, drenched by the streaming downpour, +lit as the lightning snatched up the cloak of night, there were panic +harnessing and panic cries: "One o' us! One o' us done it! D'yer see +the Blue Boy on his 'orse?--more of 'em coming! 'Old still!--still, +blast yer! Up wi' that shaft!--up! Hell take this buckle! Are yer +fixed? One o' us! One o' us!" + +A van, speedier ready than its neighbours, rolled off, its driver +flogging the horse from the forward platform. A blinding torch from +heaven flamed down about it. The constable, giving directions by the +prone figure--"He's not dead; knot those scarves together; lift, and +bind 'em so"--shaded his eyes from the glare; then jumped for his +horse. "Stop that van! None's to leave here! Stop 'em! stop 'em!" + +Away! Away!--thundering hoofs; rocking wheels; a van overturned, and +groans and curses; pursuers driven down or smashed at where they +climbed the steps; the constable surrounded by those who ran beside the +van he followed, dragged from his saddle, hurled aside, and his horse +sent galloping. + +Away! Away!--blindly into the night. + +And in the night, two miles afield, one that ran with streaming face +and labouring chest and that muttered "I done it on 'im--me, served +like a dog before 'em all--I done it on him, the tyrang!" + + +V + +Percival was changing his dripping clothes. Complete exhaustion had +him. The bruises on his face had hardened to ugly colours, and Japhra, +chiding him for having left the van, saw with concern an uglier colour +yet that burned behind the bruises and whose cause made his wet body +burning to the touch. + +"Bed for thee!--no changing!" he said; and was answered by Percival: +"Japhra! I saw him pitch and drop!" + +"I have helped bear him to his van.... I saw him struck." + +There had never left Percival's mind him that went thrusting past in +the press, right hand in pocket. His eyes questioned Japhra and were +answered by Japhra's. Then he said, "Egbert Hunt?" + +"Egbert Hunt." + +"What's going to happen now, Japhra?" + +Strange how tricks and chances go! All that day's chain of tricks, all +its train of chances, had brought Percival straight to the import of +Japhra's words. + +"This night hath ended this life, master. Stingo sells his stock and +back to his brother near thy home. To-morrow, new roads for me." + +Percival scarcely heard him. Japhra made an exclamation and caught him +in his arms. + +"Ima!" + +She came from where she had waited behind her curtain. + +"Help me here--then to Boss Maddox's van where they bring a doctor. +This night hath struck down this heart of ours." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +JAPHRA AND IMA. JAPHRA AND AUNT MAGGIE + +I + +The van brought Percival back to Aunt Maggie. + +Japhra and Ima, waiting the doctor's arrival, watched and tended the +signs of how, as Japhra had said, the night had struck Percival down. +From the moment of his collapse in Japhra's arms, his vitality no +longer withstood the strain to which it had been pressed. His mind +gave way beneath the attack of the events of the past hours; marshalled +now by fever's hand they returned to him in riot of delirium. "Don't, +Ima! Don't! ... No! No! I'm all right! I'm better standing! ... +Only a kiss in fun, Ima! O God, if I had only known! ... Murdered! +Where's Hunt? Murder! Poor old Hunt! ... In-fighting! I must get in! +If only I can stick out this round! ... Ge' back! Ge' back! What's +Boss Maddox yelling about? ... In!--I must get in! I will get in! ... +Ima! For me! O God, what a thing to happen! Only in fun! Only in +fun, Ima! ... Follow him! Follow him! I must get in at him...." + +When he was momentarily in silence Japhra looked a question at Ima. + +She answered quite simply: "I told him that I loved him." + +"And he?" Japhra said. + +She arranged the bedclothes, and with a fond touch smoothed back +Percival's hair; then looked at her father and smiled bravely and shook +her head. + +"I have known it these many days," Japhra told her. "I have watched +thee." He placed his hand on hers where it caressed Percival's +forehead. "What of comfort have I for thee?" he said. "My daughter, +none. He is not of us. Hearken to this thought, Ima. Heaven shapeth +its vessels for the storms they must meet. Some larger thing calleth +that grace of form and that rareness of spirit that he hath. What +profit then for us to sorrow?" + +Because he saw her crying, he repeated: "What profit?" + +"Well, I am a woman," she said. "My love is of a different sort from +thine." + +He stroked her hair. "My daughter, wouldst thou unlive the past?" + +She replied: "Nay, it is all I have." + +"So with me," he said. "This night endeth it. Thou and +I--henceforward we will be alone, remembering him--happy to have loved +him, happy that he hath been happy with us, happy to have been a port +where he hath fitted himself a little for what sea he saileth to." + +She pressed her father's hand. "As thou sayest," she said; and after a +moment, bending over Percival like some mother above her child: "What +awaiteth him?" she asked. + +"Some strong thing," Japhra said. "I know no more--that much I know +without mistake. From the first when he came to us with his quaint +ways and fair face I knew it. A big fight, as I have told him." + +As if she believed her father to have divination, "Will he win?" she +asked him. + +"He is the fighting type," Japhra replied. "Victory for him. This +night in the tent. To-morrow--whatever will. Though it be +death--always victory." + +She remembered that. + + +II + +The doctor, when he came, showed himself a tough gentleman--abrupt of +speech, of the type that does its rounds in the saddle--who said "Stiff +crowd, you! Regular hospital here. Cracked head in every van. Boss +Maddox--he's in a bad way. Now this young man. Make me fortune if you +stop." + +After examination: "Nursing," he said; "it's a case for nursing. He's +gone over the mark. Head--and hands, by the look of 'em! Not my +business that. Stiff crowd, you! Nursing. You'll have to watch it +pretty sharp. That girl's got a way with him. That's what he wants." + +"I am taking him home," Japhra said; "two days from here--if that be +wise." + +"Wisest thing. Get him out of this. Stiff crowd, you! I'll look in +again midday. Send you some stuff. Then you can move. He's badly +over the mark. Look after him." + +Thus, on the afternoon of that day, the train of tricks and chances had +Percival on the road towards Aunt Maggie and Burdon village. The +police, who had taken authority in the camp, made no objection to +Japhra leaving. They knew now the man they wanted; half the Maddox +crowd had heard Hunt's threat to stick a knife in Boss Maddox; the +blade found was scratched with his name; a score had seen him edging +through the press towards the Boss; there were not wanting those who, +their imagination enlarged by these hints, had seen the very blow +struck. Japhra might go, the police said, and Stingo Hannaford too. +The only wanted vans were those in flight that might have the fugitive +in hiding. So, while Boss Maddox, removed to the Infirmary, lay +between life and death, while the Blue Boys from the police station and +the tough boys from the vans scoured the country in thrill of man-hunt, +Japhra harnessed up the van and struck away towards Burdon. + +The patient ranged wide in his delirium during the journey--often on +his lips a name that once had fallen about him like petals of the +bloomy rose, sweet as they; that now struck like blows in the face at +her who ceaselessly watched him: + +"I know this house! Up the stairs! down the stairs! I'm tired, tired! +What am I looking for? What am I looking for? Not you, Dora!--not +you! ... You are Snow-White-and-Rose-Red! I love you, Dora! Why do +you look at me so strangely, Mr. Amber! ... Rollo! Rollo, old +man!--Rollo, what are you doing? She is running away from me! Let me +go, Rollo! let me go! ... In-fighting! I must get in! I will get in! +... Dora! Dora! How I have longed for you!..." + +She that watched him appeared to have a wonderful influence over him. +Of its own force it seemed to give her the quality of entering the +wanderings of his mind and satisfying him by answering his cries. + +"In-fighting! In-fighting!" he would cry. "I must get in! I will get +in!" + +And she: "You are winning! There--there; look, you have won! It is +ended--you have won!" + +"You are Snow-White-and-Rose-Red! Dora! Dora! My Dora!" + +And she, steeling herself: "I am here, Percival! Your Dora is here! +Hold Dora's hand! There, rest while I stay with you!" + +So through the hours. + +"Post Offic" was the evening of the second day distant. Japhra walked +all the way, leading the horse--movement steadier, less chance of +jolting, by leading than by driving, Japhra thought; and so trudged +mile on mile--guiding away from ruts, down the steep hills holding back +horse and van by force amain rather than use the drag that would have +jarred noisily. For the rest he walked, one hand on the bridle, the +other in his pocket, his whip beneath his arm, not with the keen look +and alert step that was his usual habit, but with some air that made +kindly folk say in passing: "Poor gipsies! They must have a hard life, +you know!" + +But it was that each step brought him nearer end of a companionship +that had gone with deep roots into his heart that made life for the +first time seem hard to this questioner. + +He would not smoke. "The reek would carry back on this breeze and +through the windows to him," he told Ima, come beside him while her +patient slept. + +She could never remember seeing her father without his pipe, and she +was touched by his simple thought. She slipped her hand into the +pocket of his long coat where his hand lay, and entwined their fingers. +"Ah, we love him, thou and I," she said. + +She felt his fingers embrace her own. He asked her quietly: "My +daughter, is it bitter for thee when he crieth Dora?" + +She answered him with that poor plea of hers. "Well, I am a woman," +she said. But after a little while she spoke again. "Yet I am glad to +suffer so," she told him. "Though he cries Dora, it is my hand that +soothes him when he so cries. He sighs then, and is comforted. It is +as if he wandered in pain, and wanted me, and finding me was happy. +Well, how should I ask more? Often--many years I have prayed he should +one day be mine, my own. It is not to be. But now--for a little +while--when he cries and when I comfort him, why, my prayer is +vouchsafed me. Mine then--my own." + + +III + +Aunt Maggie saw that wonderful influence Ima exercised over his +delirium. When Japhra had carried him up to his bedroom, and when Ima +was bringing "his things" from the van, he broke out in raving and in +tossing of the arms that utterly alarmed her and Honor, their efforts +of no avail. She called in panic for Ima. Ima's touch and voice +restored him to instant peace. "You must stay with me," Aunt Maggie +said, tears running down her face. "My dear, I beg you stay with me. +You are Ima. I know you well. He has often spoken of you. Oh, you +will stay?" + +Afterwards Aunt Maggie went down to thank Japhra for his agreement to +this proposal. He would put up his van with the Hannafords, he told +Ima--with Stingo, who would shortly be coming, and with Mr. +Hannaford--and would stay there, whence he might come daily for news +while Ima remained with Percival. + +Aunt Maggie had grateful tears in her eyes when she thanked him. +These, and those tears of panic when she called Ima's aid, were the +first she had shed since suddenly the van had brought her Percival to +her an hour before. Trembling but dry-eyed she had gone to him and +seen his dangerous condition; shaking but tearless had made ready his +bed. + +"Strange-like"? "Touched-like"? It was fate had ordered him back to +her, she told herself. Almost upon the eve--within four short months +of the twenty-first birthday for which she had planned--he was brought +back; and brought back, despite himself, by an agency stronger than his +own strong spirit. Fate in that!--the same fate that by Audrey's +death-bed had assured her that nothing would fail her, and that by a +hundred seeming chances had justified its assurance through the years. + +He was very ill. She was not afraid. Fate was here--and she told +Japhra he would recover. + +She found him in the van, his pipe alight again and staring in a +dullish way at the vacant places whence Percival's belongings had been +removed. He came down to her, and when she told him her belief he had +a strange look and a long look into her eyes before he answered. He +had marked the tearlessness that went curiously with her devotion when +he had brought her to Percival; he marked now some strange appearance +she had for him and some strange note in her voice when she told him +"He will recover." + +"Ay, mistress," he said. "Have no fear. He will recover." + +For her own part she marked also some strange look in the strangely +strong eyes that regarded her. + +She asked "But why are you so confident?" + +He noticed the "But." "Mistress, because his type is made for a bigger +thing than he has yet met." + +To that--meeting so strongly the truth she knew--she replied: +"Yes!--yes!" + +At her tone he came a sudden step to her. "Mistress, is it in thy +hands, this thing he must meet?" + +She, by the influence of this meeting, stood caught up and dizzy by +return to her in dreadful violence of that old fluttering within her +brain. + +Japhra in stern and sudden voice: "Beware it!" + +He thought her eyes questioned him and he answered them: "Why have I +from the first known some big thing waited him?--it was somehow told +me. Why beware?--I am somehow warned." + +She turned and began to go away. Come out of the fluttering, she could +not at once recall what had passed between her and this little man. + +Japhra put a quick hand on her arm: "Mistress, beware lest thou +betrayest him!" + +She remembered that. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A COLD 'UN FOR EGBERT HUNT. ROUGH 'UNS FOR PERCIVAL + +I + +Ima's nursing, as that doctor had said, brought Percival back from +where he had been driven beyond the mark by stress of events and put +him firmly afoot along the road of convalescence. Only one +circumstance arose to distress those days of his returning +strength--the news of Egbert Hunt. + +The assizes at Salisbury followed quick on the capture of the +fugitive--run to earth in a wood by the Blue Boys and the tough boys +and brought back like some wild creature trapped--soaked, soiled, +bruised, faint, furious, terrified and struggling, for prompt committal +by the magistrate. + +A newspaper reporter at the assizes wrote of him as having again that +appearance of some wild creature trapped when he stood in the dock +before the Judge. The case attracted considerable local interest. +There was first the fact that famous Boss Maddox had narrowly escaped +death at the prisoner's hand: there was second the appearance of a +noble lady of the county--Lady Burdon--as witness for the defence. + +Gossips who attended the trial said it was precious little good she did +the fellow. His conviction was a foregone conclusion. A solicitor +with an eye to possibilities who attended Hunt during the police court +proceedings learnt from him that he had been in Lady Burdon's service +from boyhood and (in his own phrase) promptly "touched her" to see if +she would undertake the expenses of a defence. Her reply was in a form +to send him pretty sharply about his business and (a man of some +humour) he thanked her courteously by having her subpoeaned on the +prisoner's behalf--mitigation of sentence was to be earned by her +testimony to the young man's irreproachable character during his long +years in her service. + +It was little of such testimony she gave. Angry at the trick played on +her (as she considered it), angry at being dragged into a case of +sordid aspect and of local sensation, she went angrier yet into the +witness-box for the scene made at her expense by the prisoner as she +passed the dock. The newspaper reporter who described him as +presenting the appearance of a wild animal trapped, wrote of him as +having a wolfish air as he glared about him--of his jaws that worked +ceaselessly, of his blinking eyelids, and of the perspiration that +streamed like raindrops down his face. As Lady Burdon passed him the +emotions of the public were thrilled to see his arms come suppliant +over the dock rail and to hear him scream to her: "Say a word for me, +me lady! Say a good word for me! Love o' God, say--" A warder's +rough hand jerked his cry out of utterance, and he listened to her +during her evidence, watching her with that wolfish air of his and with +those jaws ceaselessly at work. + +A cold 'un, the gossips said of her when she stepped down. The Judge +in passing his stereotyped form of sentence made more seemly reference +to her testimony. + +"The evidence," the judge addressed the prisoner, "of your former +employer--come here reluctantly but with the best will in the world (as +she has told us) to befriend you--has only been able to show that you +have exhibited from your boyhood upward the traits--sullenness of +temper, hatred of authority--that have led you directly to the place +where now you stand. It has been made very clear that this crime--only +by the mercy of God prevented from taking a more serious form--was +wilful, premeditated, of a sort into which your whole character shows +you might have been expected to burst at almost any period of your +maturer years. You will be sent away now where you will have leisure, +as I sincerely trust, to reflect and to repent.... Five years.... You +will go to penal servitude for that term." + +Most wolfishly the wolfish eyes watched the judge while these words +were spoken; quicker the working jaws moved, lower the poor form +crouched as nearer the sentence came. As a vicious dog trembles and +threatens in every hair at the stick upraised to strike, so, by every +aspect of his mien, Egbert Hunt trembled and threatened as the ultimate +words approached. "Penal servitude for that term"--as the dog yelps +and springs so he screamed and sprung: a dreadful wordless scream, a +savage spring against the dock, arms outflung. + +Warders closed about him; but he was at his full height, arms and +wolfish face directed at Lady Burdon. "You done it on me!" he +screamed. "You might ha' saved me! You--! You--cruel--! I'll do it +back on yer! Wait till I'm out! I'll come straight for yer, you an' +your--son! I'll do it on--" + +A warder's hand came across his mouth. He bit through to the bone and +had his head free before they could remove him. "I've never had a fair +chance, not with you, you--Tyrangs!--tyrangs all of yer!--tyrangs! +You're the worst! God help yer when I come for yer! Tyrangs! ... +Tyrangs!..." + +They carried him away. + + +II + +"Oh, five years!--Five years!" Percival cried when he read the news. +"Poor, poor old Hunt! Five years!" + +He was sitting comfortably propped in a big chair in the garden behind +"Post Offic," Aunt Maggie and Ima with him, and his weakness could not +restrain the moisture that came to his eyes. "Five years, Aunt Maggie! +He was one of my friends. I liked him--always liked him. He was +always fond of me--jolly good to me. When I think of him with his +vegules and his sick yedaches! Five years--poor old Hunt!" + +He was very visibly distressed. "Everybody is fond of you, dear," Aunt +Maggie said sympathetically. + +"That's just it!" he said--"that's just it!" and he threw himself back +in his chair and went into thoughts that were come upon him and that +her words exactly suited: thoughts that were often his in the days of +his sickness when he lay--was it waking or sleeping? he never quite +knew. They presented the cheery group of all his friends, all so +jolly, jolly good to him. Himself in their midst and they all smiling +at him and stretching jolly hands. But a gap in the circle--Mr. +Amber's place. Another gap now--Hunt. It appeared to him in those +feverish hours--and now again with new reason and new force--that +outside that jolly circle of friends there prowled, as a savage beast +about a camp-fire, some dark and evil menace that reached cruel hands +to snatch a member to itself and through the gap threatened him. +Within the circle the happy, happy time; beyond it some other thing. +Life was not always youth, then? not always ardour of doing, fighting, +laughing, loving? Menace lurked beyond.... What?... + +But those thoughts were swept away, and fate of poor old Hunt that had +caused them temporarily forgotten, by footsteps that brought up the +path three figures, of whom two were colossal of girth and bright red +of face--one striking at his thigh as if his hand held an imaginary +stick--and one that walked behind them lean and brown, with rare bright +eyes in a face of many little lines. + +"Why, Mr. Hannaford! Mr. Hannaford!" Percival cried delightedly. +"Stingo! Good old Japhra!--you've actually brought them!" + +They were actually brought; but in the alarming company of women +folk--of Aunt Maggie, of Ima, and of Honor, who now, the visit having +been expected, came out with a laden tea-table--the tremendous brothers +exhibited themselves in a state of embarrassment that appeared to make +it highly improbable that they would remain. First having shaken hands +all round the circle, colliding heavily with one another before each, +Mr. Hannaford declaring to each in turn "Warm--warm--bless my eighteen +stun proper if it ain't!" and Stingo repeating some husky throatings of +identical sound but no articulation; they then shook hands with one +another; then proceeded round the circle again; simultaneously appeared +to discover their mistake; collided with shocking violence; and finally +relapsed into enormous nose-blowings, trumpeting one against the other, +as it seemed, into handkerchiefs of the size of small towels. + +It was to abate this tremendous clamour that Aunt Maggie handed a cup +of tea to Mr. Hannaford, and it was without the remotest desire in the +world to have it there that Mr. Hannaford in some extraordinary way +found it on the side of his right hand and proceeded to go through an +involved series of really admirable juggling feats with it, beginning +with the cup and saucer and ending with the spoon alone, that came to a +grand finale in cup, saucer and spoon shooting separately and at +tolerable intervals in three different and considerable directions. It +was to cover the amazement of the tremendous brothers at this +extraordinary incident that Ima handed a piece of cake to Stingo, and +it was the fact that Stingo had no sooner conveyed it to his mouth than +he abandoned himself to a paroxysm of choking and for his relief was +followed about the garden by Mr. Hannaford with positively stunning +blows on the back that sent Percival at last from agonies of hopeless +giggling to peals of laughter which established every one at their ease. + +"Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" from Percival. "I'm awfully sorry--I can't +help it. Oh, Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" + +Impossible to resist it: "Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho!" thundered Mr. +Hannaford. + +"Oh, Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" shook Percival, rolling on his pillows. + +"He! He! He! He! He!" came Stingo, infection of mirth vanquishing +the contrariness of the cake-crumb. + +"Proper good joke!" bellowed Mr. Hannaford, not at all sure what the +joke was, but carried away by Percival's ringing mirth. "Proper good +joke! Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho!"; and was chorused in gentler key by +Japhra--for once--by Aunt Maggie and by Ima. + +"He! He! He! He! He! Looks as well as ever he did!" choked Stingo, +catching his brother's eye and nodding towards the invalid's chair; and +that as masterfully turned the laughter to practical use as the +laughter itself had turned dreadful embarrassment into universal +joviality. It was the chance for Mr. Hannaford to cry delightedly: +"Why, that's just what I was athinking, bless my eighteen stun proper +if it isn't!" the chance for the tremendous brothers to overwhelm +Percival with the affection and the joy at his recovery with which they +had come bursting; the beginning of highest good fellowship all round, +of stupendous teas on the part of the tremendous brothers, and at last +of explanation of the real project they had made this visit in order to +discharge. + +It took a very long time in the telling. On the part of Stingo there +was first a detailed account (punctuated by much affectionately +fraternal handshaking) of how he positively had settled down at +last--sold out of the show trade after and on account of the events in +which Percival and Japhra had shared, and henceforward was devoting his +entire energies to the cultivation of the little 'orse farm. There was +then from Mr. Hannaford, helped by a ledger that could have been +carried in no pocket but his, a description of the flourishing state at +which the little 'orse farm had arrived--"Orders for gentlefolks' +little carts' little 'orses apourin' in quicker'n ever we can apour 'em +out"--and in which it was monthly advancing more and more; and there +was finally a prolonged discussion in fierce whispers between the +brothers, interspersed with loud "Don't forget that's" and "Recollect +for to tell him this's." + +Then Mr. Hannaford turned to Percival, struck his thigh a terrible +crack with his ledger, and in a very demanding tone said, "Well, now!" + +"Well, I'm awfully--awfully glad," said Percival. "It's +splendid--splendid. By Jove, it really is a big thing. But what?--but +what--?" + +"What of it is," said Mr. Hannaford very solemnly, "that what we want +and the errand for what we've come is--we want you!" He turned to +Stingo: "Now your bit." + +"What of it is," responded Stingo with the huskiness of a lesson learnt +by heart and to be repeated very carefully--"What of it is, he's wanted +you, told me so, ever since you come over long ago with his late +lordship and showed what a regular little pocket marvel you was, but +didn't like for to have you until I'd settled down and taken my proper +place and given my consent--which I have done and which I do, never +having set eyes on your like and never wanting to. Now your bit." + +"What of it is," said Mr. Hannaford, bringing himself to the point of +these remarkable proceedings with a thigh-and-ledger-thump of +astounding violence--"what of it is, we're Rough 'Uns, Stingo an' me. +All right to be Rough 'Uns when it's only little circus 'orses and +circus folk you're dealing with--no good being Rough 'Uns when it's +gentlefolks' little carts' little 'orses, gentlefolks' little riding +little 'orses, and gentlefolks' little polo little 'orses. Want a +gentleman for to deal with the gentlefolk and a gentleman for to break +and ride and show for the gentlefolk. Want you--an' always have wanted +you, bless my eighteen stun proper if we ain't." (Thump!) + +Percival was white and then red as the meaning of all the mysterious +conduct of the tremendous brothers' errand was thus made clear to +him--white and then red and with moisture of weakness in his eyes: why +was everybody so jolly, jolly good to him? + +"Why, Mr. Hannaford--Stingo--" he began. + +But the tremendous brothers raised simultaneous shoulder-of-mutton +fists to stop him, and fell into hurried preparations for departure. +It was disappointment they feared. "Don't speak hasty!" Mr. Hannaford +thundered. "Think over it--don't say a word--keep the ledger--proper +good business in it--pay you what you like--make you a partner in +it--set you up for life properly to rights." He wrung Aunt Maggie's +hand. "Say a word for us, Mam! loved him more'n a son ever since--"; +in great emotion backed down the path taking Japhra with him; and in +tremendous excitement returned to wring the hand of Stingo who, after +opening and shutting his mouth several times without sound, at length +produced: "Set you up for life properly to rights--more'n that, too. +You're young. We're bound to pop off one day. No one to leave nothing +to. Rough 'Uns. You're young. Bound to go to you in the end. Rough +'Uns--" + +"O' course! O' course! O' course!" joined Mr. Hannaford, wringing +Stingo's hand in ecstasy and wringing it still as he led him down the +path. "O' course! That was a good bit. Never thought of it. Bound +to pop off! Bound to go to him!" + + +III + +"Tears in your eyes, Percival," Ima said, smiling at him as immense +trumpetings at the gate announced the Rough 'Uns' departure in a din of +emotional nose-blowing. + +"Well, dash it all, there always are, nowadays," Percival laughed. +"Everybody's so jolly, jolly good to me." + +He lay back with new and most wonderful visions before his eyes; set +his gaze on the dear, familiar line of distant Plowman's Ridge and +peopled it with the scenes of his new and wonderful prospects. His +hand in his pocket closed about letters received from Dora between that +night at Baxter's and the night of the fight. Black and impossible his +outlook then; limitless of opportunity now. Set up for life properly +to rights! by a miracle, nay, by a chain of tricks and chances--and he +ran through the amazing sequence of them--he suddenly was that! Dora +no longer immeasurably beyond him; Snow-White-and-Rose-Red possible to +be claimed. + +Aunt Maggie broke into his thoughts. "Are you glad, dear--about the +Hannafords?" + +"Glad! Aunt Maggie, I was just thinking I seem to be a sort of--sort +of thing for other people's plans. Old Japhra planned a fighter of me +and, my goodness! I had a dose of it. Here's old Hannaford always +been planning to have me with him, and here I am going sure enough!" +He laughed at an almost forgotten recollection. "Why, even you--even +you had a wonderful plan for me. Don't you remember? I say, it's in +hot company, your plan, Aunt Maggie. All come out right except yours. +You'll have to hurry up!" + +"Mine will come out right," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +ONE COMES OVER THE RIDGE + +I + +"Mine will come out right." But Percival's twenty-first birthday, that +was to have seen the consummation of Aunt Maggie's plan, came--and Aunt +Maggie held her hand and let it go. + +A double reason commanded her. Percival's coming of age arrived with +the Old Manor closed and Rollo and his mother far afield on that two +years' travel which Lady Burdon had long before projected for her son +to introduce his "settling-down." It were an empty revenge, Aunt +Maggie thought, that could be taken in such case; robbed of its sting, +sapped of all its meaning, unless it were delivered to Lady Burdon face +to face, as face to face with Audrey she had struck Audrey down. + +That was one reason that found Percival's twenty-first birthday gone, +and still the blow not struck. The other was in tribute to the fate +that had carried forward Aunt Maggie's plan through many hilly places +and that, fatalistic, she dared not hasten when the promised land drew +into sight. When she heard during the three months of Percival's +zestful life on the little horse farm leading to his birthday that +Rollo, before that birthday dawned, would be shipped and away on his +leisurely journey round the world, she was at first strongly tempted to +make end of her long waiting; at last to Audrey's murderer send +Audrey's son. Her superstitious reliance on fate prevented her. With +fate she had worked hand in hand through these long years. Vengeance +had been nothing had she taken it at the outset when Audrey lay cold +and still in the room in the Holloway Road. Under fate's guidance it +was become a vengeance now indeed--Lady Burdon twenty years secured in +her comfortable possessions; her husband by fate removed, and the blow +to be struck through her cherished son; a friendship by fate designed +suddenly to turn against her and drive her forth as she had driven +Audrey. Fate in it all, in each moment and each measure of it, and +Aunt Maggie had the fear that now to dismiss fate and anticipate the +hour that she and fate had chosen would be to risk by fate's aid being +dismissed. + +Fate gave her hint of it--gave her warning. She was in one moment +being told by Percival of Rollo's intended departure and long absence; +and seeing herself robbed, her plan for his twenty-first birthday +defeated, was urging herself with "Now--now. No need to wait +longer--now;" she was in the next hearing Percival's desolation at the +thought of losing "old Rollo" for so long--of their plans for closest +companionship during the few weeks that remained to them; and hearing +it, was warned by the same question she once before had asked herself +and dared not finish, much less answer then, and dared not finish now: +"What, when I tell him, if--" + +Fate in it. Fate warning her, Aunt Maggie thought. Fate threatening +her. Fate had been so real, so living a thing to her, its hand so +plain a hundred times, that she had come to envisage it as a +personality, an actuality--a grim and stern and all-powerful companion +who companioned her on her way and who now stooped to her ear and told +her: "Go your own way--if you dare. Seek to take your revenge now +without my aid and short of the time that you and I have planned--if +you dare. Abandon me and tell him now." Then the threat: "What, when +you tell him, if--" + +"Strange-like"? "Touched-like"? Thus, at least, she held her hand, +paying tribute to fate; thus when the birthday came, and Rollo and Lady +Burdon across the sea, and empty her vengeance made to seem if she then +took it, she turned to fate and asked of fate "What now?" + +"Strange-like"? "Touched-like"? Again to her ear that strong +companion stooped--not threatening now; encouraging, supporting.... + +"Why, Aunt Maggie," Percival cried, "you do look well--fit, this +morning. Fifty times as bright as you've been looking these past days. +Younger, I swear!" + +"Well, it is your birthday, dearest," she told him. + +"All very well! But every time we've mentioned my birthday, my +twenty-first--even last night--you've been--I've thought it has made +you sad, as if you didn't want me to have it!--growing too old, or +something!" + +For answer she only shook her head and smiled at him. But her reason +for the stronger air he noticed in her, for her rescue from her +depression of the days that led to his birthday, was that to her +question of "What now?" she was somehow assured that she had but to +wait, but to have a little more patience, and her opportunity would +come. Fate was shaping it for her; fate in due time would present +it.... + + +II + +Percival for his own part was also in some dealing with fate in these +days. As one that is forever feasting his eyes on a prized and newly +won possession, the more fully to realise it and enjoy it, so +frequently in these days he was telling himself "I'm the happiest and +luckiest beggar in the world!" and was marvelling at the train of +tricks and chances by which fate--luck as he called it--had brought him +to this happy, lucky period. + +Every human life falls into periods reckoned and divided not by years +but by events. Sometimes these events are recognised as milestones +immediately they fall; a death, a birth, a marriage, a new employment, +a journey, a sickness--we know at once that a new phase is begun, we +take a new lease of interest in life; not necessarily a better or a +brighter lease, a worse, maybe--but new and recognised as different. +More frequently the milestone is not perceived as such until we look +back along the road, see the event clearly upstanding and realise that +we were one man as we approached it and have become another since we +left it behind; again not necessarily a better or a happier man--a +worse, maybe; and maybe one that often cries with outstretched arms to +resume again that former figure. It cannot be. Life goes forward, and +we, once started, like draughtsmen on a board, may not move back. +Beside each event that marks a milestone we leave a self as the serpent +sheds a skin--all dead; some better dead; some we would give all, all +to bring again to life. It may not be. + +Percival in these happy, happy months as right-hand man to the Rough +'Uns on the famously prospering little horse farm often told himself +that his life had been--as he expressed it--in three absolutely +different periods. He found a wonderful pleasure in dividing them off +and reviewing them. Daily, and often more than once in a day, when he +had a pony out at exercise, he would pull up on the summit of rising +ground and release his thoughts to wander over those periods as his +eyes reviewed from point to point the landscape stretched beneath him; +his mind aglow with what it tasted just as his body glowed from his +exercise of schooling the pony in the saddle. Three periods, as he +would tell himself. The first had ended with that night when he came +to Dora in the drive. Everything was different after that. Then all +his life with Japhra and with Ima in the van--the tough, hard, good +life that ended with the fight. The third--he now was in the third! +Two had been lived and left, and in review had for their chief burthen +the picture of how, as he had said during his convalescence, every one +had been so jolly, jolly good to him. Two had been lived and had +shaped him--"a sort of _thing_ for other people's plans"; and what kind +plans! and what dear planners! and he, of their fondness, how happy a +thing!--to this third period that sung to him in every hour and that +went mistily into the future whose mists were rosy, rosy, rose-red and +snow-white, Snow-White-and-Rose-Red.... + + +III + +In the first few months, before Rollo and Lady Burdon took their +departure for the two years' travel, he was daily, in the intervals +from his work, with "old Rollo"; Dora often with them. Nothing would +satisfy Rollo for the few weeks that lay between Percival's beginning +of his duties with the Hannafords and his own start for the foreign +tour but that they must be spent at Burdon Old Manor, nothing would +please him to fill in those days but to pass them in Percival's +company. He made no concealment of his affection for his friend. Men +not commonly declare to one another the liking or the deeper feeling +they may mutually entertain. The habit belongs to women, and that it +was indulged by Rollo was mark in him of the woman element that is to +be observed in some men. It is altogether a different quality from +effeminacy, this woman element. Sex is a chemical compound, as one +might say, and often are to be met men on the one hand and women on the +other in whom one might believe the male or female form that has +precipitated came very nearly on the opposite side of the +division--women who are attracted by women and to whom women are +attracted; and men, manly enough but curiously unmannish, who are +noticeably sensible to strongly male qualities and who arouse something +of a brotherly affection in men in whom the male attributes ring sharp +and clear as a touch on true bell. + +There were thrown together in Rollo and Percival very notable examples +of these hazards in nature's crucibles. The complete and most +successful male was precipitated in him of whom Japhra had said long +days before: "I know the fighting type. Mark me when the years come. +A fighter thou." Qualities of woman were alloyed in him who once had +cried: "Men don't talk about these things, Percival, so I've never told +you all you are to me--but it's a fact that I'm never really happy +except when I'm with you." Strongly their natures therefore cleaved, +devotedly and with a clinging fondness on the weaker part; on the +bolder, protectively and with the tenderness that comes responsive from +knowledge of the other's dependence. + +"Men don't talk about these things--but I'm never really happy except +when I'm with you." That diffidence at sentiment and that +self-exposure despite it, made when Percival, off to join Japhra, +seemed to be passing out of his life, were repeated fondly and many +times by Rollo now that Percival looked to be back in his life again. +"Hearing me talk like this," he told Percival, "it makes you rather +squirm, I expect--the sort of chap you are. But I can't help it and I +don't care," and he laughed--"the sort of chap I am. You don't +know--you can't come near guessing, old man, what it means to me to +think you've chucked all that mad gipsy life of yours that might have +ended in anything, the rummy thing it was, and that kept you utterly +away from me; to think you've chucked all that and are settled down in +a business that really is a good thing, every one says it is, and any +one can see it. It means to me--well, I can't tell you what, you'd +only laugh. But I can tell you this much, that I do nothing but think, +and all the time I'm away shall be thinking, of how we'll both be down +here always now when I get back, and of all the things we'll do +together." + +They were riding as he spoke, their horses at a walk up the steady +climb of the down to Plowman's Ridge from Market Roding. His voice on +his last sentence had taken an eager, impulsive note, and as though he +had a sudden suspicion that it was betraying an undue degree of +sentiment he stopped abruptly, his face a trifle red. It was his +confusion, not any excess of sentiment, that Percival--quick as of old +in sympathy with another's feelings--noticed. He edged his horse +nearer Rollo's and touched Rollo with his whip. "Yes, we're going to +have a great, great time, aren't we?" he said. "I'm only just +beginning to realise it--great, Rollo!" + +The affectionate touch and the responsive words caused Rollo to turn to +him as abruptly as he had broken off. "I've planned it," Rollo said. +"I'm forever planning it. When I get back--fit--I'm going to settle +down here for good. I loathe all that, you know," and he jerked his +head vaguely to where "all that" might lie, and said, "London and that +kind of thing. I'm going to take up things here. I've never had any +interests so far. My rotten health, partly, and partly not getting on +with people, and I've let everything drift along and let mother make +all the programmes. That's how it's been ever since you went off. Now +you're back again and I'm keen as anything. I'm going to work up all +this property, going to get to know all the people intimately and help +them with all sorts of schemes. Going to run my own show--you know +what I mean, no agent or any one between me and the tenants and the +land. And you're going to help me--that's the germ of it and the +secret of it and the beginning and the end of it." + +Percival laughed and said: "Help you! You won't want any help from me. +I can see myself touching-my-hat-to-the-squire sort of thing as you go +hustling about the country-side." + +But Rollo was too serious for banter. "You know what I mean," he said. +"And you--you're going to be a big man in these parts, as they say, the +way you're going, before very long." + +They had gained the Ridge and by common consent of their horses were +halted on the summit. Rollo turned in his saddle and pointed below +them. "Percival, that's what I mean," he said, and carried his whip +from end to end along the Burdon hamlets. "That's what I think of. +Look how peaceful and remote it all looks, shut away from everything by +the Ridge. We two together down there, planning and doing and living--" + +Percival's gaze had travelled on from Burdon Old Manor where the whip +had taken it and over the Ridge into the eastward vale. He turned +again to Rollo, recalled by the stopping of his voice; and Rollo saw +his strong face bright and said: "You'll think me a frightful ass, +you'll think me a girl, but you know I get quite 'tingly' when I +anticipate it all. And not want your help!--Why, only look at that for +instance," and he laughed and put his hand against Percival's where it +lay before his saddle. The delicate white, the veins showing, against +the strong brown fist was illustration enough of his meaning. "And +you're not long out of an illness that would have outed me in two +days," he said. + +He saw the bright look he had observed shade, as it were, to one very +earnest. The symbol of their two hands so strongly different quickened +in Percival the appeal that he always felt in Rollo's company, that +went back to the early years of their play together, that was vital +part of this happy, lucky period, and that was warmed again in the +thoughts that came to him as he had looked over the eastward valley. +"Why, Rollo," he said earnestly, "it is good to think of. It is going +to be good. We two down there. It's wonderful to me how it's all come +out. It makes me 'tingly,' too, when I think of it--and of what it's +going to be. Help you--why, we two--" He pressed the brown fist about +the delicate hand. "There!--just like this good old Plowman's Ridge +that shuts us off from everybody! Nothing comes past that to interfere +with us." + +They were a moment silent, each in his different way occupied by this +close exchange of their friendship; and Rollo's way made him almost at +once put his horse about, concerned lest his face should betray his +feelings, and made him say with an attempt at lightness: "No, nothing, +with the good old Ridge to shut us off," and then, "Is that some one +riding up from Upabbot?" + +The direction was that where Percival's gaze had been. "Yes, it is," +Percival said. "I thought so. She's coming up. It's Dora." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +TWO RIDE TOGETHER + +I + +Often in these weeks the three rode together; seldom Percival and Dora +met out of Rollo's company. Brief moments while they waited him, brief +moments when he rode ahead of them, these were the most frequent of +their intimacies; more rarely came chance half-hours, and most rare of +all half-hours planned when she admitted they could be contrived. He +suffered nothing that their meetings should be thus fugitive and at +caprice, in main, of Rollo's moods and movements. That none as yet +should know their secret ministered to rather than chafed his ardour; +that, when their eyes met, their eyes spoke what in all the world only +they two knew, was of itself as darling a thing as when to all the +world she should be known for his alone. Then she would be his own, +but their secret the price of it; now he might not claim her, but ah, +their secret, theirs! + +So secret it was, and she so much her rare and chaste and frozen self, +that even between them it was hardly spoken. He never had lost his +first awe and wonder at her beauty; and it filmed all his intercourse +with her and all his thoughts of her as with a gossamer veil that, +forbidding rough movements, forbade him touch her with the close words +of his passion that might bruise her or give her alarm. More by signs +than ever by words they spoke their secret. Words carried them over +the passing subjects that any might discuss; signs revealed the secret +that was theirs alone. When they met the faintest deepening of her +colour shades would show it, when they parted came a last glance and +again those shades would glow; when he sometimes touched her hand, her +hand would stay and speak it; when he sometimes held her eyes, ah, then +their secret stirred! In those few half-hours when alone they came +together, meeting near the Abbey, riding through the lanes, then with +none to see them he would hold her hand and feel it tell him of their +secret while their lips told empty words. + +It was in these weeks, indeed, that he came to know he found it a +little hard to make conversation with her. That something of her +character was manifested in this difficulty he had no suspicion, nor +that in his solution of it her disposition was clearer yet revealed. +He found she was not greatly interested to hear of himself; then found +her most alert, and oftenest brought the little laugh he loved to hear, +the deepening he loved to see of those strange shades of colour on her +cheeks, by speaking to her of herself, or listening while of herself +she told him. At first he gave her glimpses of the van life with +Japhra on the road; her curiosity was not aroused. Something of the +famous fight he told her, and in vigorous passages of when the sticks +came out, and of the wild scenes that followed the crime of poor old +Hunt, whom she had known: he saw she was not greatly entertained. +Later, as events ran along, he gave them to her--told her of the day +when it was found that his increasing activities with the dear old +Rough 'Uns made it necessary he should live over there, no longer ride +daily to and fro from "Post Offic," and of how jolly, jolly good they +were to him and of the funny evenings in their company; told her of the +day when the Rough 'Uns had announced they thought it proper to +advancement of their business that a couple of hunters should be bought +for him so that he might ride to hounds and keep among the horsey folk +when the hunting season opened; told her of the day when he had from +Aunt Maggie the news that the affection between herself and Ima had +arranged that Ima was coming to spend the approaching winter--and +likely every winter--with her; all these he brought to Dora, but slowly +came to see they but little took her interest. + +The discovery no more gave him suspicion that she was at fault in +sympathy than of itself it vexed him, as one commonly might be vexed in +such a case. It was himself he blamed when, recalling how he had +talked and how little had been her response, he feared that he had +tired her by his enthusiasms or, as reproaching himself he termed them, +his meanderings. Clumsy he called himself, inept, dull-witted; and +pictured her, his darling and his goddess, his frozen, rarest, perfect +Snow-White-and-Rose-Red, and hated to have blundered all his dulness on +so rare and exquisite a thing. Glad, then, the finding that he could +entertain her by exercise of what a thousand-fold entranced himself--by +encouraging her to speak of herself, her doings, her reflections, just +as in the drive in that hour when first he knew he loved her she had +spoken of her school. Lightest and most prattling what she told, and +light and very passing what she thought; but spoken in her quaintly +precise mode of speech and in her cold, high tone, and bringing from +her her cold little laugh, and on her cold white cheek lighting those +flames of colour. When he watched her with others he saw her perfect +face set in its strangely still, aloof expression; when she spoke with +him, and spoke of herself, he was content only to listen so he might +see it light and sometimes see their secret make it flame. + +More than once while she so spoke and he so listened, "But I told you +that," she would say; "I perfectly recollect telling you." + +And he: "Well, tell me again;" and at the note of his voice she would +seem to catch her breath as though some sharpness checked her +breathing, and he would see their secret flutter in her eyes and see it +stain its signal like a red rose on her cheeks. + + +II + +It was by one definite step--not observed as such by him at the time +nor any significance in it apprehended--that they passed from this +stage of reserve on the matter between them and came towards its open +entertainment. The afternoon following Rollo's departure with Lady +Burdon on the long foreign tour marked the event, and Percival, meeting +Dora by chance, was in some loss of spirits at the fact. He found her +in very different case. Her mood was high. She had the air of one who +has made a success or who has escaped some shadowing mischief. He +could suppose no cause for such a thing or he would have said her +bearing signified relief, removal of some oppression, freedom from some +weight that had burdened her mind and that now, displaced, suffered her +mind to run up, made her tread lighter. + +"There's something different about you to-day," he told her; then, +while she laughed, and while he caught more glee than commonly he knew +in the little sound he loved to hear, found the exact expression for +the change he saw, and named the new step in their relations--"You are +as if you'd suddenly got a holiday." + +"Well, it is true that I somehow feel like that," she declared, "though +why I should, I am sure I cannot imagine." + +Yet dimly she knew, dimly in these later days had felt closing about +her the purpose of her training, and when Percival spoke of the two +years--the "frightfully long time"--for which old Rollo was gone, knew +it half unknowingly for the period of her holiday. Another, more +freely schooled than she, had known it clearly, had questioned, +revolved, examined the sudden lightness that was hers, had realised it +came of freedom from constant reminder of an end that seemed to wait +her, and had inquired of herself, Why then glad?--Is that end unwelcome? + +It was not hers so to examine; or examining, so to realise; or +realising, so to ask; nor asking, and being answered "Yes, unwelcome," +to think to make resistance and crush the end before it came. Not hers +whose schooling in her mother's hands had made for and had won the +stifling of such processes of thought; not hers who was caparisoned and +trained for certain purpose; not hers who had responded in faultless +beauty and in cloistered mind. Hers, if she stretched her hands and on +a sudden found that purpose walled about her, only to follow on between +the walls, not to break through them; to glance at them or run them +with her fingers and see them silk and proper to her life, not beat +against them, find them steel behind the silk, cry "Trapped! Trapped!" +and wildly beat for outlet. Hers, if she raised her eyes and saw her +purposed end far down the narrow way, only to accept and move towards +it, not to halt, doubt, fear; hers to glance, and know, and think it +meet and proper to her life, not start and shrink, cry "No! No! No!" +and seek escape while yet escape might be. + +So she was circumstanced; yet there remains, be restraint never so +firmly chilled into the bones, the purely primeval instinct of delight +in freedom; so she was trained, but scarcely yet had recognised +purpose, walls, or end. She only, as she told Percival, "somehow felt" +that she had holiday, and holiday her mood in the months that went. +Why she felt so, she was sure, as she said, she could not imagine; but +as the butterfly, content to live among the flowers of a hothouse and +never know itself prisoner, will airily toss aloft through the open +door yet scarcely think itself escaped, so, content to have remained, +but gaily floating free, blithe and new her mood when now they met. +Less frequent their meetings, the common excuse of Rollo being denied, +but ah, more fond! Fewer their secret exchanges, but ah, more dear! +Holiday her mood, and fluttering she came to him, and was swinging in +his ardour from her prison to his heart; from his heart to her prison, +swinging in his ardour, and had no more than glimpses--transient +tremors--of her prison's walls. + + +III + +He had her engaged in such a glimpse--a little fearfully suspicious +that there were walls about her--on a day when they were hunting +together. Mrs. Espart changed her earlier intention of returning to +town in the Autumn after Rollo and his mother had left. To encourage +her position in the country-side formed part of her own share of the +plans for the young people that were to crystallise when the return was +made to Burdon Old Manor, and she began to centre Abbey Royal in the +social round of the neighbourhood. Her daughter's betrothal to Lord +Burdon, when it was done and announced, should thus, as she schemed, +lose nothing that was possible to the stir it would make. She was able +to use the local Hunt as a prominent part of these intentions, did not +ride herself, but horsed Dora well, subscribed handsomely and was +gladly taken up by the Master in her suggestion of a bi-monthly meet at +the Abbey. + +Thus it was after hounds that Percival and Dora were given best chance +to meet. The Rough 'Uns' idea of mounting Percival for the field +proved successful to them as happy to him; Dora, in pursuance of her +mother's plans, had encouragement--and wanted none--rarely to miss a +meet. Hounds had run far on that day when she was caught by Percival +engaged in one of those transient glimpses of her state that sometimes +in these days came to puzzle her. He threw her into it, and that at a +moment most unlikely, for circumstances had it that she was +uncomfortable and out of temper. A bold fox carried the few who could +follow him--they two among them--to a point fifteen miles from the +Abbey before hounds ran into him. It was late afternoon, rain falling, +when Percival and Dora started to hack the long stretch home, and they +were little advanced on the road, and she feeling the wet, when she +pronounced her feelings by telling him petulantly: "You should not have +made me come on. I would have turned back long ago." + +But it had been a rare run, and he was beneath the vigour of it. +"Come, it was a great run," he said. "It was worth it, Dora." + +"Nothing is worth getting wet like this. You know how I hate getting +wet." + +She was much wetter, and would give him no words, before a new trial +necessitated that she should speak again. Her saddle was slipping, she +said, and when he alighted and found the girths had loosened and then +that she must get down: "No, I'll try it a little farther," she told +him very vexedly. "We're nearly there now. To move is hateful. The +wet is touching me right through." + +She gave him no answer to his "I'm awfully sorry, Dora;" but presently +said: "It's no good, I must get down, I suppose." + +He looked up at her as he stood to help her from the saddle. + +"You're angry, Dora?" + +"Well, of course I am angry." + +He acted upon an impulse that swept out her temper and put her to that +transient glimpse that vaguely showed her vague misgivings. He had +watched her as they rode in silence, watched the rain that swept +against her face run down her face that was like marble in her chill +and in her loss of temper. Cold as it her eyes that met his now, and +he had a sudden impression of her--all marble, all frozen snow, his +darling!--that seemed to embody all his every thought of her frozen +beauty and frozen quality since first he knew her, and that taxed +beyond his power the restraint that frozen quality ever had set upon +him. Beyond his power!--and as he brought her down he not released +her, almost roughly turned her to him; and with no word almost roughly +clasped her to him; and with "Dora!" kissed her wet face and held her +while startled she protested; and kissed again, again, again, again. + +"No, I will not let you go! No, you have been cold to me! No, you +shall not go! I have never kissed you since that once I kissed you. I +will kiss you now. No, I will not let you go. I love you, love you, +love you!" + +She bent her face away. He felt her panting in his arms and pressed +her to him; and with his hands could feel how wet she was, and with his +body felt her warm against him through her soaking clothes; and passion +of love broke from him in words, as passion of love he pressed upon her +face. + +"Turn your face to me, Dora. You shall. I have endured enough. Turn +your face to me--your wet, cold, sweet face that I love. Give me your +lips. Give me your lips. I will kiss your lips and you shall kiss me. +Put your arms round me. Dora, put your arms round me. Now kiss me, +kiss me-- Ah! I love you, I love you--my darling, my beautiful, my +Snow-White-and-Rose-Red. Keep your arms there, Dora, Dora, my Dora!" + +His voice had run hoarse and broken in his passion; now, when obedient +she gave him her lips, obedient clung to him--her will, her physical +discomfort and her natural impassivity burnt up as in a flame by this +sudden assault--deep his voice went and strong:-- + +"That is all done now--all those days when I have been afraid to touch +my darling, afraid to tell her every hour, every moment, how I love her +for fear of frightening her. You are in my arms, my darling, and I can +feel my darling's heart, and those days can never come again. You +shall remember when you see me how I have held you here. You shall +remember how you lie in my arms and that they hold you strongly, +strongly, and that it is your safe, safe place. Look up at me! Ah, +ah, how beautiful you are--your eyes, your lips, your cold, sweet face +with the rain all wet on it. Kiss me! Ah, Dora--we were meant to +meet, meant to love." + +She answered him more by the abandonment with which she lay in his arms +than by the faltering sentences in which she sometimes whispered while +they stood there. She was whispering, "I never meant you should think +I was afraid. Percival, I never meant you should think I did not want +to speak about our love. Only--" when she shivered violently, and he +chid himself for keeping her there, and for warmth's sake, he leading +the horses, they walked the last mile to the Abbey. Ardently then he +talked to her of future plans. He told her that late in the next year +it was arranged he was to go out to the Argentine with some ponies. A +big business was like to be established there, arising out of a sale to +a South American syndicate, and he was to arrange it and to select and +bring back ponies of a native strain for the development of a likely +type. When he returned--"This is why I am telling you, darling,"--the +good old Rough 'Uns had declared he should formally be made partner in +what had now become a great enterprise. "I shall claim you then, my +darling. I shall be able to claim you then." + +She surprised him--and, not aware of her reason, thrilled him--by +halting suddenly and clasping his hands that had been holding hers. +"Oh, don't leave me, Percival! Percival, don't go away!" + +He kissed her adoringly. "Do you love me so?" + +She clung to him and only said: "Don't leave me, Percival. Percival, +you must not," and while he sought to soothe her plea--and still was +thrilled to hear it--suddenly went into a tempest of weeping, changing +his tender happiness to tenderest concern. + +"Dora! Why, what is it? What is it, my darling? Tell me, tell +me--ah, don't, don't cry, don't tremble like that." + +She had not controlled herself to answer him when sound of wheels came +down the road, lamps through the gloom. She checked herself, and was +at her horse's head when there drew up a carriage sent from the Abbey +to meet her and bring her back in shelter from the rain. A groom took +her horse and, standing by the door as she entered, prevented +explanation she might have made--had she been able to explain. + + +IV + +Had she been able--for the thing that caused her sudden tears and +sudden plea was no more than a glimpse, one of those transient glimpses +of the walls, of the purpose, of the end of her training; differing +from other glimpses that sometimes came in that it caught her unstrung. +If it flickered again in the weeks that followed, it little more +disturbed her than sudden shadow across the garden disturbs the +butterfly passing among the flowers; a flicker of misgiving, a vague +disturbance--gone. The year's end took her away with her mother to +town. Succeeding Autumn that brought them back started Percival to the +Argentine. + +"I just miss everybody by going by this boat," he told Aunt Maggie, +sitting with her far into the night before his departure. "There's Ima +coming to you to look after you till I get back and not coming till +next week, so I just miss her; and old Japhra bringing her, so I miss +seeing him too; and then"--he paused for the briefest moment--"there's +Dora and her mother staying another fortnight abroad so I miss them; +and old Rollo and Lady Burdon due next month--I miss them all. It's +the rottenest luck." + +"They'll all be here for you when you get back," Aunt Maggie said. + +He paused again before he spoke. "Yes. That's where my luck's going +to be dead in. I could tell you something, Aunt Maggie," and he +laughed. "But I won't--yet. My luck--look here, tell old Japhra this +from me; tell him I'm coming back for--he'll understand--the Big Fight, +and going to win it!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +NEWS OF HUNT. NEWS OF ROLLO. NEWS OF DORA + +I + +The great Argentine trip--an affair of so much consequence in its +bearing on the development of pony-breeding as to attract the attention +of the "Field" in a series of articles that spoke in highest terms of +"Messrs. Hannafords' well-known establishment" and of "the far-reaching +effects of their new enterprise"--occupied six months. Six weeks--or +days--they seemed to Percival as they fled on the novelty and the busy +interests that attended him while in South America. Six years he found +them on the long voyage home in the steamer that brought him and the +purchases from native stock of whose blood "the far-reaching effects" +were to be produced; and twice and three times six years he declared to +himself he seemed to have been away as, in the closing hours of an +April afternoon, the train brought him in sight--at last! at last!--of +homeland scenes, of Plowman's Ridge along the eastward sky. + +Quite a little party was assembled on Great Letham platform to greet +him. The Rough 'Uns had driven over in two separate carts--one that +should carry him to Aunt Maggie and the other that should bear his +luggage--and they were there, their faces to be seen afar like crimson +lamps of their excitement, and Mr. Hannaford's leg-and-cane cracks +rising high above the din of escaping steam in which the train drew up, +and Stingo almost completely voiceless with huskiness for more than an +hour back. And Stingo had brought Japhra, arrived at the little horse +farm to take up Ima after her winter with Aunt Maggie; and Mr. +Hannaford had brought Ima, and they were there--Japhra with his tight +mouth twitching, and deep in his puckered face his bright little eyes +gleaming; and Ima, standing a shade apart, a tinge of colour crept +beneath her skin, and on her lips and in her eyes her gentle smile. To +complete the greeting there came shrill, ridiculous chuckles from a +stout, soft gentleman, and from his sister little hops and little +flutters and "_There_ he is! He'll _hit_ his head leaning out like +that! He's _browner_ than ever! Oh, _Percival_!" + +And "Percival!" from them all in all their different keys, and he among +them before the train was stopped, and turning from glad face to glad +face, and caught up in the midst of it with a sudden wave of the old +thought, like a knock at the heart, like a catch at the throat--"How +jolly, jolly good they all are to me!" + +Like a knock at the heart, like a catch at the throat, it took him, and +checked him a moment in his responses to the congratulations and was +mirrored in the flicker that went across his face. His eyes caught +Japhra's and it was the look of understanding he read there, he +thought, that brought Japhra to him for another word before he drove +away. In the station yard the traps were waiting. "You, longside o' +me--_partner_!" bellowed Mr. Hannaford and must shake Percival's hand +again for the meaning of that word. "Up behind, Ima, my dear. We'll +take _partner_ home while Stingo leaves that box at the farm and then +comes on with the rest of the luggage." + +Plump Mr. Purdie and birdlike little Miss Purdie had started to walk; +Stingo was throating "Come along, Japhra, come along, Japhra," in a +husky whisper that no one could hear but himself; Mr. Hannaford was +beginning the tremendous operation of hoisting himself up on one side +of the cart while Percival, a foot on the step, was about to swing +himself up on the other, when Japhra turned and came back to him. + +"Thy hand a last time, master!" + +"Hullo, what's this for?" Percival laughed; but saw Japhra's face +grave, and went on: "You caught my eye on the platform just now, +Japhra. I saw you knew how I felt. That's it, eh?" + +"Something of that," Japhra answered him. "Ay, a thought of that came +to me then." The note of his voice was as earnest as his eyes, and he +added, "Master, there was another matter to it that I saw." + +"Well, you were always the thought-reader," said Percival, and smiled +at him quizzically. "What was it, Japhra?" + +"That thou art out for something else than we know." + +"You could see that? Well, you shall know to-morrow." + +The earnest look in Japhra's eyes went deeper. "Comes it so soon?" + +"A few hours, Japhra." + +There came an impatient hail from Mr. Hannaford, settled at last in the +trap above them. + +"Well, press my hand to it," Japhra said; and as he held Percival's +hand, "press--let me feel thy grip, master. Something bids me to it. +Ay, thou art strong. Be strong in thine hour." + +As the trap swung out of the station yard Percival saw him still +standing there as though he still would speed that message. He turned +about in his seat to elude Ima in his chatter with Mr. Hannaford, and +they were not two miles upon the road before he was launched upon what +gave him need for strength. + + +II + +Strangers were rare in Great Letham. Every figure passed as they +rattled through the town was familiar to Percival. The turn into the +high road took them by one--a tall, straight man with something of a +stiff air about him, as though his clothes were uncomfortable--that +looked at them with a swift glance as they overtook him. + +"Hullo," said Percival. "That's a new face. Who's that?" + +"Why, that's a bit of news for you, _partner_," said Mr. Hannaford. +"Bless my eighteen stun proper if it ain't. There's two or three o' +them chaps about--'tecs." + +"'Tecs?--detectives? Why, what's up, Mr. Hannaford?" + +"There's been an escape from Dartmoor prison. Three of 'em in a fog. +And one--you'd never guess!" + +"Not old Hunt?" + +"Hunt sure enough, _partner_." + +"Hunt--good lord, poor old Egbert Hunt! And those chaps? After him? +Do they think he's here?" + +"They didn't know what to think," said Mr. Hannaford, and with a laugh +at them for their puzzlement went into explanation. A fortnight ago +the escape was made, it appeared. Two caught--one shot--but Hunt still +missing. Traces of him in four burglaries, and each one nearer this +way, and now the 'tecs here on the belief that he was making for the +country-side he knew. + +Percival met Ima's eyes and saw in them sympathy with the feelings +given him by this news. "I knew you would be sorry," she said. + +"Sorry!--why, Ima, it's awful, it's dreadful to me to think of poor old +Egbert like that. One of them shot--and he hiding, terrified, no +shelter, no food. When they catch him--I know what he is. He'll be +mad--do anything. They'll shoot him down, perhaps." + +She touched his hand and he was moved to catch hers that touched him +and saw the blood tide up into her face. He had seen much of her in +the winter following his illness when she had lived with Aunt Maggie. +They were brother and sister, he had told her in those days, and when +he had spoken of that night on Bracken Down before the fight: "Oh, it +is forgotten," she had told him. "Forgotten, and forgotten all the +foolish words I spoke. Nothing in them, Percival. Yes, you are my +brother. I am your sister. That is it." + +And now was sister. He did not notice that she caught her breath when +the blood came into her face as he took her hand, nor that she +disengaged his clasp before she spoke. Only that in her gentle voice, +"You must not let it upset you, Percival," she told him. "You are +coming back so happy. You must not let this spoil it." + +"But it does," he said. "It does. I can't enjoy myself--I can't be +happy while he's near here perhaps--those brutes after him. We'll have +to look out for him, Ima. You and I. He'll not be afraid of us. +We'll go all round the place together. He'll come to us if he sees us." + +"Yes--yes," she said, and seemed glad. + +"What does old Rollo say?" + +"Ah, Lord Burdon--Lord Burdon is longing to see you. Of Hunt I don't +know what he says. But of you--Percival, he's longing for you. He's +not been very well. He's kept to the house. He sent word how he had +looked forward to meeting you at the station but could not, and begged +you would go up to him as soon as ever you arrived. You must." + +"Why, of course I will," Percival said, and with recollection of +Rollo--and of Rollo longing for him--was temporarily removed from the +gloom that had beset him and returned to the anticipation of all that +awaited him. + +"I will, of course. He's not ill?" + +"He's ever so much stronger since he came back. Only a cold that keeps +him in. He has to keep well for the festivities, of course." + +Her reference was to the great twenty-fourth birthday celebrations--the +coming of age according to Burdon tradition--and Percival agreed +eagerly. "Why, rather! He'll want all his voice for the speeches! I +was afraid once I'd not get back in time. As it is, I've only just +done it. The nineteenth, next week, his birthday, isn't it?" + +"Next Thursday," Ima said, smiling to see him smile again. + +"Touch and go!" laughed Percival. "I might easily have missed it." He +turned to Mr. Hannaford. "Mr. Hannaford, you'll have to stay a bit +when we get home--have tea--and then drive me over to the Manor. We're +talking about Lord Burdon and the festivities. Great doings, eh?" + +"Why, great doings is the word for it," said Mr. Hannaford. "Bless my +eighteen stun proper if it ain't. Everybody invited a score o' miles +round. Going to roast a nox whole, marquees in the grounds, poles with +ribbons on 'em from the church to the Manor--" + +"From the church! What, is there going to be a service?" + +"Service!" said Mr. Hannaford. "Why, how's he going to be married +without?" + +Percival almost jumped to his feet. "Married! Is he going to be +married?" + +"What, don't you know, _partner_?" + +"I've not had letters for months. _Married_! Good lord, old Rollo +married! Why, that's tremendous. Ima, why ever didn't you tell me? +Married! Whom to?" + +Mr. Hannaford was enormously pleased at this excitement. "Give 'ee +three guesses, _partner_." + +Percival cried: "Why, I couldn't guess in a thousand. It fairly knocks +me. Old Rollo going to be married! Go on--tell me!" + +"Go on--guess," said Mr. Hannaford. + +"How can I guess? I don't know his London friends. I shan't even know +her name." + +"Well, you'll ha' left your memory where you left that string o' little +'orses if 'ee don't. Ever heard o' Upabbot?" He twisted round to wink +advertisement of his humour to Ima. "Got any sort of a glimmering +rec'lection of Abbey Royal?--why, Miss Espart!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +PRELUDE TO THE BIG FIGHT + +I + +Percival said in a quiet voice, "Put me down. Put me down--I'm going +to walk." + +"So you're no hand at guessing, partner. Own up to that," was Mr. +Hannaford's response. Then he cried, "Hi, what's up with 'ee? What be +doing?" for Percival had stretched a sudden hand to the reins and the +horse swerved sharply. "Whoa!" bellowed Mr. Hannaford, and dragged up +with a wheel on the brink of a ditch. "Might ha' had us out!" he +turned on Percival. "Bless my eighteen stun proper if 'ee mightn't!" + +It was a wild face that fronted him, blotchy in red and white as it +were freshly bruised. "Well, put me down!" Percival cried at him +fiercely. "Put me down when I ask you!" and as he slowly drew the rug +from his knees and put out a foot to the step he turned back on Mr. +Hannaford and flamed "I suppose I can walk if I want to?" and dropped +heavily to the road. His feet landed on the edge of the ditch. He +blundered forward and came with hands and knees against the hedge. The +stumble shook his hat from his head and he turned and went hatless past +the tail of the cart and a few paces down the road. + +Mr. Hannaford released with a rushing explosion the immense breath that +he had been sustaining during the whole of these proceedings. He +turned amazed eyes on Ima: "What's happened to him?" + +She sprang to the road. "Percival!" and followed him. + +He turned at the sound of her feet; and at the look on his face she +stopped. + +"Well?" he demanded. "Well? What is it now?" + +"You have left your hat," she said. "I will bring it to you." + +Some wit that came to her gave her these ordinary words in place of +questioning him, and he came back to her quickly. "I don't want my +hat," he told her. He looked up towards Mr. Hannaford. "I'm sorry I +pulled you up like that. I want to walk, that's all. I'm going along +the Ridge--to stretch my legs." + +"There's something wrong with 'ee," said Mr. Hannaford. "What is it, +boy?" + +"Nothing. I want a walk, that's all." + +Mr. Hannaford pointed across the Ridge. "There's a storm coming up. +Best ride." + +"I'll be home before that." He turned and went slowly towards a gate +that gave to the fields approaching the downside. Ima hesitated and +then went swiftly after him as he fumbled with the latch. + +"Percival, I will walk with you." + +He turned upon her a face from which the gentler mood was gone. + +"Oh, for God's sake let me alone," he cried, and passed through the +gate and left her. + + +II + +He found that he kept stumbling as he pressed along. + +He tried to give attention to lifting his feet but stumbled yet. He +found that he could not think clearly. He tried to take a grasp of his +thoughts and place them where he would have them go, but they persisted +in form of words that Mr. Hannaford had spoken, in swift gleams of +pictures that answered the words and then round about the words again. +"Ever heard o' Upabbot?" Ah, every well-remembered street of it arose +before his mind! "Got any sort of a glimmering recollection of Abbey +Royal?" Ah, he could scent the very flowers banked along the drive! +"Why, Miss Espart." Blankness then--some thick oppressive darkness +suddenly shutting down upon him; some bewildering, vaguely sinister +blanket of dread that stifled thought--then suddenly out of it and back +again to "Ever heard o' Upabbot?" + +The ground beneath him flattened abruptly under his feet. He stumbled +more violently than before, and was jolted to recognition that +Plowman's Ridge was gained. Of long habit he straightened himself to +meet the wind. It suited the unreal conditions that seemed to surround +him, it was a part of the dream in which he seemed to be, that +something that should have been here seemed to be missing. What? He +stood a moment looking dully about him. The question merged into and +was lost in the circle of thought that beset him as he followed his +right hand and turned along the Ridge. He had stumbled a full mile and +more when there struck his face that which informed him what had been +missing when first he reached the crest. Wind came against him, and he +realised there had been no wind where, ever and like an old friend, +wind ran to greet him. Aroused, he pulled up short. He had come far. +That was Little Letham lying beneath him, Burdon Old Manor in those +trees. Late afternoon gave before evening down the valley. Heavy the +wind and close. He turned his head and saw against the further sky +great storm clouds pressing down upon the Ridge. He raised his eyes +and saw a figure come towards him, crossing the Ridge and walking fast +from Little Letham, turning towards him as he gave a cry. + +"Dora!" + +He went forward some swift paces, the stumbling gone from his feet and +his mind sprung tensely out of its dull circling; then he stopped. She +too was halted. She had turned sharply about at his cry and was poised +towards him where she turned. There were perhaps twenty yards between +them, and the quickly deepening gloom admitted him her face whitely and +without clear outline through the dusk. He did not move, nor she. +There came from her to him a rattle of breeze, presage of the storm +that gathered, and he saw her skirts fan out upon it. There struck his +face a heavy raindrop, skirmishing before the gale, and he drew a quick +breath and went forward to her--nearer, and saw her faultless face and +felt the blood drum in his ears; nearer, and her clear voice came to +him and he could hear his heart. + +She said: "Percival!" + +"Dora, I have come back." + +Her face, that he watched with eyes whose burning he could feel, was as +emotionless as motionless she fronted him. It might have been frozen, +so still it was; and she a carven thing, so still she stood; and her +eyes set jewels, so still were they. His breathing was to be heard as +of one that breathes beneath a heavy load. When she did not +answer--and when answered he knew himself by her silence--"There is +only one thing I want to hear from you," he said. "Tell me it." + +Her voice was a whisper. "Oh, must you ask me that already?" + +He said stupidly: "But I have come back." + +She said: "O Percival, it is a long time." + +He had known her voice precise and cold--as icicles broken in a cold +hand!--as was its habit and as he thrilled to hear it. He had known it +faltering and atremble and scarcely to be heard when she was in his +arms. Now there was a new note in it that he heard. There was a weary +droop, as though she were tired. "But it is a long time," she said +again. "I asked you not to leave me." + +He was trembling. "Tell me what has happened." + +Her reply was, "I asked you not to leave me, Percival." + +"You and--" There was a name he had difficulty in saying. He turned +away and went a step, fighting for it among the scenes in which her +words surrounded it. Then came to her again and pronounced it. "You +and Rollo. Is it true?" + +"Yes, it is true." + +He said brokenly: "But I have held you in my arms. How can it be true? +I have kissed you and you have kissed me and clung to me. You have +loved me. I have come back for you. How can it be true?" + +Her face answered him. Beneath his words the crimson flamed as though +in crimson blood it would burst upon her cheeks--flamed in those +strange pools of colour where her colour lay, and drove her white as +driven snow about them--flamed and called his own blood as flame bursts +out of flame. He caught her in his arms. "You are mine! What has he +done to you? Mine, mine, what has he dared?" + +She struggled and pressed her face away from his that approached it. +"You must not! You must not! Percival, you must not!" + +"Ah, your voice, your voice tells me that you are mine!" he cried: and +cried it again in revulsion of triumph over the unthinkable torment +that had possessed him. "Your voice tells me!" and again in savagery +of heat at a thought of Rollo, "Mine--your voice tells me you are mine!" + +The colour was gone from her face. She was so white and so still in +his arms that he desisted the action of his face towards her, but held +her close, close. There came from her lips: "No, no! you must not. It +is wrong." + +"How can it be wrong? You say No, but your voice tells me. I have +come back for you, my Dora." + +"Ah, be kind to me, Percival." + +"How should I be unkind to my darling?" + +He felt a tremor run through her. "You must not call me that, +Percival. It should never have been. I thought you would forget." + +What, had he not triumphed then? Torment came ravening back at him +again like a wild thing, and with a sudden burst and clamour, shaking +him where he stood, old friend wind with that old hail--or mock?--of +ha! ha! ha! in his ears. He said intensely: "You thought I would +forget? While I was away you thought I would forget? Dora, you never +thought it!" + +She stirred in his clasp to disengage herself: "No, no--before that. +When we were together." + +He broke out: "Explain! Explain!" He let her from his arms and she +stood away from him, stress on her face. "Oh, there is something I do +not understand in this," he cried. "Explain--tell me." + +She told it him. "Percival, I was always to marry Rollo," she said. + +He stared at her. "How can you mean--always?" + +"I should have told you. I knew it." + +He pronounced in a terrible voice "Rollo!" Then he said thickly: +"What, when you were with me--in those days, those days! You knew it? +He had spoken to you then?" + +She caught her hands to her bosom in an action of despair. "No, no!" +she cried; and then, "Oh, how can I explain?" and then found the word +that helped her with force of a thousand words to name her meaning. +"It was--holiday," she said. + +He remembered it. He remembered, and its memory came like a lamp to +guide him. He said slowly, "When Rollo went--I remember you were +different. Dora, do you mean it was always arranged you were to marry +Rollo?" + +She said, "Always--always!" + +He cried, "But you loved me!" + +She wrung her hands at that, and cried in the most pitiful way, "I +thought you would forget. I don't know what I thought. It was +holiday. It should not have been. Oh, why must we talk of it?" + +"Dora, they are forcing you to marry him." + +"I was always to, Percival. I was always to." + +"You want to?" + +"Well, I was always to." + +Her voice was that of a child whose young intelligence by no means can +take a lesson. Sufficient to one such that the thing is so as he sees +it and cannot be otherwise; and to her sufficient--trained and schooled +and cloistered for that sufficiency--that, as she said, she was always +to. Ah, she had had holiday, but not enough to loose her; she had +tossed among the flowers, but had fluttered home at nights. Now the +mate she toyed with was knocking at her prison; she could see and could +remember, but she could not fly. Quickly after the end of their months +together, and very certainly after Rollo's return, she had discovered +what long she had dimly seen. Clearly the purpose and the walls and +the end of her training had been presented to her. Passively she had +accepted them. + +But how explain it? How explain what herself she did not know? She +looked from night that came stealing up the valley to his face that had +a shade of night. She heard the wind that now was in gusty beat +against them, and above the sound could hear his breathing. She could +only wring her hands and say again: "Percival, I was always to;" and +when he did not answer, "Let me go now, Percival." + +He answered her then. "You loved me. How can you do this? You loved +me. Why did you not tell me?" + +She cried as if she were distracted, "Oh, oh! I asked you not to leave +me. It was a long time. You were not here." + +He caught on to that. "I am here now. It shall not be. Dora, I am +here now!" + +"It is done," she said. "It is done!" + +He seemed for the first time to realise the complete abandonment, the +unresisting resignation to her fate, that was in her every word and +tone. His voice went very low. + +"Dora, are you going to marry him?" + +"I was always to." It was the beginning and the end of her will. "I +was always to." She had no question of it. + +He threw up his arms in wild despair at its repetition. "O my God! +What a thing to tell me! What a thing to be! Why? Why? Do you love +him? Is he anything to you? Why were you always to marry him?" + +She gave the reason her mother had never concealed from her. "He is +Lord Burdon. It was arranged long ago. My mother--" + +The sound he made stopped her. As if he had been stabbed and choked +his life out on the blow, "Ah!" he cried. "That is it. Because he is +what he is. If he were like me this would never have happened. If he +were not what he is it would be ended." + +She appealed "Percival! Percival!" wrung her hands and turned and went +a step. When she looked again she saw his face as none had ever seen +it, twisted in pain and dark with worse than pain. He was not looking +at her, but down upon Little Letham where Burdon Old Manor lay. She +approached him and spoke his name, touched him, but he did not move. + +She left him there and once looked back. He still stood as she had +left him. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE BIG FIGHT OPENS + +I + +There had been one years before that had cried, "You are Lord Burdon!" +and one that had received it, first in light mock at its folly, then in +bewilderment at its truth. There was one cried the same words at "Post +Offic" on this night and one, groaning in torment of spirit, that put +it aside as a jest untimely, then, convinced of it, got to his feet and +heard as it were the world shattering to pieces in his ears. + +The gathering storm had opened and was driving along the Ridge in its +first onset of rain when at last Percival turned where Dora had left +him, wrenched himself about as though his feet were rooted, and brought +to Aunt Maggie the dark and working face that had stared down upon the +Old Manor. Ima had told Aunt Maggie of his strange behaviour when he +had stopped the cart. When he arrived she was up-stairs in her room, +crying a little, wanting to be alone. Aunt Maggie, Ima's fears +communicated to her, awaited him alone in the parlour. He opened the +door fiercely and came in dripping from the streaming night. She gave +a little cry at sight of his face and rose and stretched her hands +towards him. The sudden peace in here, exchanged for the buffeting of +the night, reacted on the tumult of his mind and forced him to +discharge it. + +"O Aunt Maggie! Aunt Maggie!" he said. + +"My Percival! What is it?" + +He took both her hands that were extended to him; then was acted upon +anew by her loving eyes, and clasped her to him and she felt sobs +shaking his strong frame. + +"Percival! Percival! What has happened to you?" + +He let her go and dropped into a chair against the table, put his hands +to his head and while she saw his shoulders heaving she saw the +raindrops running through his fingers from his hair. She went before +him, and stretching her arms across the table encircled his wrists with +her hands. They were burning to her touch. "Percival, it is torturing +to me to see you like this. Tell me, tell me!" + +He took her hands. "Oh, I am in torture," he said, and she saw the +torture burning in his eyes. "Aunt Maggie, Aunt Maggie, I loved Dora. +I never told you. I was to tell you to-night. I had come back for +her." + +She felt a sense go through her as of a sword turned within her. + +"But Rollo!" she said. + +His hands crushed hers so that she had pain. "Yes, Rollo!" he said. +"I nearly went to him to-night. I shall go yet. Rollo! Rollo! +Rollo!" + +He ground the name between his teeth. The pressure of his hands on +hers became almost insufferable. She felt it as nothing to what shook +her brain. She was back at the bedside in the Holloway Road. She was +spun through the years of her waiting, waiting. She was fronted with +the torments when that for which she waited had seemed to be snatched +from her. There filled the room and stooped towards her the figure +that she envisaged as fate, that had stayed her hand, that she obeyed, +that had tried her, that had fought for her, that now was come to prove +itself fate indeed. + +In one part she was dizzy and overcome with the shaking at her brain; +in the other she was listening to Percival and worse beset at every +word. "I have seen her," he said, "I have seen her to-night. They are +forcing her to this. They have arranged it for years--arranged it! +Bought her and sold her because he is what he is. Aunt Maggie, she +loved me for myself. He comes in! he comes in! he comes in! and takes +her because he is Lord Burdon." + +The shaking at her brain pitched suddenly to a tensest balance like a +machine that rattles up to action then tunes to a level spinning. + +"He is not Lord Burdon!" she said. + +He was silent but he did not heed her. + +"He is not Lord Burdon!" + +At her repetition he moved quickly in his seat and relaxed his hands. +"Oh, why say that? Why say that?" + +"You are Lord Burdon!" + +He let her hands go and pressed his own again to his head. "Can you +only talk like that when you see me suffering?" + +She rose to her feet. "Percival! Percival, listen to me. It is true. +It is what I have kept for you these years. It is what I have meant +when I told you I had something for you. You are Lord Burdon!" + +He also stood. "Are you mad, Aunt Maggie? Are you mad?" + +She staggered back against the wall. While he stared at her as he +questioned her sanity, while she saw the look in his eyes as he asked +her, there came to her with a shock of sudden fear, as to one that has +released a wild and mighty thing and shudders to have done it, the +words Japhra had said: "Mistress, beware lest thou betrayest him!" + +He came swiftly to her and roughly caught her. "Are you mad? What is +this?" + +She recovered herself. "Do you know that box in your room?" + +The locked box was an old joke of his. "What has that to do with it?" + +"The proofs are there. You shall see." + +"Show me," he said, his voice not to be recognised for any he had +spoken with. "Show me!" + +She steadied herself against a chair, and steadying herself by all her +hand came against as she walked, went across the room to the stairs, he +following. There came at that moment a loud knock upon the outer door. +He went dazedly to it and stared with unattending eyes at one who stood +there, the light shining on his heavy waterproof coat that streamed +with rain. It was the strange man whom they had overtaken as the cart +came out of Great Letham. + +"The convict Hunt's been seen near by," said the man abruptly. "Me and +my mates thought it right to tell the village." + +Percival closed the door upon him without a word. "Show me," he +repeated to Aunt Maggie, and followed her to her room. + + +II + +He sat on the edge of her bed while she told him his story. He sat +motionless and with his face immobile. There was only one action that +betrayed he was under any emotion. His chin was forward on his hand, +elbow on knee. His fingers came across his mouth, and in the knuckle +of one he set his teeth. Blood was there when he drew his hand away. + +She finished: "It is all here, letters, certificates. Your mother's +letters, Percival, and your father's. They are all in order from the +first. There is one here to his grandmother and one to his lawyer +telling them of his marriage. He left those with her when he went +away. Then the letters from India." + +He drew his hand from his mouth, the blood on his fist. "Leave me +alone," he said. "Go away, Aunt Maggie, and leave me to look at them +alone." + +There was that in his voice which smote terribly across her spinning +brain and caused her to obey him. + + +III + +An hour he was occupied in reading the yellowed sheets whose heritage +he was; for long thereafter sat and stared upon them. These devoted +lines in that round hand were his mother's: his father's those ardent +passions in those bold characters; he their son. He felt himself a +shameless listener to penetrate these tender secrets; he felt himself a +little child that hears his parents' voices. Sometimes, in that first +mood, the blood ran hotly to his cheeks; sometimes, in that second, +there came sobs to his throat and great trembling. Memories of +thoughts, impulses, happenings that had been strange, returned to him, +crowding upon him; here was their meaning, their interpretation here. +In the library with Mr. Amber, "thinking without thinking as if I was +in some one else who was thinking," shadows about the room and a moth +thudding the window-pane--here the secret of it! In the library with +Mr. Amber and the old man's cry: "Why do you stretch your hand so, my +lord?"--here the answer! In presence of death with Mr. Amber, and +"Hold my hand, my lord"--here what had opened Mr. Amber's eyes. In +dreams in Burdon House, and searching, searching, and all the rooms +familiar, and a voice that had cried, "My son, my son! Oh, we have +waited for you!"--here, here, the key to it--here that voice in those +yellowed sheets--here, here, what he had searched, streaming from those +papers, tingling his skin, filling his throat as though from the faded +lines strong essences rushed and pressed about him. His mother!--he +spoke the word aloud, "Mother!" His father!--"Father!" Their son, "I +am your son!..." + +Of a sudden he was returned to the present. Of a sudden he was +snatched up from realisation of what had been, and what was, and +pitched into battle of what was now to be. Out of a churchyard, out of +a graveside where gentle thoughts arise, into the street, into the +business where the din goes up! So he was hurled, and as one that +gasps on sudden immersion in icy water, as one gripped in panic's hold +that comes out of sleep to sudden peril, so, as he faced the thing that +was come to him, he cried out hoarsely, knew horror upon him, and shut +his eyes and pressed his hands against them as though his lids alone +could not blind what picture was before him. In one instant fierce, +fierce, exultant triumph; in the next torment that reeled him where he +stood. In one instant himself that an hour before had stood looking +balefully down upon Burdon Old Manor; that had cried to Aunt Maggie: +"Rollo! Rollo! Rollo!" and knew it for a thrice-repeated curse; that +had cried: "I was going to him! I shall go to him yet!" and knew his +hands tingle and his brain leap at the thought; in the next, nay, +immediate with the flash and flame of it, Rollo that from childhood's +days had leant upon him; that he had brothered, fathered, loved; that +had cried to him--ah, God, God! how the words came back!--"Everything +I've got is yours--you know that, don't you, old man?" That had cried, +"I'm never really happy except when I'm with you;" that had said, "I +want some one to look after me--the kind of chap I am; a shy ass and +delicate." + +He dropped on the bed in the tumult of his torment. He writhed to his +knees and flung himself against the bed, his fingers twisting in the +quilt, his face between his outstretched arms. He had burned with fury +to face Rollo and crush him down. The weapon was in his hands. Ah, +ah, too strong, too sharp, too cruel! New thoughts brought him to his +feet. Strongly he arose and shook himself. What, was he weakening +toward a sentiment? "Everything I've got is yours"--but Dora taken +from him! "Everything I've got is yours!"--it was! it was! and Dora +with it! Always arranged because he was Lord Burdon! His darling sold +to Rollo and bought by Rollo because Rollo was what he was! And he was +not it! He was not it! This night, this hour he should know it! + +This night? There came to him the vision of Rollo he had had when they +told him Rollo could not come to the station to meet him but begged he +would go up to him directly he arrived. He had pictured old Rollo +coming to him with eager, outstretched hands. Rollo was waiting for +him now, expecting him every moment, would so come to him if he went, +would so come to him if he waited till to-morrow; and how would look +when he spoke and told? The years ran back and answered him. There +came to him clearly as yesterday that first visit to Mr. Hannaford's +when he had been flushed with excitement and praise at riding the +little black horse and had turned to see Rollo shrinking as he stood +away, distress and tears working in his face. So he would look now. +Then he had encouraged Rollo--as all through life thereafter he had +heartened him. Now? Now he was to strike the appealing face that then +and ever had looked to him for aid.... + +How do it? How do it? Why hesitate? Why hesitate? How strike him? +Why spare him? How break him? Why let him go? Like live wild things +the questions came at him and tore him; as one in direst torment there +broke from his lips "O God, my God!": as one pursued he burst from the +room, through the parlour where Aunt Maggie stretched hands and cried +to him, out into the night where tempest raged and blackness +was--fierce as his own, black as the thoughts he sought to race. + +Out, out, as one pursued! Away, away, to shake pursuit! And caught as +he ran, screamed at as he stumbled on, by all the howling pack that +gathered strength and fury as he fled. His feet took the Down; full +the tempest struck him as he breasted it; ah, ah, more violent the +furies fought within! Thunder broke sheer above him out of heaven with +detonation like a thousand guns; he staggered at the immensity of it; +on, on, for furious more what joined in shock of battle in his brain! +A sword of lightning showed him the Ridge and seemed to shake it where +it lay. He gained the crest and turned along it and knew in his ears +old friend wind in howling mock of ha! ha! ha! to see this fruitless +race. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +ALWAYS VICTORY + +I + +He came over against Burdon Old Manor and stopped and knew himself +where he had stood with Dora three hours before. His exertions had run +him to the end of his physical strength. He sank to his knees, and +there, like vultures swooping to their stricken prey, the torments he +had raced from came at him in last assault; there had him writhing on +the sodden ground.... + +In their stress, as a hand put down to touch him where he writhed, a +sudden recollection came--himself with Japhra by the van by Fir-Tree +pool; Japhra with a lighted match cupped against his face and Japhra's +words: "Listen to me, master. Listen to me--thy type runneth hot +through life till at last it cometh to the big fight. Send me news of +that. Send only 'The Big Fight, Japhra.' I shall know the winner." +Ah, here was the Big Fight, saved for him, growing for him through +these years and now released upon him! "I shall know the winner." He +crouched lower beneath the storm, and in his inward storm buried his +fingers in the sodden turf. "I shall know the winner"--ah, God, God, +which was victory and which defeat? To win Dora, to take all that was +his and she, his darling, with it, but against Rollo to use this +hideous thing: was that victory? To lose all, all, to let his darling +go, but to spare Rollo: was victory there? Was that victory with such +a prize? his Dora won? Yes, that was victory, victory! Was that +victory at such a price, Rollo spared, his darling lost? Could he bear +to see his darling go? Endure to live and know whose son he was? +Watch Rollo with his darling and keep his secret sheathed? Was victory +there? No, no, defeat--defeat unthinkable, impossible, not to be +borne! He sprang to his feet and another thought came at him and +gripped him. Japhra again: "Get at the littleness of it--get at the +littleness of it. It will pass." Ah, easy, futile words; ah, damnable +philosophy! Was littleness here? Was littleness in this? "Remember +what endureth. Not man nor man's work--only the green things, only the +brown earth that to-day humbly supports thee, to-morrow obscurely +covers thee. Lay hold on that when aught vexeth thee; all else +passeth." + +The Big Fight had him; in its agony he cried aloud, threw up his arms +and fell again to his knees. + + +II + +So Ima found him. + +When he had burst from the house, when Aunt Maggie had followed him and +cried after him into the night, when she had returned and for a while +wrestled with fear of what she had seen in his face, she went to the +little room that was set apart for Ima and in sharp agony, in dreadful +possession of that "Mistress, beware lest thou betrayest him," had +cried "Ima, Ima, go to him! go to him!" + +And Ima, taking Aunt Maggie's hands and staring in her face, "What has +happened to him? What has happened to him? I heard him in his room +alone. I knew something had happened to him." + +The other could only say: "Go to him, Ima! Go! He must not be alone!" + +She was at once obeyed; her voice and face, and nameless dread that had +been with Ima since Percival had left the cart and while she heard him +in his room, commanded it. + +"How will you find him?" Aunt Maggie asked. + +Hatless and without covering against the storm, Ima went to the outer +door. "He will be on Plowman's Ridge," she said. "I shall find him." + +Some instinct took her along the very path that he had followed. Some +fear put her to speed. Her heart that he had silenced on Bracken Down +and that never again she had permitted him to see, carried her to him. +She ran with her skirts taken in her left hand, gipsy again in her free +and tireless action, gipsy when at the summit of the Ridge instinct +directed her without hesitancy to the right, gipsy when in the +blackness she almost ran upon him and a second time revealed him what +he was to her. + +He cried, "Ima! Why are you here?" but carried his surprise no further. + +"Percival, what has come to thee?" + +"O Ima, leave me alone! leave me alone!" + +"Ah, let me help thee!" + +He cried, "None can--none can help me! Leave me! leave me!" Almost he +struck her with his frantic arms that pressed her from him. She +nothing cared, but caught them: + +"Ah, suffer me to help thee. Look how I have come to thee. I healed +thee once." + +Her voice, and memories of her touch when he had lain sick, acted upon +him. "Hold my hands, then. I must hold something. Hold them, hold +them! O Ima, I am suffering, suffering!" + +"That is why I am come. Your hands burn in mine and tremble." + +"Kind Ima!" he said brokenly. "Kind Ima!" and put her hands to his +face. + +She caught at her breath. There came a sudden lull in the storm as +though the wind paused for words she tried to make. + +"Some one is running to us," Percival cried, and took his hands from +her; stepped where approaching feet sounded and suddenly caught one +that ran into his arms. + +"Who are you?" Then peered and then cried, "Hunt!" + +The figure that he held panted for breath. "I'm going to him--me +lord," Hunt said, and laughed with the words. + +Percival went back a step and there came to Ima's ears his breathing, +heavy as Hunt's that laboured from his run. "What do you mean?" + +Again the laugh. "I heard, me lord. Like as I heard that odd bit in +the hall at the Manor years back and never forgot it that day to this." + +"How did you hear?" + +"I come to you. I come to you hiding, knowing you'd be kind as was the +only one ever kind to me. Hid in your bedroom back of the screen, you +not being there. Saw you come in and heard--" + +His sentence was broken in the savage hands with which Percival caught +his collar and shook him. "What did you hear? What? What?" + +"Leave off of me! You're choking of me." + +"What did you hear?" + +"Y're Lord Burdon. Not him--not that--" + +He was swung from his feet by Percival's grasp. "What now? What now, +Hunt?" + +"Leave off of me! Leave off! You're killing me." + +The grip relaxed, and Hunt shook himself free, and tossed his arms. +"What now?" he echoed, and had hate and dreadful laughter in the scream +his words made. "What now! I come out for him! For him and 'er as +put me away and as I told her in the dock I'd come. Straight for 'em I +come. Straight for 'em with the police after me. Stole this for 'em +and come to give it 'em." He drew from his jacket what gleamed in his +hand as he shook it aloft. "Come to shoot 'em like dogs as used me +like dogs, the bloody tyrangs. I've got better for 'em now. They can +go free--free! turned out! turned out! chucked into the street! kicked +out! Think of 'em! Think of 'em crying and howling and beggars and +laughed at and pointed at! That's what I'm going to give 'em. Into my +hand God Almighty what casts down the oppressors and the tyrangs has +delivered 'em! That's what--ar-r-r!" + +Percival was on him and threw him. His throat was in Percival's clutch +and his hands tearing at the hands that throttled him. + +"You are not!" Percival cried. "You are not. By God, you shall not!" + +In those wild words of Hunt's and what they meant--the world's mockery; +in that vile face and what it stood for--the world's cruelty, clearly +there came to him the answer that vainly in his torment he had sought. +Rollo face this? Rollo to this be subjected? Rollo suffer ejection +from home and name? Ah, now he knew which in the big fight had been +defeat and which was victory. "Rollo! Rollo! Rollo!" he had cried, +and cried it as a curse. "Rollo! Rollo! Rollo!" now beat in his +brain and in his grinding fingers and was pulse of the old protection +throbbing for his friend that ever had been more than brother to him. + +"Percival, you are killing him!"--Ima's fingers were on his, pulling +his grip. + +"Keep away! keep away!" he cried. "I'll have his life if need be!" and +to Hunt, livid and at last gasp: "You damned devil! You damned devil! +What are you going to promise me? How am I going to bind you? What am +I going to do with you?" + +There came gaspingly: "Promise--promise--oath to it." + +He relaxed his fingers, and as Hunt drew gasping breaths, "You damned +devil!" he cried again. "You damned fool. Did you not hear talk of +proofs? Nothing in them! Nothing in them! Can you hear that?" + +He was thrown on his side, he was grappled with by one whom fear of +death gave strength, his clutch was eluded and Hunt sprang free. + +"Nothing in them! What's your murder fingers for, then? Nothing in +them--what you say 'Mother' for, then? Nothing in them--what--keep +away! Keep off of me!" He whipped from his pocket what had gleamed in +his hand. "Keep off of me! I'll fire. By God, I'll let you have it +if you come at me!" + +_An' come at him, an' come at him, an' come at him_, as of Percival in +the fight the old men say. + +Quick and straight as he had leapt at Pinsent, now quick and straight +he leapt at Hunt. Quick and straight then to win victory, now quick +and straight in victory already gained. Quick and straight he leapt; +quicker the pistol spoke; without reel or stumble he pitched to earth. + +There came a scream of hideous sound from Hunt, and screaming still he +turned and fled, screaming was answered by a shout, and screaming ran +to the hold of tall men come out of the night in his pursuit and close, +yet very late, before he screamed. + +From Ima no cry nor sound. She cast herself beside the figure that lay +there, looked in its face and had no need for word or question; pressed +her lips to his and then cried only, "Little master! ah, ah, Percival!" + +She threw herself full length upon him where full length he lay. With +her body she shielded him from the immense rain, with her arms enfolded +him, put her mouth to his. + +So she lay scarcely breathing; so she held him--hers, her own. + + +There is a hill that stands in a chain of hills where the west country +stands towards the sea. A river streams below in a great mouth that +opens to sea and a wide flood that winds along the vale. No more than +a wide ribbon it looks from the hill, and the sea no more than the +sky's reflection. Here on a day the van stood, the horse tethered, and +Japhra with his pipe watching the remote valley. He turned his eyes to +Ima, knew the thoughts that had her, and touched her where she sat +beside him on the steps. All was known to them in these days and he +spoke of it. "My daughter, art thou still questioning it? Why, this +was the happy ending such as none could make it. How had he endured to +live and overthrow his friend? How live in silence and carry those hot +embers in his breast? Nay, nay, the fight came to him--that heart of +ours--and he took up the prize. A fighter I marked him when a child he +came to us. A fighter I knew him and a winner alway. Mark me what I +told thee once when he lay with us: Though it be death, always victory. +My daughter, what more happiness is there?" + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Happy Warrior, by A. S. M. Hutchinson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAPPY WARRIOR *** + +***** This file should be named 38325.txt or 38325.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/3/2/38325/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/38325.zip b/38325.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3b9bb4a --- /dev/null +++ b/38325.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1331ed7 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #38325 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38325) |
