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-                          THE SPLENDID FAIRING
-
-
-
-
-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 http://www.gutenberg.org/license.
-
-
-Title: The Splendid Fairing
-
-Author: Constance Holme
-
-Release Date: August 20, 2012 [EBook #40545]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: US-ASCII
-
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPLENDID FAIRING ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Al Haines.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: Cover]
-
-
-
-[Illustration: THE MESSENGER FROM THE DEEP.  _J. D. Wilson_]
-
-
-
-
-                              THE SPLENDID
-                                FAIRING
-
-
-                                   BY
-
-                            CONSTANCE HOLME
-
-
-
-              "All night long the water is crying to me."
-
-
-
-                         MILLS & BOON, LIMITED
-                            49 RUPERT STREET
-                              LONDON, W.1
-
-
-
-
-                            _Published 1919_
-
-
-
-
-                                   TO
-                            MABEL AND JIMMY
-
-                 Boscombe, March 28th--April 5th, 1919
-
-
-
-
-                                CONTENTS
-
-
-SIMON AND SARAH
-
-ELIZA
-
-MAY
-
-GEORDIE-AN'-JIM
-
-
-
-
-                                 PART I
-
-                            SIMON AND SARAH
-
-
-
-                                   I
-
-
-Perhaps it would never have happened but for the day.  A brave, buoyant
-day, with a racing wind, might have scattered the clinging obsession
-just in time.  A tender, laughing day might have laid a healing finger
-on old sores.  A clean, frosty day might have braced the naturally sane
-old mind.  But Fate, out of all the days in the year, took upon itself
-to send just this.
-
-The human soul, which seems so utterly out of reach, is only shut away
-from every other soul.  In every other respect it is like a harp hung on
-a tree.  Even the actual day as it comes is itself a lever in many a
-fate.  Deeds are done on certain days which on others would be mere
-passing impulses easily dead before the night. This blind Martinmas Day
-went all day long with its head among the clouds, as if it thought that
-never again would there be any sun. Indeed, it was out of the lack of
-every sort of sight that the evil grew; since, otherwise--"Mothers
-couldn't have done those things," as Geordie would have said.
-
-All day the earth retained that stillness which it keeps as a rule only
-for the last hour before the dawn.  Everywhere in the morning there was
-mist,--that strange, wandering, thinking mist that seems to have nothing
-to do with either earth or air; and when the slow dark drew back there
-would be mist everywhere again.  Between those shadowy tide-marks of the
-air there was a space when the white mist shredded above the trees,
-leaving the atmosphere with the look of a glass that has been breathed
-upon and never clears.
-
-The Simon Thornthwaites were going to market simply because they did not
-know how to stay away.  They went as naturally as the sun comes out of
-the east, but with a good deal less of decision about the journey.  They
-looked dull and tired, too, less indeed as if they were setting out than
-as if they were wearily trundling home again.  Both horse and trap
-looked as though they might fall to pieces after an extra jolt, and the
-jumble of harness was mended here and there with string.  There was
-neither butter nor fowl in the market-basket behind; there was not even
-a limp rabbit dangling over the wheel.  But all the time they were part
-of a chain which gave them a motive and impulse not their own, since
-others, more sure of their errand, were taking the same road. Sometimes
-a horseman on a young Shire went past with a flash of feather and a
-clumping of hoofs.  Livelier traps spun by at a trot and gave them a
-hail.  Behind and before them they had an occasional glimpse of the
-procession stretching to the town.
-
-They had climbed from the marsh, leaving it dropped like a colourless
-cloth beside the sea, and already they seemed to have been a long time
-on the road.  They had not slept much, and, waking, had had the cheated
-feeling, common to the weary, that the foregoing day had never really
-ended nor the incoming morning ever quite begun.  Indeed, the strange,
-dreamlike day had never really seemed to come awake.  Looking back and
-west, they saw everything grey, with just a lightened shadow marking the
-far sea, and the marsh lying down on its face like a figure flung down
-to die. Houses sat low to the earth as if they crouched, and the trees
-were vague, bodiless wisps, without backbone or sap.  When they had
-their first glimpse of Witham, they saw the town on the fell-side like a
-fortress through smoked glass, and the Castle alone on its hill was of
-shadow-stones poised on a poised cloud.
-
-The Simon Thornthwaites were old now, and under-dogs in the tussle of
-life, but they had once been as strong and confident as most. Sometimes
-they had a vision of their former selves, and wondered how this could
-ever have been that.  The old man was thin and bent, the sort that shows
-the flame through the lantern long before the end, but the woman was
-stronger-boned, squarer, and still straight.  Most of her life she had
-worked like a horse, but she was still straight.  Her face was mask-like
-and her mouth close.  Only her hands betrayed her at times,--old,
-over-done hands that would not always be still.  Her eyes seemed to look
-straight before her at something only she could see,--staring and
-staring at the image which she had set up.
-
-They farmed Sandholes down on the marsh, a lonely bit of a spot that
-looked as if it had been left there for a winter's tide to take away. It
-had always had an unlucky name, and, like many unlucky people and
-things, seemed to have the trick of attracting to itself those who were
-equally ill-starred.  Certainly, Sandholes and the Thornthwaites between
-them had achieved amazing things in the way of ill-luck. No doubt both
-farm and folk would have done better apart, but then they had never
-succeeded in getting apart.  It was just as if Fate had thrown and kept
-them together in order to do each other down.  Luck to luck--there
-seemed nothing else to be said about the Thornthwaites' plight.  They
-even carried the stamp of each other plain to be seen.  You had only to
-look at the farm to know how its tenants looked; you had only to see the
-folk to know what their home was like.  Perhaps it was just that the
-double weight of misfortune was too big a thing to lift.  Perhaps the
-canker at the heart of it all would allow nothing to prosper and grow
-sweet.
-
-They had an easy landlord, easy and rich; too easy and rich, perhaps,
-for the Thornthwaites' good.  That farm had money--landlord's and
-tenant's--spent on it above its due; yes, and a certain amount of
-borrowed brass as well.  It had work put into it, thought and courage
-sufficient to run a colony, and good-will enough to build a church.  And
-all that it did in return was to go back and back and be a deadhead and
-a chapter of accidents and an everlasting disappointment and surprise.
-It was a standing contradiction of the saying--"Be honest with the land,
-and it will be honest with you."  Everything went wrong with that farm
-that could go wrong, as well as other things that couldn't by any chance
-have gone anything but right.  Most people would have thrown a stone at
-it at an early stage, but it was part of the Thornthwaite doom that they
-could not tear themselves away.  Even when there seemed no longer a
-reason for staying, still they stayed.  The one streak of sentiment in
-them that survived the dismal years held them there captive by its
-silken string.
-
-But to-day, as they jogged and jolted endlessly towards Witham, the
-whole, drear, long business came to an end.  No matter what they had
-thought of the probable future to themselves, they had hitherto shut
-their mouths obstinately and clung close.  They had never even said to
-each other that some day they would have to quit.  They had put it off
-so long that it seemed the least little push would always put it further
-still.  But to-day the matter suddenly settled itself for good; almost,
-it seemed, between one telegraph-post and the next.
-
-Martinmas hirings would be in full swing when they got in, but there was
-no need now for Simon to enter the ring.  Their hired man had seen them
-through the busiest time, but they could manage without him through the
-winter months.  Their hired men had never stayed very long, because the
-depression of the place seemed to get into their bones.  They tired of
-crops which seemed to make a point of 'finger and toe,' and of waiting
-through dismal weeks to get in the hay.  Now the Thornthwaites would
-never have the worry of hay-time on their own account again,--never open
-the door to catch the scent from their waiting fields,--never watch the
-carts coming back on the golden evening to the barn.  'Never again'
-would be written over many things after to-day, but perhaps it was there
-that they saw it written first.  After all this time things had somehow
-stopped of themselves, and after all this time there was nothing to do
-but go.
-
-Lads and lasses went by them on cycles, or tugging bundles as they
-walked; youth with bright cheeks and strong shoulders and clear eyes,
-taking its health and strength to the market to be hired.  Some of them
-greeted the old folks as they passed, but others did not as much as know
-their names.  Both Simon and Sarah came of old and respectable stock,
-but to the young generation skimming by on wheels these two had been as
-good as buried years ago. Sarah's eyes strained themselves after the
-lithe bodies of the lads, while Simon looked at the lasses with their
-loads.  He would have liked to have offered some of them a lift, but he
-knew he would catch it from Sarah if he did.  Sarah hated the younger
-end of folk, she always said, and the fly-away lasses she hated most of
-all. She saw them going past her into beautiful life, just as their
-swifter wheels went past the trap. Always they were leaving her behind
-as it seemed to her that she had always been left. It was true, of
-course, that she had had her turn, but now it seemed so far away it
-might never have been.  All she could see in the background when she
-looked behind was the cheerless desert which she had had to cover since.
-
-They were about half-way to Witham when the moment of spoken decision
-caught them unawares.  All their stolid resistance and obstinate
-clinging to the farm gave in that instant as easily as a pushed door.
-It was as if a rock at the mouth of a cave had suddenly proved no more
-than a cloud pausing before it in the act of drifting by.  The end came
-as nearly always after a prolonged fight,--smoothly, painlessly, with a
-curious lack of interest or personal will. The burden had been so heavy
-that the last straw passed almost unnoticed which brought them finally
-to the ground.  They had lived so close to the edge for so many years
-that the step which carried them over it scarcely jarred.
-
-They were climbing the long hill that runs from Doestone Hall, the Tudor
-house standing close to the cross-roads.  By turning their heads they
-could see its gabled front with the larches set like lances beside its
-door.  The river ran swift below the beech-covered slope of the park,
-reaching impatiently after the ebbed tide.  The house, for all the
-weight of its age, looked unsubstantial in the filmy air.  Fast as the
-river flowed below, from above it looked like a sheeted but still
-faintly moving corpse.
-
-The road was damp and shadowy under the overhanging trees, and padded
-with the hoof-welded carpet of the autumn leaves.  The fields on either
-side were formless and wet, and seemed to stretch away to unknown
-lengths.  The hedges appeared to wander and wind across the land without
-purpose and without end.  Under all the hedges and trees there were
-leaves, wet splashes of crushed colour on the misted grass. Simon lifted
-his whip to point at the hips and haws, and said it would be a hard
-winter when it came, but Sarah did not so much as turn her head.
-
-"I'm bothered a deal wi' my eyes, Simon," she said in a quiet tone.  "I
-thought I'd best see doctor about 'em to-day."
-
-He dropped his gaze from the hedges with a startled stare.  "Oh, ay?
-That's summat fresh, isn't it?" he enquired.  "You've never said nowt
-about it afore."
-
-"Nay, what, I thought it was likely just old age.  But I've gitten a
-deal worse these last few week.  I can't shape to do a bit o' sewing or
-owt."
-
-"Ay, well, you'd best see doctor right off," Simon said, and the horse
-crawled a little further up the hill.  They did not speak again for some
-time, but those who live together in a great loneliness grow to speak
-together in thought as much as in words.  That was why his next speech
-seemed to come out placidly enough.  "I doubt it's about time for us to
-quit."
-
-"I doubt it is."
-
-"I never meant to gang till I was carried," Simon said, "and then I
-doubt there'd still ha' been some o' me left.  But I've seen the end o'
-things coming for a while back now.  It seems kind o' meant, you being
-bothered wi' your eyes an' all."
-
-"Happen it is," she said again, and sighed. Then she laughed, a slight
-laugh, but bitter and grim.  "It nobbut wanted that on top o' the rest!"
-
-Simon threw her an uneasy glance.
-
-"Nay, now, you mustn't get down about it, missis," he said hastily.  "It
-waint do to get down.  Doctor'll likely see his way to put you right.
-But we've had a terble poor time wi' it all," he went on glumly,
-forgetting his own advice.  "Seems like as if we'd been overlooked by
-summat, you and me.  'Tisn't as if we'd made such a bad start at things,
-neither.  We were both on us strong and willing when we was wed.  It's
-like as if there'd been a curse o' some sort on the danged spot!"
-
-"There's been a curse on the lot of us right enough!" Sarah said.  "Ay,
-and we don't need telling where it come from, neither!"
-
-Again he looked at her with that uncomfortable air, though he took no
-notice of her bitter speech.  He knew only too well that haunted corner
-of her mind.  That sour, irreclaimable pasture had been trodden in every
-inch.
-
-"Ay, well, we're through on t'far side on't now," he said morosely.
-"Sandholes can grind the soul out o' some other poor body for the next
-forty year!  I never hear tell o' such a spot!" he went on crossly, with
-that puzzled exasperation which he always showed when discussing the
-marsh-farm.  "It'd be summat to laugh at if only it didn't make you
-dancin' mad!  What, it's like as if even slates had gitten a spite agen
-sticking to t'roof!  We've had t'tide in t'house more nor once, and sure
-an' certain it'd be when we'd summat new in the way o' gear.  We'd a
-fire an' all, you'll think on, and it took us a couple o' year getting
-to rights agen.  Burned out and drownded out,--why, it's right silly,
-that's what it is!  As for t'land, what it fair swallers up lime an'
-slag and any mak' o' manure, and does as lile or nowt as it can for it
-in return.  Nigh every crop we've had yet was some sort of a
-let-down,--that's if we'd happen luck to get it at all!  Kitchen
-garden's near as bad; lile or nowt'll come up in't, nobbut you set by it
-and hod its hand!  Ay, and the stock, now,--if there was sickness about,
-sure an' certain it'd fix on us.  You'd nobbut just to hear o' tell o'
-foot and mouth, or anthrax, or summat o' the sort, an' it'd be showing
-at Sandholes inside a week!  Same wi' t'folk in t'house as wi' folk in
-t'shuppon,--fever, fluenzy, diphthery,--the whole doctor's bag o'
-tricks.  Nay, there's summat queer about spot, and that's Bible truth!
-We should ha' made up our minds to get shot of it long since, and tried
-our luck somewheres else."
-
-"We'd likely just ha' taken our luck along wi' us," Sarah said, "and
-there was yon brass we'd sunk in the spot,--ay, and other folks' brass
-an' all."  (Simon growled "Ay, ay," to this, but in a reproachful tone,
-as if he thought it might well have been left unsaid.)  "We were set
-enough on Sandholes when we was wed, think on; and when Geordie was
-running about as a bit of a lad."
-
-"Ay, and Jim."
-
-"Nay, then, I want nowt about Jim!"
-
-"Ay, well, it's a bit since now," Simon said hastily, thinking that it
-seemed as long ago as when there was firm land stretching from Ireland
-to the marsh.
-
-"Over forty year."
-
-"It's a bit since," he said again, just as he said equally of the
-Creation of the world, or his own boyhood, or the last time he was at
-Witham Show.
-
-"Surely to goodness we were right enough then?  We shouldn't ha' said
-thank you for any other spot.  Nay, and we wouldn't ha' gone later on,
-neither, if we'd gitten chanst. It would never ha' done for Geordie to
-come back and find the old folks quit."
-
-"Nay, nor for Jim----" he began again thoughtlessly, and bit it off.
-"Ay, well, I doubt he'll never come back now!"
-
-"He's likely best where he is."  Sarah shut her mouth with a hard snap.
-Once again she stared straight in front of her over the horse's head,
-staring and staring at the image which she had set up.
-
-A motor-horn challenged them presently from behind, and Simon pulled
-aside without even turning his head.  He had never really grown used to
-the cars and the stricter rule of the road. He belonged to the days when
-the highway to Witham saw a leisurely procession of farmers'
-shandrydans, peat-carts, and carriers' carts with curved hoods; with
-here and there a country gentleman's pair of steppers flashing their way
-through.  He never took to the cars with their raucous voices and trains
-of dust, their sudden gusts of passage which sent his heart into his
-mouth.  His slack-reined driving forced him to keep to the crown of the
-road, and only an always forthcoming miracle got him out of the way in
-time.  He used to shrink a little when the cars drew level, and the
-occupants turned their curious heads.  Somehow the whole occurrence had
-the effect of a definite personal attack. Sometimes he thought they
-laughed at the jolting trap, the shabby old couple and the harness tied
-with string.  The rush of the cars seemed to bring a crescendo of
-mocking voices and leave a trail of diminishing mirth.  But as a matter
-of fact he did not often look at them when they looked at him.  There
-was nothing to link their hurrying world with his.
-
-This particular car, however, seemed an unusually long time in getting
-past.  The horn sounded again, and, muttering indignantly, he pulled
-still further into the hedge-side.  He held his breath for the usual
-disturbance and rush, but they did not come.  The car kept closely
-behind him, but it did not pass.  Round each corner, as they reached it,
-he lost and then caught again the subdued purring of the engine and the
-soft slurring of the wheels.  When they met anything, it fell further
-back, so that at times he felt sure that it must have stopped. Then he
-would draw his breath, and drop into a walk, but almost at once it would
-be at his back again.  The note of it grew to have a stealthy, stalking
-sound, as of something that waited to spring upon its prey.
-
-The strangeness of this proceeding began suddenly to tell upon Simon's
-nerves.  Lack of interest had at first prevented him from turning his
-head, but now it changed into sheer inability to look behind.  Soon he
-was in the grip of a panic fear that the car at his back might not be a
-real car, after all.  He began to think that he had only imagined the
-horn, the gentle note of the engine and the soft sound of the wheels.
-Perhaps, now that he was old, his ears were playing him false, just as
-Sarah's eyes, so it seemed, were suddenly playing her false. Presently
-he was sure, if he turned, he would see nothing at all, or that, instead
-of nothing at all, he would see a ghost.  Something that moved in
-another world would be there, with spidery wheels and a body through
-which he could see the fields; something that had once belonged to life
-and gone out with a crash, or was only just coming into it on the
-road....
-
-It was quite true that there was something peculiar about the behaviour
-of the car.  From its number, it must have come from the county next
-below, and it was splashed as if it had travelled far and fast.  During
-the last few miles, however, it had done nothing but crawl. More than
-one farmer had heard it behind him and wondered why it took so long to
-pass, but it had never dallied and dawdled so long before. Almost at
-once it had gathered speed and slithered by, and the man inside had
-turned with a friendly hail.  He was a stranger, so they said
-afterwards, with a puzzled air, but at the time they answered the hail
-as if he were one of themselves.
-
-But Simon, at least, had no intention of hailing anybody just then.
-Indeed, he was fast losing both his sense and his self-control.  He
-slapped the reins on the horse's back, making urgent, uncouth sounds,
-and doing his best to yank it into a sharper trot.  It plunged forward
-with an air of surprise, so that the old folks bumped in their seats,
-knocked against each other and were jerked back.  Presently it bundled
-itself into an aged gallop, while Simon clicked at it through his scanty
-teeth.
-
-"Nay, now, master, what are you at!" Sarah protested, gripping the rail.
-"We've no call to hurry ourselves, think on."
-
-"It's yon danged car!" Simon growled, feeling somehow as though he were
-galloping, too. He was quite sure now that a boggle was hot on his
-track, and the sweat stood on his brow as he slapped and lashed.  Losing
-his nerve completely, he got to his feet with a shout, at the same time
-waving the car to pass ahead.  It obeyed instantly, drawing level in a
-breath, and just for a breath slowing again as it reached his side.  The
-hired driver was wearing a cheerful grin, but the man leaning out of the
-back of the car was perfectly grave.  He was a big man, tanned, with
-steady grey-blue eyes, fixed on the old couple with an earnest gaze.
-Simon, however, would not have looked at him for gold, and after its
-momentary hesitation, the car shot on.  The horse felt its master drop
-back again in his seat, and subsided, panting, into its slowest crawl.
-
-Sarah straightened her bonnet, and tugged at her mantle upon which Simon
-had collapsed. "Whatever took you to act like yon?" she asked.  "There
-was nowt to put you about as I could see."
-
-"It was yon danged car!" Simon muttered again, but beginning already to
-feel rather ashamed.  "It give me the jumps, taking so long to get by.
-What, I got thinking after a bit it wasn't a motor-car at all!  More
-like a hearse it seemed, when it ganged past,--a gert, black hearse wi'
-nid-noddin' feathers on top...."  He let out a great sigh, mopping his
-face as if he would never stop.  "Danged if yon new strap baint gone and
-give out first thing!"
-
-He climbed down, grumbling at the new strap which had gone back on him
-so soon, and began to add a fresh ornamentation to the mended gear.  The
-horse stood with drooped head, emitting great breaths which shook and
-stirred the trap.  Simon's hands trembled as he worked at his woolly
-knot, his eyes still full of that vision of sweeping plumes.  Further
-down the road the car had stopped again, but as soon as Simon had
-finished, it moved away.  It went over the hill as if it indeed had
-wings,--feathery, velvet-black and soft on the misty air....
-
-
-
-
-                                   II
-
-
-Another thing happened to them on the road to Witham, though it was even
-more trivial than the last.  The first, perhaps, was meant for
-Simon,--that face coming out of the void and trying to look him in the
-eyes.  The other,--a voice from the void,--was a call to the woman with
-the failing sight.  But to most people there come these days of slight,
-blind, reasonless events.  Something that is not so much memory as
-re-vision reaches out of the past into the present; faint foretellings
-shape themselves out of some far-off hour.  And then on the following
-morning there is sun, and clear outlines and a blowing sky.  The firm
-circlet of To-Day is bound again shining and hard about the narrow
-earth.
-
-For a short time they seemed almost alone on the processional road.  No
-more cars passed them, and only occasionally a bicycle or a trap. Simon
-felt more than ever ashamed of himself as his nerve steadied and his
-excitement cooled. He had made a bonny fool of himself, he thought,
-standing up and shouting as if he was cracked. Witham would snap at the
-tale like a meaty bone, and folk would be waiting to twit him when he
-got in.  It wasn't as if he were in the mood for a joke, either, seeing
-how things were; he would find it hard to take it as it was meant. And
-there was one person at least to whom the tale would be Balm in Gilead
-for many a happy day.  He hoped fervently that it might not reach her
-ears.
-
-Sooner or later it would reach her, of course; everything that made mock
-of them always did. The most that could be hoped for was that they would
-not meet her to-day, backed by her usual sycophantic crowd.  Sarah would
-never stand any nonsense from her to-day, depressed as she was by the
-trouble about her eyes.  There would be a scuffle between them, as sure
-as eggs were eggs, and just when he wanted things smooth in that
-quarter, too.  He thought of giving her a hint to be careful, and opened
-his mouth, and then decided to keep off the subject, and shut it again.
-
-Not that they ever _did_ keep off it, as he knew perfectly well.  Sooner
-or later it was on their lips, and certainly always after a day at
-market. They had discussed it so often from every possible point that
-they did not always know which it was that spoke.  They had long since
-forgotten from which of their minds the bitter, perpetual speeches had
-first been born.  Often they waked in the night to talk of the hated
-thing, and slept and wakened only to talk of it again.  There was
-nothing good that they had which it had not poisoned at the source, and
-no sorrow but was made a double sorrow thereby.  There was scarcely one
-of their memories that did not ache because of that constant sword-point
-in its heart.
-
-It was on market-day each week that their fount of bitterness was
-continually refreshed. They kept up the old habit for more reasons than
-one, but most of all because of this thing which hurt and cramped their
-lives.  It was like a vice of some sort which had long become an
-imperative need.  Each week they came home with the iron fresh sunk in
-their souls, and each week they went again to look on the thing that
-they both loathed.
-
-Now they were right away from the marsh and the sands, and would not see
-them until they returned, although from the moor and fell-land
-surrounding Witham it was always possible to see the bay.  Indeed, in
-this part of the little county it was hard to get away from the
-knowledge of the sea, and even further in, among the shouldering peaks,
-you had only to climb awhile to find the water almost within a throw.
-On days like this, however, even on the beach it was hard to tell which
-was water and which mist, and when at last the tide drew silently from
-beneath, those who looked at it from the hills could not tell whether it
-went or stayed.
-
-Simon, looking drearily around, thought that the whole earth had a
-drowned appearance to-day.  It reminded him of the marsh after it had
-been swamped by a flood, and the miserable land emerged soddenly as the
-sea drew back.  Everything was so still, too, with the stillness of the
-dead or drugged.  Only the mist moved steadily and of set purpose,
-though it was the purpose of a creature with shut eyes walking in its
-sleep.
-
-Out of the low vapour softly roofing the fields a gull came flying
-slowly over their heads. First Simon saw the shadow of it huge upon the
-mist, and then it came swooping and circling until it hung above the
-road.  Its long, pointed wings and drooping legs were magnified by the
-distorting air, and presently he could see the colour of its bill and
-the gleam of its expressionless eye.  It moved in that lifeless
-atmosphere as a ship that has lost the wind moves still by its gathered
-momentum over a deadened sea, but when it came over the road it turned
-to follow the trap, instead of making away at an angle towards the west.
-Simon concluded that it must have lost its way in the mist, and was
-following them as sea-birds follow a boat, but presently he was reminded
-of the car in this leisurely gliding on their track.  Like the car, too,
-it drew level at last, but this time he was not afraid.  He looked up at
-it, indeed, but without much interest, watching its lone vagrancy with
-apathetic eyes.  It was silent at first as it circled and swooped,
-looping its aimless, unnecessary curves, yet always travelling on.  It
-might have been a piece of the wandering mist that had taken shape, yet
-the sluggish, unbuoyant atmosphere seemed scarcely to have sufficient
-strength to carry its weight.  So low it flew at last that it almost
-brushed their faces and the horse's ears, and in fancy he felt the touch
-of it damp and soft against his cheek. And then, as it dropped for the
-hundredth time, it suddenly spoke.
-
-Sarah started violently when the cry broke over her head, the harsh
-wailing cry that makes all sands desolate and all moorland lone.  She
-lifted her face to search the curtained sky as well as she could, but
-already the bird had left them and mounted higher, as if called and
-turned to another road.  Each cry as it came was fainter than the last,
-like the speech of a passing soul ever further off.  There was about it
-something of the majesty and terror of all irrevocable retreats, of
-those who go forth unhesitatingly when summoned, never to return. It
-left behind it the same impulse to reach out passionate, yearning arms,
-to cry aloud for the fainting answer that would still go on long after
-the ear had ceased to take it in.
-
-Sarah sat with her face lifted to the last, trembling and drawing short,
-uneven breaths. Simon was silent until she had settled again, and
-then--"It was nobbut a gull," he said, at length.
-
-She gave a deep sigh, and folded her hands tightly before her in their
-black cotton gloves.
-
-"We've plenty on 'em, I'm sure, down on t'marsh....  I'm that used to
-them, I never hear their noise."
-
-She turned her head slightly towards him, as if in a vain attempt to see
-his face.
-
-"Ay, but it was _that like_," she answered in a suppressed tone.  "Eh,
-man, but it was terble like!"
-
-He gave a grunt by way of reply, knowing well enough what she meant, but
-knowing also that there was nothing to say.  It was not true, of course,
-that he never heard the gulls.  He heard them always, and behind them
-the voice that called across the years.  But they had long since ceased
-to talk about it or to take the voice of the present for the voice of
-the past. Sometimes, indeed, when the cry came at the window on a stormy
-night, they started and looked at each other, and then looked away.  But
-it was not often that they were deceived, as Sarah had been to-day.
-Even now, he felt sure, she was straining after the voice, that would
-never cease crying until it reached the tide.
-
-They were passed again before they reached the town, but this time it
-was by the cheerful rap of hoofs.  It caught them as they creaked their
-way up the last hill,--the smart going of a good horse that even on the
-smothered highway managed to ring sharp.  A whip was waved as the
-dog-cart dashed by, and the driver turned back to give them a smile.
-She was Fleming's motherless daughter from the 'Ship' Inn across the
-sands, and Simon and Sarah had known her all her life.  All her life she
-had lived looking out across the bay, and half her life looking a
-thousand miles beyond.
-
-Simon threw up his hand to her with an answering smile, a sudden
-sweetness changing his whole face.  Even Sarah relaxed when she knew who
-it was, and both of them brightened for a little while.  They were fond
-of May, a good girl who did not change, and who never made light of
-those whom Fate was counting out.  She had always had the power to
-strengthen their hold on life, to blow their dying courage into a flame.
-There was a serene yet pulsing strength about her that had the soothing
-stimulus of a summer tide.  Sarah had been jealous of her when she was
-young, and had fended her off, but May had long since found her patient
-way to her heart. Now she stood to both the old people as their one firm
-link with the past, and as such she was more precious to them than
-rubies and dearer than bright gold.
-
-"A good lass!" Simon observed, with the smile still present on his lips.
-
-"Ay."
-
-"I've always thought a deal o' May."
-
-"Ay, an' me."
-
-"Geordie an' all," he added, with a faintly mischievous air.
-
-Sarah did not speak.
-
-"An' Jim----"
-
-"Nay, then, I want nowt about Jim!"
-
-Simon drew the lash gently along the horse's back.
-
-"I hear Fleming's been none so well lately," he resumed, as they rumbled
-into Witham. "We mun think on to ax.  Happen I could slip across to t'
-'Ship' after we've gitten back. Tide's about six, isn't it?  I could
-happen do it."
-
-"Fleming's nobbut going the same road as t'rest on us," Sarah said.
-"He'll be glad to see you, though, like enough.  But it'll be dark soon,
-think on, wi' all this fog."
-
-"There's summat queer about t'weather," Simon said broodingly, knitting
-his brows. "Tides is fairish big, and yet it's terble whyet. Happen
-we'll have a change o' some sort afore so long."
-
-"I've noticed it's often whyet afore a big change.  Seems like as if it
-knew what was coming afore it was on t'road."
-
-"Ay, but it's different, some way....  It's more nor that.  There's a
-blind look about things, seems to me."
-
-"Blind weather for blind folk!" Sarah put in with a grim laugh.  Simon
-grunted a protest but she took no notice.  "I never thought as I should
-be blind," she went on, almost as if to herself.  "I've always been
-terble sharp wi' my eyes; likely that's why I've managed to wear 'em
-out.  And I've always been terble feared o' folk as couldn't see.
-There's no telling what blind weather and a blind body's brain may
-breed....  Ay, well, likely I'll know a bit more about they sort o'
-things now...."
-
-
-
-
-                                  III
-
-
-All old and historical towns seem older and richer in meaning on some
-days than they do on others.  But the old and the rich days are also the
-most aloof.  The towns withdraw, as it were, to ponder on their past.
-By some magic of their own they eliminate all the latest features, such
-as a library, a garage, or a new town hall, and show you nothing but
-winding alleys filled with leaning walls and mossy roofs. The eye finds
-for itself with ease things which it has seen for a lifetime and yet
-never seen,--carved stone dates, colour-washed houses jutting out over
-worn pillars, grey, mullioned houses tucked away between the shops.  The
-old pigments and figures stand out strangely on the well-known signs,
-and the old names of the inns make a new music in the ear.  The
-mother-church by the river seems bowed to the earth with the weight of
-the prayers that cling to her arched roof.  The flags in the chancel
-seem more fragile than they did last week.  The whole spirit of the town
-sinks, as the eyelids of the old sink on a twilit afternoon.
-
-Witham wore this air of detachment when Simon and Sarah came to it
-to-day, as if it held itself aloof from one of the busiest spectacles of
-the year.  The long main street, rising and dipping, but otherwise
-running as if on a terrace cut in the side of the hill, was strung from
-end to end with the scattered units of the road.  The ambling traffic
-blocked and dislocated itself with the automatic ease of a body of folk
-who are all acquainted with each other's ways.  Groups clustered on the
-pavements, deep in talk, and overflowed carelessly into the street.
-Horses' heads came up over their shoulders and car wheels against their
-knees, without disturbing either their conversation or their nerves.
-Sheepdogs hung closely at their masters' heels, or slipped with a cocked
-eye between the hoofs. The shops were full, but those who wandered
-outside to wait could always find a friend to fill their time.  Simon's
-personal cronies jerked their heads at him as he passed, and the busy
-matrons nodded a greeting as they hurried in front of the horse's nose.
-
-He made as if to draw up at the house of a well-known doctor in the
-town, but Sarah stopped him before he reached the kerb.  "Nay, nay," she
-said nervously, "it'll likely bide.  I don't know as I'm that fain to
-hear what he's got to say.  Anyway, I'd a deal sooner get my marketing
-done first."
-
-So instead of stopping they went straight to the inn where they had put
-up on market-day for the last forty years, and where Simon's father had
-put up before Simon was born.  Turning suddenly across the pavement
-through a narrow entry, they plunged sharply downhill into a sloping
-yard.  The back premises of old houses shut it in on every side, lifting
-their top windows for a glimpse of the near moor.  The inn itself, small
-and dark, with winding staircases and innumerable doors, had also this
-sudden vision of a lone, high world against the sky.
-
-An ancient ostler came to help Simon with the horse, while Sarah waited
-on the sloping stones.  The steep yard was full of traps, pushed under
-sheds or left in the open with their shafts against the ground.
-Fleming's dog-cart was there, with its neat body and light wheels; but
-May was already gone on her business in the town.  Simon had an
-affection for a particular spot of his own, and it always put him about
-to find it filled.  It was taken this morning, he found, though not by
-May.  May would never have played him a trick like that.  It was a car
-that was standing smugly in Simon's place, with a doubled-up driver busy
-about its wheels.  Cars were always intruders in the cobbled old yard,
-but it was a personal insult to find one in his 'spot.'  He went and
-talked to the driver about it in rising tones, and the driver stood on
-his head and made biting comments between his feet.  A man came to one
-of the inn windows while the scene was on, and listened attentively to
-the feast of reason and the flow of soul.
-
-Sarah looked rather white and shaky by the time Simon returned, thinking
-of something new to say to the very last.  He left the newest and best
-unsaid, however, when he saw her face.
-
-"You'd best set down for a bit," he observed, leading her anxiously
-towards the inn.  "You're fretting yourself about seeing doctor, that's
-what it is.  You'd ha' done better to call as we come in."
-
-But Sarah insisted that she was not troubling about the doctor in the
-least.  She had been right as a bobbin, she said, and then she had
-suddenly come over all queer.  "Happen it's standing that long while you
-and morter-man sauced each other about car!" she added, with shaky
-spirit.  "You made a terble song about it, I'm sure.  Trap'll do well
-enough where it is."
-
-"I can't abide they morter-folk!" Simon muttered, crestfallen but still
-vexed.  "But never mind about yon.  Gang in and set you down.  If I
-happen across May, I'll tell her to look you up."
-
-A door opened at the end of the dark passage, showing a warm parlour
-with flowers and crimson blinds.  The stout landlady came swimming
-towards them, speaking as she swam, so that the vibrations of her
-welcoming voice reached them first like oncoming waves.  Another door
-opened in the wall on the right, and a man looked out from the dim
-corner behind.
-
-"That you, Mrs. Thornthet?  What?--not so well?  Nay, now, it'll never
-do to start market-day feeling badly, I'm sure!  Come along in and rest
-yourself by t'fire, and a cup of tea'll happen set you right."
-
-Sarah, shaken and faint, and longing to sit down, yet hesitated as if
-afraid to step inside. It seemed to her, as she paused, that there was
-some ordeal in front of her which she could not face.  Her heart beat
-and her throat was dry, and though she longed to go in, she was unable
-to stir.  The man inside saw her against a background of misty yard, a
-white face and homely figure dressed in threadbare black.  Once or twice
-his gaze left her to dwell on Simon, but it was always to the more
-dramatic figure that it returned.  There was a current in the passage,
-full and sweeping like the wind that went before the still, small Voice
-of God.  Sarah was caught by it, urged forward, filled with it with each
-breath.  But even as she lifted her foot she heard a woman's voice in
-the room beyond.
-
-"We've Mrs. Will here an' all," the landlady called, as she swam away.
-"She'll see to you if there's anything you want, I'm sure."
-
-She might just as well have slammed and locked the door in the old
-folks' teeth.  At once they made a simultaneous movement of recoil,
-stiffening themselves as if against attack.  The spirit in the passage
-died down, leaving it filled to the ceiling with that heavy, chattering
-voice. Sarah was well away from the doorstep before she opened her
-mouth.
-
-"Nay, I don't know as I won't go right on, thank ye, Mrs. Bond.  I'm
-feeling a deal better already,--I am that.  If I set down, I'll likely
-not feel like getting up again, and I've a deal to see to in t'town."
-
-Mrs. Bond swam back, concerned and surprised, but Sarah was already well
-across the yard.  Simon, when appealed to, said nothing but, "Nay, I
-reckon she'll do," and seemed equally bent upon getting himself away.
-They retreated hurriedly through the arch that led to the street,
-leaving Mrs. Bond to say, "Well, I never, now!" to the empty air.  The
-man's face came back to the window as they went, looking after this
-sudden retirement with a troubled frown.
-
-The driver was still working at his car when he found his passenger
-suddenly at his side.  He was a queer customer, he thought to himself,
-looking up at the moody expression on his handsome face.  He had behaved
-like a boy on their early morning ride, continually stopping the car,
-and then hustling it on again.  He had sung and whistled and shouted at
-people on the road, laughed without any apparent reason, and dug the
-unfortunate driver in the back.  He was clean off it, the man thought,
-grinning and vexed by turn, and wondering when and where the expedition
-would end.  People as lively as that at blush of dawn were simply asking
-for slaps before the sun was down.  He had steadied a trifle when they
-reached the Witham road, but the queerest thing of all that he did was
-that checking behind the traps.  The driver was sure he was cracked by
-the time they got to the town, and he was surer than ever when he came
-out now and told him to move the car.  He might have refused if his fare
-had not been so big and broad, and if he had not already shown himself
-generous on the road.  As it was, he found himself, after a moment of
-sulky surprise, helping to push the trap into the disputed place.  He
-still wore his injured expression when he went back to his job, but it
-was wasted on his employer, who never looked his way.  Instead, he was
-standing and staring at Simon's crazy rig, and he smiled as he stared,
-but it was not a happy smile.  Presently he, too, made his way to the
-arch, and disappeared into the crowded street.
-
-The old folks had seemed in a terrible hurry to be gone, but, as a
-matter of fact, they halted as soon as they got outside.  "I couldn't
-ha' gone in there whatever," Sarah said, in an apologetic tone, and
-Simon nodded, looking anxiously up and down.
-
-"If I could nobbut catch a sight o' May," he muttered worriedly,
-searching the crowd. "May'd see to you right off, and get you a snack o'
-summat an' all.  I've Mr. Dent to see about chucking t'farm, and I've a
-two-three other things to do as well."
-
-But instead of May, who was nowhere to be seen, a man came shyly towards
-them from a neighbouring group.  He was like Simon to look at, only
-younger and better clad, showing none of the other's signs of trouble
-and hard toil.  His voice was like Simon's, too, when Simon was at his
-best, but Sarah stiffened when she heard him speak.
-
-"You'll not ha' seen Fleming's lass?" Simon asked, devouring the street,
-and Will swung about at once to cast his own glance over the press.
-
-"She was by a minute since," he said thoughtfully. "She can't ha' gone
-far...."  He hunted a moment longer, and turned shyly back. "Likely
-you'll give us a call at Blindbeck this afternoon?"
-
-Sarah said nothing in reply to the invitation, but Simon gave a nod.
-
-"I could do wi' a word wi' you, Will, if you're not throng.  It's about
-time we were thinking o' making a change.  Sarah's bothered wi' her
-eyes."
-
-"Nay, now, that's bad news, to be sure."  Will was genuinely concerned.
-He glanced at Sarah kindly, though with a diffident air. "Happen a pair
-o' glasses'll fix you," he said, in his gentle tones.  There was a
-pause, and then he jerked his head towards the arch that led to the inn.
-"I left my missis behind there, talking to Mrs. Bond.  If you're
-thinking o' seeing t'doctor, you'd best have a woman to come along."
-
-"I meant to ax May," Simon said hurriedly, praying for May to spring out
-of the ground, and, as if by way of reply, she came out of a shop on the
-far side.  He plunged forward, waving and calling her name, and she
-stopped, smiling, as he caught her by the arm.  She was grave at once,
-however, when she heard what he had to say, and her eyes rested on Sarah
-with a troubled look.  She gave a nod of comprehension when he pointed
-towards the arch, and, without waiting to hear more, crossed over to
-Sarah's side.  By the time the stranger appeared the women had vanished
-down the street, while the brothers were making their way to the market
-square.  This was the second time that the Thornthwaites had fled at the
-sound of a name, and this time, as it happened, May was sent speeding
-away, too.
-
-
-
-
-                                   IV
-
-
-May, however, was only thinking of how she could be of use, and was very
-cheery and pleasant all along the street.  Already she had come across
-one or two pieces of news, and laughed about them to Sarah until Sarah
-was laughing, too.  Once or twice they met somebody who had something
-else to tell, and they stood on the pavement together and thrashed the
-matter out.  May's laugh sounded young and gay, and a girlish colour
-came into her cheeks.  The old figure beside her seemed to draw vitality
-from her generous warmth, her brave air which made an adventure of every
-commonplace of life.  Sarah even rose to a joke or two on her own
-account, and was wonderfully heartened when they got to the doctor's
-house.  She would not hear of having a cup of tea or even a rest.  Time
-enough for such things, she said with spirit, when they were through.
-
-She had both of them, however, at the doctor's, because he would not let
-her go away without. May took her into the dining-room by his orders,
-and found her an easy chair beside the fire.  A parlourmaid brought a
-tray, and Sarah drank her tea cheerfully enough, soothed by the comfort
-and quiet and the presence of some sweet-smelling flower.  The doctor
-had been kindness itself, and had felt a little depressed when he sent
-the women away.  He did not know that the last thing that was in their
-minds as they sat by the fire was the terrible fact that Sarah was going
-blind.
-
-They spoke of it, indeed, but only casually, as it were, before passing
-on to the greater thing at its back.  Sarah's sense of courtesy forced
-her at least to give the doctor a pat on the head.
-
-"Ay, he was right kind," she said in a matter-of-fact tone, "and I will
-say this for him that he seemed to know his job.  I've had my doubts for
-a while there was summat badly wrong.  I don't know as it's news to me,
-after all.  As for yon operation he says might do summat for me, I doubt
-I'm over old.  We've no brass for notions o' that sort, neither, come to
-that."
-
-"There's hospitals," May said,--"homes and suchlike where they take you
-free.  Plenty of folk go to 'em, even at your age, and they'd see to you
-well enough, I'm sure."
-
-"Ay, doctor said that an' all," Sarah assented, though in an
-uninterested tone.  "But I'd only take badly to they sort o' spots now,"
-she added, sipping her tea.  "I'd be marching out agen, likely, as soon
-as ever I'd set my foot inside of the door."
-
-"They say folks settle wonderfully when they've made up their minds.
-It's worth a bit of trouble, if they put you right."
-
-"Happen," Sarah said casually, and withdrew it at once.  "I don't know
-as it is."
-
-"You're down, that's what it is.  You'll feel better after a bit."
-
-"I don't know as I shall."
-
-"You'll feel different about it in a day or two.  You'd come through it
-right as a bobbin. You've pluck enough for ten."
-
-"Ay, well, I can't settle it one way or t'other," Sarah said stubbornly,
-turning a deaf ear. "Things is a bit ham-sam just now," she added
-evasively, fiddling with her cup, and wondering why she could not bring
-herself to announce that they were leaving the farm.  But as long as
-they did not speak of it, it was just as if nothing had happened, as
-though the words which had framed the decision had never been said.  And
-yet at that very moment Simon was probably telling Will and Mr. Dent,
-and the news would be racing its way round Witham until it came to
-Eliza's ear....
-
-"We'll work it some way," May urged, not knowing of the big pause that
-had come into Sarah's life.  "You may have to get a word put in for you,
-but that's easy done.  I'll see the Squire and Mrs. Wilson and maybe a
-few more, and it'll be all fixed up without you putting yourself about."
-
-"You're right kind, you are that."
-
-"It's worth it," May said again.
-
-"Ay ... I don't know..." Sarah answered her absently, and then sat up
-straight.  "It'd ha' been worth it once," she broke out suddenly, as if
-letting herself go.  "There was a time when I'd a deal sooner ha' been
-dead than blind, but it don't matter much now.  There's not that much
-left as I care to look at, I'm sure.  It's the eyes make the heart sore
-more nor half the time.  But I'd ha' felt badly about it if Geordie was
-coming back, and I couldn't ha' framed to see his face."
-
-May said--"It's best not to think of such things," as cheerfully as she
-could, but her own face clouded as she spoke, and suddenly she looked
-old.  Here was the old trouble, if the doctor had known, that was still
-big enough to make the new one seem almost small.  Blindness was not so
-dreadful a thing to these two women, who had both of them lost the light
-of their eyes so long before.  Long ago they had known what it was to
-rise and see no shine in the day, no blue in the sea for May who had
-lost her lover, no sun in the sky for Sarah without her child.
-
-It was twenty years now since Geordie had gone away, clearing out
-over-seas as casually as if into the next field.  Eliza's eldest from
-Blindbeck had gone as well, as like him in face and voice as if hatched
-in the same nest.  They were too lively, too restless for the calm
-machinery of English country life, and when the call came from over the
-ocean they had vanished in a night.  Canada, which has so many links
-with Westmorland now, seemed farther away then than the world beyond the
-grave.  Death at least left you with bones in a green yard and a stone
-with a graven name, but Canada made you childless, and there was no sign
-of your grief beneath the church's wall.  Geordie had written, indeed,
-from time to time, but though the letters were light enough on the top,
-there was heartache underneath.  He was a failure there, they gathered,
-after a while, just as they were failures here; as if the curse of the
-Sandholes luck had followed even across the sea, Jim was a failure, too,
-as far as they knew, though their impression of Jim's doings was always
-vague.  His very name on the page seemed to have the trick of dissolving
-itself in invisible ink, and his own letters were never answered and
-barely even read.  He had been fond of his aunt, but Sarah had given him
-only the scantiest tolerance in return.  Sarah, indeed, would not have
-cared if Jim had been burning in everlasting fire....
-
-"We'd a letter from Geordie a month back," she said suddenly, after the
-pause, "begging the loan of a pound o' two to fetch him home."
-
-May started a little, and the colour came back to her cheek.  It was a
-long time now since anything fresh about Geordie had come her way.  Once
-she had been in the habit of going to Sandholes for news, asking for it
-by indirect methods of which she was still rather ashamed.  Sarah had
-been jealous of her in those days and grudged her every word; and since
-she had stopped being jealous there had been next to nothing to
-grudge.....
-
-"Ay, he axed for his fare, but we hadn't got it to send.  I don't know
-as we want him, neither, if he can't shape better than that."
-
-May felt her heart shake as she leaned forward, clasping her hands.
-
-"I've a bit put by I could spare," she began, with a thrill in her
-voice.  "It could go from you, Mrs. Thornthet,--he need never know.
-You've only to say the word, and you can have it when you want."
-
-A twinge of the ancient jealousy caught suddenly at Sarah's heart.  With
-difficulty she remembered May's kindness and the long bond of the years.
-
-"I'll not spend any lass's savings on my lad!" she answered roughly, and
-then softened again.  "Nay, May, my girl, you mean well enough, but it
-wain't do.  Losh save us!  Hasn't he done badly enough by you, as it
-is?" she added grimly.  "You should ha' been wed this many a long year,
-instead o' hanging on for the likes o' him!"
-
-"I doubt I'd never have married in any case," May said.  "I don't know
-as I'd ever have made up my mind to leave my dad."
-
-"You'd ha' wed right enough but for Geordie,--dad or no dad!" Sarah
-scoffed. "You're the sort as is meant to be wed, from the start.  Nay,
-he's spoilt your life, and no doubt about it, but there's no sense in
-lossing the can because you've gone and spilt the milk. Say you sent him
-the brass, and he come back without a cent, what'd be the end o' the
-business then?  You'd wed him, I'll be bound,--for pity, if for nowt
-else.  Your father'll likely leave you a nice bit, and you'd get along
-on that, but who's to say how Geordie'd frame after all these years?
-Happen he's lost the habit o' work by now, and it'll be a deal more
-likely than not if he's taken to drink."
-
-"Geordie wasn't that sort."  May shook her head.  "He'll not have taken
-to drink, not he!"
-
-"Folks change out of all knowledge,--ay, and inside as well as out."
-
-"Not if they're made right," May said stubbornly, "and Geordie was all
-right.  He was a daft mafflin, I'll give you that, always playing jokes
-and the like, but it was just the life in him,--nowt else.  He was a
-fine lad then, in spite of it all, and I don't mind swearing that he's a
-fine man now."
-
-"Ay," Sarah said slowly, "fine enough, to be sure!  A fine lad to leave
-his folks for t'far side o' the world wi' never a word!  A fine man as
-can't look to himself at forty, let alone give his father and mother a
-bit o' help! ... Nay, my lass, don't you talk to me!" she finished
-brusquely.  "We've thought a deal o' Geordie, me and Simon and you, but
-I reckon he's nowt to crack on, all the same!"
-
-"You'd think different when he was back," May pleaded,--"I'm sure you
-would.  And you needn't fret about me if that's all there is in the
-road.  I made up my mind long since as I shouldn't wed.  But I'd be
-rarely glad, all the same, to have had a hand in fetching him home."
-
-"You're real good, as I said, but it's over late."  She paused a moment
-and then went on again.  "Letter went a couple o' week ago."
-
-The tears came into May's eyes.
-
-"You don't mean as you said him no?  Eh, Mrs. Thornthet, but I'm sorry
-to hear that!"
-
-"Yon sort o' thing's best answered right off."
-
-For a moment or two May put her hand to her face.  "Eh, but what a
-pity!" she murmured, after a while.  "What does it matter whose brass
-fetches him home?"
-
-"It matters to me."
-
-"It matters a deal more that you're breaking your heart----"
-
-"Nay, then, I'm not! ... Ay, well, then, what if I be?"
-
-"Let me get the brass right off!" May said, in a coaxing tone.  "Let
-me,--do now!  Send it to him to-day."
-
-"Nay."
-
-"You've got it into your head he's different, but I'll swear you're
-wrong!  Different in looks, maybe, but he'll be none the worse for that.
-He always framed to be a fine figure of a man when he was set.  You'd be
-as throng wi' him as a clockie hen wi' a pot egg."
-
-Sarah snorted scorn, but her face softened a little.
-
-"He's forty, but I'll be bound he hasn't changed.  I'll be bound he's
-nobbut the same merry lad inside."
-
-"Happen none the better for that."
-
-"Geordie isn't the sort as grows old--Geordie an' Jim----"
-
-"Nay, then, I want nowt about Jim!"  Sarah flared, and the other
-laughed.
-
-"It's hard to think of 'em apart even now,--they were that like.  Why,
-I've mixed 'em myself, over and over again, and fine fun it was for
-them, to be sure!"
-
-"_I_ never mixed 'em!" Sarah snapped, with a blind glare.  "I never see
-a scrap o' likeness myself."
-
-"Why, the whole countryside couldn't tell 'em apart,--school-folk an'
-all!  'Twasn't only their faces was like; 'twas their voices, too."
-
-"Hold your whisht!"
-
-"You'll remember yon calls they had, Geordie an' Jim----"
-
-"Whisht, I tell ye!"  There was something scared as well as angry in
-Sarah's tone, and May was hushed into silence in spite of herself.  "Jim
-was sweet on you, too," the old woman went on surlily, after a pause.
-"If there wasn't that much to choose between 'em, why didn't you choose
-him?"
-
-"There was all the world to choose between them, when it come to it,"
-May said smiling, but with tears in her voice.  "Once Geordie'd kissed
-me, I never mixed 'em up again!"
-
-The rough colour came suddenly into Sarah's face.  She tried to turn it
-away, with the pathetic helplessness of the blind who cannot tell what
-others may be reading there in spite of their will.  May, however, was
-looking away from her into the past.
-
-"Not but what Jim was a rare good sort," she was saying, with the
-tenderness of a woman towards a lover who once might have been and just
-was not.  "Eh, and how fond he was of you, Mrs. Thornthet!" she added,
-turning again.  "No lad could ha' thought more of his own mother than he
-did of you."
-
-"I wanted nowt wi' his fondness," Sarah said in a hard tone.  "And I
-want no mewling about him now, as I said afore!"
-
-"Ay, you told him off terrible, poor lad, but he was that set on you he
-didn't mind.  He used to fetch you fairings and suchlike, didn't
-he,--same as Geordie did?  It was never his mother he fetched 'em for;
-'twas always you."
-
-"Eliza never had no need o' fairings, wi' all she had at her back!"
-Sarah stood up sharply and began to grope about for her mantle and
-gloves.  "You're bringing things back just to coax me about yon brass!"
-she added, as May came forward to help....  "Your father's none so well,
-I'm sorry to hear?"
-
-"He hasn't been himself for a while now, and he's getting worse.  I
-doubt he's going down the hill sharp-like, poor old chap!"
-
-"Ay, well, our time comes to us all, and we wouldn't wish for owt else.
-But it'll be rare an' lonely for you wi'out him, all the same."
-
-"I'm used to being alone, though I can't say it's very grand....  You'll
-have to let me come and see to you and Mr. Thornthet," she added, with a
-cheerful laugh.
-
-"We're over old for the likes o' you.  You want friends of your own age
-to keep you lively-like."
-
-"I'm not so young myself, if it comes to that," May said.  "And I don't
-know as I ever had a real friend, barring Geordie-an'-Jim."
-
-"That's enough o' the two on 'em!" Sarah snarled, as they went out.
-"Geordie's been a bonny friend to you, anyway,--he has that! We'd best
-be getting about our business. Talking o' things as is dead and gone
-won't make us any more lish."
-
-"Simon'll be bothered about my eyes," she said presently, as they turned
-towards the shops. "It's a deal worse having to tell him than to put up
-wi' it myself."
-
-"Happen you'd like me to tell him for you?" May suggested, but Sarah
-shook her head.
-
-"Nay, you'd do it right enough, I'm sure," she said kindly, "but it'd
-come best from me. You've enough o' your own to fash you, wi'out that.
-Married folk mun do their own telling over things like yon...."
-
-
-
-
-                                   V
-
-
-But though Sarah had held to the telling of Simon, she seemed in no
-hurry to break the dismal news.  All morning she clung to May, as if
-they drew together as a matter of course, and May was glad to have her,
-not only because she was old and needed help, but because of the tie
-between them which had never been loosed. It was true that they had seen
-little of each other of late years, but it had only needed the talk in
-the doctor's house to draw them together again.  The dwelling upon a
-lost hope may sometimes make the impossible possible and the dead live,
-if only for a space.  The two of them had recreated Geordie in the quiet
-room, so that his mother had seen him plain before her darkened eyes,
-and his sweetheart had felt his kisses on her lips.
-
-So all morning they stayed together, even though they did not speak of
-him again, because while they were together the glamour persisted and
-the dream remained.  Just as one name had robbed them that day, though
-they did not know it, so another name sweetened everything for them, and
-for a little space made them rich. Things might so easily have been as
-they wished that it seemed as if even now just a little determination
-might twist them into shape.  In the ordinary course of events, and with
-ever such an ordinary share of luck, Geordie and May should have been
-married long ago, with a home of their own to offer the old folk at the
-last.  Even now, so it seemed, Geordie might be somewhere in the street,
-in the midst of that crowd of healthy youth, sturdy manhood and wiry
-age. Instinctively, as they came out of each shop, they looked to find
-him the centre of some chaffing group, the laughing, handsome, witty
-centre, as he had always been.  He would break away when he saw them to
-ask his old mother how she did, and suddenly the greatest and best of
-all happenings would have happened, and they would have heard the
-miracle of his speech....
-
-This was the spell they wove for each other, making the day brighter and
-the world kinder, and helping them to laugh at things which otherwise
-would have been too light to stir their hearts.  Sarah's shopping was
-dull and soon finished, but May had an exciting list, and seemed
-constantly in need of help.  The old woman actually enjoyed herself as
-she peered at stockings and linen buttons, and nipped longcloth and
-serge between her finger and thumb.  It might have been wedding-gear
-they were after, she told May, with a grim chuckle, and May laughed and
-sighed, thinking of a bottom drawer at home that had been locked for
-many years.  The salesman laughed, too, and asked Sarah which of them it
-was that was thinking of getting wed, and Sarah, with all her arduous
-married life behind her, was yet as pleased as a young girl.  She was a
-shrewd marketer, even now, in spite of her sight, especially in the
-food-shops, where one nose can often be quite as useful as a pair of
-eyes; while, as for pots and pans, she knew them as a hen knows her
-chickens and a shepherd his sheep.
-
-They had many a chat over a counter, making and receiving enquiries
-about friends, opening their mouths at any lively piece of news, and
-pursing them sympathetically when there was trouble around the door.  In
-the low shops with the new windows in their old walls and new slates on
-their bowed roofs, little, low doorways stooping for their heads,
-little, worn doorsteps watching for their feet, they heard many a hint
-of the romance of evolving or changing trade, many a precious historic
-touch that would never find its way into print.  You cannot put your ear
-to the past anywhere but in the old places where men are born to their
-trades, where they know the customer's pedigree as the customer knows
-theirs, and where everybody has time for the human as well as the
-commercial exchange.  Only there can you learn in the space of an hour
-wonderful things about drapery and furniture and hardware and tea, and
-feel the glamour of the whole budding and fruit-bearing earth come into
-the florist's, and the atmosphere of old posting-inns into the pot-shop
-with the clink of glass.  And no man who is born to his trade is ever a
-cobbler who may not look beyond his last.  The potman will tell you
-where to order a stylish suit of clothes, and the florist instruct you
-how to smoke a ham.  And every one of them will tell you, with or
-without their knowing it, what they have learned of human nature and the
-hope of eternity in their quiet little town, and with what eyes they
-have looked abroad upon the world.
-
-All that morning the tides of life swept against Sarah and her friend as
-they went about the streets,--tides of humanity and sympathy, memory and
-custom,--all the currents that move in the air and the blood and the
-brain when a hand is shaken or a friendly voice is heard.  It was life
-at its fullest as it is known to the northern farmer and his kind, the
-public recognition in a given place of the great and intimate system of
-which he is a part.  The dumb beasts had their place in it,
-too,--perhaps the chief place,--and though only the wise dogs and the
-cobby, half-clipped horses were there in the flesh, the all-absorbing
-stock was never absent from the mind.  Into every conversation before so
-long some grand bull-calf or pedigree shearling was sure to push its
-way.  Moving among the warm human tides was like moving in a flood,
-while, overhead, low almost as the roofs, the mist drifted and the sky
-drooped.  Seven miles away, the sands lay bare as a hand, as if never in
-any aeon of time would the sea return.
-
-Sarah and May had their dinner together in a cafe overlooking one of the
-steep streets, and, choosing a table by one of the windows, so that they
-could look out, spread their parcels about them, and discussed their
-bargains and their mistakes.  They were still happy, as happiness went
-for them in those days, because of the miracle that seemed always
-possible down in the street.  Folks in plenty were coming and going on
-the narrow stair, and as each head rose above the floor of the room in
-which they sat, they felt a thrill of anticipation that was yet too
-slight to bring disappointment in its train.  May, perhaps, was slightly
-puzzled by the persistence of the feeling in the air, but Sarah was well
-used, like all who are old, to the strange reality of these glamour-days
-that are fashioned from the past.
-
-They had their heads together over a new-fangled floor-cloth when the
-ubiquitous stranger came quietly up the stairs; and they were so
-absorbed, and Sarah was so exuberant in her wrath, that he had time to
-look about him before the final word was said.  There was no room for
-him, he saw, except at the table where they sat, and presently, though
-rather uncertainly, he advanced a foot.  If they had looked at him, he
-would have gone forward at once, but when they lifted their eyes it was
-only to turn them towards the window and the street. The little action
-seemed somehow to shut him out, and, drawing back almost guiltily, he
-found a seat for himself in the adjoining room.  May looked round as he
-did so, just as though somebody had called, and stared intently at the
-place where he had been.
-
-He could still see them, however, from where he sat, and he noticed many
-things about them as he watched.  He noticed, for instance, how strong
-and capable May looked, like a woman who had long since taken her life
-in her hands and ruled it well.  He noticed her good clothes and Sarah's
-shabby ones, and that the multitudinous parcels were most of them May's.
-He noticed the shake which Time, in spite of her, had put into Sarah's
-hands, and was puzzled by the groping manner in which she used her fork.
-He noticed that the two of them ate little and that without much heart,
-and that always they turned their faces towards the street.  And finally
-he noticed how Sarah, in the midst of her talk, went suddenly rigid as a
-woman came into the room.
-
-She was a big woman over sixty years of age, with smooth, high-coloured
-cheeks and thick dark hair that was still a long way from turning white.
-Her face said plainly that she had had a full, comfortable, healthy
-life, with plenty to interest her and little to fret.  Her brown eyes,
-which had been beautiful in youth, had kept their expression of
-self-satisfaction wholly undisturbed.  She looked, indeed, what she was,
-the mother of a big family, the mistress of a good-class farm, and the
-wife of a man whose banking-account had long since ceased to keep him
-awake at nights.  She wore a black hat and a black plush coat, and round
-her shoulders was a big fur wrap.  In a kid-gloved hand she carried a
-muff and a silver-mounted bag, and May, looking down, saw patent-toed
-boots showing beneath her neat, black skirt.  Sarah was sure of them,
-too, though she could not see them.  It was not with her physical eye
-that she looked at Eliza of Blindbeck, Simon's brother's wife.
-
-She, too, had paused in the doorway, looking for a place, but as soon as
-she saw the two in the window, she advanced at once.  As she passed she
-spoke to several people in a noisy, hearty voice, that seemed to have a
-blustering quality somewhere at its back.  By the time she had reached
-Sarah's table and come to a stop, the man in the other room noticed that
-Sarah had suddenly grown small....
-
-"Eh, now, if I haven't been seeking you all over the shop!" Eliza
-exclaimed.  "Will had it you wanted me most particular, so I've been
-looking out.  I couldn't find you, though, whatever I did.  I never see
-folks so set on keeping out of the road!"
-
-Sarah still continued to look as though she had shrunk.  Even her voice
-seemed to have grown less.  It sounded far off and rather prim.
-
-"Nay, I don't know as I did, thank ye," was all she said.  "Will mun ha'
-gitten hold o' the wrong end o' the stick."
-
-Eliza looked at her with the little smile which the sight of Sarah
-always brought to her lips. She pulled a chair towards her and collapsed
-into it without waiting to be asked.
-
-"Ay, well, that's queer, to be sure!  Will's no more muddled than most
-on market-day, as a rule.  I made sure you were wanting me right off the
-reel, from what he said."
-
-May explained nervously that she had come to Sarah's assistance instead.
-Eliza always made her nervous, because she never seemed to know she was
-in the room.  "There wasn't that much to do," she finished hurriedly,
-stumbling over her words.  "It's a pity Mr. Thornthwaite set you looking
-her up."
-
-"Nay, I don't know....  I'd have been glad to do anything, I'm sure!"
-Eliza spoke in her heartiest tones, so that everybody could hear.
-"Nobody can say I'm one as can't be bothered to lend a hand.  I reckon
-me and Will have done as much in that line as most."  She looked at
-Sarah again, the smile growing on her lips.... "You'll not mind me
-sitting down with you, I suppose?"
-
-"We're through, thank ye.  We're just off."  Sarah pushed her plate from
-her, and began to fumble shakily for the thread gloves.  May looked
-across at her with a troubled glance, and gathered the parcels together,
-ready to move. Eliza, however, had no intention of allowing them to
-escape so soon.
-
-"You're surely not thinking o' stirring yet!" she exclaimed, in a hurt
-tone.  "What, we've barely as much as passed the time o' day! You'll not
-grudge me a word or two after all my trouble, and me that throng wi'
-shopping I didn't know where to turn.  Will was as full of nods and
-becks as a row o' poppies in a wind, and I've been fair aching ever
-since to know what he could be at."
-
-She turned in her seat to call a waitress, and ordered a substantial
-meal; after which, throwing back her fur, she leaned her arms on the
-table, and resumed her smile.  Everybody in the place knew what Eliza
-Thornthwaite was having for her dinner, and here and there they were
-saying to each other, "They do themselves rarely at Blindbeck....
-There's a deal o' brass to Blindbeck ... ay, Blindbeck's plenty o'
-brass!"  Eliza knew what they were saying, of course, and felt
-unctuously pleased; but May's heart swelled as she looked at Sarah's
-scanty, unfinished repast and the thin thread gloves that she was
-smoothing over her wrists. Eliza had taken off her own gloves by now,
-showing thick fingers and short nails.  They were trapped in the alcove
-as long as she sat at the table-end, because of her big, overflowing
-figure which shut the two of them in.  They would have to push their way
-past her if they wanted to get out, and Sarah would never as much as
-touch her with the end of a ten-foot pole.
-
-"I'd ha' done what I could, I'm sure," Eliza was busy telling them
-again.  "I'd never say no to folks as can't help themselves.  But
-there,--I needn't ha' bothered about it,--you're as right as rain.  Will
-had it you were off to t'doctor's, but I made sure he was wrong.  I
-haven't seen you looking so well for a month o' Sundays, and that's the
-truth."
-
-She raised herself as the waitress set a steaming plate in front of her,
-and stared at it critically.
-
-"Eh, well, you've not that much to bother you, have you?" she added
-kindly, setting to work,--"nobbut Simon to see to, and just that bit of
-a spot?  'Tisn't the same for you as it is for me, with that great place
-of our'n on my hands, and the house fair crowded out."
-
-Sarah did not speak, but she saw, as she was intended to see, a picture
-of the good farm where Mrs. Will reigned supreme, of her sons and
-daughters and their friends, and her hired lasses and lads; and after
-that another picture of her own empty home, where no youthful steps
-sounded along the floors, and no vibrant young voices rang against the
-roof.  The pictures hurt her, as they were meant to do, as well as the
-cheerful comment upon her looks.  Eliza always assumed that you were as
-strong as a horse, even if you lay on your death-bed at her feet.
-
-"I never heard tell you were badly," she persisted, fixing her eyes on
-Sarah's face, which looked like parchment against the misty pane, "and
-surely to goodness I'd be more like to know than Will?"
-
-"I'll do, thank ye.  I'm right enough," Sarah said stiffly, forced into
-speech at last; and Eliza laughed victoriously and returned to her food
-with zest.
-
-"You've always been rarely strong, as far as I can think on.  I never
-heard tell as you ailed anything in your life.  You were always a rare
-hand wi' a knife and fork an' all!" she finished, laughing again.
-"Will's a bonny fool to go scaring folk wi' such-like tales."
-
-"Yes, but we _did_ go to the doctor's!" May broke out warmly, goaded
-into speech. "Mrs. Thornthwaite's bothered with her eyes."
-
-Mrs. Will lifted her own sharply for a fresh stare at the defenceless
-face.
-
-"Eh, now, you don't say so!" she exclaimed cheerfully, with a quite
-uninterested air.  "It's bad hearing, is that, but they look right
-enough, I'm sure."
-
-"They're bad, all the same!" May answered indignantly, on the verge of
-tears.  "Doctor says she ought to have an operation right off."
-
-There was a little pause after the dread word operation, poignant in
-every class, but especially so in this.  Even Mrs. Will was shocked
-momentarily into quiet.  Her fork stayed arrested in mid-air, half-way
-to her mouth.
-
-"Well, I never!" she observed at last, withdrawing her startled gaze.
-"Eh, now, I never did!"  She set to work again at her food like a
-machine that has been stopped for a second by an outside hand.  "I don't
-hold much by operations myself," she went on presently, growing fluent
-again.  "I doubt they're never no use.  They're luxuries for rich folk,
-anyway, seems to me, same as servants and motor-cars and the like.  But
-you'll likely be asking somebody for a hospital ticket, so as you
-needn't pay?"
-
-"Nay, I think not," Sarah said calmly, though her hands gripped each
-other in her threadbare lap.
-
-"You'll never go wasting your own brass on a job like yon!"
-
-"Nay, nor that, neither."
-
-"You'll borrow it, likely?"  A slyness came into her voice.  She peered
-at Sarah over her cup.
-
-"Nay."
-
-"Ay, well, no matter where it come from, it would nobbut be money thrown
-away.  You're an old body now, Sarah, and folk don't mend that much when
-they get to your age.  It's real lucky you've only that small spot, as I
-said, and neither chick nor child to fret after you when you've gone."
-
-Sarah stood up suddenly when she said that, trying to focus her eyes on
-Eliza's face.  She stood very stiff and straight, as if she were all of
-one piece from feet to crown.  A sudden notion came to May that, if she
-had thrown off the shabby black cloak, a column of fierce flame would
-have shot up towards the roof....
-
-"I'll be saying good day, Eliza," was all she said, however, and moved,
-but stopped because the other's skirts still lay before her feet. Mrs.
-Will leaned back in her chair, looking up at her, and smiled.
-
-"Nay, now, Sarah, what's the sense o' getting mad?  I'm real sorry about
-your eyes, but you'd ha' done better to tell me right off.  As for
-saying good day and such-like so mighty grand, you know as well as me
-we're looking to see you at Blindbeck this afternoon."  She paused a
-moment, and then her voice rose on an insolent note.  "Ay, and you know
-well enough what you're coming for an' all!"
-
-"Nay, then, I don't."  Sarah seemed actually to grow in height.  She
-looked down at her quietly.  "Nay, I don't."
-
-"That's a lie, if I say it to all Witham!" Eliza cried in furious tones.
-Battle was really joined now, and her voice, strident and loud, carried
-into and disturbed even the street. Those near turned about openly to
-listen, or listened eagerly without turning.  The man in the adjoining
-room got up and came to the door. May stood poised for flight, looking
-from one to the other of the warriors with dismay.
-
-"You're leaving Sandholes, aren't you?" Eliza asked, exactly as if she
-were addressing somebody over the road,--"leaving because you're broke!
-You're coming to Blindbeck to beg of Blindbeck, just as you've begged of
-us before.  Simon told Will, if you want to know, and Will told me, and
-every farmer at market'll be taking it home by now...."
-
-There was a murmur of discomfort and disapproval all over the room, and
-then somebody in a corner whispered something and laughed. May roused
-herself and pushed her way past Eliza with burning cheeks; but Sarah
-stood perfectly still, looking down at the blurred presence sneering
-from her chair.
-
-"Ay, we're quitting right enough," she answered her in a passionless
-voice.  "We're finished, Simon and me, and there's nowt for it but to
-give up.  But I've gitten one thing to be thankful for, when
-everything's said and done ... I'm that bad wi' my eyes I can't rightly
-see your face...."
-
-The person who had laughed before laughed again, and faint titters broke
-out on every side. Sarah, however, did not seem to hear.  She lifted a
-thread-gloved hand and pointed at Eliza's skirts.  "Happen you'll shift
-yon gown o' yours, Eliza Thornthet?" she added, coolly. "I've a deal o'
-dirt on my shoes as I reckon you won't want."
-
-The laughter Was unrestrained now, and Eliza flushed angrily as she
-dragged her skirts reluctantly out of the way.  From the corner of a
-raging eye she observed the elaborate care with which Sarah went by.
-
-"We'll finish our bit of a crack at Blindbeck!" she called after her
-with a coarse laugh; but Sarah and May were already on the stairs.  The
-stranger put out his hand to them as they brushed past, but in their
-anger and concentration they did not notice that he was there.  Even if
-he had spoken to them they would not have heard him, for through the
-cloud of hate which Eliza had cast about them the voice of the Trump
-itself would never have found a way. He stood aside, therefore, and let
-them go, but presently, as if unable to help himself, he followed them
-into the street.  They were soon cheerful again, he noticed, walking at
-their heels, as the charm which they had for each other reasserted its
-power.  Once, indeed, as they looked in at a window, they even laughed,
-and he frowned sharply and felt aggrieved. When they laughed again he
-turned on his heel with an angry movement, and flung away down the
-nearest street.  He could not know that it was only in their memories
-they ever really laughed or smiled....
-
-
-
-
-                                   VI
-
-
-Simon had been right in thinking that the tale of the car would be all
-over the town by the time he arrived.  He came across it, indeed, almost
-the moment that he got in.  The driver of the car had told a farmer or
-two in the inn-yard, and the farmer or two had chuckled with glee and
-gone out to spread it among the rest.  Of course, they took good care
-that it lost nothing in the telling, and, moreover, the driver had given
-it a good shove-off at the start.  He told them that Simon had shaken
-his fist and wept aloud, and that Sarah had fainted away and couldn't be
-brought round.  A later account had it that the chase had lasted fast
-and furious for miles, ending with an accident in Witham streets.  Simon
-encountered the tale in many lengths and shapes, and it was hard to say
-whether the flippant or sympathetic folk annoyed him most.  He always
-started out by refusing to discuss the matter at all, and then wouldn't
-stop talking about it once he had begun.
-
-"Ay, well, ye see, I thought it was a hearse," he always growled, when
-forced to admit that part of the tale, at least, was true.  "Mebbe I was
-half asleep, or thinking o' summat else; or likely I'm just daft, like
-other folk not so far."  Here he usually threw a glance at the enquiring
-friend, who gave a loud guffaw and shifted from foot to foot.  "Ay, a
-hearse,--yon's what I thought it was, wi' nid-noddin' plumes, and happen
-a corp in a coffin fleein' along inside. You've no call to make such a
-stir about it as I can see," he wound up helplessly, with a threatening
-scowl.  "Boggles isn't out o' date yet by a parlish long while, and
-there's many a body still wick as can mind seeing Jamie Lowther's
-headless Coach and Four!"
-
-He forgot to feel annoyed, however, when he found that his story had
-made him in some sort the hero of the day.  He could see folks talking
-about him and pointing him out as he went along, and men came up smiling
-and wanting a chat who as a rule had no more for him than a casual nod.
-Often, indeed, he had only a dreary time, bemoaning his fate with one or
-two cronies almost as luckless as himself; listening, perhaps, on the
-edge of an interested group, or wandering into some bar for a sup of ale
-and a pipe.  But to-day he was as busy as an old wife putting the story
-to rights, and when he had stopped being angry for having behaved like a
-fool, he began to feel rather proud of himself for having done something
-rather fine.  He ended, indeed, by laughing as heartily as the rest, and
-allowed several points to pass which had nothing whatever to do with the
-truth.  He felt more important than he had done for years, and forgot
-for a while the press of his troubles and the fear about Sarah's eyes.
-Will told himself that he hadn't seen him so cheerful for long, and
-wondered whether things were really as bad at the farm as his brother
-had made out.
-
-They made a curious couple as they went about, because in face and
-figure they were so alike, and yet the stamp of their different
-circumstances was so plain.  They had the same thin face and dreamy
-eyes, lean figure and fine bones, but whereas one carried his age well
-and his head high, the other had long since bowed himself to the weight
-of the years.  Will wore a light overcoat of a modern make, brown boots
-and a fashionable soft hat; but Simon's ancient suit was of some rough,
-hard stuff that had never paid any attention to his frame.  Will had a
-white collar and neat tie; but Simon had a faded neckcloth with
-colourless spots, and he wore dubbined boots that had clogged soles, and
-a wideawake that had once been black but now was green.  Eliza often
-observed in her kindly way that Simon looked old enough to be Will's
-father, but indeed it was in the periods to which they seemed to belong
-that the difference was most marked.  Will had been pushed ahead by
-prosperity and a striving brood; while Simon had gone steadily down the
-hill where the years redouble the moment you start to run.
-
-They had encountered the agent early on, and fixed an appointment for
-twelve o'clock; and afterwards they spent the morning together until
-noon struck from the Town Hall.  Will had grown rather tired of hearing
-the hearse story by then, and felt slightly relieved when the time came
-for them to part.  "Nay, I'll not come in," he demurred, as Simon urged
-him at the door of the 'Rising Sun.'  "You'll manage a deal better by
-yourself.  You needn't fear, though, but what I'll see you through.
-We'll settle summat or other at Blindbeck this afternoon."
-
-But at the very moment he turned away he changed his mind again and
-turned back.  "I can't rightly make out about yon car," he asked, almost
-as if against his will.  "What, in the name o' fortune, made you behave
-like yon?"
-
-Simon muttered gloomily that he didn't know, and shuffled his feet
-uncomfortably on the step. Now that the shadow of the coming interview
-was upon him, he was not so perfectly sure as he had been that the story
-was a joke.  He remembered his terror when the car was at his back, his
-frantic certainty that there were strange things in the air.  He took it
-amiss, too, both as a personal insult and from superstition, that the
-Town Hall chimes should be playing "There is no luck about the house"
-just as he stepped inside.
-
-"It was nobbut a hired car, wasn't it," Will went on,--"wi' two chaps in
-it, they said, as come from Liverpool way?"
-
-"That's what they've tellt me since," Simon agreed, "though I never see
-it plain....  Seems as if it might be a warning or summat," he added,
-with a shamefaced air.
-
-"Warning o' what?" Will threw at him with a startled glance.  "Nay, now!
-Whatever for?"
-
-"Death, happen," Simon said feebly,--"nay, it's never that!  I'm wrong
-in my head, I doubt," he added, trying to laugh; "but there's queerish
-things, all the same.  There's some see coffins at the foot o' their
-beds, and you'll think on when last Squire's missis died sudden-like yon
-hard winter, she had it she could smell t'wreaths in t'house every day
-for a month before."
-
-"Ay, well, you'd best put it out of your head as sharp as you can," Will
-soothed him, moving away.  "You're bothering overmuch about the farm,
-that's what it is.  A nip o' frost in the air'll likely set you right.
-Weather's enough to make anybody dowly, it's that soft."
-
-"Ay, it's soft," Simon agreed, lifting his eyes to look at the sky, and
-wondering suddenly how long it had taken the gull to get itself out to
-sea. His brother nodded and went away, and he drifted unwillingly into
-the inn.  The chimes had finished their ill-omened song, but the echo of
-it still seemed to linger on the air.  They told him inside that Mr.
-Dent was engaged, so he went into the bar to wait, seating himself where
-he could see the stairs.  The landlord tried to coax him to talk, but he
-was too melancholy to respond, and could only sit waiting for the door
-to open and summon him overhead.  He was able to think, now that he was
-away from the crowd and the chaff about the hearse, but no amount of
-thinking could find him a way out. He had already given the agent a hint
-of his business, and would only have to confirm it when he got upstairs,
-but it seemed to him at the moment as if the final words would never be
-said.  After a while, indeed, he began to think that he would sneak away
-quietly and let the appointment go.  He would say no more about the
-notice to Mr. Dent, and things might take their way for another year.
-It was just possible, with the promised help from Will, that they might
-manage to scrape along for another year....
-
-He left it there at last and got to his feet, but even as he did so he
-remembered Sarah's eyes. He wondered what the doctor had said and wished
-he knew, because, of course, there would be no question of staying if
-the report were bad. He was still standing, hesitating, and wondering
-what he should do, when the door of the Stewards' Room opened above, and
-a man came out.
-
-It was, as somehow might have been expected, the stranger of the car,
-otherwise Simon's now celebrated 'hearse.'  Simon, however, had not
-looked at him then, and he barely glanced at him now.  It was a blind
-day, as Sarah had said, and all through the Thornthwaites seemed
-determined to be as blind as the day.  The agent followed him out,
-looking cheerful and amused. "I wish you luck all round!" Simon heard
-him say, as he shook the stranger's hand, and thought morosely that it
-was easy and cheap to wish folks luck.  "This should be the finest day
-of your life," he added more gravely, looking over the rail, and the man
-going down looked up and said "That's so!" in a fervent tone.  The old
-farmer waiting in the bar felt a spasm of envy and bitterness at the
-quietly triumphant words. "The finest day of your life,"--that was for
-the man going down.  "The heaviest day of your life,"--that was for the
-man going up.  With a touch of dreary humour he thought to himself that
-it was really he who was going down, if it came to that....
-
-With a feeling of something like shame he kept himself out of sight
-until the stranger had disappeared, and then experienced a slight shock
-when Dent called to him in the same cheery tone.  Almost without knowing
-it he had looked for the voice to change, and its geniality jarred on
-his dismal mood.  Somehow it seemed to put him about at the start, and
-when Dent laid a hand on his shoulder, saying--"Well, Simon!" with a
-smile, it was all he could do not to give him a surly snarl by way of
-reply.  They went into the old-fashioned room, which smelt of horsehair
-and wool mats, and Simon seated himself miserably on the extreme edge of
-a chair.  Dent went to the window and lifted a finger to somebody in the
-street, and then seated himself at the table, and said "Well, Simon!"
-and smiled again.  He was a strongly built man, with a pleasant face,
-which seemed rather more pleasant than need be to his visitor's
-jaundiced eye.
-
-He looked away from it, however, staring at the floor, and after the
-first conventional remarks began his tale of woe, that slow trickle of
-disaster which always gathered itself into terrible spate.  "You'll know
-what I'm here for, sir," he concluded, at the end of his first breath,
-twisting his hat like a tea-tray in his restless hands.  "Things has got
-that bad wi' us I doubt we can't go on, and so we've made up our minds
-we'd best clear out next year."
-
-Dent nodded kindly in answer, but with a rather abstracted air.  He had
-listened patiently enough to the slow tale, but Simon had a feeling that
-his tragic recital was not receiving the sympathy it deserved.  He began
-a fresh relation of the ills which had befallen him at the farm,
-intending a grand climax to be capped by Sarah's eyes; but there were so
-many dead troubles to dig out of their graves as he went along, that the
-last and most vital dropped from the reckoning, after all.
-
-"Ay, well, you've likely heard all this before," he finished lamely in
-the middle of a speech, conscious that he had missed his point, though
-without being able to say how.  "We've had a bad year this year an' all,
-and I can't see as it's any use holding on.  Me and my missis fixed it
-up as we come in, so if you'll take my notice, sir, we'll go next
-spring."
-
-"Your wife's in town, is she?" Dent asked. For some reason he looked
-again at the window from which he had waved.  "How does she take the
-thought of leaving the farm?"
-
-"Well, sir, we'll both feel it, after all these years, but I don't know
-as it's any use calling out.  I put it to her as we'd better quit, and
-she agreed to it right off."
-
-"I wish you'd brought her along," the agent said, still speaking in a
-detached tone.  There were some notes on the table within reach of his
-hand, and he glanced thoughtfully at them as he spoke.
-
-Simon stiffened a little, and looked surprised. "I'm speaking for both
-on us, sir, as I said before."
-
-"Of course, Simon," Dent said, rousing himself. "I know that.  But I'd
-have liked a word with her, all the same."  His glance went back to the
-notes, and he smiled as if at his own thoughts....  "And so you've
-really made up your minds that you'd better go?"
-
-"Haven't I been saying so, sir, all along?"  Simon was really injured
-now, and his wounded dignity showed in his tone.  Mr. Dent was taking
-the whole thing far too easily, he thought. First of all, he did not
-seem to be listening as much as he might, and then, when the notice was
-offered, he actually smiled!  Tenants of forty years' standing do not
-look to have their departure speeded with smiles.  Simon thought it
-heartless, to say the least, and only to be excused because Mr. Dent did
-not know what they had to face.  They had not been very satisfactory
-tenants, of course,--even Simon admitted that,--and it was more than
-likely that the agent was rather relieved.  At least he was saved the
-unpleasant task of turning them out, a duty which, as Simon knew, had
-seemed imminent more than once.  But they were respectable folk of good
-stock, and they were not entirely to blame because they were failures,
-too.  Gravity was their due, anyhow, if not sympathy, but Mr. Dent, on
-this solemn occasion, seemed to be failing them in both.
-
-"Of course you know you're late with your notice?" he observed
-presently, looking up. "You ought to have made up your minds a couple of
-months ago."
-
-"Ay, we're late, I know, but we weren't thinking of owt o' the sort
-then.  I'm sorry if we've put you about, but you'll not have that much
-trouble in getting rid of the farm.  It's nobbut a small spot, you'll
-think on.  It'll let right off the reel."
-
-"It's been going back a long while, though," Dent said thoughtfully, and
-then felt penitent as the old man flushed.  Just for the moment he had
-forgotten that Simon was in the room.
-
-"Of course I know you've had pretty rough luck," he went on hastily,
-trying to cover it up. "Sandholes holds the record for every sort of
-mischance.  It sounds like one of the old fairy-tales," he added,
-laughing,--"curses and all that! ... But I can't help thinking it would
-have been better for everybody if there had been a change earlier on."
-
-"Ay, well, you've gitten your change now, and no mistake about it!"
-Simon retorted angrily, deeply hurt.  There was something wrong with the
-scene, though he could not tell what it was.  He only knew that he had
-not expected it to go in the very least like this.
-
-"It should have been made long since if it was to do you any good...."
-Dent did not seem to notice that there was anything amiss. He sat,
-tapping the table, deep in thought, while Simon seethed....  "Sure you
-couldn't put on for another year?"
-
-This change of front upset his visitor so completely that he dropped his
-hat.  He sat glaring at Mr. Dent with a dropped mouth.
-
-"Nay, then, I just couldn't!" he snapped at last, wondering whether he
-was on his head or his heels.  "Losh save us!" he added angrily,
-"haven't I tellt you I meant to gang ever since I come in?  It'll take
-me all my time to hang on till spring, as it is."
-
-"You've run it as close as that?" Dent enquired, and Simon gave a grunt.
-
-"Ay, and I'm not the first as has done it, neither!"
-
-"Couldn't your Blindbeck brother see to give you a hand?  He's done well
-for himself, I should say, and his children are getting on."
-
-"He's given us a hand more than once already, has Will, but there's no
-sense in throwing good money after bad.  We'll have to quit next year,
-if we don't this.  Farm's going back, as you say, and I'm over old to
-pull it round. I can't keep going for ever, nay, nor my missis,
-neither."
-
-He remembered Sarah's eyes as he spoke, and how they were enough to
-clinch the matter in themselves, but he was too offended even to mention
-them by now.  There was no telling to-day how Mr. Dent would take the
-tragic news.  He had smiled and looked cheerful over the notice to quit,
-but Simon felt he would not be able to bear it if he smiled at Sarah's
-eyes. Indeed, it was all he could do to keep a hold on himself, as it
-was,--first of all hearing that he ought to have gone long since, and
-then being told to stop when he'd settled to clear out!
-
-The trend of his injured thought must have reached the other at last,
-for he roused himself to look at his sulky face.
-
-"You needn't think I'm trying to shove the place down your throat!" he
-said, with a laugh. "But I certainly thought you'd rather be stopping
-on!"
-
-Simon felt a little appeased, though he took care not to show any sign.
-He growled miserably that they had never intended to quit except under a
-coffin-lid.
-
-"This is where you want a lad of your own to take hold,--a lad with a
-good wife who would be able to see to you both.  You've no news, I
-suppose, of that son of yours that went overseas?"
-
-"A word or two, now and then,--nowt more.  Nowt as'd set you running
-across t'countryside to hear."
-
-"No chance of getting him home again, is there?" Dent enquired, and
-Simon stared at the floor and shook his head.  He must have felt a
-change in the atmosphere, however, for suddenly he began to repeat what
-Sarah had told May, how Geordie had written for money, and there had
-been none to send.  The words came easily after he had made a start, and
-for the time being he forgot his resentment and injured-tenant's pride.
-
-"I reckon you know, sir, how it all come about.  There'll ha' been
-plenty o' folk ready to tell you, I'll be bound, and them as knowed
-least'll likely ha' tellt you most.  We never had but the one lad, Sarah
-and me, and, by Gox! but he was a limb!  The queer thing was that my
-brother Will's eldest should ha' been the very marrow o' mine,--looks,
-voice, ways, ay, and character an' all.  Will and me were whyet enough
-lads, I'm sure; it was terble strange we should breed a pair o'
-rattlehorns like yon. You couldn't rightly say there was any harm to
-'em, but they were that wick they mun always be making a stir.  Being
-that like, too, helped 'em rarely when there was chanst o' their getting
-catched.  Each on 'em had a call for telling when he was about.  Jim's
-was a heron like, but Geordie's was nobbut a gull----"
-
-This time it was his own glance that went to the window, as again he
-remembered the bird gone out to the waves.  When Dent spoke, his mind
-came back from its flight with a tiny jerk.
-
-"Then they made off to Canada, didn't they, the two lads?  You told me
-something about it when I first came."
-
-"Ay, they cleared off in a night without a word or owt, and they've
-never done no good from then to this.  Sarah sticks to it Geordie would
-never ha' gone at all if it hadn't been for Jim, and Will's missis
-sticks to it t'other way about.  I reckon there was nowt to choose
-between 'em myself, but my missis never could abide poor Jim.  He was
-that set on her, though, there was no keeping him off the spot.  Right
-cruel she was to him sometimes, but she couldn't drive him off.  He'd
-just make off laughing and whistling, and turn up again next day.  Of
-course, she was bound to have her knife into him, for his mother's sake.
-She and Eliza have always been fit to scratch at each other all their
-lives."
-
-"Long enough to finish any feud, surely, and a bit over?  It's a pity
-they can't bury the hatchet and make friends."
-
-"They'll happen make friends when the rabbit makes friends wi' the
-ferret," Simon said grimly, "and the blackbird wi' the cat! I don't say
-Sarah isn't to blame in some ways, but she's had a deal to put up wi',
-all the same. There's summat about Eliza as sets you fair bilin' inside
-your bones!  It's like as if she'd made up her mind to pipe Sarah's eye
-straight from the very start.  She never said ay to Will, for one thing,
-till Sarah and me had our wedding-day fixed, and then danged if she
-didn't make up her mind to get wed that day an' all!  She fixed same
-church, same parson, same day and same time,--ay, an' there's some folk
-say she'd ha' fixed on t'same man if she'd gitten chanst!"  He paused
-for a moment to chuckle when he had said that, but he was too bitter to
-let his vanity dwell on it for long.  "She tellt parson it was a double
-wedding or summat o' the sort, but she never let wit on't to Sarah and
-me until she was fair inside door.  Sarah and me walked to kirk arm in
-arm, wi' nowt very much by-ordinar' on our backs; but Eliza come
-scampering up in a carriage and pair, donned up in a white gown and wi'
-a gert, waggling veil.  Will was that shammed on it all he couldn't
-abide to look me in t'face, but there, I reckon he couldn't help
-hisself, poor lad!  Sarah was that wild I could feel her fair dodderin'
-wi' rage as we stood alongside at chancel-step.  She was that mad she
-could hardly shape to get her tongue round Weddin'-Service or owt, and
-when we was in t'vestry I see her clump both her feet on the tail of
-Eliza's gown.  She would have it nobody knew she was as much as getting
-wed at all,--they were that busy gawping at Eliza and her veil.  She was
-a fine, strapping lass, Eliza was, and I'd a deal o' work keeping my
-eyes off'n her myself! ... ay, and I won't say but what she give me a
-sheep's eye or so at the back o' Will as well...."  He chuckled again,
-and his face became suddenly youthful, with a roguish eye.  "But yon was
-no way o' starting in friendly, was it, Mr. Dent?
-
-"Ay, well, things has gone on like that atween 'em more or less ever
-since, and I won't say but Sarah's gitten a bit of her own back when
-she's gitten chanst.  Will having all the luck and such-like hasn't made
-things better, neither.  Blindbeck's ganged up and Sandholes has ganged
-down,--ay, and seems like to hit bottom afore it stops!  Will and me
-have hung together all along, but the women have always been at each
-other's throats.  It riled Eliza Jim being always at our spot, and
-thinking a deal more o' Sarah than he did of her.  Neither on 'em could
-break him of it, whatever they said or did.  He always stuck to it
-Sandholes was his home by rights."
-
-"Pity the two of them aren't here to help you now," Dent said.  "Those
-runabout lads often make fine men."
-
-"Nay, I doubt they've not made much out, anyway round."  Simon shook his
-head.  "Likely they're best where they be," he said, as Sarah had said
-on the road in.  He sat silent a moment longer for politeness' sake, and
-then was stopped again as he rose to go.
-
-"May I enquire what you intend to do when you leave the farm?"
-
-The old man's face had brightened as he talked, but now the shadow came
-over it again.
-
-"I can't rightly tell, sir, till I've had a word wi' Will, but anyway
-he'll not let us come to want.  He's offered us a home at Blindbeck
-afore now, but I reckon his missis'd have summat to say to that.  Ay,
-and mine an' all!" he added, with a fresh attempt at a laugh.  "There'd
-be lile or nowt done on t'farm, I reckon, if it ever come about.  It'd
-take the lot on us all our time to keep them two apart!"
-
-Again, as he finished, he remembered Sarah's eyes, and once again he let
-the opportunity pass. He was on his feet now, anxious to get away, and
-there seemed little use in prolonging this evil hour.  Mr. Dent would
-think they were for ever whingeing and whining and like enough calling
-out before they were hurt....  He moved hurriedly to the door, conscious
-of a sense of relief as well as of loss, and Sarah's eyes missed their
-final chance of getting into the talk....
-
-"You're likely throng, sir," he finished, "and I'll not keep you."  He
-put a hand to the latch.  "Anyway, you'll kindly take it as we'll quit
-next year."
-
-Dent said--"No, Simon, I shan't do anything of the sort!" and laughed
-when the other shot round on him again with open mouth. His expression
-was grave, however, as he ended his speech.  "I want you to think it
-over a bit first."
-
-Simon felt his head going round for the second time.  The red came into
-his thin face.
-
-"I don't rightly know what you're driving at, sir," he said, with a
-dignified air.  "I reckon I can give in my notice same as anybody else?"
-
-"Oh, Lord, yes, Simon!  Of course."  Dent's eyes went back to the notes.
-"Yes, of course you can."
-
-"Ay, well, then?" Simon demanded stiffly. "What's all this stir?"
-
-"Well, ... it's like this, you see ... you've missed your time.  It was
-due a couple of months back, as I said before."
-
-"Ay, but you're not that hard and fast about notice, as a rule!  Tom
-Robison did t'same thing last year, you'll think on, and you let it
-pass.  Seems to me you're by way of having a joke wi' me, sir," he
-added, in a pitiful tone, "and I don't know as it's kind, seeing how I'm
-placed."
-
-Dent jumped to his feet and came across to lay a hand on his arm.
-
-"It's only that I've a feeling you'll change your mind, Simon," he said
-earnestly, "and you'll be sorry if you've spread it about that you're
-going to quit.  A week, say,--a week won't make that much difference,
-will it? Can't you let it stand over another week?"
-
-"You said a minute back 'twas a pity we'd stopped so long!  I can't make
-out what you're at, Mr. Dent,--I'm danged if I can!"
-
-The agent laughed and left him to stroll back again to the window, where
-he stood looking down into the full street.
-
-"Perhaps we're neither of us as clear in our minds as we might be!" he
-observed, with a cryptic smile.  "The weather, perhaps; it's only a
-dreary day.  I'm not one of the folks who like November grey."
-
-"Tides is big an' all," Simon found himself saying, unable to resist the
-lure.  "We've had t'watter up agen t'wall every night this week. Last
-night I went out for a look afore it was dark, but it was that thick it
-was all I could do to tell it was there at all.  There was just summat
-grey-like lifting under my nose; but, by Gox! it was deep enough for all
-it was so whyet!"
-
-Dent shivered at the drear little picture which the other had conjured
-up.
-
-"I don't know how you sleep," he said, "perched on the edge of things
-like that!  It would give me fits to have the sea knocking twice a day
-at my back door."
-
-"Ay, it knocks," Simon said slowly, with a thoughtful air.  "There's
-whiles you'd fair think it was axing for somebody to come out.... You'll
-mind yon time you were near catched by the tide?" he went on, after a
-pause.  "Eh, man, but I was in a terble tew yon night!"
-
-"It was my own fault," Dent laughed,--"not that it was any the nicer for
-that!  I knew the time of the tide, but I'd forgotten the time of day.
-It was a day something like this, much the same dismal colour all
-through.  Lord, no!"  He shivered again.  "I've not forgotten, not I!
-I'll never forget pounding away from that horrible wave, and finding
-myself, quite without knowing it, back below the farm!"
-
-"It was my missis saved you that night," Simon said, "and a near shave
-it was an' all! Tide would ha' got you even then if it hadn't been for
-her.  We heard you hollerin' and came out to look, but we couldn't see
-nowt, it was that dark.  I thought we'd fancied it like, as we didn't
-hear no more, but Sarah wouldn't hear of owt o' the sort.  She would
-have it she could see you liggin' at bottom o' t'bank, and she give me
-no peace till I'd crammelled down to look."
-
-"Well, you may be sure I'm grateful enough," the agent said, as they
-shook hands.  "I wouldn't wish my worst enemy a death like that.  I hope
-it's been put to the credit side of her account."
-
-He followed this caller out as he had done the last, and again, leaning
-over the railing, he called "Good luck!"  Simon, looking up, full of
-resentment, saw the face above him bright with smiles.  He went out with
-offended dignity written in every line.
-
-
-
-
-                                PART II
-
-                                 ELIZA
-
-
-
-                                   I
-
-
-It was two o'clock and after before the old folks left Witham.  Simon
-had gone to his dinner on quitting the agent, and at his favourite
-eating-house he encountered others who wanted the hearse-story at first
-hand.  He was not at all averse to talking about it by now, and after a
-good dinner it improved with the telling every time.  Once more he
-forgot the interview of the morning as well as the coming one in the
-afternoon, and stayed smoking and talking and sunning himself in the
-fine atmosphere of success.
-
-Sarah, however, had neither pipe nor admiring circle to soothe or
-enliven the heavy, dragging hours.  She went into the inn after the
-'Ship' dog-cart had rattled off, and tried to gather a little comfort
-from the parlour fire; but the glamour of the morning had departed with
-May, and now that she was alone she felt depressed and tired.  The
-doctor's verdict, which had passed her by at the time, rushed back upon
-her, shaking her nerves and chilling her heart.  She began to wonder
-what it would be like to be really blind, and in a sudden panic she made
-a strained attempt to discern the pictures and almanacks in the room,
-tracing the patterns of the antimacassars with a shaking finger, and the
-shapes of the chair-backs and table-legs.  When she was really blind,
-Simon would have to do for her instead of her doing for him, but he
-would only make a poorish job of it, she felt sure.  There would still
-be plenty for both of them to do, in spite of the fact that 'things had
-come to an end.'  There were the long winter months to be got through
-before they left, as well as the work and worry of changing house.  May
-would help her, no doubt; she could always count on May; but she knew
-that she did not want to owe her more than she could help.  It was
-partly a new uprising of dead jealousy, of course, as well as pride
-refusing dependence upon one who did not belong.  But at the back of all
-there was a more just and generous motive than either of these,--the
-consciousness that May had given too much already, and should not be
-called upon for more. Months ahead though it lay, she began presently to
-think a woman's thoughts about the breaking-up of the home.  Little as
-they possessed of any value in itself, there would be many things, she
-knew, that they would want to keep.  There were certain things,
-expensive to renew, which still had a flicker of useful life, and
-others, useless to others as well as themselves, which were yet bone of
-their bone and flesh of their ancient flesh.  She began to make a list
-in her head, and to value the furniture as well as she knew how.  She
-had been to many a sale in her time, and had a sufficiently good memory
-of what the things had fetched, as well as of whose house had eventually
-raked them in. She saw Sandholes full of peering and poking folk, a
-chattering crowd stretching into the garden and yard, and forming a
-black procession along the roads of the marsh.  She saw traps and heavy
-carts and laden human beings slowly departing with the stuff of her
-human life, while the shreds that were left to her, piled and roped on a
-waiting lorry, looked poorer than ever in the light of day.  She saw the
-garden gravel printed by many boots, and the yard trenched and crossed
-by wheels.  She saw the windows open in a house from which nobody
-looked, and scrubbed, bare floors which seemed to have forsworn the
-touch of feet.  She saw the lorry pass reluctantly away into the great,
-homeless place that was the world.  And last of all she saw herself and
-Simon shutting the door that finally shut them out.  There was all the
-difference in ten thousand worlds between the sound of a door that was
-shutting you in and the sound of the same door shutting you out....
-
-She had always been a still woman, when she had had time to be still,
-but she found it impossible to be still to-day.  She began to walk up
-and down, listening for Simon's voice, and in the strange room she hurt
-herself against the furniture, and received little shocks from the cold
-surface of strange objects and the violent closing-up of the walls.  She
-gave it up after a while, forcing herself to a stand, and it was so that
-Simon found her when he opened the door at last.
-
-She had a further wait, however, when he found that the trap had managed
-to oust the car from the coveted place.  At first he was rather afraid
-that the hearse-story had earned him too many drinks, but even to
-marketing eyes the fact was plain.  He chuckled as he walked from one to
-the other, saying "Gox!" and "Did ye ever now?" and "Losh save us!" and
-"Wha'd ha' thowt it!"  The driver was not to be seen, or the wait might
-have been longer still, but as it was they were mounted presently on the
-emaciated seats, and Simon jerked up the horse in a last spasm of
-victorious glee.
-
-For some miles he talked of nothing but the sensation that he had caused
-in Witham, and how he had found the hearse-story everywhere in the town.
-
-"I'd nobbut to turn a corner," he announced proudly, though pretending
-disgust, "but sure an' certain there'd be somebody waiting to tax me on
-t'far side!  There was Burton, and Wilson, and Danny Allen and a deal
-more, all on 'em ready wi'--'Well, Simon, and what about yon hearse?'  I
-could see 'em oppenin' their mouths half a street off!" he chuckled
-loudly.  "Folk clipped me by t'arm and begged me tell 'em how it was,
-and t'others rushed out o' shops and fair fell on me as I ganged by!"
-
-"They mun ha' been terble hard set for summat to do," Sarah answered
-unkindly. "What did you make out wi' Mr. Dent?"
-
-At once the shadow fell again on the fine sun of Simon's success.
-
-"Nay, you may well ax," he growled, "but I'm danged if I rightly know!
-He was that queer there was no doing owt wi' him at all. Seemed to be
-thinking o' summat else most o' the time,--gaping out at winder and
-smiling at nowt.  He was a deal queerer nor me, hearse or no hearse, and
-so I tell ye!"
-
-"But you give notice in, didn't you?  You likely got that fixed?"
-
-"Well, I did and I didn't, after a manner o' speaking.  I kept handing
-it in like, and he kept handing it back.  He said we'd best take a bit
-more time to think."
-
-"We've had time and plenty, I'm sure!" Sarah sighed,--"ay, that we have!
-... I reckon you tellt him about my eyes?"
-
-Simon stirred uneasily when she mentioned her eyes, remembering how they
-had played in and out of his mind, but never once managed to come to the
-front.
-
-"Nay, then, I didn't, if you want to know, because I never gitten
-chanst.  I didn't rightly know what to say, neither, come to that.  You
-catched doctor right enough, I suppose?"
-
-"Ay, we hadn't to wait or owt.  And he was right kind, he was that!"
-
-"Happen he hadn't a deal to say, after all?" Simon enquired hopefully,
-and she gave a faint laugh.
-
-"Nobbut that if I didn't have an operation right off, I'd be as blind as
-a barn-door owl by next year!"
-
-Simon said "Gox!" and jerked the horse so violently that it nearly went
-through the hedge. "Losh, missis, that's bad!" he went on dismally, when
-he had straightened out.  "It's worse than I looked for, by a deal.
-I've always been terble feared of operations and such-like. What's to be
-done about it, d'ye think?"
-
-"Nowt."
-
-"Nay, but dang it!" he cried sharply,--"we can't leave it like yon!  If
-there's owt they can do for you, we mun let them try. They say some folk
-come out right enough, wi' a bit o' luck."
-
-"Luck isn't much in our way, I doubt," she said, with a sigh, "and it'd
-mean begging o' somebody, I reckon, and I've had enough o' that.  May
-says there's free spots for such as us, but there's not that much free
-in this world as I've ever seen.  I doubt it'd mean somebody's brass or
-other going to pay for it in the end."
-
-"I could ax Will----" Simon began hurriedly, without pausing to think,
-but she stopped him before the well-known formula was out.
-
-"Nay, then, master, you'll do nowt o' the sort, so that's all there is
-about it!  You're his brother, and you've a right to do as you choose,
-but I'll never take a penny piece from him if it's nobbut for myself."
-
-"He'd have his hand in his pocket for you right off.  He's never been
-close about brass and suchlike, hasn't Will."
-
-"Ay, but it's Eliza's brass as well, you'll think on, and she's close,
-right enough!  She'd see me blind and on t'streets afore she'd lift a
-hand, and if happen she did lift it, I'd strike it down!  Nay, master,
-you can ax what you like for yourself, but you'll ax nowt for me.  As
-for the farm and Mr. Dent, we're bound to get shot of it now, whatever
-happens.  The sooner things is fixed the better I'll be suited, so I'll
-thank you to get 'em seen to as soon as you can."
-
-"'Tisn't my fault they're not fixed this very minute!" Simon grumbled,
-feeling hardly used.... "Did you happen across Eliza in Witham?" he
-asked her suddenly, after a while.
-
-Sarah laughed faintly again, though this time it was an echo of triumph.
-
-"We'd a few words together in t'caif," she answered tranquilly, "and wi'
-a few folks looking on an' all.  She was setting it round we were broke,
-and had gitten the sack, and a deal more; but I reckon I give her summat
-to bite on afore I was through....  Seems as if you an' me had been
-having a sort o' side-show," she finished, with a grim smile.  "Ay,
-well, we've given Witham summat to crack about, if we've never done nowt
-else...."
-
-Their minds had been full of Eliza as they drove to market, and now they
-were busy turning her over in their minds again.  Sarah's account of her
-splendid effort cheered and uplifted them for a while, but they knew
-only too well that their sense of superiority would not last.  Even
-their victories, ever so dearly bought, turned to Eliza's advantage in
-the end. Life was on the side of Eliza, for whom all things were certain
-to work out well.  Heaven was on the side of Eliza, whose face had never
-registered a single memory of pain.  The Simon Thornthwaites never got
-over the feeling that somehow she had played them false, had wheedled by
-undue influence the balance of justice off the straight.  Alone, they
-were able to see some dignity in their tragic lives, but once with Eliza
-they were suddenly cheap,--mere poor relations fawning at her skirts.
-They saw themselves framed as such in her mocking eyes, and felt for the
-moment the shameful thing they seemed.
-
-She mocked them,--that was the evil thing she did; that petty, insidious
-crime which human nature finds so difficult to forgive. Mockery by
-comparison was her method, and one which was almost impossible to fight.
-In all that Eliza said and did, by her attitude and her dress, she
-invited the world to mark the incredible gulf that yawned between the
-Simon Thornthwaites and the Wills.  She had made her opening point on
-the double wedding-day, though the actual cause of the enmity lay
-further back than that.  Eliza, indeed, had intended to marry Simon and
-not Will,--Simon, the elder, the better-looking, and even the smarter in
-those far-off days.  But in this, at least, Sarah had won the fall, and
-Eliza had never recovered from her surprise.  From that moment the
-spoilt beauty had seen in the other's plain person an opponent worthy of
-her steel, an antagonist whom it would take her all her life to down.
-Sneer and strike as she might, she could never be quite sure that she
-had finally got home, and in mingled inquisitiveness and wrath she
-sneered and struck again.  There must be an end sometime to this spirit
-that would not break, but even after forty years there was little sign.
-Something deathless in Sarah rose up again after every stroke, and was
-always left standing erect when her world was in the dust.
-
-Sarah thought of her wedding-day as they drove through the torpid
-afternoon, and under the low sky that was shut over the earth like a
-parsimonious hand.  The wedding-day had been soft and sunny and sweet,
-with a high blue sky that looked empty from zone to zone, until, looking
-up until you were almost blind, you saw that you stared through layer
-upon layer of tender-coloured air.  The mountains had been like that,
-too, clear yet vapour-veiled, and even the blue of the sea had been just
-breathed upon as well.  It was a real bridal day, with its hint of
-beauty only just withheld, its lovely actual presences that still
-dropped curtains between. The earth-veils had had nothing in common with
-Eliza's flaunting mockery of a veil, nor was there anything in common
-between the mysteries behind.  The strong mountain was more subtle and
-shy than Eliza, the terrible sea more tender, the great sky with its
-hidden storms more delicate and remote.  Eliza's bold and confident
-beauty had clashed with them as a brass band clashes with a stretching,
-moonlit shore.  It was for Sarah in her stiff straw bonnet and brown
-gown that the bridal veils of the world had been sweetly worn.
-
-She had thought herself neat and suitable when she looked in the glass,
-and had found it enough, because all her instincts were neat and plain.
-It was a cruel irony of fate that had forced her into a morbid,
-passionate groove. In those days she had never as much as heard of
-obsessions of the mind, and would not have believed they could touch
-her, if she had.  She had asked nothing of life but that it should be
-clean and straight, and still found it hard to believe in the shadowed,
-twisted thing which it had proved.
-
-Her parents had died before Simon had made her a home, so she had gone
-out to service and had been married from her 'place.'  She found him
-waiting when she went downstairs, in clothes as neat and suitable as her
-own, and he had given her a bunch of lilies of the valley, and a little
-Prayer Book with a brown back.  They had always been matter-of-fact as
-lovers, and they were very matter-of-fact now, but Sarah, from this
-far-off distance, knew that, after all, they had not missed the thrill.
-Even in the small-windowed, silent house that had a maiden lady for
-tenant there was a touch of the exquisite thing,--the same delicate
-rapture that was spreading its diaphanous wings over the coloured sea
-and land....
-
-They walked to church by the path across the fields, and the cattle
-raised their heads to look at Simon's suitable clothes, and the inch of
-escaped ribbon frisking on Sarah's suitable bonnet.  They went
-arm-in-arm through the still churchyard, where their forefathers, lying
-together, saw nothing strange in this new conjunction of old names; and
-arm-in-arm up the empty aisle towards the cave of the chancel that had
-the flower of its rose window set in it like a jewelled eye.  Their
-boots sounded terribly loud on the uncarpeted tiles, and they trod on
-tiptoe when they crossed the stones of the vaults, because the names
-looking up seemed somehow to turn into the uplifted faces of the
-prostrate dead. And presently the stone of the chancel-steps had stopped
-them as with a bar, bidding them think, in that last moment, whether the
-feet of their purpose had been rightly set.
-
-They felt very small as they waited among the climbing pillars and under
-the spring of the groined roof, smaller and smaller as the unmarked
-minutes passed and nobody came.  A shaft of light from the clerestory
-touched them like the point of a sacrificial knife, showing their faces
-humble and patient and a little too anxious to be glad.  A bird flashed
-in through the open chancel-door, sat for a moment on the altar-rail and
-sang, and then caught sight of the sunlit country and flashed out again.
-It had not even seen the waiting couple who were so very quiet and so
-terribly small.  And then, just as they were at their smallest, the
-Pageant of Eliza had swept in.
-
-There were many to tell them afterwards of the sensation in the village
-when Eliza in gorgeous apparel had come driving with trampling horses to
-the old lych-gate.  At the sound of the horses' hoofs and the first
-flash of the veil the houses had emptied themselves as a teapot empties
-itself when you tilt the spout.  Veils were the prerogative of the
-'quality' in those days, and that in itself was sufficient to make a
-stir.  In a moment there were groups on the green, children running up
-the street and folk pressing into the churchyard, and in a moment more
-the veiled yet flaunting figure had passed into the church, an
-over-rigged ship up the straight estuary of the aisle.
-
-Behind Simon and Sarah the place was suddenly full of noise, whispering
-and shuffling and treading of heavy feet, and the ringing of nailed
-boots on the smooth tiles.  Presently all that had been inside the
-church had gone out as if swept by a broom, and all that had been
-outside had come in with a blatant rush, filling it with curious faces
-and crowded bodies and suppressed laughter and muttered speech.  Into
-the quiet hour that had been meant for Simon and Sarah alone, Eliza came
-full tilt with a tumult of sight-seers in her train.  Not for her was
-the peace between the springing pillars which rent before her like a
-curtain rent by hands.  She trod with bold, self-satisfied strides over
-the dead faces which to her were only names.  She created a vulgar
-raree-show out of the simple blessing of a tranquil God.
-
-Only outside the sea and the mountains kept their mystery till the knot
-was tied.  The sacred hour of Simon and Sarah was withdrawn silently
-into higher courts.
-
-All that was human in Sarah, however, remained at the mercy of the
-broken hour below. Now and then she caught a glimpse of Eliza's face
-through the veil, or a gleam of her shining gown as she twisted and
-turned.  She thought to herself savagely that Eliza looked a fool, but
-that did not prevent her from feeling, by contrast, a fool, too.  Even
-Will, shy and ashamed, but tricked out in unaccustomed gauds, helped to
-point the comparison between the pairs.  She remembered how her cheeks
-had burned and her heart battered and her knees shook, while she
-strained her ears for the least sign of mirth from the crowded pews
-behind.  The whole parody of her precious hour was bitter beyond words,
-but it was the mocking distinction in clothes that went furthest home.
-For the rest of her life Sarah was sharply conscious of all that Eliza
-wore, and hated it right to the sheep that had carried the wool on its
-innocent back, and the harmless cotton-plant that had grown for her
-unaware.
-
-Eliza sailed down the aisle again amid giggles and loud asides, but
-Simon and Sarah crept quietly out of the church by the door through
-which the singing-bird had flown.  They stood in the grass among the
-rose-bushes on the graves, and watched Eliza drive triumphantly away.
-The parson followed them out to make a kindly speech, which they were
-far too angry and humiliated to hear.  He wanted to tell them that God
-had certainly liked them best, but he knew they would not believe him if
-he did. They were so certain that it was Eliza who had had the beautiful
-hour.  They were too simple to know that it was only they who had any of
-the beauty to carry home....
-
-
-
-
-                                   II
-
-
-All their lives Simon and Sarah had been the victims of Eliza's Method.
-Nothing they had, horse, cow or cart, but was sooner or later measured
-by Blindbeck standards and condemned.  Their furniture figured in
-Eliza's talk as often as her own,--their humble horsehair abased by her
-proud plush, her stout mahogany lording it over their painted deal. They
-had scarcely a cup or plate, hay-crop, dog or friend, but it was flung
-in the scale and instantly kicked the beam.  People grew tired of
-Eliza's Method after a while, but long before they had ceased to enjoy
-it its work was done. By that time they knew to the last inch exactly
-how the Simon Thornthwaites had fallen behind the Wills.  The Simons
-were stamped in their eyes as poor relations to the end of time, and
-they treated them differently, spoke to them casually, and as often as
-not forgot that they were there.  But Simon and Sarah did not forget, or
-cease to notice, or cease to be hurt.  Always they felt pilloried by
-Eliza's blatant cry,--"Look here, upon this picture, and on this!"
-
-Only in one respect had Sandholes and the Simons ever managed to hold
-their own.  Simon's son had been every whit as fine as Will's, for all
-the wooden spoon that was hanging over his cradle.  It was true that
-more and more children came to Blindbeck, passing Sandholes by, but that
-was nothing to Sarah as long as Geordie was at hand.  Geordie alone
-seemed more than sufficient to right them in the eyes of an
-Eliza-magicked world.  He was a rattlehorn and a limb, but he had stuff
-in him, all the same, and sooner or later he would prove that stuff to
-the world and the lordly Wills.  All the working and scraping of those
-years went to the one passionate purpose of doing Eliza down.  Those
-were the happiest years of Sarah's life, because for the time being she
-had a weapon against her foe.
-
-Yet even here she found herself mocked by the amazing likeness between
-the brothers' sons.  It had an uncanny effect upon her, as of something
-not quite human, even, indeed, as if there were something evil at its
-back. She had an uneasy feeling that, in some mysterious way, this was
-still another expression of Eliza's malice.  The pride of stock in Simon
-and Will was stirred by this double evidence of breed, but Sarah, when
-people mistook the lads, was fretted to fierce tears.  There were times
-when she even hated the smile on Geordie's lips, because of its exact
-similitude on Jim's. Most of all she hated herself when the wrong lad
-called and she answered before she knew, or waved to a figure over the
-sands, and it came laughing and was not her son....
-
-She had much the same sense of something not quite canny about Jim's
-extraordinary passion for Sandholes and herself.  It was almost, indeed,
-as if she feared it, as if she knew that in the future it might do her
-harm. Even she was not always proof against his laughing, kindly ways,
-and nothing but some such fear of a clutching love could have made her
-steel her heart.  Through all her absorption in her splendid Geordie she
-could not help guessing at the greater depths in Jim.  Geordie had yet
-to learn in exile what Jim had learned on the very threshold of his
-home.  She remembered nursing him through an illness much against her
-will, and even now she could not shed that clinging memory and its
-appeal....
-
-It was perhaps because of this hidden terror that she never used his
-affection for her against his mother.  She was often tempted to do so,
-for Eliza was sore in spite of her loud denials, and when the Method was
-hard at work on the furniture or the crops it would have been pleasant
-to give her news--and generally none too pleasing news--of Jim.  Often
-enough the words were on her tongue, but she never spoke them.  Always
-something held her back from taking this easy means to strike.
-
-Her ironic reward, however, was such as might well have made her think
-herself bewitched, for even out of her self-denial it was Eliza who
-gathered triumph.  As time went on, and more and more lads appeared at
-Blindbeck, she deftly changed her tactics by a single twist of the
-wheel.  She handed over to Sandholes, as it were, the one member of the
-Blindbeck family that did not come up to Blindbeck standards.  Not that
-she ever said as much in words, or relinquished any claim that was
-likely to be of use.  She merely contrived to convey the impression that
-he belonged by nature more to the Have-Nots than the Haves, to the
-penniless Simons rather than the wealthy Wills.  The impression
-hardened, however, after the lads had run away, and Jim had finally
-nailed his sympathies to the mast.  His father, indeed, did not give him
-up without a struggle, but Eliza became ever more detached from the
-wastrel who was her son.  Smilingly, so to speak, she dropped her thumbs
-and let him go.  It was not long before strangers were thinking him
-Simon's son instead of Will's, and presently even Sarah awoke to the
-fact that she was saddled with the Blindbeck failure as well as her own.
-
-It was a smug young cousin of Eliza's who finally opened her eyes, at
-one of those family feasts which Simon and Sarah were always expected to
-attend.  Eliza was never at her brightest and best without them, as she
-very rightly said,--the organ-grinder without his necessary monkey, the
-circus-master without his jumping clown.  As usual, the Simon
-Thornthwaites heard their belongings catalogued and found utterly
-wanting, and, as usual, for the time being, shared the general sentiment
-that they were beneath scorn.  The comparisons, passing in and out of
-shippon and parlour, leaping from feather-bed to sofa, and over
-root-crops and stacks of hay, arrived finally at the missing sons.
-
-"Our Harry's for learning the violin," Eliza informed the tea-party,
-swelling with conscious pride.  "Master wouldn't hear tell o' such a
-thing at first, but me and the girls talked him round between us.  I
-reckon he'll be suited all right, though, when he hears our Harry play.
-Ah, now, Sarah, but wouldn't that ha' been just the thing for
-Geordie-an'-Jim?  They were that fond o' music, the poor lads, though
-they'd no more tune to the pair on 'em than a steam-whistle.  Eh, well,
-poor things, fiddle-playing and suchlike wouldn't ha' been no use to 'em
-where they're at.  Brass wasted, that's what it would ha' been, so it's
-just as well...."
-
-Harry, also swelling with pride, looked for some sign of admiration from
-his aunt, but did not get it.  Eliza soothed him with a meaning glance.
-
-"The trouble is you've got to keep your hands terble nice for the
-violin.  Our Harry's terble set on keeping his hands nice....
-Geordie-an'-Jim would never ha' come to such-like quality ways, would
-they, Sarah?  I never see such hands as the two on 'em used to show at
-meals!  I mind you said they got sent home that often from school, at
-last the folks took to washing 'em on the spot!  I used to be right
-sorry for you, Sarah, I was that, wi' their gert finger-marks all over
-the walls and the chair-backs.  It's queer how different folk shape, I'm
-sure, even when they're as you might say near-bred.  Our Harry frames
-rarely at folding tablecloths and the like, and no more dirt to 'em when
-he's finished than if he was a lass!"
-
-The town-bred cousin gazed complacently at his hands, and observed that,
-if Geordie-an'-Jim were in Canada, as he understood, from all accounts
-it was much the best place for them. Eliza nodded lugubriously, the tail
-of her eye on Sarah's unstirred face.
-
-"Ay, they're in Canada right enough, and like to be,--aren't they,
-Sarah?--for a goodish while yet.  They wrote home as they'd sworn to
-make their fortunes afore they crossed the pond again, but fortunes
-isn't as easy come by as some folk seem to think.  Me and Will likely
-know as much about it as most, having managed middlin' well, but even
-for the best o' folk it isn't as simple as it sounds.  There's always
-somebody at you one way or another, wanting to share what you've earned
-wi' your own hands. You've just got to keep lifting your feet right high
-off the ground, or you'll have folk hanging on to your shoe-wangs all
-the time.  Ay, Geordie-an'-Jim'll find as fortunes don't come that slape
-off the reel!  'Tisn't as if it was our Harry and Tom here, ay, and Bill
-and Fred an' all, as'll find everything ready for 'em when they want to
-start on their own.  They'll step into good farms as if it was stepping
-out o' bed, and they'll have Blindbeck behind them and its brass as
-well.  They'll have a bit o' their own, come to that; I started 'em
-saving-books myself.  Eh, yes, they'll do right well, but I doubt
-there's never farm nor Post Office book as'll come to Geordie-an'-Jim!"
-
-Later in the day, the smug cousin, trying to be kind, had enquired of
-Sarah whether Geordie-an'-Jim were twins.  She was too angry at first to
-answer him at all, and by the time she managed to get her breath her
-mood had changed.  They were alone at the time, and even Sarah could
-sometimes laugh at herself when Eliza was out of sight.  The touch of
-humour freed her heart for an instant, and at once it rose up and stood
-by the lad whose mother had cast him off.  Jim was suddenly before her,
-with his tricks of affection and his borrowed face, his constant cry
-that he had only been born at Blindbeck by mistake.  "I'm your lad,
-really, Aunt Sarah," she heard him saying, as of old.  "I'm your lad
-really, same as Geordie is!"  Jim was forty by now, but it was a child's
-voice that she heard speaking and couldn't deny.  The cousin repeated
-his question, and she smiled grimly.
-
-"Twins?  Ay ... and as like as a couple o' peas.  As like as a couple o'
-gulls on the edge o' the tide...."
-
-It was the only time in her life that she ever stood openly by Eliza's
-hated son.  But perhaps even that one occasion may count in the final
-sum of things....
-
-
-
-
-                                  III
-
-
-Now they had left the high-road and were making south-east through the
-winding lanes.  Their shoulders were turned to the sea, though in that
-lost world of the mist only the native could tell where the bay was
-supposed to lie.  It was one of the dead hours, too, when even the salt
-goes out of the marsh-air, and no pulse in it warns you subconsciously
-of the miracle coming.  Between the high-mounted hedges it was still and
-close, and beyond them the land rose until its dank green surface stood
-soft against the sky.  All the way Simon looked at the land with a
-critical eye, the eye of the lover which loves and asks at the same
-time. He looked at the ploughland and knew the rotation through which it
-had run and would have to run again; at rich grass-land which seemed
-never to have known the steel, and fields which, at rest for a hundred
-years, still spoke to some long-rusted share.  He loved it, but he
-thought of it first and foremost as good material for the good workman
-engaged on the only job in the world.  It was always the land that he
-coveted when he came to Blindbeck, never the house.  Eliza had made of
-the house a temple to the god of Blessed Self-Satisfaction, but even
-Eliza could not spoil the honest, workable land.
-
-The farm kept showing itself to them as they drove, a quadrangle of
-long, well-kept buildings backed by trees.  When the sun shone, the
-white faces of house and shippon looked silver through the peeping-holes
-of the hedge, but to-day they were wan and ghostly in the deadening
-mist.  The turned beeches and chestnuts were merely rusty, instead of
-glowing, and seemed to droop as if with the weight of moisture on their
-boughs.  The Scotch firs on a mound alone, stark, straight, aloof, had
-more than ever that air of wild freedom which they carry into the tamest
-country; and the pearly shadow misting their green alike in wet weather
-or in dry, was to-day the real mist, of which always they wear the other
-in remembrance.
-
-The farm had its back well into the grassy hill, and the blind river
-which gave it its name wound its way down to it in a hidden channel and
-went away from it in a hidden dip in a field below.  There was water
-laid on at Blindbeck, as Sarah knew, with a copper cylinder in a special
-linen-room, and a hot towel-rail and a porcelain bath.  Simon's
-particular envy was the electric light, that marvel of marvels on a
-northern farm.  He never got over the wonder of putting his hand to the
-switch, and seeing the light flash out on the second to his call.  Once
-he had sneaked out of the house on a winter's night, and in the great
-shippon had turned the lights on full.  Eliza, of course, had been nasty
-about it when she heard, but Will had understood him and had only
-laughed.  Later, swinging a lantern in his own dark shippon, Simon had
-thought of those switches with envious longing.  He did not know that
-they had taken the warm glamour out of the place, and slain in a blow
-the long tradition of its beauty.  The lantern went with him like a
-descended star as he moved about, and out of the cattle's breath wove
-for itself gold-dusted halos.  There had been something precious about
-it all before, some sense of mystery and long-garnered peace, but
-to-night he could only remember Blindbeck and its modern toy.  For the
-time being he ceased to feel the pull of the sweetest chain in the
-world, which runs straight back through all the ages to the Child in the
-Bethlehem Stall.... There was a billiard-table at Blindbeck, too, with
-more switches to tempt Simon, and a well-laid tennis-lawn in the neat
-garden by the stream.  On the far side of the farm was a great highway
-running north and south, as well as a main-line station over the drop of
-the hill.  It seemed as if everything was made easy for those who lived
-at Blindbeck, from the washing of pots and the moving of stock to the
-amusement and education of the bairns.
-
-Folk who came to Blindbeck for the first time believed that at last they
-had found the farm of all their dreams.  They called it an Earthly
-Paradise, a model miniature village, a moral object-lesson, a True Home.
-They came to it between well-cropped fields, marked by trim hedges and
-neat stone walls, and through uniformly painted gates secure in hinge
-and hasp into a tidy yard.  They looked with pleasure at the shining
-knocker on the green house-door and the fruit tree lustily climbing the
-warm south wall.  They looked with delight at the healthy, handsome
-family, the well-placed buildings and the show of pedigree stock. They
-looked at Will as he went shyly by, and said that his wife was
-undoubtedly the better horse.  They looked at Eliza and said that she
-was the Housewife of Romance.  When they went away they told others of
-this Paradise which was Blindbeck, and the others came in their turn and
-looked and said the same.  But to Simon and Sarah it was plain Purgatory
-and nothing else, and with each gate that they loosed they unloosed a
-devil as well.
-
-There was a party at Blindbeck this afternoon, as long custom might have
-led them to expect.  It was part of Eliza's Method to gather a party
-together when the poor relations were due.  There was always a noisy
-crowd, it seemed to the Simons, when they were tired, or when they had
-any particular business to transact. On the day after the lads had flown
-there had been an unusually large crowd, with faces that looked like
-masks to the parents' tired eyes.... Will was fond of young folk, and
-made no objection to the stream of 'company' passing beneath his roof.
-His shy, quiet eyes watched the young tide of life surging ahead, with
-Eliza floundering like a porpoise in its midst.  He was content only to
-watch, but he was not stranded, like the thirsty Simons; the waves still
-lapped about his feet.  He could see youth and the pride of youth
-without the sense of desolation which embittered his brother and took
-his brother's wife by the throat.  Simon was always surly when he came
-to Blindbeck, while Sarah was like a bomb in the hand which any
-unconscious soul might throw.  Will did not know that for them every lad
-that they looked at should have been Geordie, and each lass a lass of
-their own with Geordie's face.  He was sorry and sympathetic, but he did
-not know those things.  It was Eliza who knew, and used the knowledge
-for her private ends.  You could always be sure that Eliza knew where
-your hidden things were kept.
-
-To-day, tired as they were with the hours in town, and already reacting
-from their great decision, a jovial party seemed more than they could
-stand.  Signs of it reached them as they came to the last gate, making
-Sarah draw in her lips and Simon scowl.  The sounds seemed intensified
-by the stillness of the day, crossing and jarring the mood of Nature as
-well as that of the approaching guests.  Faces were pressed to panes as
-they rattled up, but nobody came out to give Sarah a hand down, or to
-offer to help Simon with the horse.  They were too common a sight to
-arouse any interest or even courtesy in that house.
-
-She climbed down gropingly, and he led the horse away, leaving her
-standing, waiting, in the empty yard.  She stood with her back turned to
-the kitchen window, conscious, though she could not see them, of the
-eyes that were raking her shabby figure through the glass.  The sounds
-of merriment burst out afresh, and she winced a little, though she did
-not move.  They were laughing at her, she felt sure, but there was
-nothing new to that.  They often laughed, she knew, since she had ceased
-to be able to stop them with a glance.  She shivered, standing there,
-and her bones ached with the damp, but she was in no hurry to enter the
-warm, crowded room.  It was better to shiver in the coldest spaces of
-earth than to be shut into Heaven itself with Eliza and her tongue.
-
-The green house-door with its brass knocker was close at her left hand,
-but she did not attempt to open it and go in.  That was a privilege only
-accorded to the rich and proud, not to a poor relation come to beg.
-Nevertheless, it was one of her hidden dreams that someday she would
-enter by that grand front-door. In the Great Dream Geordie came home
-with a fortune in his hands, so that all doors, even the Door of
-Blindbeck, instantly stood wide.  They would drive up to it in a smart
-cart behind a fast young horse, with Geordie, a pattern of fashion,
-holding the reins.  His mother would be beside him, of course, in
-crackling silk, with a velvet mantle and a bonnet of plumes and jet.
-Simon, the lesser glory, would have to sit behind, but even Simon would
-be a sight for Blindbeck eyes.  When the Dream came true, the house
-could be as full of pryers as it chose, with crushed noses and faces
-green with envy set like bottle-ends in every pane.  The farm-men would
-come to the doors and gape, and even the dogs would stop to sniff at so
-much that was new.  Geordie would jump down, reins in hand, and bang the
-brass knocker until it shook the house, while Sarah, secure in the
-presence of her golden lad, would sit aloft and aloof like any other
-silken queen.  Soon they would hear Eliza's step along the sacred,
-oil-clothed passage; and she, when she opened the door, would see their
-glory framed beyond. Sarah would throw her a graceful word, asking leave
-to step inside, and climb down with a rustle of silk on the arms of her
-husband and son.  She would set her feet on the snowy steps and never as
-much as trouble to look for a mat. With a smile she would offer her
-hostess a kindly, kid-gloved hand.  In the whole armour of the
-successful mother she would bear down upon her foe....
-
-It was one of those things that seem as if they might happen so easily,
-and never do,--never do.  Simon returned presently, accompanied by Will,
-and they entered the house as usual through the old stone porch.  No dog
-even looked aside at them as they crossed to the kitchen door.  No
-portent of coming wonder shed a sudden sunlight on the day.  The old
-trap was tipped on its shafts behind a sheltering wall.  The old horse,
-himself mere waiting food for the nearest hounds, munched his way
-happily through his feed of Blindbeck corn.
-
-Will talked shyly as he led the way, trying to brighten the melancholy
-pair.
-
-"You must have a sup o' tea before we get to business," he said to his
-brother, "and Sarah can rest herself while we have our crack. We're over
-soon wi' tea to-day, but I reckon you won't mind that.  You'll be tired
-likely, and it's none so warm.  I'll be bound Simon'll have a thirst on
-him anyway!" he smiled to Sarah.  "He's done a deal o' tattling, Simon
-has, to-day!"
-
-He could not get any response from them, however; indeed, they scarcely
-seemed to hear. The fear of Eliza was upon them, that was always so
-strong until they were actually in her presence, the same fear that had
-sent them scuttling like scared rabbits out of the Witham inn. Sarah was
-struggling with the usual jealous ache as they entered the spacious,
-cleanly place, with the kindly smell of new-baked bread filling the
-whole house.  She knew as well as the mistress where the kitchen things
-were kept, the special glories such as the bread-maker, the
-fruit-bottler, and the aluminium pans.  The Blindbeck motto had always
-been that nothing beats the best.  Half her own tools at home were
-either broken or gone, and there was only a blind woman to make shift
-with the rest as well as she could.  Little need, indeed, for a great
-array, with the little they had to cook; and little heart in either
-cooking or eating since Geordie had gone away....
-
-Will opened the door of the main kitchen, and at once the warmth and
-jollity sweeping out of it smote the shrinking visitors like an actual
-blast.  The party were already at table, as he had said, and met the
-late-comers with a single, focussed stare.  It was one of their chief
-bitternesses, indeed, that they always seemed to arrive late.  Eliza was
-at the back of it, they felt almost sure, but they had never been able
-to discover how.  No matter how they hurried the old horse, asked the
-hour of passers-by, or had Simon's old watch put as right as it would
-allow, they never seemed to arrive at the right time.  They could not be
-certain, of course, that she had watched for them from upstairs, and at
-the first sign of their coming had hustled the party into tea, but
-somehow or other they knew it in their bones.  Things happened like
-that, they would have told you, when you were up against Mrs. Will;
-things that never by any chance would have happened with anybody else.
-
-The room was cloudy to Sarah as she went in, but jealousy had long ago
-printed its details on her mind.  She knew what the vivid wall-paper was
-like, the modern furniture and the slow-combustion grate.  Once it had
-been a beautiful old houseplace with a great fire-spot and a crane, an
-ingle-nook, a bacon-loft, and a chimney down which both sun and moon
-could slant a way.  Eliza, however, had soon seen to it that these
-absurdities were changed, and Sarah, though she affected contempt,
-approved of the changes in her heart.  It was true that she always
-returned to Sandholes with a great relief, but she did not know that its
-bare austerity soothed her finer taste.  She only knew that her mind
-expanded and her nerves eased, and, though grief went with her over
-every flag and board, a cool hand reached to her forehead as she went
-in.
-
-Simon included in one surly glance the faces round the loaded table, the
-bright flowers, the china with the gilded rim, and the new
-window-curtains which he would never even have seen in any house but
-this.  "Plush, by the look on 'em, and the price of a five pun note!" he
-thought resentfully, as he stood waiting to be given a place, and
-wondering which of the people present he disliked the most.  There were
-the two Swainson lasses from the nearest farm, with their young duke of
-a brother, who was in a Witham bank.  There was a Lancashire youth whom
-Will had taken as pupil, and Stephen Addison and his missis, who were
-both of them preaching-mad.  He held forth at chapel and she at
-Institute meetings and the like, and folk said they kept each other
-awake at nights, practising which of them could do it best.  There was
-Sam Battersby of Kitty Fold, who never knew where his own heaf ended and
-other people's began, and the familiar smug cousin, long since formally
-pledged to Eliza's eldest lass.  There was a grandchild or two, and of
-course the Blindbeck brood, with the exception of a couple of married
-daughters and the obliterated Jim....  It was small wonder, indeed,
-that, after all those years, nobody missed him in that upcoming crowd.
-
-Eliza's hearty voice, that was never hearty at core, rose like a
-strong-winged, evil bird at the unwanted guests.  The sight of them
-seemed to surprise her so much that she dropped a gold-rimmed cup.
-
-"Surely to goodness, Simon and Sarah, yon's never you!  I'd give you up
-an hour back or more, I had indeed.  You've been a terble while on
-t'road, surely,--a terble while after us? But there,--I always forget
-how fast yon grand little mare of ours gets over t'ground!  You'd need
-to start sooner than most folk wi' your poor old crock."
-
-She broke off to throw a remonstrance at Will, who was bundling two of
-his daughters out of their seats to make room for their uncle and aunt.
-
-"Nay, now, Will," she called vexedly down the table.  "What d'ye think
-you're at?  Leave t'lasses alone, can't you?  Let the poor things be!
-If it's a chair you're wanting, there's one here by me as'll suit Sarah
-just grand.  Sarah can't abide a chair wi' a cane bottom,--says it rubs
-her gown.  It's right enough, too, I'm sure, wi' velvet and the
-like,--(I made a bonny mess o' yon grand gown I had when Annie Belle was
-wed),--but I can't see as it'll do any harm to a bit o' poorish serge.
-Anyway, Sarah can have the best plush to set on, if she sets here, and,
-as for Simon, you're for ever sticking him where I can't so much as see
-the end of his nose!  You're never thinking I'm still sweet on him,
-surely," she added, laughing, "or that happen he'll be making sheep's
-eyes at me, as he used to do?"
-
-She looked at the young folk, and chuckled and winked, and they nudged
-each other and laughed, too.  But Sarah did not laugh as she waited
-behind the chairs, or Simon, red to the ears, and recalling the
-machinations of Eliza's youth.  He pushed one of his nieces roughly out
-of his way and took her place, while Sarah went slowly to seat herself
-on the red plush chair that was warranted not to hurt her poor patched
-gown.
-
-"I hope there's summat for you, I'm sure!" Eliza went on, when the
-giggling and whispering had died down, and Simon's thin cheeks had lost
-their furious red.  She cast an anxious glance down the well-filled
-table, but her tone was complacency itself.  "Folks as come late can't
-expect to find everything just so.... Ay, I give you up a long while
-back.  Sally here'll tell you I give you up.  'Sally,' I says to her,
-'likely yon old horse'll be put to it to do the extra bit, and so
-they've happen thought better on't, and gone straight home.  You're that
-used to good horses, Sally,' I says, 'you don't rightly know how poor
-folks has to shift. Not but what they'll get a deal better tea here than
-they will at home, Sally,' I says, 'and though I says it as shouldn't,
-that's the truth! Ay, they'll come to tea, I'll be bound, Sally,' I
-says, but I changed my mind when I thought on the old horse."
-
-Sarah said nothing in reply to this, partly because her brain was
-swimming with the heat of the room, but chiefly because she never did
-say anything until Eliza was well ahead in the race for speech.  This
-particular method helped her to reserve her strength, but at the same
-time it deepened the bitterness in her heart.  It would have been better
-for both of them if they could have got the inevitable tussle over at
-the start; exhaustion on both sides might have brought at least a
-pretence at amity in its train. But it had always been Sarah's instinct
-to hold herself back, and time had turned the instinct into a fixed
-need.  For the moment, at least, her strength was certainly to sit
-still.
-
-"I doubt there's no tea for you just this minute, Sarah," Eliza said,
-affecting great concern as she lifted the tea-pot lid.  "Sally, my lass,
-you'd best see about mashing another pot. There'll be a deal o' folk
-sending up for more in a brace o' shakes, and we can't have them saying
-they're not as well-tret at Blindbeck as they're used.  Not as anybody's
-ever said it yet as I've heard tell, though you never know what folks'll
-do for spite.  Most on 'em get through their three cups afore they're
-done, and me like as not just barely through my first. Eh, but I used to
-be terble bothered, just at the start, keeping folks filled and their
-mugs as they rightly should!  You bairns wasn't up then, of course, but
-we'd farm-lads in the house, and wi' a rare twist to 'em an' all!  Yon's
-a thing you've never been bothered with, Sarah, wi' such a small spot
-and lile or nowt in the way o' work. You'd nobbut a couple o' hands at
-any time, had you, and not them when you'd Geordie-an'-Jim? You've a
-deal to be thankful for, I'm sure, you have that!  You've always been
-able to set down comfortable to your meat, instead o' fretting yourself
-to skin and bone seeing as other folk had their wants."
-
-Here Mrs. Addison offered to pass her cup, and then thought better of
-it, remembering the new brew.  Eliza, however, urged it forward.
-Apparently she had discovered concealed virtue under the tea-pot lid.
-
-"Nay, now, Mrs. Addison, there's a sup in the pot yet!  You've no call
-to look shy about it,--I wasn't talking at you! ... Pass Mrs. Addison
-the cream, Mary Phyllis, and waken up and look sharp about it!
-Blindbeck tea's none the worse, I reckon, for a drop o' Blindbeck
-cream...."  She returned the cup, smiling benignly, and then pretended
-to have lost Sarah and suddenly found her again.  "Losh, Mrs. Simon,
-you're that whyet I'd clean forgot you were there!  You'll not want to
-be waiting on Sally and the fresh brew.  I'll wet leaves again for you
-just to be going on with!"
-
-So Sarah got the bottom of the pot after a little more talk, a hunt for
-a clean cup and an address on the value of the spoons.  Half a
-cup--consisting chiefly of tea-leaves--was passed to Simon, but was
-intercepted on its way by Will.  Simon did not notice the manoeuvre,
-being busy glowering at a niece's shoulder turned sulkily on him from
-the left; but Eliza saw it from her end of the table and turned an angry
-red.  She never forgot Simon's indifference to her as a girl, and would
-have made him pay for the insult if she could.  She could not always
-reach him, however, because of the family tie which nothing seemed able
-to break. But Sarah, at least, it was always consoling to think, could
-be made to pay.  There were times when all her reserve could not hide
-from a gleeful Eliza that she paid....
-
-So Simon got the new brew without even knowing that it was new, while
-Sarah drank the unpleasant concoction that was weak at the top and
-bitter as sea-water at the bottom. Sally came in with another great
-brown pot, and sat down languidly at her aunt's side.  She and the smug
-cousin had been engaged for years, but there seemed little prospect of
-the wedding taking place.  She had been a handsome girl, and was good to
-look at still, but there were handsomer Thornthwaites growing and grown
-up, as apparently the cousin was quick enough to perceive.  To-day he
-had found a seat for himself beside Mary Phyllis, who kept glancing
-across at her sister with defiant pride.  Sally had a cheap town-look
-nowadays, the cousin thought, not knowing that she had assumed it long
-ago to please himself.  Now that he was more mature, he preferred the
-purer country type of Mary Phyllis, as well as the fresher atmosphere of
-her youth. Sally talked to young Swainson, and pretended not to care,
-but she was too unhappy to bother about her aunt.  The Simon
-Thornthwaites were boring at any time, like most permanently unlucky
-people, and to-day she was too worried even to try to be kind.  So
-Sarah, after whom she was called, and who was her godmother to boot, got
-very little to eat and only the dregs of things to drink; and nobody at
-all rose up to deliver her from Eliza.
-
-Mrs. Addison had opened her mouth very impressively more than once, but
-it was only now that she got a chance to speak.  In spite of their
-boasted fluency, both she and her husband had always to yield the palm
-to Mrs. Will.  Mrs. Addison, however, always watched her chance, while
-Stephen was simply flabby, and did not try.  She and Eliza in the same
-room were like firmly opposing currents, flowing strongly in the same
-stream.
-
-"Mr. Addison's to preach at this mission they're having, next week," she
-announced proudly.  "There's to be a Service for men only, and our
-Stephen's to give 'em a talk.  I won't say but what he'll do as well as
-a real minister, even though I do happen to be his wife.  Likely you'll
-think on about it, and send some of your lads along, Mrs. Will?"
-
-Eliza was quite unable to conceal her disgust at a distinction achieved
-by somebody not her own.
-
-"I'll do my best, I'm sure," she assented casually and without looking
-at her, "though I doubt they'll want coaxing a bit wi' a broom-handle or
-a clout!"  She disliked being called Mrs. Will, and knew that Mrs.
-Addison did it with fell intent.  It was galling to be reminded that, in
-spite of his success, Will had still not managed to make himself into
-the elder son....  "I can't say they're that set on either church or
-chapel unless it's to see a lass," she went on, busy with the cups, "and
-I doubt they don't reckon much o' sermons unless they're good.  They've
-been better eddicated than most folk, you'll think on, so they're hard
-to suit.  'Tisn't likely they could do wi' second-hand preaching from
-some as happen never went to school at all."
-
-Mr. A'ddison made a sudden attempt to speak, but choked instead, while
-Eliza looked as innocent as a large-sized lamb.
-
-"Ay, I've heard a deal o' sermons as was just waste breath," she went on
-kindly, "and that's the truth.  All the same, I'll likely look in at
-Mission myself, one o' these days, if I can get away.  I'm always glad
-to set still after a hard week, and to get a look at other folks'
-jackets and hats.  Not that there's much to crack on at chapel, that
-way....  I'm a deal fonder o' church.  I was wed at St. Michael's,
-you'll think on,--ay, and Sarah an' all.  Eh, I could laugh even yet at
-yon march we stole on her, me an' Will!"
-
-Sally moved impatiently at her aunt's elbow, and muttered something
-under her breath.  She was tired of the old story, and disapproved of it
-as well.  Sarah had lifted her cup to her lips, but now she set it
-down....
-
-Mary Phyllis stopped giggling a moment, and leaned forward to speak.
-
-"I was telling Cousin Elliman about it only this morning," she said
-noisily, "and he says it's the funniest thing he ever heard!  I thought
-everybody knew about it, but he says he didn't. He said it was real
-smart of you, Mother, and he wished he could have been there...."
-
-"I'll be bound Sarah didn't think it smart!" Eliza chuckled, but without
-glancing at her victim's face.  She had a trick of discussing people
-when they were present, as Sarah knew. She could tell by the trend of
-Eliza's voice that she spoke without turning her head.
-
-"Smart?  Nay!  Sarah was real wild, you take my word!  I spoke to her in
-t'vestry when the show was through, and she give me a look as was more
-like a dog's bite.  Eh, well, I reckon poor Sarah was jealous o' my
-gown, seeing her own was nowt to crack on,--and nowt then! I'd always
-settled to be real smart when I got wed, and my own lasses was just the
-same. None o' my folk can do wi' owt as isn't first-class and happen a
-bit over.  Yon's the photo we had took at Annie Belle's wedding," she
-added, turning to point, "and there's another of Alice Evelyn's in the
-parlour."
-
-The cousin and Mary Phyllis left their seats to giggle together over the
-stiff figures, and presently the girl turned to her sister with a
-malicious taunt.
-
-"I say, our Sally, you'd best look out when you _do_ get wed, or happen
-I'll play a trick on you, same as mother did Aunt Sarah!  You'll be
-rarely riled if I come marching up the aisle with a fine young man,
-taking all the shine out of you and Elliman!"
-
-The cousin said something in a low tone which made her flush and laugh,
-and Sally guessed at it quickly enough, though it did not reach her
-ears.  The tears came into her eyes, and on an impulse of fellow-feeling
-she turned towards her aunt.  She was asking after May Fleming when her
-mother broke across her talk.
-
-"Eh, now, Sarah, yon was never May, was it, along wi' you in Witham?
-I'll be bound I'd never have known her if she hadn't been with you, but
-there's not that many you're seen about with nowadays at market.
-'Tisn't like me, as can't stir a step without somebody wanting a crack
-or hanging on to my gown. But May's changed out of all knowledge,--I was
-fair bothered to see her look so old!  I'll swear our Annie Belle looks
-as young again, for all she's been wed a dozen year at least.  Ay, I
-thought May terble old, and terble unmannerly as well.  I'd be shammed
-to think as any lass o' mine had suchlike ways.  You weren't
-over-pleasant spoken yourself, Sarah, if it comes to that.  The folk in
-the caif were laughing a deal after you'd gone out, and saying you must
-be wrong in the garrets to act so queer."
-
-Sarah had regained her spirit a little, in spite of her poor tea.  She
-straightened herself on the plush chair and answered calmly.
-
-"They can say what suits 'em and welcome, as long as they let me be.
-You know what put me about, Eliza, and nobody to thank for it but
-yourself.  As for folks laughing and making game o' me and suchlike, it
-was you they was sniggering at plain enough when I come out."
-
-Eliza's colour rose, but she struggled to keep her virtuous air.  She
-looked at Sarah with a sorrowful eye.
-
-"I wouldn't get telling lies about it, Sarah," she observed kindly, "I
-wouldn't indeed! Mrs. Addison's listening, think on, and she'll be
-rarely shocked at suchlike ways.  Caif-folk were shocked more than a
-deal, an' me just having a friendly talk an' all!"
-
-"It's a queer sort o' friendliness as puts folk to open shame!"  Sarah's
-colour was flying a flag, too.  "It's nobbut a queer sort o' friend as
-goes shouting your private business at the end of a bell!"
-
-"There isn't a deal that's private, surely, about the mess o' things
-you've made on the marsh?..."  The fight was really begun now, and Eliza
-turned in her seat, fixing her adversary with merciless eyes.  Sarah
-could see very little but a monstrous blur, but she felt her malignant
-atmosphere in every nerve.  She could hear the big, solid presence
-creaking with malice as it breathed, and had an impression of strained
-whalebone and stretching cloth.  But it was always Eliza's most
-cherished garments that she visioned when they fought,--the velvet gown
-that was folded away upstairs ... gloves, furs, and a feathered hat;
-furthest of all, the wedding-gown and the flaunting veil....
-
-"Private!"  Eliza repeated the sneered word as if it were something too
-precious to let go. "There can't be that much private about things as
-we've all on us known for years.  What, folks has puzzled no end why
-you've never ended in t'bankruptcy court long since!  Will and me could
-likely ha' tellt them about it, though, couldn't we, Sarah?  Will an' me
-could easy ha' tellt 'em why!  Will and me could ha' tellt where brass
-come from as was keeping you on t'rails----"
-
-Will had been lending a careful ear to Simon's surly talk, but he lifted
-his head at the sound of his name.
-
-"Now, missis, just you let Mrs. Simon be!" he admonished, with a
-troubled frown.  "You're over fond of other folks' business by a deal."
-
-"I'll let her be and welcome, if she'll keep a civil tongue in her
-head!" Eliza cried.  She went redder than ever, and slapped a tea-spoon
-angrily on the cloth.  "But if our brass isn't our business, I'd like to
-know what is, and as for this stir about quitting Sandholes, it's
-nothing fresh, I'm sure!  We all on us know it's a marvel landlord
-didn't get shot on 'em long ago."
-
-The last remark galvanised Battersby into lively speech.  Hitherto he
-had been busily concentrated on his food, but now his mean little
-features sharpened and his mean little eyes shone.  He bent eagerly
-forward, leaning on the cloth, knife and fork erect like stakes in a
-snatched plot.
-
-"What's yon about quitting Sandholes?" he asked, in a thin voice.  "Are
-you thinking o' leaving, Simon?  Is it true?"
-
-"I don't see as it's any affair o' yours if it is," Simon answered him,
-with a sulky stare.
-
-"Nay, it was nobbut a friendly question between man and man.  If you're
-quitting the farm it would only be neighbourly just to give me a hint.
-There's a lad o' mine talking o' getting wed, and I thought as how
-Sandholes'd likely be going cheap.  Has anybody put in for it yet wi'
-t'agent, do ye think?"
-
-"Nay, nor like to do, yet awhile," Simon answered glumly, full of sullen
-hurt.  All his love for his tiresome dwelling-place rose to the surface
-at this greed.  "I don't mind telling you, Mr. Battersby, as you ax so
-kind, that I give in my notice but it wasn't took.  Mr. Dent would have
-it I mun think it over a bit more. Your lad'll just have to bide or look
-out for somebody else's shoes."
-
-This dreadful exhibition of meanness aggrieved Battersby almost to the
-verge of tears.
-
-"Well, now, if yon isn't dog-in-the-manger and nowt else!" he appealed
-to the company at large.  "What, you're late wi' your notice already,
-and yet you're for sitting tight to the farm like a hen on a pot egg!  I
-shouldn't ha' thought it of you, Simon, I shouldn't indeed. Here's a
-farmer wanting to quit and my lad wanting a farm, and yet the moment I
-ax a decent question I get sneck-posset geyly sharp. You're jealous,
-that's what it is, Simon; you're acting jealous-mean.  You've nobbut
-made a terble poor job o' things yourself, and you want to keep others
-from getting on an' all!"
-
-Simon gave vent to an ironic laugh.
-
-"Nay, now, Sam, never fret yourself!" he jeered.  "You and your lad'll
-get on right enough, I'll be bound, what wi' your heaf-snatching and
-your sheep-grabbing and the rest o' your bonny ways!  What, man, one o'
-your breed'd be fair lost on a marsh farm, wi' nowt to lay hands on
-barrin' other folks' turmuts, and never a lile chance of an overlap!"
-
-Battersby's reputation was well known, and an irrepressible laugh
-greeted Simon's speech, but was instantly cut short by the terrible
-spectacle of the victim's face.  Only the smug cousin went on laughing,
-because he was ignorant as well as smug, and did not know what a heaf
-meant, let alone how it was possible to add to it by Sam's skilful if
-unlawful ways. Battersby jumped to his feet and thumped the table, so
-that the blue and gold china danced like dervishes from end to end.
-Mrs. Addison's tea made a waterfall down her second-best bodice, and
-Sarah's heart, not being prepared for the thump, leaped violently into
-her mouth.
-
-"I'll not be insulted in your spot nor nobody else's," he stormed at
-Will; "nay, and I'll not take telling from yon wastrel you call brother,
-neither!  All on us know what a bonny mess o' things he's made at
-Sandholes.  All on us know it'll be right fain to see his back....  As
-for you, you gomeless half-thick," he added, swinging round so suddenly
-on the smug cousin that he was left gaping, "you can just shut yon
-calf's head o' yours and mighty sharp or I'll shut it for you!  Them as
-knows nowt'd do best to say nowt, and look as lile like gawping
-jackasses as Nature'll let 'em!" ... He sent a final glare round the
-stifled table, and let Eliza have the sting in his tail.  "I'd been
-looking to be real friendly wi' Blindbeck," he finished nastily, "and my
-lad an' all, but I don't know as we'll either on us be fain for it after
-this.  Nay, I wain't set down agen, missis, and that's flat, so you
-needn't ax me!  I'm off home and glad to be going, and no thanks to none
-o' you for nowt!"
-
-He glanced at his plate to make certain there was nothing left, snatched
-at his cup and hastily swallowed the dregs; then, thrusting his chair
-backward so violently that it fell to the floor, he clapped his hat on
-his head and marched rudely out.  Eliza, catching a glance from a
-tearful daughter, got to her feet, too.  They swam from the room in a
-torrent of loud apologies and bitter, snarled replies.
-
-Will leaned back in his chair with a fretted expression on his gentle
-face.  The cousin, slowly turning from red to mottled mauve, observed to
-Mary Phyllis that the old man's language was 'really remarkably like my
-chief's!'  Some of the younger end started to giggle afresh, but Sarah
-was still trembling from the unexpected shock, and Simon felt gloomy
-again after his public effort.  He could see that he had upset Will, and
-that was the last thing he wanted to do, to-day.  Will did not like
-Battersby, but he liked peace, and there were other reasons for friendly
-relations at present.  Will's youngest daughter had a direct interest in
-Battersby's lad and his hopes of a farm, and now the father had shaken
-the Blindbeck dust from his proud feet.  She looked across at the cause
-of the trouble with tear-filled, indignant eyes.
-
-"Seems to me things is always wrong when you come to Blindbeck, Uncle
-Simon!" she exclaimed hotly.  "Nobody wants your old farm, I'm sure!  I
-wouldn't have it at a gift! But you might have spoken him fair about it,
-all the same.  I never see such folks as you and Aunt Sarah for setting
-other folk by the ears!"
-
-Will said "Whisht, lass, whisht!" in as cross a tone as he ever used to
-his girls, and Simon glowered at her sulkily, but he did not speak.  She
-was a fair, pretty thing, with Geordie-an'-Jim's eyes, and he did not
-wish to injure her happiness in any way.  It was true enough, as she
-said, that there was generally something in the shape of a row as soon
-as he and Sarah set foot in the house, but he could not tell for the
-life of him how it came about. It could not be altogether their fault,
-he thought resentfully, yet with a sort of despair.  To-day, for
-instance, he had every reason for keeping the peace, and yet that fool
-of a Battersby must come jumping down his throat!  Nobody could be
-expected to stand such manners and such nasty greed,--grabbing a man's
-homestead before his notice was well in!  There was nothing surprising,
-of course, in the fact that the women had already come to blows.  He had
-expected it from the start, and, with the resignation of custom, thought
-it as well over soon as late.  They had had one scrap, as it was, from
-what Sarah had said, and the dregs of that pot of passion would still be
-hot enough to stir.
-
-"It's a shame, that's what it is!" the girl was saying, over and over
-again.  Tears dropped from the Geordie-an'-Jim eyes, and Simon felt
-furious with everybody, but particularly with himself.
-
-"You needn't bother yourself," he growled across at last, making a rough
-attempt to put the trouble right.  "Young Battersby's over much sense to
-go taking a spot like ourn, and as for his dad, he'll be back afore you
-can speak.  'Tisn't Sam Battersby, I'll be bound, if he isn't as pleased
-as punch to be running in double harness wi' Blindbeck and its brass!"
-
-"Ay, like other folk!" Eliza dropped on him from the clouds, reappearing
-panting from her chase.  "Like other folk a deal nearer home, Simon
-Thornthet, as you don't need telling! Battersby wanted nowt wi' the
-farm,--he tellt me so outside.  'Tisn't good enough for the likes of
-him, nor for our Emily Marion, neither! He was that stamping mad he was
-for breaking it all off, but I got him promised to look in again next
-week.  I'd a deal o' work wi' him, all the same," she added, flushing
-angrily at her brother-in-law's ironic smile, "and no thanks to you,
-neither, if I come out top, after all! Anyway, I'll thank you to speak
-folk civilly at my table, if you can, whatever-like hired man's ways you
-keep for your own!"
-
-She would have hectored him longer if Will had not got to his feet and
-taken himself and his brother out of the room, so instead she went back
-to her seat and drank a large cup of tea in angry gulps.  Between
-drinks, however, she managed to say to the wife the things she had
-wanted to say to the man, though Sarah was silent and paid little or no
-heed.  She wished she could have gone outside with the men, and helped
-to decide what her future was to be. But it was not for her to advise,
-who would soon be no better than a helpless log.  It was her part to
-wait patiently until Simon fetched her away.
-
-But it was not easy to wait at all in that atmosphere of critical
-dislike.  The successive passages of arms had had their natural effect,
-and the party which had been so merry at the start was now in a state of
-boredom and constraint.  The thoughts of most of those present were
-unfriendly towards the folk of the marsh, and Sarah could feel the
-thoughts winding about her in the air.  Emily Marion was right, so they
-were saying in their minds; trouble always followed the Thornthwaites
-the moment they appeared.  Storms arose out of nowhere and destroyed
-some festive occasion with a rush.  Even to look at them, dowdy and
-disapproving, was to take the heart out of any happy day.  It was
-certainly hard on the poor Will Thornthwaites that the tiresome Simons
-should dare to exist.
-
-Sarah, bringing her mind back from the absent brothers with an effort,
-found the Method working again at top speed.  The tea had soothed
-Eliza's nerves and stimulated her brain.  She was now at her very best
-for behaving her very worst.
-
-"And so Mr. Addison's preaching next week, is he?" she reverted
-suddenly, making even that supreme egotist blink and start.  Her Voice,
-furred and soft, reminded Sarah of a paw reaching out for someone to
-scratch.  "Eh, now, but I should be in a rare twitter if it was Will as
-was setting up to preach!  But there, we're none of us much of a hand at
-talking at our spot, and Will's summat better to do than just wagging a
-loose tongue.  I'll see the lads come along, though, as it's you, Mrs.
-Addison, and an old friend, unless there's summat useful they're happen
-wanted for at home.  Eh, Sarah, but wouldn't they talks to young men ha'
-done a sight o' good to Geordie-an'-Jim?  It's a sad pity you didn't
-start preaching before they went, Mr. Addison,--it is that!  Like
-enough, if you had, they'd be at Sandholes yet."
-
-The preacher's brow had been thunderous during the early part of this
-speech, but now he looked suddenly coy.  Sally, dropping her glance to
-her aunt's lap, saw her fingers clench and unclench on a fold of her own
-black gown.
-
-"Any news of the prodigals?" Elliman Wilkinson suddenly enquired.  He
-looked at Eliza as he spoke, and smiled as at a well-known joke.  "I'm
-always in hopes to find one of them eating the fatted calf."
-
-"Nay, you must ask Sarah, not me!" Eliza answered, with an affected
-laugh.  She despised Elliman in her heart, but she was grateful for the
-cue.  "Sarah knows what they're at, if there's anybody does at all.
-Like enough they'll turn up one o' these days, but I don't know as we'll
-run to calves.  They'll be terble rough in their ways, I doubt, after
-all this time.  Out at elbows an' all, as like as not, and wi' happen a
-toe or two keeking through their boots!"
-
-There was a ripple of laughter at this show of wit, and then Elliman,
-urged by a nudge and a whisper from Mary Phyllis, repeated the question
-in the proper quarter.  He raised his voice when he spoke to Sarah, as
-if she were deaf as well as blind, and when she paused a moment before
-replying, he apostrophised her again. The whole table had pricked its
-ears and was listening by the time the answer came.
-
-Sarah felt the giggles and the impertinent voice striking like arrows
-through the misty ring in which she sat.  Sharpest of all was Eliza's
-laugh, introducing the question and afterwards punctuating it when it
-was put. She was achingly conscious of the antipathetic audience hanging
-on her lips.  They were baiting her, and she knew it, and her heart
-swelled with helpless rage.  A passionate longing seized her to be lord
-of them all for once,--just for once to fling back an answer that would
-slay their smiles, put respect into their mocking voices and change
-their sneers into awed surprise.  If only for once the Dream and the
-glory might be true,--the trap and the new clothes and Geordie and the
-green front door!  But nothing could be further from what they expected,
-as she knew too well.  They were waiting merely to hear her say what she
-had often said before,--for news that there was no news or news that was
-worse than none.  She had faced more than one trial that day, and had
-come out of them with her self-respect intact, but this unexpected
-humiliation was more than she could bear.  She was telling herself in
-the pause that she would not answer at all, when something that she took
-for the total revolt of pride spoke to the mockers through her lips.
-
-"Ay, but there's rare good news!" she heard herself saying in a cheerful
-tone, and instantly felt her courage spring up and her heart lighten as
-the lie took shape.  "I'd been saving it up, Eliza, for when we were by
-ourselves, but there's no sense, I reckon, in not saying it straight
-out.  Geordie's on his way home to England at this very minute, and he
-says he's a rare good lining to his jacket an' all!"
-
-The air changed about her at once as she had always dreamed it would,
-and she heard the gasp of surprise pass from one to another like a
-quick-thrown ball.  Eliza started so violently that she upset her cup
-and let it lie.  She stared malevolently at the other's face, her own
-set suddenly into heavy lines.
-
-"Nay, but that's news and no mistake!" she exclaimed, striving after her
-former tone, but without success.  The note in her voice was clear to
-her blind hearer, sending triumphant shivers through her nerves....
-"Tell us again, will you, Sarah?" she added sharply.  "I doubt I heard
-you wrong."
-
-"I'll tell you and welcome till the cows come home!" Sarah said, with a
-sudden sprightliness that made the Wilkinson cousin open his eyes. It
-was almost as if another person had suddenly taken possession of Sarah's
-place.  There was a vitality about her that seemed to change her in
-every feature, an easy dignity that transformed the shabbiest detail of
-her dress.  Her voice, especially, had changed,--that grudging, dully
-defiant voice.  This was the warm, human voice of one who rejoiced in
-secret knowledge, and possessed her soul in perfect security and
-content.
-
-"He's coming, I tell you,--our Geordie's coming back!"  The wonderful
-words seemed to fill her with strong courage every time she spoke.  "I
-can't rightly tell you when it'll be, but he said we could look for him
-any minute now.  Likely we'll find him waiting at Sandholes when we've
-gitten home.  He's done well an' all, from what he says....  I'll be
-bound he's a rich man.  He talks o' buying Sandholes, happen,--or happen
-a bigger spot.  I make no doubt he's as much brass as'd buy Blindbeck
-out an' out!"
-
-She fell silent again after this comprehensive statement, merely
-returning brief ayes and noes to the questions showered upon her from
-every side.  Her air of smiling dignity, however, remained intact, and
-even her blind eyes, moving from one to another eager face, impressed
-her audience with a sense of truth.  And then above the excited chatter
-there rose Eliza's voice, with the mother-note sounding faintly through
-the jealous greed.
-
-"Yon's all very fine and large, Sarah, but what about my Jim?  Jim's
-made his pile an' all, I reckon, if Geordie's struck it rich.  He's as
-smart as Geordie, is our Jim, any day o' the week!  Hark ye, Sarah!
-What about my Jim?"
-
-Quite suddenly Sarah began to tremble, exactly as if the other had
-struck her a sharp blow.  She shrank instantly in her chair, losing at
-once her dignity and ease.  The fine wine of vitality ran out of her as
-out of a crushed grape, leaving only an empty skin for any malignant
-foot to stamp into the earth.  She tried to speak, but could find no
-voice brave enough to meet the fierce rain of Eliza's words.  A mist
-other than that of blindness came over her eyes, and with a lost
-movement she put out a groping, shaking hand.  Sally, in a sudden access
-of pity, gathered it in her own.
-
-She slid her arm round her aunt, and drew her, tottering and trembling,
-to her feet.
-
-"It's overmuch for her, that's what it is," she said kindly, but taking
-care to avoid her mother's angry glance.  "It's knocked her over, coming
-that sudden, and no wonder, either.  Come along, Aunt Sarah, and sit
-down for a few minutes in the parlour.  You'll be as right as a bobbin
-after you've had a rest."
-
-She led her to the door, a lithe, upright figure supporting trembling
-age, and Elliman's eyes followed her, so that for once he was heedless
-of Mary Phyllis when she spoke.  Most of the company, indeed, had fallen
-into a waiting silence, as if they knew that the act was not yet
-finished, and that the cue for the curtain still remained to be said.
-And the instinct that held them breathless was perfectly sound, for in
-the square of the door Sarah halted herself and turned.  Her worn hands
-gripped her gown on either side, and if May had been there to see her,
-she would again have had her impression of shrouded flame.  She paused
-for a moment just to be sure of her breath, and then her voice went
-straight with her blind glance to the point where Eliza sat.
-
-"Jim's dead, I reckon!" she said, clearly and cruelly... "ay, I doubt
-he's dead. Geordie'd never be coming without him if he was over sod.
-You'd best make up your mind, Eliza, as he's dead and gone!"
-
-It was the voice of an oracle marking an open grave, of Cassandra,
-crying her knowledge in Troy streets.  It held them all spellbound until
-she had gone out.  Even Eliza was silent for once on her red plush
-chair....
-
-
-
-
-                                   IV
-
-
-Each of the brothers Thornthwaite drew a breath of relief as soon as he
-got outside. They were at ease together at once as soon as they were
-alone.  The contrast in their positions, so obvious to the world, made
-little or no difference to the men themselves.  It would have made less
-still but for the ever-recurring problem of the women-folk, and even
-that they did their best to put away from them as soon as they were out
-of sight.  Each could only plead what he could for the side he was bound
-to support, and pass on hurriedly to a less delicate theme. Alone they
-fell back easily into the relation which had been between them as lads,
-and forgot that the younger was now a man of substance and weight, while
-the elder had made an inordinate muddle of things.  Will had always
-looked up to Simon and taken his word in much, and he still continued to
-take it when Eliza was not present to point to the fact that Simon's
-wonderful knowledge had not worked out in practice.  To-day, as they
-wandered round the shippons, he listened respectfully while his brother
-criticised the herd, quarrelled with the quality of the food-stuffs, and
-snorted contempt at the new American method of tying cattle in the
-stall.  Experience had taught him that Simon was not the first who had
-made a mess of his own affairs while remaining perfectly competent to
-hand out good advice to others.  The well-arranged water-supply was
-Simon's idea, as well as the porcelain troughs which were so easy to
-keep clean, and the milking-machine which saved so much in labour. There
-were other innovations,--some, Eliza's pride,--which were due to Simon,
-if she had only known it.  He was a good judge of a beast as well, and
-had a special faculty for doctoring stock, a gift which had certainly
-not been allowed to run to waste during those bewitched and
-disease-ridden years at Sandholes.  Will was indebted to him for many
-valuable lives, and often said that Simon had saved him considerably
-more than he had ever lent him.  It remained a perpetual mystery why so
-useful a man should have achieved so much for others and so little for
-himself.  The answer could only lie in the curse that was glooming over
-Sandholes,--if there was a curse.  Nature certainly plays strange tricks
-on those who do not exactly suit her book, but in any case the hate at
-the heart of things was enough to poison luck at the very source.
-
-While Sarah sat through her long torment in the kitchen, rising up at
-last for that great blow which at all events felled her adversary for
-the time being, Simon was enjoying himself airing his knowledge in the
-buildings, contradicting his brother on every possible occasion, and
-ending by feeling as if he actually owned the place.  However, the
-reason of his visit came up at length, as it was bound to do, and his
-air of expert authority vanished as the position changed.  One by one,
-as he had already done to Mr. Dent, he laid before his brother his
-difficulties and disappointments, much as a housewife lays out the
-chickens that some weasel has slain in the night.  He wore the same air
-of disgust at such absurd accumulation of disaster, of incredulity at
-this overdone effort on the part of an inartistic fate.  The story was
-not new to Will, any more than to the agent, but he listened to it
-patiently, nevertheless.  He knew from experience that, unless you allow
-a man to recapitulate his woes, you cannot get him to the point from
-which a new effort may be made.  He may seem to be following you along
-the fresh path which you are marking out, but in reality he will be
-looking back at the missed milestones of the past.  And there were so
-many milestones in Simon's case,--so many behind him, and so few to
-come.  After all, it could only be a short road and a bare into which
-even the kindest brotherly love had power to set his feet.
-
-So for the second time that day Simon lived his long chapter of
-accidents over again, his voice, by turns emphatic and indignant or
-monotonous and resigned, falling like slanting rain over the unheeding
-audience of the cattle. Will, listening and nodding and revolving the
-question of ways and means, had yet always a slice of attention for his
-immediate belongings. His eye, casual yet never careless, wandered over
-the warm roan and brown and creamy backs between the clean stone slabs
-which Simon had advocated in place of the ancient wooden stalls.  The
-herd was indoors for the winter, but had not yet lost its summer
-freshness, and he had sufficient cause for pride in the straight-backed,
-clean-horned stuff, with its obvious gentle breeding and beautiful
-feminine lines.  That part of his mind not given to his brother was
-running over a string of names, seeing in every animal a host of others
-whose characteristics had gone to its creation, and building upon them
-the stuff of the generations still to come,--turning over, in fact, that
-store of knowledge of past history and patient prophecy for the future
-which gives the study of breeding at once its dignity and its
-fascination. At the far end of the shippon, where the calf-pens were, he
-could see the soft bundles of calves, with soft eyes and twitching ears,
-in which always the last word in the faith of the stock-breeder was
-being either proved or forsworn. The daylight still dropping through
-skylights and windows seemed to enter through frosted glass, dimmed as
-it was by the warm cloud of breathing as well as the mist that lined the
-sky beyond.  A bird flew in at intervals through the flung-back swinging
-panes, and perched for a bar of song on the big cross-beams supporting
-the pointed roof.  A robin walked pertly but daintily down the central
-aisle, a brave little spot of colour on the concrete grey, pecking as it
-went at the scattered corn under the monster-noses thrust between the
-rails.  Simon leaned against a somnolent white cow, with an arm flung
-lengthways down her back, his other hand fretting the ground with the
-worn remnant of a crooked stick.  Will's dog, a bushy, silvered thing,
-whose every strong grey hair seemed separately alive, curled itself,
-with an eye on the robin, at its master's feet.
-
-He roused himself to greater attention when Simon reached the account of
-his interview with Mr. Dent.  Accustomed as he was to more or less
-traditional behaviour under the traditional circumstances which govern
-such lives as his, he fastened at once on the puzzling attitude of the
-agent.
-
-"It fair beats me what Mr. Dent could think he was at," he observed
-thoughtfully.  "Once you'd settled to quit there was no sense in keeping
-you hanging on.  Best make a job and ha' done wi' it, seems to me.
-'Tisn't like Mr. Dent, neither, to carry on in such a fashion. I wonder
-what made him act so strange?"
-
-Simon wore his original air of injured dignity as he leaned against the
-cow.
-
-"Nay, I don't know, I'm sure, but he was terble queer!  You might ha'
-thought he was badly or summat, but he seemed all right. Come to that,
-he looked as fit as a fiddle and as pleased as a punch!  You might ha'
-thought he'd had a fortune left him, or the King's Crown!"
-
-"Happen it was some private business," Will said, "and nowt to do wi'
-you at all.... What did you think o' doing when you've quit the farm?"
-
-Simon poked the flags harder than ever, and from injured dignity sank to
-sulks.  The sudden pressure of his arm moved the somnolent cow to a
-sharp kick.  When he spoke it was in a surly tone, and with his eyes
-turned away from Will's.
-
-"I'll have to get a job o' some sort, I reckon, to keep us going.  I'm
-over old for most folk, but I could happen do odds and ends,--fetching
-milk and siding up, and a bit o' gardening and suchlike.  The trouble is
-the missis won't be able to do for herself before so long.  The doctor
-tellt her to-day she was going blind."
-
-His brother's face filled at once with sympathy and dismay.  In that
-forbidden compartment of his mind where he sometimes ventured to
-criticise his wife, he saw in a flash how she would take the news.  This
-latest trouble of Sarah's would indeed be the summit of Eliza's triumph.
-Poverty Sarah had withstood; blindness she might have mastered, given
-time; but poverty and blindness combined would deliver her finally into
-the enemy's hand.
-
-"I never thought it would be as bad as that," he murmured pityingly.
-"It's a bad business, is that! ... Didn't doctor say there was anything
-could be done?"
-
-"There was summat about an operation, but it'll get no forrarder," Simon
-said.  "They fancy things is hardly in Sarah's line."
-
-"If it's brass that's wanted, you needn't fash over that...."  He added
-more urgently as Simon shook his head, "It'd be queer if I grudged you
-brass for a thing like yon!"
-
-"You're right kind," Simon said gratefully, "but it isn't no use.  She's
-that proud, is Sarah, she'll never agree.  I doubt she just means to let
-things slide."
-
-"She's no call, I'm sure, to be proud with me!"  Will's voice was almost
-hot.  "I've always been ready any time to stand her friend.  Anyway,
-there's the offer, and she can take it or leave it as best suits her.
-If she changes her mind after a while, she won't find as I've altered
-mine....  But there's no sense in your taking a job and leaving a blind
-woman to fend for herself.  There's nowt for it but Sarah'll have to
-come to us."
-
-Simon laughed when he said that, a grim, mirthless laugh which made the
-dog open his sleepless eyes and throw him a searching glance.
-
-"Nay, nay, Will, my lad!  It's right good of you, but it wouldn't do.  A
-bonny time you'd have, to be sure, wi' the pair on 'em in t'house! And
-anyway your missis'd never hear tell o' such a thing, so that fixes it
-right off."
-
-"It's my own spot, I reckon!"  Will spoke with unusual force.  "I can do
-as suits me, I suppose.  T'lasses hasn't that much to do they can't see
-to a blind body, and as for room and suchlike, there'll be plenty soon.
-Young Battersby's made it up with our Em, and it's more than time yon
-Elliman Wilkinson was thinking o' getting wed.  He's been going with our
-Sally a terble long while, though he and Mary Phyllis seem mighty throng
-just now.  Anyway, there'll be a corner for Sarah right enough,--ay, and
-for you an' all."
-
-But Simon shook his head again, and stood up straight and took his arm
-off the back of the cow.
-
-"There'd be murder, I doubt," he said quite simply, and this time he did
-not laugh.  "There's bad blood between they two women as nobbut death'll
-cure.  Nay, I thank ye right enough, Will, but yon horse won't pull....
-
-"I mun get a job, that's all," he went on quickly, before Will could
-speak again, "and some sort of a spot where t'neighbours'll look to the
-missis while I'm off.  I'll see t'agent agen and try to ram into him as
-I mean to gang, and if you hear of owt going to suit, you'll likely let
-me know?"
-
-Will nodded but did not answer because of approaching steps, and they
-stood silently waiting until the cowman showed at the door. At once the
-deep symphony of the hungry broke from the cattle at sight of their
-servant with his swill.  The quiet picture, almost as still as if
-painted on the wall, upheaved suddenly into a chaos of rocking,
-bellowing beasts. The great heads tugged at their yokes, the great eyes
-pleaded and rolled.  The big organ-notes of complaint and desire chorded
-and jarred, dropping into satisfied silence as the man passed from stall
-to stall.  Will jerked his head after him as he went out at the far
-door, and said that he would be leaving before so long.
-
-"Eh?  Taylor, did ye say?"  Simon stared, for the man had been at
-Blindbeck for years. "What's amiss?"
-
-"Nay, there's nowt wrong between us, if you mean that.  But his wife's
-father's had a stroke, and wants him to take over for him at Drigg.
-News didn't come till I was off this morning, or I might ha' looked
-round for somebody while I was in t'town."
-
-Simon began a fresh violent poking with his ancient stick.  "You'll ha'
-somebody in your eye, likely?" he enquired.  "There'll be plenty glad o'
-the job."
-
-"Oh, ay, but it's nobbut a weary business learning folk your ways."  He
-glanced at his brother a moment, and then looked shyly away. "If you're
-really after a shop, Simon, what's wrong wi' it for yourself?"
-
-The painful colour came into the other's averted face.  He poked so
-recklessly that he poked the dog, who arose with an offended growl.
-
-"Nay, it's charity, that's what it is!  I'm over old....  You know as
-well as me I'd never get such a spot anywheres else."
-
-"You know the place, and you're a rare hand wi' stock.  I could trust
-you same as I could myself."
-
-"I'm over old," Simon demurred again, "and done to boot.  I'd not be
-worth the brass."
-
-"We've plenty o' help on the place," Will said.  "It'd be worth it just
-to have you about. Nigh the same as having a vet on t'spot!" he added
-jokingly, trying to flatter him into acquiescence.  "I'd be main glad
-for my own sake," he went on, his face grave again and slightly wistful.
-"There's times I fair ache for a crack wi' somebody o' my own.  Women is
-nobbut women, when all's said and done, and lads is like to think they
-know a deal better than their dad....  Ay, well, you can think it over
-and let me know," he finished, in a disappointed tone.
-
-Simon poked for a while longer, and succeeded in poking the cow as well
-as the dog.  He was fighting hard with his pride as he scraped busily at
-the flags.  The tie of blood pulled him, as well as the whole atmosphere
-of the prosperous place.  He knew in his heart that he was never so
-happy as when he was with his brother, never so good a man as when he
-was preaching in Will's shippons.  As for pride, that would have to go
-by the board sooner or later; indeed, who would say that he had any
-right to it, even now?  He made up his mind at last on a sudden impulse,
-lifting his head with a hasty jerk.
-
-"I've had enough o' thinking things over, thank ye all the same.  I'll
-be main glad o' the job, Will, and that's the truth...."  He sank back
-instantly, however, and fell to poking again.  "Folk'll have plenty to
-say, though, I reckon," he added bitterly, "when they hear as I'm hired
-man to my younger brother!"
-
-"They've always a deal to say, so what's the odds?  As for younger and
-older, there isn't a deal to that when you get up in years.... There's a
-good cottage across t'road," he went on eagerly, bringing up
-reinforcements before Simon should retire.  "It's handy for t'stock, and
-there's a garden and orchard as well.  Lasses could see to Sarah, you'll
-think on, if she's that closer.  There's berry-bushes in t'garden and a
-deal besides...."
-
-Simon was busy shaking his head and saying he wasn't worth it and that
-he was over old, but all the time he was listening with interest and
-even pleasure to Will's talk.  Milking had now begun, and already, as
-the levers swung back and forwards over the cattle's heads, he found
-himself looking about the shippon with a possessive eye.  Even in these
-few moments, life had taken a turn for the Thornthwaite of the desolate
-marsh farm.  Already his back felt straighter, his eye brighter, his
-brain more alive.  The drawbacks of the proposed position began to
-recede before the many advantages it had to offer.  It was true, of
-course, that he would be his brother's hired man, but it was equally
-true that he was the master's brother, too.  To all intents and purposes
-he would be master himself,--that is to say, when Eliza wasn't about!
-Will's cottages were good, like everything else of Will's, and the
-lasses could see to Sarah, as he said.  For himself there would be the
-constant interest and stimulant of a big farm, as well as the mental
-relief of a steady weekly wage.  He felt almost excited about it as they
-crossed the yard, making for Taylor's cottage over the road.  He tried
-not to think of what Sarah might say when she heard the news, still less
-of what Mrs. Will would most certainly say.  He felt equal to both of
-them in his present spirited mood, and even tried to convince himself
-that in time they would make friends.
-
-As they stood looking at Taylor's cottage and Taylor's gooseberry bushes
-and canes, Will suddenly asked his brother whether there was any news of
-Geordie.  And Simon, when he had given the old answer that there was no
-news that was worth crossing the road to hear, turned his face away in
-the direction of Taylor's hens, and enquired whether there was any news
-of Jim.
-
-"There's been none for a sight o' years now," Will answered sadly,
-leaning on the wall. "Eliza wrote him a letter as put his back up, and
-he's never sent us a line since.  He always set a deal more by you and
-your missis than he ever did by us.  I'd ha' stood his friend, poor lad,
-if he'd ha' let me, but he always took it I was agen him, too."
-
-There was silence between them for a while, and then,--"Eh, well, you've
-a mort of others to fill his place!"  Simon sighed, watching a
-well-built lad swing whistling across the yard.
-
-Will raised himself from the wall, and watched him, too.
-
-"Ay, but I'd nobbut the one eldest son!" was all he said.
-
-
-
-
-                                   V
-
-
-Sally led her aunt to the grand but unused parlour in which so many
-expensive and handsome things were doomed to spend their lives.  There
-was a piano, of course, which none of the Blindbeck folk knew how to
-play, in spite of Eliza's conviction that the gift was included in the
-price.  A Chippendale bookcase made a prison for strange books never
-opened and never named, and the shut doors of a cabinet kept watch and
-ward over some lovely china and glass.  There was a satin-wood table
-with a velvet sheen, whose polished mirror never reflected a laughing
-human face.  There was an American rocking-chair, poised like a floating
-bird, with cushions filled with the finest down ever drawn from an
-heirloom of a feather-bed. Sarah would not have taken the rocking-chair,
-as a rule; she would have thought herself either too humble or too
-proud.  But to-day she went to it as a matter of course, because of the
-false pomp that she had drawn to herself like a stolen royal robe.  With
-a sigh of relief that was half physical and half mental, she let herself
-gently down, dropped her rusty bonnet against the silk, and peacefully
-closed her eyes.
-
-Sally stood looking at her with an expression of mingled pity, curiosity
-and awe.  She had pitied her often enough before, but she had never
-before seen her through the slightest veil of romance.  Sometimes,
-indeed, the tale of the damaged wedding-day had touched her imagination
-like the scent of a bruised flower, but it was so faint and far-off that
-it passed again like a breath.  To-day, however, she had that sudden
-sense of exquisite beauty in the old, which all must feel who see in
-them the fragile storehouses of life.  The old woman had known so much
-that she would never know, looked on a different world with utterly
-different eyes.  There was romance in the thought of the dead she had
-seen and spoken to and laughed with and touched and loved.  And even
-now, with the flower of her life apparently over and withered back again
-to its earth, this sudden splendour of Geordie had blossomed for her at
-the end.
-
-The girl waited a moment, hoping for a word, and then, though rather
-reluctantly, turned towards the door.  She wanted to hear still more
-about the marvellous news, but the old woman looked so tired that she
-did not like to ask.  She was anxious, too, to get back to the kitchen
-to keep an eye on Mary Phyllis.  Yet still she lingered, puzzled and
-curious, and still touched by that unusual sense of awe. An exotic
-beauty had passed swiftly into the musty air of Eliza's parlour, a sense
-of wonder from worlds beyond ... the strong power of a dream.
-
-"You're over-tired, aren't you, Aunt Sarah?" she repeated, for want of
-something better to say.  She spoke rather timidly, as if aware that the
-words only brushed the surface of deeper things below.
-
-Sarah answered her without opening her eyes.
-
-"Ay, my lass.  Just a bit."
-
-"You'd best stop here quietly till Uncle Simon's yoked up.  I'll see
-nobody bothers you if you feel like a nap.  I'd fetch you a drop of
-cowslip wine, but mother's got the key."
-
-"Nay, I want nowt wi' it, thank ye," Sarah said.  "I'll do all right."
-She lifted her hands contentedly, and folded them in her lap.  "Likely
-I'll drop off for a minute, as you say."
-
-"Ay, well, then, I'd best be getting back."  She moved resolutely now,
-but paused with her hand on the latch.  "Aunt Sarah," she asked rather
-breathlessly, "was all that about Cousin Geordie true?"
-
-Sarah's lids quivered a little, and then tightened over her eyes.
-
-"Ay.  True enough."
-
-"It's grand news, if it is! ... I'm right glad about it, I'm sure!  I've
-always thought it hard lines, him going off like that.  And you said
-he'd done well for himself, didn't you, Aunt Sarah? ... Eh, but I wish
-Elliman could make some brass an' all!"
-
-"There's a deal o' power in brass."  The words came as if of themselves
-from behind the mask-like face.  "Folks say it don't mean happiness, but
-it means power.  It's a stick to beat other folk wi', if it's nowt
-else."
-
-"I don't want to beat anybody, I'm sure!" Sally laughed, though with
-tears in her voice. "I only want what's my own."
-
-"Ay, we all on us want that," Sarah said, with a grim smile.  "But it's
-only another fancy name for the whole world!"
-
-                                  ----
-
-She sat still for some time after the girl had gone out, as if she were
-afraid that she might betray herself before she was actually alone.
-Presently, however, she began to rock gently to and fro, still keeping
-her hands folded and her eyes closed.  The good chair moved easily
-without creak or jar, and the good cushions adapted themselves to every
-demand of her weary bones.  Geordie should buy her a chair like this,
-she told herself as she rocked, still maintaining the wonderful fiction
-even to herself.  She would have cushions, too, of the very best,
-covered with silk and cool to a tired cheek.  A footstool, also, ample
-and well stuffed, and exactly the right height for a pair of aching
-feet.
-
-But though one half of her brain continued to dally with these pleasant
-fancies, the other was standing amazed before her late stupendous act.
-She was half-aghast, half-proud at the ease with which she had suddenly
-flung forth her swift, gigantic lie.  Never for a moment had she
-intended to affirm anything of the kind, never as much as imagined that
-she might hint at it even in joke.  She had been angry, of course,
-bitter and deeply hurt, but there had been no racing thoughts in her
-mind eager to frame the princely tale.  It had seemed vacant, indeed,
-paralysed by rage, unable to do little else but suffer and hate.  And
-then suddenly the words had been said, had shaped themselves on her lips
-and taken flight, as if by an agency with which she had nothing to do.
-It was just as if somebody had taken her arm and used it to wave a
-banner in the enemy's face; as if she were merely an instrument on which
-an angry hand had suddenly played.
-
-So she was not ashamed, or even really alarmed, because of this inward
-conviction that the crime was not her own.  Yet the voice had been hers,
-and most certainly the succeeding grim satisfaction and ironic joy had
-been hers! She allowed herself an occasional chuckle now that she was
-really alone, gloating freely over Eliza's abasement and acute dismay.
-For once at least, in the tourney of years, she had come away victor
-from the fray.  No matter how she was made to pay for it in the end, she
-had had the whip-hand of Blindbeck just for once.  Indeed, now that it
-was done,--and so easily done,--she marvelled that she had never done it
-before. At the back of her mind, however, was the vague knowledge that
-there is only one possible moment for tremendous happenings such as
-these.  Perhaps the longing engendered by the Dream in the yard had
-suddenly grown strong enough to act of its own accord.  Perhaps, as in
-the decision about the farm, a sentence lying long in the brain is
-spoken at length without the apparent assistance of the brain....
-
-She did not trouble herself even to speculate how she would feel when at
-last the truth was out.  This was the truth, as long as she chose to
-keep it so, as long as she sat and rocked and shut the world from her
-dreaming eyes. From pretending that it was true she came very soon to
-believing that it might really be possible, after all.  Such things had
-happened more than once, she knew, and who was to say that they were not
-happening now?  She told herself that, if she could believe it with
-every part of herself just for a moment, it would be true.  Up in
-Heaven, where, as they said, a star winked every time a child was born,
-they had only to move some lever or other, and it would be true.
-
-A clock ticked on the mantelpiece with a slow, rather hesitating sound,
-as if trying to warn the house that Sunday and the need of the
-winding-key were near.  There was a close, secretive feeling in the
-room, the atmosphere of so many objects shut together in an almost
-terrible proximity for so many days of the week.  She was so weary that
-she could have fallen asleep, but her brain was too excited to let her
-rest.  The magnitude of her crime still held her breathlessly
-enthralled; the glamour of it made possible all impossible hopes. She
-dwelt again and again on the spontaneity of the lie, which seemed to
-give it the unmistakable stamp of truth.
-
-She had long since forgotten what it was like to be really happy or even
-at peace, but in some sort of fierce, gloating, heathenish way she was
-happy now.  She was conscious, for instance, of a sense of importance
-beyond anything she had ever known.  Even that half of her brain which
-insisted that the whole thing was pretence could not really chill the
-pervading glow of pride.  She had caught the reflection of her state in
-Eliza's voice, as well as in others less familiar to her ear.  She had
-read it even in Sally's kindly championship and support; through the
-sympathy she had not failed to hear the awe.  The best proof,--if she
-needed proof,--was that she was actually here in the sacred parlour, and
-seated in the precious chair.  Eliza would have turned her out of both
-long since, she knew, if she had not been clad in that new importance as
-in cloth of gold.
-
-The impossible lies nearer than mere probability to the actual fact; so
-near at times that the merest effort seems needed to cross the line.
-Desire, racking both soul and body with such powerful hands, must surely
-be strong enough to leap the slender pale.  The peculiar mockery about
-ill-luck is always the trifling difference between the opposite sides of
-the shield.  It is the difference between the full glass and the glass
-turned upside-down.  But to-day at least this tired old woman had swung
-the buckler round, and laughed as she held the glass in her hand and saw
-the light strike through the wine.
-
-In this long day of Simon's and Sarah's nothing was stranger than the
-varying strata of glamour and gloom through which in turn they passed.
-Their days and weeks were, as a rule, mere grey blocks of blank,
-monotonous life, imperceptibly lightened or further shadowed by the
-subtle changes of the sky.  But into these few hours so closely packed
-with dreadful humiliations and decisions, so much accumulated unkindness
-and insult and cold hate, there kept streaming upon them shafts of light
-from some centre quite unknown.  For Simon there had been the unexpected
-stimulant of his Witham success, and later the new interest in life
-which Will's proposal had seemed to offer. For Sarah there was the
-wistful pleasure of her morning with May, as well as the unlawful but
-passionate pleasure of her present position.  The speed of the changes
-kept them over-strung, so that each as it came found them more sensitive
-than the last.  They were like falling bodies dropping by turn through
-cloud and sunlit air. They were like total wrecks on some darkened sea,
-catching and losing by turn the lights of an approaching vessel.
-
-The slow clock dragged the protesting minutes on, and still no one
-disturbed her and the dream widened and grew.  Tea would be brought in
-soon, she told herself in the dream,--strong, expensive, visitor's tea,
-freshly boiled and brewed.  The silver teapot would be queening it over
-the tray, flanked by steaming scones and an oven-new, home-made cake.
-Eliza herself would appear to entertain her guest, always with that new
-note of reverence in her voice. When the door opened they would hear
-another voice,--Geordie's, laughing and talking in some room beyond.
-All the happy young voices of the house would mingle with his, but
-always the youngest and happiest would be Geordie's own.  Hearing that
-voice, she would make mock of herself for ever having feared Eliza's
-tongue, still more for ever having cared enough to honour her with hate.
-A small thing then would be the great Eliza, in spite of her size,
-beside the mother for whom the dead had been made alive.  She would talk
-with Eliza as the gods talk when they speak with the humble human from
-invisible heights.  So strong was the vision that she found herself
-framing the godlike sentences with gracious ease.  The silver teaspoons
-clinked against the cups, and the visitor's tea was fragrant in the
-musty room.  She spread a linen handkerchief across her knee ... a snowy
-softness against her silken knee....  And always, always, as the meal
-progressed, the voice of her ecstasy sang in her happy ear....
-
-She had that one moment of clear beauty unprofaned by hate, with
-Geordie's face swimming before her in a golden haze.  Then her hand,
-going out to the silk and linen of the dream, encountered the darned and
-threadbare serge of dreary fact.  The dream rent violently all around
-her, letting her out again into the unlovely world.  Even her blindness
-had been forgotten for the time, for in the dream she was never blind.
-Now the touch of the darns under her hand brought back the long hours of
-mending by candlelight which had had their share in despoiling her of
-her sight.  She would never be able to darn by candlelight again, and
-the loss of that drudgery seemed to her now an added grief, because into
-this and all similar work, as women know, goes the hope of the future to
-emerge again as the soul of the past.... Sarah knew that her hand would
-ache for her needle as the sailor's hand aches for the helm, or the
-crippled horseman's for the feel of the flat rein.  She felt, too, a
-sudden desperate anger against the woman who would have the mending of
-Simon's clothes.  Geordie's, she knew, she would simply have wrenched
-from any stranger's hands, but since there was no Geordie she need not
-think of that.  The Dream had been merely the make-believe of the
-bitterly oppressed, who had taken to desperate lying as a last resort.
-Yet still the sweetness lingered, keeping her serene, like the last
-scent of a passed garden or the last light upon darkening hills.
-
-She smoothed her hands on the arms of the precious chair, and reached
-out and smoothed the satin of the table.  Through the dimness the solid
-piano loomed, the rosewood coffin of a thousand songs.  The carpet under
-her feet felt elastic yet softly deep.  There were ornaments in the
-room, good stuff as well as trash, trifles pointing the passions of
-Eliza's curious soul.  But for once, after all these years, Eliza's soul
-would be sorrowful in spite of her great possessions.  Back in the
-kitchen she would be gritting her teeth on the fact that it was Sarah's
-son who was coming home, coming with money to burn and a great and
-splendid will to burn it. She would exact payment, of course, when the
-truth was known, but even the last ounce of payment could not give her
-back this hour. For this hour, at least, it was hers to suffer and
-Sarah's to reign.  For this hour, at least, the heavily-weighted tables
-of destiny were turned.
-
-
-
-
-                                   VI
-
-
-That which had been the terrible Eliza sat still for a long moment after
-Sarah had gone out.  There was silence about the table until Elliman
-Wilkinson took upon himself to speak.
-
-"But Jim's never your son, Cousin Eliza?" he exclaimed, puzzled, rushing
-in where not only angels would have feared to tread, but where the
-opposite host also would have taken care to keep their distance.  "It's
-very stupid of me, of course, but I've always made sure that
-Geordie-an'-Jim were twins."
-
-Eliza turned baleful eyes upon the eager, inquisitive face.  Her mind,
-concentrated in sullen fury upon the enemy recently departed with
-banners, found a difficulty in focussing itself upon this insignificant
-shape.  When it succeeded, however, she ground him into dust.
-
-"Ay, well, next time you feel sure of anything, you can make certain
-you're dead wrong!" she told him cruelly, surveying his bland
-countenance with cold contempt.  "Jim's my eldest, if you want to know,
-and as much the better o' Geordie as Blindbeck's the better o' yon
-mudhole down on the marsh!  He was always the smarter lad o' the
-two,--'tisn't likely he'd ha' been left....  I'll lay what you like it's
-Jim as is really coming, after all!"
-
-"But in that case you would surely have heard from him yourself?"
-Elliman was still disporting himself with the brazen folly of innocence
-upon the forbidden ground.  "He'd have written to tell his mother,
-surely,--not his aunt?"
-
-A distinct thrill of apprehension ran through the company at this
-tactful speech.  Mary Phyllis's nudge on this occasion was one of sharp
-reproof.  The clouds thickened on Eliza's brow.
-
-"Nay, then, he just wouldn't, Mr. Clever-Lad-Know-All, so that's that!
-I'm his mother right enough, as nobody but a fool would ha' needed
-telling, but he wouldn't ha' written me, all the same.  Me and Jim got
-across a while back, and he's taken sulks with me ever since. He'd be
-like enough to write to Sarah, by way of giving me back a bit o' my own.
-She always cockered him fearful, did Sarah, and set him agen me whenever
-she could.  And if there's brass about, as she says, she'll keep it warm
-for him, never fear!  She'll take right good care it never gets past her
-to Blindbeck or any of his own!"
-
-"Jim would ha' been right enough but for Geordie all along."  Mrs.
-Addison shook a loose and agile bonnet with an impressive air. "He was a
-right-down nuisance, was Geordie Thornthet,--a bad lad as well as a
-reg'lar limb! Such tricks as he was up to, I'm sure,--turmut-lanterns
-and the like, booin' at folks' winders after dark, and hiding behind
-hedges when folk was courtin' about t'lanes!  Stephen and me wasn't wed
-then, you'll think on, and I mind a terble fright as Geordie give us one
-summer night.  Stephen was terble sweet on me, as you'll likely know,
-though he'd choke himself black in the face afore he'd own to it now.
-Well, yon night as I'm speaking of he had hold o' my hand, and was
-looking as near like a dying duck in a thunderstorm as ever I see.
-'Jenny Sophia,' he was saying, as sweet as a field of clover, 'I'm that
-set on you, Jenny Sophia'--when up pops Geordie on t'far side o' the
-hedge, girning and making a hullaballoo like a donkey afore rain!"
-
-"You've no call to go raking up yon d--d rubbish!" Mr. Addison burst
-out, crimson to the hair, and quite forgetting the obligations of his
-Christian mission.  He had said the same thing to Eliza's eldest lass,
-and much about the same time, and knew that Eliza knew it as well as he.
-"Folks isn't right in their heads when they're courtin', as everybody
-knows, and it's real mean to bring it agen 'em after all these years.
-As for Geordie Thornthet, there was lile or nowt I could learn him, and
-that's sure! T'lasses was always after him like bees at a bottle o'
-rum."
-
-"Nay, now, you mean our Jim!"  Jim's mother corrected him with an air of
-offence. "Nobody never reckoned nowt o' Geordie but May Fleming.  He
-couldn't hold a candle to Jim, any day o' the week.  Folk said they
-couldn't tell 'em apart, but I never see a scrap o' likeness myself."
-She glanced defiantly round the table, as if expecting opposition, and
-then swung round eagerly as Sally reappeared. "Well, my lass, well?" she
-rapped out,--"did she tell you anything more?  You've taken your time
-about coming back, I'm sure!"
-
-"Nay, she said nowt fresh," Sally answered evasively, without meeting
-her eyes.  She advanced to the table and began to gather the china
-together, ready for clearing away.  Her mother pushed back her chair
-with an angry scrape.
-
-"Well, of all the gert, helpless gabies!" she exploded violently.  "I
-made sure she'd talk when she'd gitten you by herself.  Didn't she say
-when letter come, or how much brass there was, or owt? ... Eh, well,
-it's never Geordie as made it, that I'll swear!"
-
-"She said it was Geordie."  Sally went on mechanically with her task,
-collecting cups and plates from under the noses of the still-stupefied
-clan.  "It's real nice, anyway, to see somebody happy," she added
-suddenly, raising her eyes to look at the smug cousin.  Elliman met them
-unexpectedly and coloured furiously.  On a sudden remorseful impulse he
-shuffled a couple of plates together, and handed them to her with a
-deprecating air.
-
-"I can't say she looked very set up about it, anyhow!" Eliza sneered.
-"What, she was even more glumpy than usual, seemed to me!"
-
-"More like a burying than a home-coming, by a deal!" Mary Phyllis
-finished for her, with a scornful laugh.
-
-"As for Uncle Simon, he was as cross as a pair of shears!" Emily Marion
-added in a fretted tone.  The Thornthwaites were making things awkward
-to-day for the bride-to-be. Simon had nearly queered the engagement at
-the start, and now the company's interest was all for a Thornthwaite
-whom she had never seen.
-
-"Not how _I_ should take good news, certainly!" Elliman said, hoping
-that no one had noticed his menial act.  "I should have something more
-to say for myself, I hope, than that."
-
-Eliza's eyes brightened considerably at this unanimous point of view.
-
-"Nay, you're right there," she took them up eagerly, "you're right
-enough!  'Tisn't natural to be so quiet.  I'll tell you what it is," she
-added impressively, "it's one o' two things, that's all.  It's either a
-lie from beginning to end, or else--or else--well, it's our Jim!"  She
-pushed her chair further still, and got hurriedly to her feet.  "Ay,
-well, whichever it is, I'd best see for myself," she added quickly.
-"You'll not mind me leaving you, Mrs. Addison, just for a little while?
-I don't know as we're doing right to leave Sarah so long alone.  She's
-getting a bit of an old body now, you know, and she was never that
-strong in her poor head."
-
-She departed noisily after this surprisingly sympathetic speech, and
-Sarah, hearing her heavy step along the passage, chuckled for the last
-time.  Her mind braced itself for the coming contest with a grim
-excitement that was almost joy.  Nothing could have been more unlike her
-attitude of the morning in the inn-yard.  She lay back in her chair
-again and closed her eyes, and was rocking peacefully when Eliza opened
-the door.
-
-Just for the moment the sight of the tranquil figure gave her pause, but
-neither sleep nor its greater Counterpart could still Eliza for very
-long.  "Feeling more like yourself, are you, Sarah?" she enquired
-cautiously, peering in, and then repeated the question when she got no
-answer.  Finally, irritated by the other's immobility which was
-obviously not sleep, she entered the room heavily, shutting the door
-with a sharp click.  "There's nowt amiss, from the look of you," she
-added loudly, as she advanced.
-
-Sarah exclaimed, "Eh now, whatever's yon!" at the sound of the harsh
-voice, and sat up stiffly, winking her blind eyes.  She even turned her
-head and blinked behind, as if she thought the voice had come out of the
-grandfather's clock.  "Nay, I'll do now, thank ye," she answered
-politely, discovering Eliza's whereabouts with a show of surprise.
-"It'll be about time we were thinking of getting off."
-
-Eliza, however, had no intention of parting with her just yet.  She
-stopped her hastily when she tried to rise.
-
-"Nay, now, there isn't that much hurry, is there?" she demanded sharply.
-"Yon old horse o' yourn'll barely have stretched his legs. Your master
-and mine'd have a deal to say to each other an' all."  She paused a
-moment, creaking from foot to foot, and staring irresolutely at the
-mask-like face.  "You talked a deal o' stuff in t'other room, Sarah,"
-she broke out at last, "but I reckon you meant nowt by it, after all?"
-
-Sarah wanted to chuckle again, but was forced to deny herself the
-pleasure.  For appearance' sake she stiffened her back, and bristled a
-little at Eliza's tone.
-
-"Ay, but I did!" she retorted briskly, her voice firm.  "Whatever else
-should I mean, I'd like to know?"
-
-The strong hope that had sprung in Eliza's heart died down again before
-this brazen show.
-
-"You can't rightly know what you're saying, Sarah," she said coldly,
-"you can't, indeed! Geordie coming after all these years,--nay, now, yon
-isn't true!"
-
-"Ay, but it is, I tell ye,--true enough!  True as yon Sunday fringe o'
-yourn as you bought in Witham!"
-
-"And wi' brass, you said?"  Eliza let the flippant remark pass without
-notice, and Sarah nodded.  "A deal o' brass?"
-
-"Yon's what he says."
-
-"Eh, well, I never did!"  The angry wind of her sigh passed over Sarah's
-head and rustled the honesty in a vase behind.  She repeated "I never
-did!" and creaked away from the enemy towards the window.  Behind her,
-Geordie's mother allowed the ghost of a smile to find a fleeting
-resting-place on her lips.
-
-"And so he's on his road home, is he,--coming right back?"  Mrs. Will
-kept her back turned, thinking hard as she spoke.  There was no section
-of Sarah's statement but she intended to prove by the inch.  "Ay, well,
-it's what they mostly do when they've made their brass."
-
-"He'll be over here, I reckon, afore you can say knife!  Taking first
-boat, he says he is, or the fastest he can find."  She turned her head
-towards the door through which his voice had come in the dream.  "What,
-I shouldn't be that surprised if he was to open yon door now!"
-
-There was such conviction in her tone that Eliza, too, was startled into
-turning her head. There was nothing to see, of course, and she turned
-back, but her ears still thrilled with the thrill in Sarah's voice.  The
-cowman, passing, saw her face behind the glass, and said to himself that
-the missis was out for trouble once again.
-
-She was silent for a while, trying vainly to grapple the situation in
-the pause.  She saw well enough that there was nothing to be gained by
-dispute if the story were true.  She still looked to be top-dog in that
-or any other case, because Blindbeck pride was founded on solid
-Blindbeck gold; but there was no denying that the enemy would lie in a
-totally different position, and would have to be met on totally
-different ground. If, on the other hand, the great statement was a lie,
-there would be plenty of time for vengeance when the facts were known.
-Her malicious soul argued that the real game was to give Sarah plenty of
-rope, but her evil temper stood in the way of the more subtle method.
-It got the upper hand of her at last, and she flung round with an angry
-swing.
-
-"Nay, then, I can't believe it!" she exclaimed passionately,--"I just
-can't!  It's a pack o' lies, that's what it is, Sarah,--a gert string o'
-senseless lies!"
-
-This coarse description of her effort hurt Sarah in her artistic pride.
-She stiffened still further.
-
-"I reckoned you'd take it like that," she replied in a dignified tone.
-"'Tisn't decent nor Christian, but it's terble nat'ral."
-
-"I don't see how you could look for folks to take it different!" Eliza
-cried.  "'Tisn't a likely sort o' story, any way round.  Ne'er-do-weels
-don't make their fortunes every day o' the week, and your Geordie was a
-wastrel, if ever there was one yet.  You don't look like good news,
-neither, come to that.  They've just been saying so in t'other room."
-
-"Good news wants a bit o' getting used to," Sarah said quietly, "same as
-everything else. When you've never had no luck for years and years you
-don't seem at first as if you could rightly take it in."
-
-"More particular when you're making it up out o' your own head!" Eliza
-scoffed, but growing more and more unwillingly convinced. "Nay, now,
-Sarah!" she added impatiently, her hands twitching,--"what d'ye think
-ye're at?  What about all yon talk o' giving up the farm?  No need for
-such a to-do if Geordie's coming home!"
-
-For the first time, though only just for a second, Sarah quailed.  For
-the first time she had a glimpse of the maze in which she had set her
-feet, and longed sharply for her physical sight as if it would help her
-mental vision.  But her brain was still quick with the power of the
-dream, and it rose easily to the sudden need. "It's like this, d'ye
-see," she announced firmly. "Simon knows nowt about it yet.  I didn't
-mean telling him till we'd gitten back."
-
-Eliza had followed the explanation with lowering brows, but now she
-burst into one of her great laughs.
-
-"Losh, Sarah, woman! but I'd have a better tale than that!  What, you'd
-never ha' let him give in his notice, and you wi' your tongue in your
-cheek all the time! ... When did you get yon precious letter o' yours?"
-she enquired swiftly, switching on to another track.
-
-"Just last minute this morning as we was starting off."  Sarah was
-thoroughly launched now on her wild career.  Each detail as she required
-it rose triumphantly to her lips. "Simon was back in t'stable wi'
-t'horse when postman come, so I put it away in my pocket and settled to
-say nowt.  I thought it was likely axing for money or summat like that,
-and Simon had more than enough to bother him as it was.  I got May
-Fleming to read it for me at doctor's," she finished simply, with a
-supreme touch.  "I'm terble bad wi' my eyes, Eliza, if you'll trouble to
-think on."
-
-Once again Eliza was forced to belief against her will, and then once
-again she leaped at the only discrepancy in the tale.
-
-"You could ha' tellt Simon easy enough on the road out!" she threw at
-her in a swift taunt.  "There's time for a deal o' telling at your rate
-o' speed!"
-
-But now, to her vexed surprise, it was Sarah who laughed, and with a
-society smoothness that would have been hard to beat.  It was in matters
-like these that the dream lifted her into another sphere, puzzling her
-clumsy antagonist by the finer air she seemed to breathe.
-
-"Eh, now, Eliza!" she said good-humouredly, and with something almost
-like kindliness in her voice, "whatever-like use is it telling a man owt
-when he's chock full o' summat else?  Simon was fit to crack himself
-over some joke as he'd heard in Witham, talking a deal o' nonsense and
-laughing fit to shake the trap!  Coming from market's no time any day
-for telling a man important news, and anyway I'd never ha' got a word in
-edgeways if I'd tried."  She paused a moment, and then continued,
-aspiring to still greater heights. "I'd another reason an' all for
-wanting it kept quiet.  I knew he'd be sure an' certain to go shouting
-it out here."
-
-"Ay, and why ever not, I'd like to know!" Eliza gasped, when she was
-able to speak. "Come to that, you were smart enough shoving it down our
-throats yourself!"
-
-"Ay, but that was because I lost my temper," Sarah admitted, with a
-noble simplicity which again struck the other dumb.  "If I hadn't ha'
-lost my temper," she added, "I should ha' said nowt,--_nowt!_"--a
-statement so perfectly true in itself that it needed nothing to make it
-tell. "I never meant you should hear it so sudden-like," she went on
-gently, the kindness growing in her voice.  "It's hard lines our Geordie
-should ha' done so well for himself, and not your Jim.  I never meant to
-crow over you about it, Eliza,--I didn't, indeed.  I never thought o'
-such a thing!"
-
-Eliza was making a noise like a motor-car trying to start, but Sarah
-took up her tale before she could reply.
-
-"As for letting Simon give in his notice as we'd fixed, I don't know as
-it'll make that much differ, after all.  There's my eyes, for one thing,
-as I mentioned before.  Blind folk is only a nuisance wherever they be,
-but they're a real, right-down nuisance on a farm.  And Geordie'll want
-more nor a farm, I reckon, wi' all yon brass to splash.  He'll want
-summat wi' stables and gardens and happen fishing an' all,--a grand
-gentleman's spot, likely, same as the Hall itself."
-
-Mrs. Will felt the world wheeling rapidly about her, and tried to clutch
-at it as it went. Her temples throbbed and her throat worked, and her
-staring eyes went blind.  She groped her way to the window, and flung up
-the stiff sash; and, as she stood there, drawing panting breaths, Simon
-and Will came sauntering through the yard.  Her eyes, clearing again in
-the rush of air, caught the incipient smile on Simon's face, the new
-signs of interest and life in his whole look.  He could know nothing
-about the great news, if what Sarah said was true; the utmost that he
-could do was to sense it in the air.  But his look of subtle contentment
-was a sufficient annoyance in itself.  It was the last straw, indeed,
-which broke the back of Eliza's self-control.  When she turned again her
-words and her breath came with the leap of a mountain stream.
-
-"I wonder you're not afraid, Sarah Thornthet, to be setting there
-reeling off lies like hanks o' cotton off a bobbin!  Happen you're just
-thinking you'll get a rise out o' me and mine, but if that's the best
-you can do by way of a joke, well, I think nowt on't, and so I tell you!
-Geordie coming home wi' brass!  Geordie wanting the Hall and suchlike!
-Nay, Sarah, I might ha' believed the rest wi' a bit o' pulling and
-pushing, but yon last's taking it over far. Why, I'd as lief believe he
-was going to get the King's Crown right out, wi' mappen Witham Town Hall
-for a spot to live in!  As for thinking o' me and my feelings and
-suchlike stuff, you've never troubled that much about 'em to start
-bothering now.  There's only two ways about it, Sarah, and I reckon I
-know which it is.  It's either a smart lie you've been telling from end
-to end, or else it's never Geordie that's coming, but our Jim!"
-
-She choked when she came to the last words, both from sudden
-nervousness, and lack of breath, and again Sarah gave her well-bred
-laugh.
-
-"I wouldn't be as hard o' faith as you, Eliza," she said placidly,--"not
-for a deal!  It's you, not me, would have heard if Jim was coming home.
-What's Jim to do wi' me?"
-
-"He'd a deal to do wi' you when he was in England, as everybody knows!
-Nay, you hated the sight o' him,--that's true enough,--but you were
-right keen on trying to set him agen me, all the same.  What, the last
-letter I had from him,--and terble saucy an' all,--was blacking me over
-summat I'd said of you as his lordship didn't like!  Nay, if he come
-home, Sarah, he'd come to you, not me, and right glad you'd be to have
-him while he'd a penny before his teeth! Ay, and why shouldn't our lad
-ha' done as well as yours, and happen better, come to that? He was the
-smarter lad o' the two, and come o' smarter folk,--ay, but he did now,
-Sarah, so you'll kindly shut your mouth!  You've only to look at the way
-we've done at Blindbeck, me and Will, and then at the mess o' things
-you've made at yon pig-hull on the marsh!  It stands to reason our lad
-would be the likely one to make out, just as it isn't in reason to
-expect owt from yours!"
-
-She came a step nearer as she finished, twisting her plump hands, her
-voice, as it mounted higher, full of bewilderment and angry tears.
-
-"Will you swear to it Jim isn't coming, Sarah?" she demanded,--"will you
-swear? Will you swear as it isn't my lad that's coming and not yours?"
-
-Sarah said, "Ay, I will that!" in a hearty tone, and with such absolute
-readiness that Eliza bit her lip.  "If you've a Bible anywhere handy,"
-she went on tranquilly, "I'll swear to it right off."
-
-But already Eliza had drawn back in order to follow a fresh trail.
-Quite suddenly she had perceived the only means of getting at the truth.
-
-"Nay, I'll not trouble you," she sneered. "'Tisn't worth it, after all.
-I shouldn't like our grand Family Bible to turn yeller wi' false
-swearing!  Geordie's letter'll be proof enough, Sarah, now I come to
-think on.  I'll believe owt about Halls and suchlike, if you'll show me
-that!"
-
-She came a step nearer still, holding out her hand, and instantly
-Sarah's lips tightened and her eyes narrowed.  She might have had a
-dozen sacred letters about her, from the look of her, at that moment.
-It might have been Geordie's face itself that she guarded from the touch
-of Eliza's hands.
-
-"Ay, I'd be like to show you his letter, wouldn't I?" she answered, with
-a wicked smile.  "You and me have been such terble friends all these
-years,--I'd be like to show you owt from my bonny lad!  Nay, Eliza, you
-know I'd shove it in t'fire unread, afore I'd let you as much as clap
-eyes on a single word!"
-
-Eliza wheeled away from her with an angry oath, and began to walk to and
-fro, setting the loose planks jumping and creaking under her feet, and
-the china rattling and clinking on the shelves.  Her hands worked in and
-out of each other with convulsive movements, and now and then she flung
-out her heavy arms.  She was working herself into one of those storms
-which the folk at the farm knew only too well, but Sarah, who was the
-cause of it, did not seem to care. She, too, however, was breathing
-faster than before, and a faint colour had stayed in her waxen cheek.
-She still felt as if, in that last bout, she had protected something
-vital from Eliza's hands.
-
-"I'll be bound it's Jim!" Eliza was saying senselessly, over and over
-again.  "I'll swear it's Jim!" ... It was like a giant's voice, Sarah
-thought to herself, the voice of a cruel, clumsy giant-child.  "You're
-telling a lie, Sarah,--a nasty lie!  You're jealous, that's what it
-is,--jealous and mean!  _Geordie_ wi' brass?  Not likely! ... Nay, it's
-Jim!"
-
-"It's plain enough it's the brass you're after and nowt else," Sarah
-said in her cool tones. "You'd have no use for the poor lad if he come
-back without a cent!"
-
-But even while the words were on her lips, Eliza, creaking to and fro,
-was brought to a sudden halt.  The thing that held her was a photograph
-of Jim, catching her eye in its frame of crimson plush.  If he had been
-older when it was taken, it would have been banished long ago, but here
-he was only a mischievous baby, struggling in his mother's arms.  Eliza
-stared at it as she stood in front of the mantelpiece, and quite
-suddenly she began to cry.  The tears poured down her face, and her
-hands trembled and her body shook.  Into the brutal voice came a note at
-which Sarah, unable to trace the cause, yet quivered in every nerve.
-
-"Nay, then, Sarah, you're wrong, Sarah, you're dead wrong!  I'd be glad
-to see him just for himself, I would that!  He's been nowt but a trouble
-and disappointment all his life, but I'd be glad to see him, all the
-same."  She put out the plump fingers which Sarah loathed, and drew them
-caressingly over the baby face.  "I can't do wi' failures," she added
-brokenly; "they make me wild; and Jim was the only failure Blindbeck
-ever hatched.  But for all that he was the bonniest baby of the lot, and
-there's times I never remember nowt but that.  There's days I just ache
-for the sound of his voice, and fair break my heart to think he'll never
-come back."
-
-There was no doubting the sincerity of her grief, and the big sobs
-shaking their way through her shook Sarah, too.  Her own lips trembled,
-and her eyes filled; her hands quivered on the arms of the chair.  She
-could not see the pitiful fingers stroking the child's face, but she who
-had offered that worship herself needed little help to guess.  She had
-her revenge in full as she sat and listened to the passion that never
-dies, forcing its way upward even through Eliza's leathern soul; but the
-revenge was a two-edged sword that wounded herself as well.  All the
-generosity in her that was still alive and kind would have sprung to the
-surface instantly if the story had been true.  She would have groped her
-way to Eliza's side in an effort to console, and perhaps the lifelong
-enemies might have drawn together for once.  But the story was not true,
-and she had nothing to offer and no right of any sort to speak.  She
-could only sit where she was and suffer and shake, hating herself more
-in this moment of absolute conquest than she had ever hated Eliza in her
-darkest hour.
-
-But, as a matter of fact, Eliza's grief would have passed before she
-could even have tottered to her feet.  Her own lips were still shaking
-when Eliza's had hardened again; her own eyes were still wet when
-Eliza's were dry with hate.  The passion which for a brief moment had
-been selfless and sincere was turned once again into the channel of
-jealous rage.  She swung round so swiftly that her sleeve caught the
-little frame, and it fell forward unnoticed with a sharp tinkle of
-broken glass.
-
-"There's summat wrong about it all," she cried venomously, "and I'll not
-rest till I find out what it is!  What's Geordie mean by landing up so
-smart, and leaving our Jim a thousand mile behind?  It's a nasty sort o'
-trick, if it's nothing worse, seeing how they were thick as thieves as
-lads.  I'll tell you what it is, Sarah, and you may swallow it as you
-can,--if Geordie's gitten brass, it's because he's robbed it off our
-Jim!  Like enough he's put an end to him for it, the poor, honest
-lad--knifed him ... finished him ... put him out o' the road...!"
-
-The fierce malice of the voice penetrated into the passage, and carried
-its message into the kitchen and the yard.  Will and Simon heard it at
-the stable door and looked at each other and turned instantly towards
-the house.  Passing the parlour window, they saw the women rigid on
-their feet, and felt the current of hate sweep strongly across their
-path.  They had a glimpse of Sarah's face, white, blind and quiet: and
-Eliza's, vindictive, purple, and bathed with furious tears.  Her heavy
-tone beat at the other's immobility as if with actual blows, and the
-glass in the cabinet rang and rang in sweet reply. Will quickened his
-pace as he neared the house, for he knew that Eliza did not always stop
-at words.  Indeed, her hands were reaching out towards Sarah's throat at
-the very moment he stepped inside.
-
-"Whisht, can't ye, Eliza!" he ordered roughly, his voice harsh with the
-swift reaction from the little space of content through which he and his
-brother had just passed.  "What's taken you, missis, to be going on like
-yon?"
-
-He was now in the parlour, with Simon at his heels, while the company
-from the kitchen clustered round the door.  Peering into the tiny arena
-round each other's heads, they giggled and whispered, curious and
-alarmed.  Sarah could hear them stirring and gurgling just beyond her
-sight, and felt their rapacious glances fastened upon her face.  Sally
-tried to push her way through to her aunt's side, but was stopped by the
-solid figure of Elliman, set in the very front. The lads had forsaken
-the milking to run to the window and peep in, and a dog lifted its
-bright head and planted its forefeet on the sill.  All the life of the
-place seemed drawn to this little room, where at last the women were
-fighting things out to the very death.
-
-"What's amiss, d'ye say?" Eliza echoed his speech.  "Nay, what isn't
-amiss!  Here's Sarah has it her Geordie's a-coming home, but never a
-word as I can hear about our Jim!"
-
-The eyes of the brothers met in a startled glance, and the red came
-painfully into Simon's face.  Before they could speak, however, Eliza
-swept their intention from them like a western gale.
-
-"What's come to Jim, I want to know?  Why isn't it our Jim?  Geordie's
-made his pile, so Sarah says, but I can't hear of a pile for Jim. He's
-dead, that's what it is! ... Geordie's finished him, I'll swear!  He's
-robbed him! ... knifed him! ... given him a shove in t'beck...!"
-
-Again she made that threatening movement towards Sarah's throat, but
-Will put out his hand and caught her by the wrist.  Both the giggles and
-whispers had died a sudden death, and the lads at the window pressed
-nearer and looked scared.  Sally succeeded at last in forcing her way
-through, careless that Elliman suffered severely as she passed.
-
-"For goodness' sake, stop it, mother!" she cried sharply.  "You're fair
-daft!  Can't you wait to make a stir till Geordie's landed back? He'll
-tell us right enough then what's happened to our Jim."
-
-"He'll tell us nowt--nowt----!"  Eliza began again on a high note, but
-Simon threw up his hand with a sudden snarl.
-
-"Whisht, can't ye!  You fair deafen a body, Eliza!" he flung out.
-"What's all this stir about Geordie coming back?"
-
-"It's a lie, that's what it is!" Eliza exploded again, and again he
-silenced her with an angry "Whisht!"  He kept his eyes on her a moment
-longer, as if daring her to speak, and then let them travel slowly and
-almost reluctantly to his wife's face.  He opened his lips to address
-her and then changed his mind, turning instead to the crew beyond the
-door.
-
-"Tell me about it, can't you?" he demanded angrily.  "One o' you speak
-up!  Emily Marion--Addison--you wi' the fat face!"  He jerked a
-contemptuous thumb at Elliman, who went crimson with extreme disgust.
-"One o' you tell me the meaning o' this precious hullaballoo!"
-
-Elliman looked across to Sally for help, but did not get it.  Instead,
-she turned her eyes away, ignoring his appeal.
-
-"It's hardly my place to enlighten you, sir," he said, with an offended
-shrug, "but I don't mind telling you the little I know.  Apparently your
-son Geordie is expected soon, and with a fat purse in his pocket to buy
-him a welcome home."
-
-"Geordie's coming back, d'ye say?"  Simon stared at him with bewildered
-eyes.
-
-"So Mrs. Thornthwaite has given us to understand."
-
-"And wi' brass?  Plenty o' brass?  _Geordie_ wi' brass?"
-
-"Enough and to spare, if all we're told is true."
-
-"Ay, but that's just what it isn't!"  Eliza broke out on a peacock
-scream, and this time Will actually shook her into silence.  The
-poignancy of the moment had hushed the rest of the audience into
-complete quiet.  There was no sound in the room but Eliza's breathing as
-Simon turned again to look at his wife.
-
-"What's it all about, Sarah?" he asked quietly, though his voice shook.
-"You never said nowt about Geordie coming to me."
-
-In the pause that followed Sally drew away from her aunt's side, as if
-conscious that this moment was for the two of them alone.  The silence
-waited for Sarah's answer, but she could not bring herself to speak.  In
-the heat of her victory she had forgotten that Simon also would hear the
-lying tale.  It was the only hitch in the splendid machinery of the lie,
-but it was enough in itself to bring the whole of it to the ground.
-Here was Simon in front of her, asking for the truth, and if a hundred
-Elizas had been present she could still have given him nothing but the
-truth.  But indeed, at that moment, Eliza, and all that Eliza stood for,
-was swept away.  In that hush and sudden confronting of souls Sarah and
-Simon were indeed alone.
-
-"Geordie's never coming, is he, Sarah?" he asked anxiously.  "Nay,
-you've dreamed it, my lass!  And he's rich, d'ye say?--why, that settles
-it right out!  Why, it was nobbut the other day he was writing home for
-brass!"
-
-Still she did not speak, and quite suddenly he was wroth, vexed by her
-mask-like face and the sudden diminishing of his hope.
-
-"Losh, woman!" he cried angrily.  "You look half daft!  Is yon lad of
-ours coming, or is he not?  Is it truth you're telling me, or a pack o'
-lies?"
-
-She stirred then, moved by the cheated sound in his angry voice.  She
-gave a sigh.  The fooling of Eliza had been utterly great and glorious,
-but it had come to an end.  "It was just lies," she heard herself saying
-in a passionless tone, and then with a last twinge of regret, she sighed
-again.
-
-Eliza's scream of "I knew it!  I knew it!" merged in the chorus of
-exclamation from the group about the door.  Will said nothing, fixing
-his sister-in-law with his kindly gaze, but Simon fell back muttering,
-and staring as if afraid.  He wondered, looking at her unemotional face,
-whether the trouble about her eyes was beginning to touch her brain.
-She herself had said there was no knowing what blind weather might
-possibly do, no telling what a blind body's brain might someday suddenly
-breed....
-
-He came back to the consciousness of Eliza's voice as a man from the
-dead hears the roar of life as he returns.
-
-"I wonder you're not struck down where you stand, Sarah Thornthet!  I
-wonder you're not liggin' dead on t'floor!  But you'll be punished for
-it, right enough; you'll be paid for it, never fear!  You'll see,
-summat'll happen to you afore so long,--I shouldn't wonder if it
-happened before morn!  Like enough, the next news as we have o'
-Geordie'll be as he's dead or drowned.... I'll serve you a slap on
-t'lugs, Will, if you can't shape to let me be!"
-
-It was Sally who saved the situation for the second time that day.
-
-"Fetch the trap, Uncle Simon, and look sharp about it!" she commanded
-smartly, "and you come and set down, Aunt Sarah, until it's round.  Let
-her be, can't you!" she added roughly, flinging round on her mother.
-"She's that tired and put out she don't know what's she's at."
-
-She shook her fist at the window, and the faces disappeared like morning
-frost.  Then she turned on the others and ordered them out, too.
-
-"You'd best be getting about your business!" she commanded them, hand on
-hip.  "You should be in t'dairy this minute, Mary Phyllis,--you know
-that as well as me.  I'd think shame o' myself, Mr. and Mrs. Addison, to
-be helping other folks' wi' their weekly wash!  Same to you, Elliman
-Wilkinson, and a bit over, come to that!  You're not one o' the family
-yet by a long chalk, my lad; nay, nor like to be, neither, if you don't
-see to mend your ways!"
-
-Eliza still lingered, however, loth that anything should be left unsaid,
-but Sally ushered her resolutely to the door.  She protested to the last
-inch, and the hand that had been denied judgment on Sarah flew up and
-slapped Sally's face.  The girl looked at her with scornful eyes.
-
-"Ay, you can't keep your hands off folk, can you?" she said bitterly.
-"You never could. I remember Jim saying he fair hated you for it when we
-were bairns.  That was why he always liked Aunt Sarah a deal better than
-he liked you!"
-
-"You'll find other folk free wi' their hands," Eliza stormed, "if you're
-that free wi' your impident tongue!  Yon fool of an Elliman'll stand no
-nonsense, for all he looks so new-milk soft!  Not that he wants any
-truck wi' you at all, as far as I can see.  It's Mary Phyllis he can't
-take his eyes off, and no wonder, neither. She was always a sight
-better-looking than you, and she's younger, by a deal.  You're that old
-and teptious you fair turn the cream sour just by being along wi't in
-t'house!  Nay, I reckon you can put wedding and suchlike out o' your
-head as soon as you like!  _You'll_ never have a house of your own, or a
-man to put in it; and as for bairns o' your own to slap, why, you'll
-never have none o' _them_...!"
-
-She said the rest to the closed door, a stout, oaken door which even she
-was reluctant to attack.  In the few pauses that she allowed herself she
-could hear nothing inside the room, and presently, tiring of the
-one-sided contest, she waddled heavily away along the passage. She was
-in the dairy a minute later, and saw through the window the brothers
-yoking the old horse.  Through the window, too, she caught scraps of
-their talk, and strained her ears eagerly to catch its bent.  As if by
-magic the anger left her face, and a little smile grew happily on her
-lips.  She even hummed a little tune to herself, as she watched and
-listened, leaning against the frame....
-
-The silence persisted in the room that she had left, as if the air was
-so laden with words that it would hold no more.  Sarah groped her way to
-the rocking-chair and sat down again to wait.  Sally went to the window,
-and stared miserably into the yard.  So they waited together until they
-heard the rattle of the wheels along the stones....
-
-
-
-
-                                  VII
-
-
-Even now, however, the Blindbeck comedy was not quite played out.  Eliza
-had still to give it its finishing touch.  The lately routed audience
-must have been conscious of this, for they assembled again in order to
-watch the Thornthwaites take their leave.  As a rule, the Simons simply
-faded away, unperceived and unsped of anybody but Will.  They were not
-welcome when they came, and they were not lamented when they went away.
-But to-day Sarah had managed to touch the imagination of the crowd,
-arousing unwilling admiration and even respect.  The Addisons, for
-instance, though outwardly badly shocked, rejoiced by proxy in a crime
-which they would never have had the courage to commit themselves.  Even
-Elliman was heard to remark that Sarah's psychology seemed possibly
-worthy of study, after all.  The main motive with all, however, was a
-sneaking hope that, on some ground or another, the opponents might go
-for each other again.
-
-As if by accident, therefore, they drifted out of the house, and on
-Sarah's appearance were to be found sitting on rails or pig-sty walls,
-or leaning in graceful attitudes against the porch. Sarah could not see
-them, but Simon could, and divided a scowl of dislike amongst the lot.
-The Thornthwaites were actually settled in the trap when Eliza came
-bustling after them into the yard.
-
-It was such a different Eliza, however, that at first it looked as if
-the audience were to be cheated of their scene.  The virulent harridan
-of ten minutes ago had vanished as if she had never been.  This Eliza
-was hearty, smiling, serene, the smooth-faced, smooth-tongued mocker
-which Sarah detested most.  Even her hair and dress, lately dishevelled
-by rage, were now as tidy and sleek as the fur of a well-brushed cat.
-She came to a halt close beside the wheel, and Sarah started when she
-heard her speak.
-
-"So you're off, are you, Sarah?  Ay, well, you'll be best at home!  I
-reckon our Sally's right, and you're not yourself at all.  Mind and see
-doctor again, first thing as ever you can. It's a bad sign, they say, to
-go making up fancy tales.  Folks as get telling lies is framing for
-softening of the brain."
-
-Will looked back with a frown as he hurried on to open the gate.
-
-"We've had enough o' that, missis!" he called sharply.  "Just you let
-Sarah be!"
-
-Mrs. Will tossed her head, but managed to preserve her compassionate
-air.
-
-"Losh, master!" she reproached him loudly. "You've no call to speak so
-sharp.  I'm meaning kindly enough by poor Sarah here, I'm sure! She's
-welcome to tell lies till they turn her black in the face, but it isn't
-healthy for her, all the same.  I shouldn't like to see poor Sarah in
-Garland's Asylum, or some such spot as yon. Ay, well, we'll be having
-her close at hand afore so long, and then we can do our best for her
-ourselves!"
-
-Sarah started a second time when she said that, and the pig-sty audience
-brightened and pricked its ears.  Simon muttered an oath and pulled at
-the horse until it sidled and backed, forcing the subtle tormentor to
-retreat.
-
-"You stand back, missis," he cried angrily, waving a threatening whip,
-"and take your long tongue with you, or it'll be tripping us in t'road!"
-
-There was a burst of laughter at this show of wit, and Eliza flared
-instantly into open war. She raised her voice after the departing pair,
-stepping back heavily upon Elliman's feet.
-
-"You'll have to speak different from that, Mr. Thornthet," she called
-shrilly, "if you're coming to Blindbeck to act as our hired man!"
-
-The laughter broke out again, and then stopped, cut short.  Simon, red
-to the ears, raised the whip violently above the horse's back, but it
-was checked before it descended by Sarah's outstretched hand.
-
-"Bide a minute, Simon," she said quietly. "Just hold on.  What's Eliza
-meaning to say by that?"
-
-Simon looked helplessly about him, noting the interested gaping faces on
-all sides.  "Ax me on t'road," he said desperately, yearning to get
-away.  "It's time we were getting on, missis.  Ax me on t'road!"
-
-"Nay, ax him now, and ha' done wi' it, Sarah!" Eliza jeered, advancing
-again.  "Or ax me if you want, and I'll tell you mighty sharp!  Likely
-you've been wondering what's to come o' you when you leave the farm?
-Ay, well, our cowman's job is going begging at present, and I hear your
-master's thinking o' taking it on."
-
-There was a pause after that, in which even the pig-sty audience was
-hushed as mice, and the fretting horse itself was suddenly still. Those
-nearest to Sarah heard her give a sigh, the same little sigh with which
-she had loosed her hold on the Parlour Dream.  The next moment Simon had
-thankfully eased the reins, and the trap went creaking and jolting out
-of the still yard....
-
-Eliza watched it triumphantly until the very last, and then, bursting
-into a laugh, turned expectantly for applause.  But for once her usually
-appreciative audience failed her of her due.  They avoided her eyes and
-looked at their boots, or leaned over the pig-sty walls and pretended a
-passionate interest in the pigs.  The Addisons, in whom Christian
-charity was apt to rise and fall like a turned-on jet, murmured tepid
-thanks for their entertainment, and hurried away.  Even the smug cousin
-refused to play up to Eliza for once, partly because of a latent
-fineness of feeling which she had hurt, but chiefly because she had
-trodden on his toes. Turning his back determinedly upon Mary Phyllis, he
-bent to whisper something in Sally's ear.  She hesitated a moment,
-lifting her eyes to his sobered face, and then followed him slowly
-towards the track across the fields.
-
-
-
-
-                                  VIII
-
-
-Outside the farmyard wall Sarah again put out a hand to Simon's arm.
-"Yon's Taylor's spot, isn't it?" she enquired, as the cottage came up.
-"Just hold on a minute, and let me see."
-
-He obeyed, watching her nervously as she bent and peered at the house,
-and wondering uneasily what she was about.  She knew the house well
-enough, both inside and out, so she could not be stopping to look at it
-just for that. She must be trying to form some impression of it that was
-wholly new, perhaps picturing it as it would be when she had come to
-live in it herself.
-
-When he found that she did not speak, he began to offer clipped remarks,
-anxiously pointing out objects that she was quite unable to see.
-
-"It's a good house, missis....  You'll remember it's a tidy spot.
-There's a fairish garden for cabbishes and the like, and a bit of a
-drying-ground as well.  As for berry-bushes, there's gooseberry and
-black currant and red ... and danged if there isn't a few rasps over at
-far side wall an' all!"
-
-Sarah looked away from the house the moment he started to speak, as if
-some spell were broken by the sound of his voice.  "Ay," she said, with
-a total lack of interest, and staring ahead....  "Now, master, we'd best
-get on."
-
-Simon, cut off in mid-flight, repeated "Rasps!" in a feeble tone, and
-again Sarah said "Ay," and requested him to get on.  He drove away
-rather reluctantly, looking behind him as he went, and muttering of
-Taylor's rasps and cabbishes until they were finally lost to sight.
-
-Now once more they were in the high-flanked lane, with Blindbeck and all
-that Blindbeck stood for fallen away at last.  The cross went with them,
-indeed, but the calvary dropped behind.  The horse turned homeward, and,
-encouraged by Will's corn, showed a sudden freakish revival of vanished
-youth.  Bicycles met and passed them in the narrow road, sliding by like
-thistledown on a wind, while the riders saw only an elderly couple
-apparently half asleep.  Yet even the dullest farm-lad would have cried
-aloud to them if he had known to what they went.  He would have flung
-himself off his bicycle and barred the road, a humble but valiant
-imitation of an Angel of God.
-
-Evening was coming, but the day was still alive, incredibly long as the
-afternoon had seemed.  Simon's old watch, put right that morning in
-Witham, asserted that it was only half-past four.  The atmosphere had
-never been really light, and only imperceptibly was it drawing down to
-dusk.  The grey seemed to have deepened and settled a little, but that
-was all.  It was a day on which people forgot the time, as Mr. Dent had
-said, a day when they had every excuse for forgetting the right time.
-Simon felt suddenly as though he had never seen the sun either rise or
-set for at least a week. Yesterday there had been only a swift setting,
-hurriedly blotted out, and to-day, if there had been any fugitive
-brightness of farewell, it must have passed while they were still at the
-farm.  The night was coming unduly to the grey-green land which had
-never had its meed of sun, just as the night came unfairly to lives
-whose share of glamour and glory had been missed.  He longed to see a
-light spring out of the west, showing the silver water in a shining
-line, and re-tinting the heavy, neutral-coloured earth.
-
-Sun,--evening sun lying over the sea,--would have made things easier for
-both of them, but especially for his wife.  Even though there was so
-little that she could see, the warmth and light would at least have lain
-tenderly upon her lids.  Trouble and change were always easier to bear
-under a smiling sky; it did not mock at the trouble, as smiling faces so
-often seemed to do.  Rain and the dark seemed to narrow a trouble in, so
-that change was a nameless peril into which each step was into a void.
-But there was to be no sun for these lost folk who seemed to be straying
-all the day long; only the unstirred breath of the mist in the blotted
-west, filling the mighty bowl at whose bottom lay the sea.
-
-They felt strange with each other, now that they were alone, because of
-all that the other had done while the two of them were apart. Simon's
-sudden decision was as inexplicable to his wife as her afternoon's jest
-with Eliza had seemed to him.  In his place she would never have stooped
-to make of herself the younger brother's man; she would have worked for
-the hardest driver amongst them sooner than that.  Even the close
-affection between the brothers could not dignify the position in her
-eyes.  She could understand something of Simon's yearning towards the
-farm, but Sarah was never the sort of which they make doorkeepers in
-Heaven.  She would never really have understood the strength of the
-pull, even with no Eliza set like a many-eyed monster on the farmyard
-wall.  He, on the other hand, could not even pretend to understand the
-Lie, but then the Vision of the Parlour had been granted to her and not
-to him.
-
-Both their minds, however, were at work more on the change that was
-coming than on Sarah's sudden craze, since always the pressing business
-of life must supersede the dream. Simon, indeed, did not want to think
-about Sarah's behaviour further than he could help, because of that
-sinister saying about the doings of blind brains.  As for Sarah herself,
-she had done with the dream for ever in that moment when she came face
-to face with the limits of her lie.  It had had its tremendous hour in
-the down-treading of a lifelong foe, but in that one stupendous
-achievement it had finally passed. Never again would she be able to shut
-herself in the spell, until the blind saw and the lost spoke, and the
-sea was crossed in a leap.  Never again would she be able to believe
-that Geordie might come home.
-
-In spite of their shameful departure, fast fading, however, from his
-mind, Simon was already planning the bitter-sweet prospect of their near
-return.  Like so many ideas impossible and even repellent at the start,
-this had already become natural and full of an acid charm.  For the time
-being he was content to ignore the drawbacks of the position, and to
-concentrate only upon its obvious gains.  His mind, hurrying forward
-over the next few months, was already disposing of stock,
-farm-implements and surplus household gear; and in his complete
-absorption he forgot that he was not alone, and kept jerking out
-fragments of disjointed speech.  Sarah allowed him to amuse himself
-after this fashion for some time, and then broke dryly into his current
-of thought.
-
-"You may as well tell me what's settled, and get it by with," she
-observed in a sardonic tone. "So far, even Eliza seems to know more
-about it than me.  You and Will seem to ha' fixed things up wi' a
-vengeance, that you have! You'd best to tell me how it come about,
-instead of booing away to yourself like a badly calf."
-
-"Nay, it was all fixed that sharp," Simon grumbled, with an injured air,
-though very relieved at heart to hear her speak.  "There was no time to
-ax nobody nor nowt.  I'm still a bit maiselt about it myself, for the
-matter o' that.  I don't know as I'll be that surprised if I hear
-to-morrow it's all off.  As for Eliza, it fair beats me how she could
-ha' got wind of it so smart!  She likely hid herself somewheres when we
-was talking it out; though she's not that easy to miss,--gert, spying
-toad!"
-
-He brisked considerably now that the first awkwardness was past, and
-went on to tell her, after his usual backwards and forwards fashion,
-exactly how the new arrangement had come about.
-
-"It's not much to crack on, I dare say," he finished, pleading with her
-across the disapproving silence which had again risen between them like
-a wall, "but, when all's said and done, it's a sight better than I'd
-looked for, by a deal.  I'd ha' been bound to hire myself somewheres, to
-help us make out, and there isn't a decenter master in t'countryside
-than Will.  It's a deal better than being odd-job man at some one-horse
-spot, or maybe scrattin' up weeds and suchlike at some private house.
-There'll be a decent wage, think on, and milk,--ay, and happen a load o'
-coal an' all.  Will'll see as we're rightly done by, never fret!  We'll
-be right comfortable, I'm sure.  Will says his lasses'll give you a hand
-wi' washing and the like, and if happen we get a good sale we might run
-to a bit o' help ourselves.  You'll miss t'horse and cart, I reckon, but
-we'll find a way out o' yon as well.  If you felt as you fancied a bit
-of a ride, Will'd like enough loan me a horse and trap."
-
-He was coaxing her for all he was worth, but neither the coaxing nor the
-explanation seemed to get any further than her ears.  Again he felt the
-spasm of irritation which he had felt in the parlour, and was at the
-same time reminded of its original cause.
-
-"I don't say it'll be over pleasant for either on us," he went on
-vexedly, as she did not open her lips, "but you'll likely admit I did
-the best I could for us, all the same.  It's a sad pity you and Eliza
-pull together so bad, but it's over late to think o' mending it now.
-Anyway, you did nowt to mend it by telling yon string o' lies this
-afternoon!  What, in the name o' goodness, made you act so strange?"
-
-She moved then, a touch of the afternoon glamour reaching from
-Blindbeck, and following her down the lane.
-
-"Nay, I don't know....  Things come over folk, now and then.  I'm right
-sorry, though, if I set you thinking it was the lad."
-
-"I've given up thinking owt o' the sort long since," he said dejectedly.
-"I should ha' thought you would ha' done the same an' all."
-
-"Things come over folk," she repeated, unwilling to say more, and he
-nodded his head, relieved by her softer tone.  "You'll try to make up
-your mind to Blindbeck, will you, missis?" he pressed on nervously,
-hoping her mood would last.  "It's a bad best, maybe, but I nobbut did
-what I could."
-
-She gave a sharp sigh, but her voice was firm.  "Ay, I'll make up my
-mind to it, after a bit."
-
-"It's a big change at our time of life, but you'll settle, never fear."
-
-"Ay, I'll settle all right.  Don't you fret."
-
-"It's a good shop, Sarah."
-
-"Ay."
-
-"And Will's a right good sort."
-
-"Oh, ay."
-
-The sudden gentleness of her mood prompted him to a further unburdening
-of his soul.  He leaned forward a little in the trap, staring over the
-grey fields, and with the note of pleading rising and falling in his
-tone.
-
-"I don't mind telling you now, Sarah, but I've been fair fretted out o'
-my senses all this while. There's been times I've felt like just making
-off on t'sands, and letting tide settle it for me for good an' all.  Ay,
-and by Gox! it very near come about, too, one day when I was mooning
-along and not looking where I was at!  But there was you to see to, and
-I couldn't rightly bring myself to chuck up the sponge.  'Tisn't as if
-the lad was dead, neither,--there was that as well.  He's as good as
-dead, likely, but it's a different thing, all the same.  Folks can get
-along on a mighty little hope,--same as yon old horse as died just when
-it was learning to live on nowt!  We've come to a bonny pass, these
-days, you and Geordie an' me, but the world isn't past bearing as long
-as the three on us is over sod."
-
-It was with a sense of enlightenment and escape that they came out
-finally on to the high road, for in the cleft of the lane every curve of
-the land stole what little clarity was left to the slowly withdrawing
-earth.  Even Sarah was faintly conscious of lightened lids, as well as
-of easier breathing as the borders of the road drew further apart.  In
-the lane they had been high, looming presences, over-close to the
-lurching wheels, but now they ceased to oppress her, though she was
-still aware that they marched with her as she went.  It was as if the
-furniture of the land was being withdrawn into the wings before the
-curtain of night was really down; yet even in its slow departure it
-still formed the picture and dominated the scene. The only real comfort
-for brain and eyes was on the unfurnished marsh, where even the fenced
-roads lifted themselves as often as not above their fences to look
-abroad.
-
-There was more life, also, on the open road,--cycles and traps, and
-people walking in twos and threes; motor-cars, too, at which Simon never
-so much as glanced aside, though now they were really beginning to look
-like ghosts in the sinking light.  Even when there was nobody on the
-road there was still the sense of being part of an unseen train, the
-link which binds traveller to traveller on every principal highway in
-the land, but especially on those which run north and south.  The link
-strengthens and the thrill deepens as the day lengthens and the hours go
-on.  Each wonders instinctively to what home the other is hastening
-before he is overtaken by the dark.  From each to each at the hour of
-dusk passes the unconscious Godspeed uniting all who are drawing
-together towards the adventure of the night.
-
-And, for Simon and Sarah, as for all, either man or beast, even in this
-bitter hour, there was the comfort of the road that goes home. There is
-always a lamp set high in the house to which one returns, even though it
-be poor and empty and dark.  The greatest sorrow awaiting one at the end
-is not really a sorrow until one steps inside.  The ease of the road
-home is the ineffable ease of the mind.  Stout hearts and limbs may
-carry us out, and barely suffice to stagger us back, but the running and
-leaping mind can comfort the body on.  There is always a lamp set high
-at the end of the road that is going home....
-
-Not until they had lost it would they realise the perpetual consolation
-of that long-accustomed road.  Times without number they had travelled
-it, seething with anger and hate, and yet always they were the richer
-for having passed that way.  Simon, busily thinking of Blindbeck and all
-the advantages of the wealthy farm, did not know that he was putting his
-real wealth from him with every thought.  Yet he would know it all the
-rest of his life when he drove a road that was not consecrated by the
-years, when the folk that hailed them in passing were not part of a
-lifelong chain; when the turns of the road were no longer pictures and
-books, with each house where it should be and would be for all time;
-when he stopped at a gate in the dusk and knew it was not his; when he
-entered a meaningless building at last and knew it was not home....
-
-But just for the moment he was thinking neither of the immediate present
-nor of the greater part of his long-reaching past.  His mind, unusually
-stimulated by the day's events, swung easily to and fro between the
-future at Blindbeck and the far-off boyhood which he had spent with
-Will.  Blindbeck had never been his home in any sense, but his call to
-Blindbeck was nevertheless the call of the past.  They would renew their
-youth for each other, the two old men, and forget when they were
-together that they were old.  They turned instinctively to each other,
-as all turn to those who can recreate for them the young beginnings of
-their lives. On the marsh Simon always felt immeasurably old, weighted
-as with an actual burden by the years.  He saw himself looking behind
-him at them as at monsters created in his pride, which now and for ever
-were out of his control.  With Will beside him, they would lie in front
-as they used to do, rolling meadowlands still untouched by the plough of
-time.  Because they had been young together it would be impossible for
-them to be really old.  Because they had been young together they could
-took smiling, shoulder to shoulder, into the unbelievable grave.
-
-Not that his longing had any such definite frame of thought as this,
-though he was aware that in it had lain the motive which had fixed his
-mind.  He only moved towards its fulfilment as all untutored souls move
-naturally towards release from strain.  He scarcely remembered Sarah
-after their talk had come to an end that was hardly an end, like an
-unravelled cord of which no one troubles to count the untwisted strands.
-That mighty leap which he was taking across the years carried him well
-above both Sarah's and Geordie's heads.  The school-years, the climbing,
-running, hungry years were more distinct to him than the heavy,
-responsible years of marriage and middle life.  He saw himself and Will
-running after the hounds, paddling in calm lakes of gold-shot evening
-tides, skating by slowly rising moons.  He saw a raw lad going shyly but
-stolidly to his first place, already a man in the awed estimation of the
-brother left behind.  He heard the clink of the first money he had ever
-earned, which had gone straight from his pocket into the family purse.
-He had handed it over without a twinge of regret, and his empty hands
-had continued to thrill with pride.  Later, he had begged a couple of
-shillings for himself and Will, and had never thought of the money then
-or since but as a gift....
-
-They came at last to the dangerous, right-angled turn which dropped them
-down to the marsh, and as the horse began to jerk itself down the hill a
-car passed slowly above them along the open road.  Although the day
-still lingered, the tail-light was already lit, as if the car were
-setting out on a journey instead of going home.  Yet it went slowly and
-almost reluctantly, like a man who looks over his shoulder all the
-while.  It was as if it was only waiting its opportunity to turn itself
-in its tracks.  But all the time it was drifting gradually away, and the
-red light, that could hardly as yet impress itself on the dusk, seemed
-to hesitate for a moment at a curve of the road, and then, as if a hand
-had been clapped in front of it, was suddenly gone.
-
-The drop from the highway was like being dropped from a cliff, so
-distinct was the change to the loneliness of the marsh.  The link was
-broken which made them members of a purposed line, leaving them mere
-strayed wanderers of whom nobody was aware.  The few farmhouses,
-lifeless-looking in the deadened light, stared always towards great
-distances over their puny heads.  The few trees sprang up before them,
-suddenly strange, acquiring an almost violent personality against the
-meaningless scene.
-
-The straight miles dragged reluctantly past their heavy wheels, and on
-the unending road they seemed to go forward without purpose and to be
-set on a journey that had no goal.  When at length the stretches of
-meadow and cropped land gave place to the pale-coloured desert of the
-sand, there seemed no possible reason why one should cease and the other
-begin.  Away out behind the mist there was a living, moving tide, but
-here on the marsh there was no consciousness of tide.  Things just
-stopped, that was all, and from the garden became the waste, just as the
-growth and renewal of life had stopped for the old pair, leaving nothing
-but desolation before their feet.
-
-Yet still the earth was with them, and Simon turned his eyes again and
-again to its vague outlines with relief.  Across the bay the cone of the
-Knott still held to its tangibility and form, protesting against the
-swamping hand of night.  The crown of it, fitted with wood as closely as
-with a cap, was darker against the sky than the shadowy slopes on which
-the houses climbed.  And, nearer inland still, on the low edge of shore
-that was like a trail of smoke on the farther side of the sands, a blur
-of formless yet purposeful grey showed where the tiny hamlet of Sandyeat
-clustered about the 'Ship.'
-
-Sandholes was in sight now, and the horse quickened its pace, triumphing
-over the last few wearisome yards.  As they approached the house, with
-its white face set on a body of looming buildings behind, they had as
-always a mingled sensation of sadness and relief.  Not that the place
-was sad to them because of its dreary emptiness set amongst formless
-fields. In the course of years it had become for them merely an
-atmosphere, not a thing of sight. They were only depressed by it because
-for them it was the heart of failure and loss.  And in the same way they
-were relieved by it, dignified, sanctuaried and consoled, because this
-was their hiding-place against the world, and here the heart of their
-few memories of joy.
-
-The house was dark, but they were accustomed to that, used to the door
-that would not open, however they knocked, and the windows that for ever
-would never frame a face, however they hailed.  They were used to that
-stumbling into the place in the folding dark, to the striking of a match
-that brought them nothing but the dreary waiting rigidity of the things
-they had left behind.  They were used, too, to an uprising fear on the
-struck light that some terrible change might have taken place in the
-empty house; that even the waiting things might have played them false
-while they were gone....
-
-So lonely looked the place, that it seemed as if it might even revenge
-itself upon those who had the temerity to awaken it during that sinking
-hour, but, as they reached the gate, the old dog asleep in a loose box
-aroused himself to a hoarse, recognising bark.  The few cows, also,
-waiting to be fed, sent out deep complaints at the sound of the coming
-wheels. And as they finally rattled into the uneven yard, a woman's
-figure stood up and waved to them from the sea-wall.
-
-
-
-
-                                PART III
-
-
-                                  MAY
-
-
-
-                                   I
-
-
-The afternoon which had seen Sarah's short-lived splendour had been
-sweet also for May.  Sweeter, indeed, since for her there was no
-clashing of fierce passions to jar the tender witchery of her mood.  And
-though the glamour was of the past,--a sheet of gold as of sunlight far
-at the back of her mind; a sea of gold from which she moved ever inward
-towards the darkness of the hills,--a tongue of light had suddenly
-darted from it to stream like a golden wind-blown ribbon over her path.
-That light was the knowledge that in her own hands lay the possibility
-of Geordie's return.
-
-Youth came back to her with the thought, and she sat straighter still in
-the trap, holding her unused whip at a jaunty angle across the elastic
-bar of the reins.  The good horse swung homewards in a generous stride;
-the bright wheels of the dog-cart flashed through the dull country like
-a whirled autumn leaf.  The passers-by found a special sweetness in her
-ready smile, because it reflected the secret in her heart.  As they went
-on their way they said what they always said,--that it was a marvel she
-had not married long ago.
-
-Yet the secret, fair as it was, had also the folly of all great
-ventures, since, in laying her hands upon the future, she risked the
-memory that had coloured her whole life.  To bring Geordie home might
-mean nothing but disappointment for herself, sordid disappointment and
-shame for a mis-spent girlish dream.  Things would be different, at the
-very best; part of the memory would have to go.  But the chief people to
-be considered were the old folks who had so often been the footballs of
-fate.  Nothing that she might fear on her own account should stand in
-the way of this sudden fulfilment for a frustrated old man, this light
-to the eyes for an old woman going blind.  In any case May was the sort
-that would tenderly handle the cracked and mended pot right up to the
-moment of dissolution at the well.  No disappointment that Geordie could
-bring her would remain sordid for very long.  Out of her shattered idols
-her wisdom and humour would gather her fresh beauty; clear-eyed,
-uplifting affection for youthful worship, and pity and tenderness for
-passion.
-
-It was true that Sarah had already rejected her offer,--brutally,
-almost, in her determination that May should suffer no further for her
-son. But May had already almost forgotten the rough sentences which for
-the time being had slammed the opening door in her eager face. Sarah was
-strong, she knew, but she herself, because of love in the past and pity
-in the present, felt stronger still.  She said to herself, smiling, that
-sooner or later she would find an argument that would serve.  Sooner or
-later Sarah would yield, and share with secret delight in the surprise
-that they would so gaily prepare for the old man.  Sooner or later the
-boat would put out from port that carried the lost lad,--Geordie, with
-his pockets empty but his heart full, and every nerve of him reaching
-towards his home.
-
-Now she had turned the end of the bay, and was running along the flat
-road that hugged the curve of the shore.  Below on her right were the
-sands, almost within flick of her whip, with the river-channel winding
-its dull length a hundred yards away.  Beyond it, the sand narrowed into
-the arm of the marsh, until the eye caught the soft etching of the
-Thornthwaite farm, set on the faint gold and green of the jutting land.
-
-The inn, low, white-faced, dark, with all the light of it in the eyes
-that looked so far abroad, was very quiet when she came to it about
-three o'clock.  The odd-job man was waiting about to take her horse, and
-she paused to have a word or two with him in the yard.  Then she went
-briskly into the silent place, and at once the whole drowsy air of it
-stirred and became alive.  The spotlessness of the house seemed to take
-on a sparkling quality from the swift vitality of her presence.  The
-very fire seemed to burn brighter when she entered, and the high lights
-on the steels and brasses to take a finer gleam.  Her father called to
-her from the room where he lay upstairs, and her buoyant tread, as she
-went up, seemed to strengthen even his numb limbs and useless feet.
-
-She sat by his bed for some time, telling him all the news, and
-conveying as much as she could of the hiring and marketing stir
-combined. This particular person had wished to know how he was; the
-other had sent him a message to be delivered word for word.  One had a
-grandmother who had died in similar case; another a remedy that would
-recover him in a week. Bits of gossip she had for him, sketches of old
-friends; stories of old traits cropping up again which made him chuckle
-and cap them from the past.  By the time she had finished he was firmly
-linked again to life, and had forgotten that deadly detachment which
-oppresses the long-sick.  Indeed, he almost forgot, as he listened, that
-he had not been in Witham himself, hearing the gossip with his own ears
-and seeing the familiar faces with his own eyes. For the time being he
-was again part of that central country life, the touchstone by which
-country-folk test reality and the truth of things, and by contact with
-which their own identity is intensified and preserved.
-
-But her eyes were turned continually to the window as she chatted and
-laughed, dwelling upon the misty picture even when they were not
-followed by her mind.  Only her brain answered without fail when her
-gaze travelled to the farm on the farther shore.  Gradually the picture
-shadowed and dimmed in line, but still she sat by the bed and laughed
-with her lips while her heart looked always abroad.  Neither she nor her
-father ever drew a blind in the little inn.  They had lived so long with
-that wide prospect stretching into the house that they would have
-stifled mentally between eyeless walls.
-
-She talked until he was tired, and then she made his tea, and left him
-happy with the papers which she had brought from Witham. Her own tea she
-ate mechanically, with the whole of her mind still fixed on the promise
-of the day, and when she had finished she was drawn to the window again
-before she knew. The Thornthwaites would be home by now, she concluded,
-looking out.  Tired and discouraged, they would be back again at the
-farm, feeling none of the quivering hope which lifted and thrilled her
-heart.  Sarah would not even dwell on the offer, having put it by for
-good, and Simon did not as much as know that there had been an offer at
-all.  They would creep to bed and sleep drearily, or wake drearily
-against their will, while she would wake of her own accord in order to
-clasp her purpose and find it still alive.  She could not bear the
-thought of the long, blank night which would so soon be wrapping them
-round; even a stubborn refusal of her hope would be a better friend to
-them than that.  Stronger and stronger grew the knowledge within her
-that she must see them before they slept.  It was for their sake, she
-told herself, at first, thirsting to be across, and then, as she
-clinched her decision, knew it was also for her own.
-
-She went upstairs again to put on her coat and hat, wondering as she did
-so what her father would have to say.  He would be sure to enquire what
-took her across the sands so late, yet he would wonder and fret if she
-left him without a word.  Geordie's name had dropped into silence
-between them for many a year, and, lately as she had spoken it to Sarah,
-it would be hard to speak it now.  She knew only too well what her
-father would think of her offer of hard-saved gold.  He had always been
-bitter against Geordie for her sake, and would want no wastrel fetched
-overseas to play on her pity again.  She stole half-way down the stairs,
-and then was vexed with herself and went up again with a resolute tread.
-Once more she hesitated, with her hand on the door-latch, and then it
-slipped from her finger and she found herself in the room.
-
-Fleming looked up from his paper with his faded eyes.  "Off again,
-lass?" he enquired, noticing how she was dressed.  "Is there a pill-gill
-Milthrop way to-night?"
-
-She shook her head.
-
-"Not as I know of....  Nay, I'm sure there's not."  She stood staring at
-him, uncertain what to say, and then her eyes, as if of their own
-accord, turned back towards the sands. "I just felt like going out a bit
-again, that's all."
-
-"Likely you're going up road for a crack wi' Mrs. Bridge?"
-
-"Nay ... I didn't think o' going there."
-
-"To t'station, happen?"
-
-"Nor that, neither...."  There was a little pause.  "Just--out," she
-added, and the note in her voice seemed to reach before her over the
-sandy waste.  Fleming heard it, and saw the track of her gaze as well.
-
-"What's up, lass?" he asked quietly, letting his paper drop.  "What
-d'you want to do?"
-
-She braced herself then, swinging round to him with one of her cheerful
-laughs.  "You'll think I'm daft, I know," she said, looking down at him
-with dancing eyes, "but I'm right set on seeing Mrs. Thornthet again
-to-night.  We'd a deal to say to each other this morning, but we didn't
-finish our talk.  I thought I could slip over sand and back before it
-was dark."
-
-Fleming looked perturbed.
-
-"It's over late for that, isn't it?" he asked. "Light's going pretty
-fast an' all.  Hadn't you best bide till morning, and gang then?"
-
-"I don't feel as I can.  I'm set on going to-night.  I've often been
-across as late, you'll think on.  I'll take right good care."
-
-"What about tide?"
-
-"Not for a couple of hours yet, and I've not that much to say.  Boat's
-ready alongside channel; it nobbut wants shoving off.  I'll be there and
-back before you can say knife."
-
-"Ay, well, then, you'd best be off, and look sharp about it!" Fleming
-conceded in a reluctant tone.  "I'll have t'lamp put in winder as usual
-to set you back.  Don't you get clattin' now and forget to see if it's
-there."
-
-"I'll look out for it, don't you fret.  Like as not I'll never go inside
-the house.  There's just something I want to make sure of before I
-sleep."
-
-She nodded brightly and began to move away, but he called her back
-before she reached the door.  With the quickness of those who lie long
-in a sick room, he had noticed the change in her atmosphere at once.
-Restlessness and impatience were strange things to find in May, and
-there was a touch of excitement in her manner as well.  He looked at her
-thoughtfully as she retraced her steps.
-
-"Is there any news o' that wastrel lad o' theirs?  Happen he's thinking
-o' coming back?"
-
-The words spoken from another's mouth brought a rush of certainty to her
-longing mind. She answered him confidently, as if she held the actual
-proof.
-
-"That's it, father!  That's right."  She laughed on a buoyant, happy
-note.  "Our Geordie's coming home!"
-
-"To-night?"  Fleming's mouth opened. "D'ye mean he's coming to-night?"
-
-"Nay, I don't know about that!" She laughed again.  "But it'll be before
-so long. I feel as sure about it as if he was knocking at Sandholes
-door!"
-
-"You've no call to be glad of it, as I can see," Fleming said, with a
-touch of fretfulness in his tone.  "Are you thinking o' wedding him
-after all this time?"
-
-Her head drooped a little.
-
-"I'm past thinking o' that, and he'll have been past it long ago.  I'm
-just glad for the old folks' sake, that's all.  It's like as if it was
-somebody dead that was coming back, so that I needn't believe in death
-and suchlike any more.  It's like as if it's myself as is coming
-back,--as if I should open door and see the lass I used to be outside."
-
-"I'd be glad to see you settled afore I went, but not wi' an idle
-do-nowt as'd spoil your life. It'll be queer to me if Geordie
-Thornthet's made much out.  He was a wastrel, right enough, for all his
-wheedlin' ways."
-
-"I'm past thinking o' marriage," she said again.  "It's just what it
-means to the old folks, poor old souls!"
-
-"Ay.  They've had a mighty poor time, they have that."  He sighed,
-thinking of many a tale of woe unfolded by Simon beside his bed. Then he
-looked up at her with a whimsical smile.  "They'd nobbut the one bairn,
-same as your mother and me, and there's been whiles I've been real mad
-because you weren't a lad. Ay, well, I've lived to see the folly o' my
-ways, and to thank God I'd nobbut a lass!  You're worth a dozen Geordie
-Thornthets any day o' the week...."
-
-She was gone with an answering smile directly he finished his speech,
-and the sound of her feet was light and swift on the stair.  Hearing
-her, he, too, seemed to see her a girl again, gone to meet Geordie
-Thornthwaite along the shore. But instead of reviving and cheering him,
-it made him sad.  He was too near the end to wish himself back at the
-start.  He glanced at the lamp on the table to make sure that it was
-filled, and settled himself back to his papers with a sigh.
-
-
-
-
-                                   II
-
-
-May stopped to speak to the hired girl as she went out, and was alarmed
-by the creeping dusk already in the inn.  She breathed again when she
-was in the road, and saw the dull light holding yet on either hand.  The
-soft closing of the door behind her back gave her a long-forgotten
-thrill, bringing back similar autumn evening hours, when she had gone to
-meet a lover from over the sands.
-
-She got down to the shore about the time that the scene at Blindbeck was
-drawing to an end.  She hurried, not only because she had little or no
-time to waste, but because she could not have gone slowly if she had
-tried.  The young May had never gone slowly, who was all kindness and
-knew nothing of pride.  She ran down the shingle and across the sand,
-only pausing to draw breath and to reprove herself at the channel's
-edge.  Passers-by on the flat road stopped to stare at her as she sped
-across, wondering what she could be doing at that hour. Pausing, she
-looked across at the farm before she bent to the boat, chiding herself
-for her almost childish haste.  But her tongue ached to let loose the
-words of persuasion that she carried with her, and her heart ached for
-the word of permission that she was sure she would carry back.  She did
-not doubt for a moment that Sarah would give way, so strong was her
-inward belief that Geordie was coming home.
-
-At last she pushed off, stepped in and punted herself across, and once
-out again on dry ground tried to hold herself to a walk.  The sand,
-ribbed and hard beneath her feet, spoke to the fact that the tide had
-been gone for hours.  It was extraordinary how forgotten the sands
-always seemed as soon as the tide had gone away.  Only those who had
-proved it by daily experience could believe that the water would ever
-return.  Even to them it remained something of the miracle that it was
-in truth, arousing continually a thrill of awed surprise. Yet, side by
-side with that impression of final retreat, of waste that had always
-been waste and would never be reclaimed, was one of a brooding terror
-that was only waiting its hour. The sea and the sands were like cat and
-mouse, May thought,--the one, aloof, indifferent, yet always poised to
-leap; the other, inert, paralysed though apparently free, and always the
-certain victim in the end.
-
-She looked behind and before from the quiet home which she had left to
-the still more lonely and quiet house which was her goal.  There was a
-point about half-way across at which it seemed as if she would never
-reach the one, never get back to the other in all time.  Both seemed to
-recede from her equally as she moved, vague shapes formed only of
-imagination and the mist.  Just for a moment that vagueness of things
-which she knew to be concrete caught her by the throat.  The little that
-she could see of the earth was so cloudlike, so lacking in sturdy
-strength.  The very shore of the marsh looked as though a breath might
-dissolve it in thin air.  Though the distance across was little more
-than a mile, the feeling of space around her was infinite as the sky.
-The sands seemed suddenly to become a treadmill under her feet, turning
-and turning, but never bringing her to the horizon which she sought.
-The whole doorway of the bay was blocked by the great wall of mist, and
-over the Lake mountains there was a smother of mist, and mist over all
-the land that went east to the Pennine range. She began to fear even the
-crinkled sand which felt so firm, as if it might suddenly sway and shift
-like one of the many traps with which the bay was sown.  Behind her, the
-grey, faint-gleaming strip of the channel seemed to cut her off from her
-safe home.  A slice of the bank broke suddenly with an echoing spash,
-chilling her with the lonely terror of water that has a victim in its
-hold.  The boat, helpless-looking, inert, a mere black speck on the
-channel edge, seemed the only insoluble thing beside herself. She longed
-for the comfort of her feet on the tarred boards, for the reassurance of
-her hands against the sculls.  It was a moment or two before she had the
-courage to let it go, and face a world that was full of bodiless shapes
-and evanescent shores.
-
-But almost before she knew it she was on the opposite side, scrambling
-up the stones to the grassy slope beyond, and so, panting and hurrying,
-to the top of the sea-wall.  She saw at once that there was nobody in
-the house, that it was still with the growing stillness of augmented
-hours, and a further chill fell on her happy mood. Yet she was glad at
-least to be there to welcome the old folks when they came, and in any
-case they could not be very far.  Every jolt of the trap must be
-bringing them nearer to the net which she was spreading so lovingly for
-their feet.  They would be tired, of course, and probably very cross,
-but May was used to market-day moods and would not care.  With
-affectionate ruthlessness she told herself that would yield to her all
-the sooner for being tired.  Presently they would agree unwillingly that
-she might have her way, and then she would hurry home again as if on
-wings.  They would be crosser than ever after she had gone, vexed both
-with her and themselves and terribly touched in their pride.  And then,
-slowly but surely, the hope that she had forced upon them would begin to
-race its stimulant through their veins.  They would lie down to sleep
-with a secret gladness that they had not the courage to confess, and
-would wake in the morning and know that the world had been made for them
-anew.
-
-She kept stopping the rush of her thoughts to send her senses over the
-marsh, but no sign of life came back to her, or sound of wheel or hoof.
-The wide stretches of grass and plough and the long length of road
-seemed almost as unsuggestive of human influence as the sands
-themselves.  Swifter and swifter faded the passionate confidence which
-had sent her out, leaving the risks of the matter uppermost in her mind.
-She remembered that it was possible to be patient all one's life, and
-yet to wreck the fruits of it in an unguarded hour.  This sudden mental
-and physical rashness might be symbolical of a greater rashness of the
-soul. Perhaps after to-night all her footholds and anchorages might go,
-leaving the world that she had managed so bravely only a nightmare
-blurred by tears.
-
-The dusk thickened about her as the night tried to impress itself on the
-earth as a separate entity from the mist.  The most that it could do,
-however, was to produce the effect of a hovering shadow from some huge
-arrested wing. The real warning of night was in the deepened sense of
-loneliness and dread of personal diminution in a growing space, in the
-further recession of things unseen as well as seen.  It lay, too, in the
-stirring consciousness of the impending advent of the tide.  She began
-to look anxiously towards her father's window for the lamp, and though
-she was comforted when she saw no sign, it stamped the illusion of
-desolation on her mind.  Then she heard the cattle stir in the shippon
-as she walked along the wall, and was cheered and companioned by them
-for a little while.  She would have gone down to them, or to the dog,
-who was always a firm friend, but she was afraid of losing her
-consciousness of time.  She could not tear herself, either, from her
-breathless waiting for the silence to fill with life.  She was cold
-whether she stood or walked, and more and more oppressed by a sense of
-folly and grave doubt.  She even laughed at the middle-aged woman who
-had thrilled like a girl, but she laughed between her tears.  Once or
-twice she ran down the bank and on to the sand, but always something
-drew her back, and at last, when she had listened so long that she had
-ceased to hear, there came the crunching sound of the Thornthwaite
-wheels.  It was there suddenly where there had been no sign, as if it
-had only begun at the moment it reached her ear.  At once her courage
-sprang up again, and her spirits rose.  The whole affair was sweet and
-brave once more.  It was as if she had heard her lover himself coming
-surely towards her over the lonely marsh....
-
-
-
-
-                                  III
-
-
-Simon uttered an exclamation when he saw the figure on the wall.  His
-heart leaped first with a supernatural fear, and then with a sudden
-foreboding of some normal ill.  His nerves were still unstrung from his
-experience with the car, and ready enough to shape familiar objects into
-ghosts.  Even when he had recognised May and spoken her name, he could
-not rid himself of his feeling of alarm.
-
-So he was not pleased to see her when she came running down, and Sarah,
-who had spent so kindly a morning with her, was not pleased either.  In
-the last few miles she had seemed to travel out of human touch, and
-there was a jar in the sudden intrusion of even this one thing left to
-her to love.  Her brow contracted both with the effort of thought and
-the effort of sight, but indeed she knew well enough why May was there.
-Her intuition had worked uncertainly all the day, but it warned her now.
-She knew what impulse had brought May out to await their coming home.
-
-Simon, however, had no clue to this sudden appearance at his journey's
-end.  He sat still in the trap as she came swiftly through the yard, and
-then leaned out to address her with an anxious frown.
-
-"Nay, now whatever's brought you trapesin' here so late?  Nowt wrong, is
-there?  Father badly again?  Is he axin' for me, by any chance?"
-
-She reassured him with a shake of the head and a smile, and, as in the
-case of Mr. Dent, he felt a sudden resentment towards smiles.  In all
-his life Simon had never encountered so many smiling faces as had looked
-at him that day.
-
-"All's right, thank you....  Father's much about the same.  I wanted a
-word with Mrs. Thornthet, that was all.
-
-"You've been a terble while on the road, though!" she added gaily,
-before he could speak.  "I'd about made up my mind as I'd have to be
-getting back."
-
-"We were kept at Blindbeck, that's how it was," Simon said, remembering
-suddenly and with gloom the precise circumstances under which they had
-been kept.  "But if you nobbut wanted a word wi' the missis, you could
-surely ha' waited while morn.  It's a daft-like trick to be lakin' on
-t'sands when it's getting dark."
-
-His words made her turn again to throw a glance at the inn, but still
-there was no summoning gleam from the room upstairs.  "Ay, but tide
-isn't till six," she answered him coaxingly, turning back, "and I shan't
-be long. Father'll show a light for me when it's time I was setting
-off."
-
-Sarah, ignoring the pair of them, had already clambered out, and Simon
-remembered that he had the horse to stable and the cows to milk and
-feed.  "Danged foolishness, that's what it is!" he growled, as he
-scrambled down, giving May a very unaccustomed scowl.  "If I did as I
-ought, I'd be skifting you pretty sharp. Say what you've gitten to say,
-and then clear out!"
-
-Sarah had been moving away from them towards the house, but, as May
-followed her, she swung about.  There was no invitation, however, in her
-rigid face.
-
-"You've nowt to say as I know on," she said in a curt tone, "and I'm
-rarely tired.  Anyway, there's no sense in lossing yourself for a bit of
-a chat."
-
-"I'll not lose myself, not I!" May laughed, advancing towards her, full
-of kindly warmth. She had been prepared for some such reception as this,
-and was not depressed.  "What, I've been across that often, it's the
-same to me as the road!  I've been over when it was snowing,--ay, and by
-moonlight, too.  As for Geordie," she added, with a tender laugh, "he's
-crossed in the pitch dark, with only his nose to tell him where he was
-at!
-
-"I was bound to ask you again before I slept," she urged, casting a
-glance at Simon, busy with the horse.  "Can't I come in a minute?--I
-won't be long.  It's late to be telling my business in the yard."
-
-"You've no business wi' me," Sarah said stolidly, "so you can stop off
-yon weam voice. You're not coming into Sandholes to-night, May Fleming,
-so that's flat!"
-
-May laughed again, but there was less confidence in the laugh.  She
-waited to speak again until Simon had moved away, the dog leaping and
-barking under the horse's nose.
-
-"It's a shame," she said cheerfully, "to bother you so late, but I just
-couldn't bring myself to wait.  It was you as brought it all back, Mrs.
-Thornthet, come to that, with yon talk at the doctor's of Geordie coming
-home!"
-
-"There's no talk of him coming," Sarah said coldly, "and never was."
-With one magnificent sweep she disposed of the fallacy of the afternoon.
-"You ought to ha' more sense than to go fancying things like that!"
-
-"But you'd a letter, you said, begging his fare?"  May was slightly
-bewildered, but went pressing on.  "You said he was keen to come, if he
-had the brass."
-
-"Ay, and there wasn't no brass; so yon's finished and by wi'," Sarah
-said.
-
-"Ay, but there is," May pleaded.  "Plenty o' brass!"  She faltered a
-little before the other's lack of response.  "Nay, Mrs. Thornthet, don't
-you look like that!  What does it matter where it comes from if it makes
-folks glad?"
-
-"I'll buy no gladness o' mine from you, my lass, as I said before."
-
-"I can spare the brass right enough,--if it's only that."
-
-"Ay, but I can't spare the pride to take it," Sarah said.
-
-"Ay, well, then, think as you're buying my happiness!" May begged.  "I'd
-be real proud to think as I'd brought him back, even if he never looked
-aside at me again."
-
-"You'd have lile or nowt to be proud on, I'll be bound!" There was a
-touch of weary impatience in Sarah's voice.  "And what-like happiness
-would it be for you in the end?  Nay, May, my girl, we've thrashed the
-matter out, and I'm over-tired to be fret wi' it to-night."
-
-May sighed, and stood looking at her with troubled eyes, but she was
-unable to let the whole of her hope go.
-
-"I'm right sorry to have put you about," she said sadly.  "It's a real
-shame!  Can't you promise to think it over a bit?  I'll come over
-to-morrow for another talk."
-
-"I want neither talking nor thinking, so that's flat!" Sarah snapped.
-"I'll promise to turn key in the door when I see you coming, and that's
-all!"
-
-The tears came into May's eyes.
-
-"You've no call to go telling me off like that," she said, with a little
-break in her voice.  "I haven't done anything that's wrong, I'm sure."
-
-"You've shoved your nose into other folks' business," Sarah said
-roughly,--"that's what you've done!  I'll thank you to leave us to do
-for our lad as'll suit us best!"
-
-"He was mine, too!" May flung at her suddenly, roused at last.  "Long
-ago, maybe,--years on years,--but he was mine as well!"
-
-Sarah gave a sneering laugh.
-
-"There'll be more than one lass, I reckon, setting up to think that!"
-
-May uttered a little cry, wounded to the heart.
-
-"Eh, but you're a cruel woman, Mrs. Thornthet!" she exclaimed, in a
-voice quivering with pain.  "It's true I'd be glad to see Geordie again,
-but it don't make that much difference now.  It's for your sake and poor
-Mr. Thornthet's that I want to see him back....
-
-"You're fond o' me, nowadays," she went on bravely, controlling herself
-again.  "You like me well enough now, whatever you felt once. Can't you
-take the money for the sake of bygone times?"
-
-But already Sarah had turned away from her and was moving towards the
-door.  She fitted the key in the lock with the ease of use, and gave the
-rickety door an opening push.  And again May followed and stood, strong
-in the courage of those who plead for the thing that they have at heart.
-
-"Don't go away feeling mad with me, Mrs. Thornthet!" she begged.  "I'm
-sorry I spoke as I did.  Think on how happy we were together, this
-morning, you and me.  Think how it would be if he was to come marching
-into the yard...."
-
-Sarah was now over the threshold, with her hand against the door, but
-May's hand was also against it, refusing to let it close.  Her face was
-white as a flower upon the dusky air, pleading and sweet with frank lips
-and tearful eyes. Sarah herself was engulfed by the dark house, a shadow
-that was yet more surely a block than the actual door.  It seemed to May
-that she had all the passionless resistance of some ancient, immovable
-stone.  A lantern across showed the black squares of the shippon stalls,
-the white coats of the beasts and Simon moving from dark to light.  May
-did not know that the old woman's purpose was giving in the pause, that
-that last sentence of hers had broken the stubborn will.  She waited
-despairingly, seeking for more to say, and finding nothing, since the
-right word had been said.  And because she despaired she broke the pause
-too soon, in an access of hopelessness flinging away her chance.  Taking
-her hand from the door, she pointed to Simon at his job.
-
-"I'll ask Mr. Thornthet, then!" she cried sharply, beginning to move
-away.  "Happen he'll see to it for me instead of you.  Happen he'll see
-the offer's kindly meant, and not let pride and suchlike stand between!"
-
-But Sarah, too, cried out before she had gone a yard, her voice harsh
-with wrath and a sort of fear.
-
-"You leave Simon be," she cried fiercely,--"let him be!  I've had enough
-o' your worry, without plaguin' him an' all.  You get back to your dad,
-and don't come interfering again. You came between me and my lad, but
-you shan't meddle wi' my man!  You mean well enough, I don't doubt, but
-you're nobbut a meddler, all the same.  It never does to go shoving
-kindnesses at folk who keep on saying nay.  If you force 'em, you do 'em
-more harm than good in the long run, by a deal.  D'you think I want
-Geordie coming back in rags, as like a tramp on t'roads as a couple o'
-peas? D'you think I want a drunken do-nowt loafing about t'spot,--a
-thief, maybe, or happen summat worse?  What sort o' food and drink would
-yon be to Blindbeck, d'you think?  Eliza's gitten enough on her tongue,
-without the likes o' that!  Nay, the lad as went was a limb, but he was
-bonny and smart, and Eliza'll always think of him like yon.  She'll
-always think in her heart as he was the better o' Jim, for all she talks
-so loud.  But if he come back to shame us, it'd rob me even o' that.  I
-couldn't abide it!" she finished vehemently.  "It'd be worse than death.
-I'd rather the sea took him afore ever he reached home!"
-
-She stopped with an indrawn breath, and the door, creaking abruptly,
-showed that her weight was heavy on the latch.  May stood still in the
-yard, as still as the shadow that had once again turned to ancient
-stone.  The silence that had fallen between them seemed to push her
-away, to drive them so far apart that never again would they be able to
-speak.  At last, in that terrible outpouring, May had discovered the
-real barrier to her desire.  There were pride and generosity in the way,
-but there was also something which she could not fight. The monstrous,
-lifelong obsession of Eliza had slopped even the natural road to a
-mother's heart.
-
-Fear came over her, a more terrible fear than had taken her on the
-sands.  In the quiet spot that should have been homely because of the
-moving light and the dumb beasts, she had a hint of something not quite
-sane.  Things that had no place in the life of the soil seemed suddenly
-to have forced a passage in.  She peered into the darkness of Sarah's
-mind, as her bodily eyes sought for her hidden face.
-
-She was startled into action again by the old dog's nose thrust kindly
-into her hand.  He had listened to the urgent voices with constantly
-pricked ears, knowing by instinct that somebody suffered and was afraid.
-Now he came to May, begging her to take charge of her soul, lest he,
-too, whose only trust was in Man, should suffer fear.  She laid her hand
-for a moment on the warmth of his head, dropping her gaze to meet his
-upturned eyes.  Instantly, however, as if he had brought her a further
-message, she looked towards the bay, and saw the lamp in her father's
-window spring to life.
-
-She was loth to go with this wreck of things at her feet, but in her
-destitution of heart she was afraid to stay.  Armed with the promise,
-she would have cared nothing for dark or tide, but with this weight at
-her heart it seemed as if it would take her all the night to cross the
-sand.  She tried to believe that she would return to wrestle with Sarah
-in the day, but she knew well enough that she would never return. Eliza,
-and all that Eliza had meant in their spoiled lives, lay like a
-poisonous snake across her path.
-
-She wondered drearily what had become of the passionate certainty with
-which she had set out.  The sea still sundered her lover and herself,
-the bar of the sea so much greater than any possible stretch of land.
-There were people to whom the sea was a sort of curse, and perhaps,
-without knowing it, she was one of those. She loved it, indeed, but she
-never forgot that it had taken her first hope.  Perhaps it mocked at her
-love as Sarah had mocked her love. Perhaps it was only waiting out in
-the dark to do her harm....
-
-She made one last entreating movement towards the shadow that was stone,
-but nobody moved in the darkness and nobody spoke.  She could not be
-sure at that moment whether Sarah was there, or whether all that she
-begged of was merely blackened space.  Then she began by degrees to move
-away, wrenching her feet, as it were, from the ground of the yard.
-Sadly, without looking back, she mounted the sea-wall, bowed by her
-burden of failure and sorrow and self-contempt.  But the fear took her
-again as soon as she faced the sands, and she hurried down the further
-side.  The good angel of the Thornthwaites fled away into the night as
-if driven by flails.
-
-
-
-
-                                PART IV
-
-
-                            GEORDIE-AN'-JIM
-
-
-
-                                   I
-
-
-The blackness stirred in the doorway and became human again, setting the
-door to the jamb with a firm, decisive push.  Sarah followed the dark
-stone passage to the kitchen, moving with freedom on the ground she
-knew. In the bare, silent room, that seemed at the same time barer and
-yet more peopled because of the dusk, she took off her old mantle, her
-shabby bonnet and her black thread gloves.  She set a lighted candle on
-the table in the middle of the room, and from the cupboard by the hearth
-she took paper and wood, and kindled a pale, unhomely glow in the dusty,
-ash-filled grate.  In the outer darkness that was the scullery she
-filled the kettle, and brought it to wait the reluctant patronage of the
-fire.  It was not yet night over the sands, but the candle was more than
-sufficient to quench the fainting effort of the day.  The only outside
-light was the steady glow of the lamp, set in the face of the inn to
-call its daughter home.
-
-Still, however, the house seemed unaroused, and would remain so until
-the master came in, because those who live much by themselves do not
-hear the sound of their own feet.  They seem to themselves to move like
-ghosts through the rooms; it is only their thoughts that they hear about
-the place.  And there are no houses so quiet as those which spend half
-their days hearkening to that eternal talker, the sea.  The other half
-of their lives is still as the sands are still, sharing that same
-impression of quittance for all time.
-
-The kitchen, once perfectly kept, was already beginning to show signs of
-Sarah's failing sight. There were holes in the cloth rug which she
-unrolled before the fire, and slits in the patch-work cushions on the
-rush-bottomed chairs. The pots in the half-empty pot-rail were all
-askew, and the battered pewter and brass had ceased to put in its claim
-to be silver and gold. There was an out-of-date almanack under the old
-clock, and an ancient tide-table over the mantelshelf.  But the real
-tragedy of the place was not in its poverty but in its soul.  Behind the
-lack of material comfort there was a deeper penury still,--the lack of
-hope and a forward outlook and a reason for going on.  The place was
-cold because the hearts of its tenants were growing cold.
-
-The candle, as always, drove the impression of utter desolation home.
-No other light produces that same effect of a helpless battle against
-the dark.  No other is so surely a symbol of the defiant human soul,
-thinking it shines on the vast mysteries of space.  No other shows so
-clearly the fear of the soul that yet calls its fear by the name of
-courage and stands straight, and in the midst of the sea of the dark
-cries to all men to behold that courage and take heart.
-
-All about that little challenge of light were the brooding obscurities
-of sand and marsh, and, nearer yet, the looming enigma of the empty
-house.  At the back of the mind there was always the consciousness of
-unlit rooms, of echoing passages, and climbing, creaking stairs. Always
-at night there is that mystery of terror in a half-used house, pressing
-on those who crouch in some charmed corner of its walls.
-
-Sarah was different, somehow, now that she was at home, and free of the
-outdoor-clothes which she had worn all day.  It was as if bonnet and
-mantle were the armour of her class, in which she was ready to face the
-offensive of the world.  Without it she was more primitive and more
-human, relaxed in muscles and nerves. Now one could guess at the
-motherliness in her to which Jim had clung, unswervingly trusting in
-spite of her dislike.  Her grey hair had been slightly ruffled both by
-the bonnet and the drive, and on her old neck it even curled a little,
-showing itself still soft and fine.
-
-She was tired with that terrible tiredness which sees the day behind
-like a series of folding cardboard views.  She seemed to have lived many
-days in that single day, with never a moment between them to fit her for
-the next.  More than once, indeed, she had been ready to collapse, but
-always the stimulus of some fresh event had set her going again. Now she
-had reached the point when she was too tired to allow herself to be
-tired, when body and mind, usually careful to save the next day's
-strength, recklessly lay both hands upon their all.
-
-Even at the last moment had come the sudden struggle with May, and the
-zest of that strife still tingled in her veins.  After that long day of
-damaged pride it was pleasant to have asserted it in the end, to have
-claimed the right to suffer rather than be forcibly blessed.  All day
-she had tasted in prospect the salt savour of another's bread, but here
-was something that she could refuse.  She was still too stiff with fight
-to care that she had wounded a generous nature in the act.  It was true
-that she could not have borne the sight of a Geordie who would have
-brought her fresh disgrace.  The love that cares for the broken more
-than the sound could not thrive while she feared the sneer of the idol
-to whom she would not bow.
-
-Beyond, in the dairy, there came the sound of metalled boots, and the
-pails spoke musically on the flags as Simon set them down.  She heard
-him shuffling across to open the inner door, and then--"Milk's in,
-missis!" he called to her, as his head came through.
-
-There was a nervous sound in his voice, at which Sarah almost smiled,
-knowing that his conscience must be ill at ease.  She answered "Oh, ay,"
-without turning, for she was busy with the fire, which, as if hating the
-atmosphere into which it was born, was doing its best to escape from it
-again.
-
-"I'll see to the fire for you, missis," he said, crossing to her side.
-"Set you down and be easy a bit.  You're likely tired."
-
-"Nay, I'll manage all right," she protested stolidly, and then suddenly
-yielded to him, and moved away.  She did not sit down, however, but
-remained standing on the hearth, while he went on his knees to set the
-bellows between the bars.
-
-"May give me a fair start," he observed presently, when the flame had
-consented to grow.  "What was she after, coming off like that?"
-
-"Nay, it was nowt much," Sarah said easily, in an indifferent tone.  "It
-was nobbut some daftness she'd got in her head, that's all."
-
-"She mun ha' been rarely keen to come across so late.  Was it summat or
-other she wanted you to do?"
-
-"Ay," Sarah said firmly, "but I couldn't see my way.  I tellt her so
-this morning when I see her in town."
-
-"Summat about your eyes, likely?" he enquired nervously, blowing hard.
-
-"Losh save us, no!  It was nowt to do wi' that."
-
-"Will was rarely put out when I tellt him what doctor had said," Simon
-went on.  "He was right sorry, he was, and real anxious to do what he
-could."
-
-"Ay, he's kind, is Will.  He's a right good friend.  But I won't take
-owt I can help from him, all the same."
-
-"Because o' yon woman of his?" Simon asked angrily, stumbling to his
-feet.  He threw a last glance at the fire, and saw that it seemed
-resigned to its now evident fate.  He was sorry for Sarah, and guiltily
-conscious of his own relief, but the thought of Eliza whipped his mind
-to rage.  This was nothing new, though, either to man or wife, after the
-usual meeting at the end of the week.  However long they had held their
-tongues from her name, it was suddenly out, and the air was vibrating at
-once with the rising tremolo of their hate.
-
-"Nay, then, what's yon besom to do wi' it, any way round?  Will's
-money's his own, I reckon, and he can do as he likes.  Happen you'll
-choose to see sense about it come Judgment Day, but not afore!"
-
-"A farmer's wife addles half his brass,--we all know that.  You can't
-touch a man wi'out laying a finger on his folks."
-
-"A deal Eliza's done for him," Simon scoffed, "barrin' giving him best
-of her tongue!  I'll be bound you'd never think twice about t'brass if
-you and Eliza was friends.  It's this spite as there is atween you as
-sets you taking things amiss.  Eliza would likely ha' been no worse than
-most, if you hadn't made sure she was always wanting a slap!"
-
-Sarah received these remarks with an ironic smile.
-
-"Bosom friends we'd ha' been, d'ye think," she asked, "if I'd nobbut
-seen my way to a bit more care?"
-
-"Nay, well, I wouldn't be sure about that," he returned grandly, hedging
-with ease.  "But we'd all ha' done better, I'll take my oath, if you
-hadn't been that smart to take offence."
-
-"Happen I'd ha' done best to hold my tongue, when she was telling all
-Witham we'd gitten notice to quit?"
-
-"Nay, I don't know about that!" ... He was stamping about the floor.  "A
-bit o' tact wi' her, happen? ... nay, dang her, I don't know! ...
-Leastways, you needn't ha' tellt her yon rubbish this afternoon," he
-concluded, brought to a stand.
-
-"You'd have had me set by and say nowt while she sneered at our lad?"
-
-"Nay, then, I wouldn't,--dang her! ... I wouldn't, that's flat!"
-
-"You'd have had me say nowt, neither, yon day we was wed,--give her a
-kiss, happen, and praise her gown----?"
-
-"Nay, then, I wouldn't, I tell you!  Blast you!  Nowt o' the sort!"
-Simon was fairly shouting now.  He thumped at the table in his rage.  "I
-wish to Gox I could ha' gitten my hands round her throat wi'out having
-to swing!"
-
-Sarah looked at his prancing shape with the same ironic smile.
-
-"Nay, my lad, there's better ways than that wi' Eliza, by a deal.  D'ye
-think I haven't gitten a bit o' my own back, now and then? I've had my
-knife in her deep,--ay, deep!--time and again.  There's better ways wi'
-Eliza than just twisting her neck.  What, this very day I've made her
-weep tears as she's never wept afore,--tears as near tears o' blood as
-Eliza'll ever weep...."  She stopped, recalling the scene in which
-Nature had shone like a star in Eliza just for once....  "Nay, Simon,"
-she went on quietly, "there's no sense in our getting mad.  It's over
-late to go preaching love atween Eliza and me.  Men don't know what hate
-can be between women when it's gitten hold.  It's a thing best let
-alone,--never mentioned,--let alone.  It's a big thing, caged-like, as
-was small once, and then comes full-grown. It's over late to go trying
-to stroke it through the bars."
-
-"I nobbut wanted to make the best o' things," Simon muttered, ashamed.
-"The Lord knows I'd give my hand to put you top-dog of Eliza just for
-once.  But I'm not denying I'm terble thankful to ha' fixed things up.
-I reckon I'll sleep to-night as I haven't for weeks. I'm right sorry,
-though, if you're taking it hard."
-
-"I'll take it right enough when it's here," Sarah said gently, turning
-away.  "I won't make no bother about it, don't you fret."
-
-She picked up the kettle and set it on the fire, as if she meant to put
-an end to the talk. Simon lingered, however, casting uneasy glances at
-her face.
-
-"I've a job in t'far shuppon to see to," he said at last, and lighted
-the old lantern that swung against the wall....  "Yon's tide, surely?"
-he added suddenly, as he took it down....  "Nay, it's over soon."
-
-He lifted the lantern to look at the table above the shelf, but Sarah
-shook her head.
-
-"Yon's an old table, think on.  It's no use looking there.  Tide's six
-o'clock, it you want to know."
-
-He said, "Oh, ay.  I'd clean forgot," and still stood on the hearth, as
-if reluctant to go. Presently he spoke humbly, twisting the lantern in
-his hand.
-
-"It's real hard on you, Sarah, to come down like this.  I don't know as
-I like it myself, but it's worse for you.  But we've been right kind wi'
-each other all these years.  You'll not think shame on me when I'm a
-hired man?"
-
-She turned back to him, then, trying to see his face, and it seemed to
-him that she really saw him for the first time in many months. But, in
-point of fact, it was the eyes of the mind that were looking at the eyes
-of the mind....  And then, unexpectedly, he saw her smile.
-
-"Nay, my lad," she said strongly, "you mun be wrong in t'garrets to
-think that!  If there's owt to think shame on it'll be stuff like yon.
-You're the same lad to me as when we was wed, just as Eliza's the same
-cruel, jibing lass.  I reckon that's where the trouble lies, if it come
-to that.  Love and hate don't change, neither on 'em, all our lives.
-D'you think I'd ha' kept my hate so warm if I hadn't ha' kept love?"
-
-He nodded doubtfully in reply, and began slowly to edge away.  But
-before he had reached the threshold he paused again.
-
-"Anyway, we've had the best on't!" he cried triumphantly, as if
-inspired.  "Eliza's had what looks most, but we've had the real things,
-you and me!"  And then, as she did not speak, the spirit died in him,
-and his head drooped.  "Ay, well, we mun do what we can," he finished
-lamely.  "We mun do what we can. 'Tisn't as if it'll be so long for
-either on us, after all."
-
-"Shall I see to t'milk for you?" he added diffidently, but was refused.
-
-"Nay," Sarah said.  "I can manage right well.  I know they milk-pans
-better than my face.  I'd like to stick to my job as long as I can."
-
-Simon said--"Ay, well, then, I'll be off!" and looked at the door; and
-stared at the door, and said--"Ay, well, I'll be off!" again. He had an
-uneasy feeling that he ought to stay, but there was that job in the far
-shippon he wanted to do.  He wandered uncertainly towards the outer
-door, and then, almost as if the door had pushed him, stumbled into the
-yard.
-
-
-
-
-                                   II
-
-
-Sarah stood thinking after Simon had gone, following with ease the
-troubled workings of his mind.  The smile came back to her lips as she
-recalled his obvious sense of guilt. Behind all his anger and chafing
-humiliation it was easy to see his growing pleasure and relief. It was
-more than likely, indeed, that he would be priding himself on his new
-position before so long.  Perhaps age, which has a merciful as well as a
-cruel blindness of its own, might prevent him from ever realising where
-he stood. She could picture him lording it over the gentler-natured
-Will, and even coming in time to dominate the farm.  It was only for her
-that there would be no lording it,--and open sight. It was only on her
-account that he was still ashamed.
-
-It was cruel to grudge him the little solace he had left, but the thing
-which eased the position for him would form a double cross for her.
-Hitherto, they had stood together in their hatred of Blindbeck and its
-female head, and in the very depth of their darkness still had each
-other to soothe their shame.  But now Simon's attitude was bound to
-alter at least towards the farm.  There would come a day when he would
-turn upon her for some chance remark, and from that hour he would be
-openly on Blindbeck's side.  The new tie would make him forget those
-bitter upheavals of jealous rage.  Slowly the place would come between
-them until she was left to hate alone.
-
-For her, the change would simply deliver her, blind and bound, into
-Eliza's hand.  She could have laughed as she saw how the thing she had
-fought against all her life had captured her at last.  Even with Eliza
-dead or gone, Blindbeck would still have stifled her as with
-unbreathable air.  Her spirit and Eliza's would have lived their battles
-again, and even over a grave she would have suffered and struggled
-afresh.  But Eliza was neither dead nor mercifully removed, but was
-already snuffing the battle-smoke from afar. The whole account of their
-lives would come up in full, and be settled against the under-dog for
-good.  It was as whipping-boy to Eliza that she would go to the house by
-Blindbeck gates.
-
-At the present moment, however, she neither suffered nor rebelled.
-Physically, she had reached the point at which the mind detaches itself
-resolutely from further emotional strain. The flame of hate burnt
-steadily but without effort, and with almost as pure a light as the
-flame of love itself.  Like all great passions, it lifted her out of
-herself, lending her for the time being a still, majestic strength.
-There is little to choose at the farthest point of all between the
-exaltation of holiness and the pure ecstasy of hate.  To the outside eye
-they show the same shining serenity, almost the same air of smiling
-peace.  It is the strangest quality in the strange character of this
-peculiarly self-destroying sin. Because of it she was able to go about
-her evening tasks with ease, to speak gently to Simon in the little
-scene which had just passed, and even to dwell on his methods with a
-humorous smile upon her lips.
-
-In the clarified state of her mind pictures rose sharply before her,
-covering all the years, yet remaining aloof as pictures, and never
-stirring her pulse.  So clear they were that they might have been
-splashed on the canvas that instant with a new-filled brush.  They
-sprang into being as a group springs under the white circle of a lamp,
-as the scenes the alive and lit brain makes for itself on the dark
-curtain of the night.  The few journeys she had taken in life she
-travelled over again,--rare visits to Lancashire and Yorkshire ...
-Grasmere ... Brough Hill Fair.  They had stayed in her mind because of
-the slow means by which they were achieved, but they counted for very
-little in the tale of things.  It is not of these casual experiences
-that the countryman thinks when the time comes for a steady reviewing of
-his life, that intent, fascinated returning upon tracks which is the
-soul's preparation for the next great change. They flit to and fro,
-indeed, like exotic birds against a landscape with which they have
-nothing to do, but it is the landscape itself which holds the eye, and
-from which comes the great, silent magic that is called memory, and
-mostly means youth.  It is the little events of everyday life that
-obsess a man at the last, the commonplace, circular come-and-go that
-runs between the cradle and the grave.  Not public health problems, or
-new inventions, or even the upheavals of great wars, but marriage, birth
-and death, the coming of strangers destined to be friends, the changing
-of tenants in houses which mean so much more than they ever mean
-themselves.  Binding all is the rich thread of the seasons, with its
-many-coloured strands; and, backing all, the increasing knowledge of
-Nature and her ways, that revolving wheel of beauty growing ever more
-complex and yet more clear, more splendid and yet more simple as the
-pulses slow to a close.
-
-She loved the plain, beautiful farming life that a man may take up in
-his hand because it is all of a piece, and see the links of the chain
-run even from end to end.  Even now she could see the fair-haired child
-she had been still running about her home, the child that we all of us
-leave behind in our sacred place.  She could hear the clatter of clogs
-in her father's yard, and all about her the sound of voices which the
-daisied earth had stopped.  It was strange, when she came to think of
-it, that she never heard her own.  In all her memories of the child it
-seemed to her lip-locked, listening and dumb.  Perhaps it was because
-she was shut in the child's brain that she could not hear it speak.  She
-could hear her mother's voice, light and a little sharp, and her
-father's a deep rumble in a beard.  Even in the swift pictures flashing
-by her he looked slow, drifting with steady purpose from house to farm.
-Because of his slowness he seemed to her more alive than his wife; there
-was more time, somehow, to look at him as he passed.  Her bustling,
-energetic mother had become little more than a voice, while the
-seldom-speaking man was a vital impression that remained.
-
-Rising up between the shadows that blotted them out was a certain old
-woolly sheep-dog and the red torch of the flowering currant beside the
-door.  There was also a nook in the curve of the garden wall, where,
-under a young moon, she had seen the cattle coming across the fields,
-sunk to their horns in a fairy-silver mist....
-
-It was an open-air life that took her long miles to school, clogging on
-frozen roads, through slanting rain or fighting against the wind.
-School itself seemed patched in a rather meaningless fashion on that
-life, much as the books in the parlour on the busy, unthinking house.  A
-life of constant and steadily increasing work, from errands of all
-sorts, feeding the hens and fetching home the cows, to the heavier
-labour of washing and baking, milking, helping with the stock.
-Presently there had been the excitement of the first shy dance, and then
-the gradual drawing towards marriage as the tide draws to the moon.
-
-And all the time there had been Eliza making part of her life, from the
-plump little girl whom people stopped to admire to the bold intruder at
-the altar-rail.  Looking back, she could see herself as a stiff and
-grave-eyed child, grimly regarding the round-faced giggler from the
-start.  Even then she had always been the dumb man in the stocks, of
-whom the street-urchin that was Eliza made mock as she danced and
-played.  Only once had she ever definitely got the better of her, and it
-had had to last her all her life.  Eliza had had many lovers, drawn by
-the counterfeit kindliness which hid her callous soul, but when she had
-chosen at last, it was Simon who was her choice.  Perhaps the one gleam
-of romance in Eliza's life had been when she looked at Simon ... and
-Simon had looked away.  Quite early he had fixed his affections on
-Sarah, and during their long courtship he had never swerved.  Plain,
-business-like Sarah had drawn him after her as the moon draws the
-willing tide....
-
-She began to put away the things she had bought in Witham, stowing them
-in a cupboard between the pot-rail and the door.  During the morning she
-had felt royally that she was buying half the town, but now she saw how
-small her share of the marketing had been.  There was a troubled feeling
-at the back of her mind that something had been missed, and even though
-she was sure of her purchases, she counted them again.  Afterwards, she
-stood muttering worriedly through the list ... tea, candles, a reel of
-cotton ... and the rest.  And then, suddenly, without any help from the
-candles and cotton, she remembered what it was, and smiled at the
-childish memory that would not stay asleep.
-
-More than twenty years, she reminded herself,--and yet she still looked
-for the fairing that Geordie had brought her on Martinmas Day!  There
-had scarcely been any special season,--Christmas, Whitsun, Easter or
-Mid-Lent,--but he had remembered to mark it by some frolicsome gift.  He
-had always withheld it from her until the last, and then had stood by
-her laughing while she unwrapped some foolish monkey on dancing wires.
-All the time he was saying how splendid the fairing was going to
-be,--"It's gold, mother, real gold,--as bright as the King's crown!"
-And when she had opened it, she would pretend to be cast down, and then
-put it snugly away and say it was "real grand!"
-
-Jim had had his fairings for her, too, but she was trying her very
-hardest not to remember those.  Jim's had been prettier and more
-thoughtful,--often of real use, but she had long since forgotten what
-the things were like.  A mug with her name on it, a handkerchief, a
-brooch,--long ago broken or lost, or even given away.  But every
-ridiculous object of Geordie's was under lock and key, with even a bit
-of camphor to keep the monkey from the moth....
-
-She stood there smiling, softly folding her hands, as if she laid them
-lightly over some sudden gift.  On either side of her was a laughing
-face, and even she found it hard to tell which was which.  She was very
-still as she made that perfect transition into the past, and the only
-sound in her ears was through the lips that laughed.  And then, into
-that full stillness, in which no step moved or voice called or bird
-flew, there came the cry of a heron outside the door.
-
-
-
-
-                                  III
-
-
-It did not reach her at first.  She heard it, indeed, coming back to the
-present with the sound, but that Was all.  The thing behind it had to
-travel after her over twenty years.  The cry of the heron was natural
-enough, with a famous heronry so near, and it was only because of the
-exceptional stillness of the night that it drew her attention now.  Her
-mind went mechanically to the high wood behind the Hall, to the
-long-necked, slender-legged birds going home to the tall trees that on
-this unstirred evening would be stiff as a witch's broom.  She even had
-time to remember the old legend of their battle with the rooks, before
-the thing that had been running for twenty years entered her
-consciousness with a rush.
-
-She stiffened then.  From being softly still she became a rigid thing,
-stiller than sleep, stiller than death, because it was passionate
-will-power that held her still.  It was already a moment or two since
-the sound had passed, but it still rang in the ear which had seemed to
-refuse to take it in.  It had flashed through her brain like a bright
-sword flung in a high arc through a night without a star, but the truth
-that was behind it she held rigidly from her even as it tried to step
-within.  She knew that it was too low for a bird's call, too sharp and
-clear in that muffle of mist, but she shut the knowledge out.  She would
-not let herself either breathe or think until she had heard the sound
-again.
-
-The shock was as great the second time, but it had a different effect.
-She began to tremble from head to foot; even her lips parted and shook;
-her hands relaxed and began to pluck at her gown.  Her breath came in
-quick gasps that were almost sobs as her eyes strained towards the
-darkness that held the door.  Her brain kept telegraphing her body that
-it must be still, but it was too strong for it, and paid no heed.  Her
-heart alone, beating in hard, ponderous strokes, seemed as if by itself
-it must shut out any further sound; and when the call came the third
-time, breaking the silence so that it could not close again, her own
-power of restraint went by the board as well.  Her hands lifted
-themselves and gripped each other across her breast, and her voice,
-shaken and full of tears, forced itself into her throat.  "Jim!" she
-heard herself saying, "Jim!"--with no knowledge that she had meant to
-speak, and in that one word admitted the final defeat of all her life.
-
-Then the knocking began, the terrible brazen knocking which soulless
-iron makes on the unresponsive door of an empty house.  It was as if
-whoever knocked frightened himself by the knocking, and tried to beat
-away his fear with still louder blows.  But to the woman who tried to
-pretend that the house was really empty it was more terrible still.  It
-seemed to take on the sound of a summons to the soul itself to issue
-forth.  The noise of it flooded the place, echoed its way upstairs and
-into far rooms, so that strange voices answered it sharply from wood and
-stone.  The heavy, storm-tried walls were suddenly no more than paper,
-so that the knocking became folly when a push would have forced them in.
-It seemed to Sarah that they must hear it from end to end of the marsh,
-across at the 'Ship,' and out to the hidden edge of sea.  She wondered
-why Simon did not come running, and the dog break into hoarse barks, for
-even in the far shippon they must surely hear.  But there was only that
-great knocking in all the world, cheerful, impatient, or resigned by
-turn.  It paused at moments, but only as the passing-bell pauses, Sarah
-thought, waiting to speak its single word afresh.
-
-The noise had swept away in a moment both the false serenity of hate and
-the almost falser calm of that dwelling memory of love.  From the
-respite, indeed, the live passion seemed to have sunk, as it were, on
-its haunches for a fiercer leap. She could not think clearly or control
-her limbs under the sudden impact of its spring.  It seemed to fling
-itself on her as she had seen the tides in the winter crash against the
-wall.  She, too, went under as if the water had beaten her down, and the
-noise at the door became the blows of the waves and the roar of the
-dragged beach.
-
-She had that impulse to laughter which comes with long-expected woe, as
-if the gods were guilty of bathos when they stooped at last to strike.
-Scorn is the first sensation of those who seem to have watched the
-springs of action long before the hour.  Sudden sorrows, quick blows
-have a majesty of their own, as if the gifts of the gods made for honour
-in good or ill.  But long-deferred trouble, like suspended joy, has a
-meaner quality in fulfilment, and a subtle humiliation in its ache.
-That when the gods come they come quickly is true for both libations
-from the emptied cup.  Royal sorrows, like royal joys, fall swift as
-thunderbolts from heaven.
-
-She had always known in her heart that there was no fighting Blindbeck
-luck, that even the dregs of it were more potent than the best of the
-Sandholes brand.  It could hardly fail to reach even across the sea, so
-that one of the failures would be less of a failure than the other in
-the end.  The trouble of being the under-dog too long is that even the
-dog himself begins at last to think it his rightful place.  For all her
-dreaming and lying on Geordie's behalf, she would have found it hard to
-believe in his ultimate success.  Not for nothing had Eliza carefully
-tended her Method all this while, and watered it weekly with the Simons'
-tears.
-
-At first she told herself that she would put out the light, and let the
-knocker knock until he was tired.  Perhaps he would open the door and
-step inside, but the darkness would surely thrust him out again.  He
-might even go to the foot of the stairs and call, until the silence
-itself put a hand upon his throat.  But already the strain was more than
-she could bear, and each blow as it came was a blow on her own heart.
-She tried to move, but was afraid of the sound of her own feet, and it
-was only under the cover of fresh knocking that she made the effort at
-last.  Now she was facing the door which she could not see, though she
-knew its panels like the palm of her hand.  Behind it, she felt the
-knocking ring on her brain, but now she had come within range of a more
-persistent power than that.  Plainly, through the wooden barrier that
-was raised between them, she felt the presence of the man who stood
-without.
-
-There is always an effort, a faint dread, about the opening of a door,
-as if the one who entered were admitted to more than a room.  From each
-personality that enters even for a moment into one's life something is
-always involuntarily received.  The opening is only a symbol of the more
-subtle admission of the two, which leaves an intruder behind when the
-actual bodily presence has passed away.  And of all openings there is
-none that includes such realisation and such risk as that which lets in
-the night and a stranger's face.
-
-And then suddenly the knocking ceased, as if the knocker was now as
-aware of her presence as she of his.  They were like enemies, crouched
-on either side of a barricade; or like lovers, so near and yet so far,
-in the last, long second before the bars are down.  Each waited for a
-breath, a touch, a turn of the hand that would bring the flash of the
-final blow or the thrill of the first kiss.
-
-Their consciousness of each other was so strong that she knew at once
-when he lifted his arm again, just as he knew when she stirred in fear
-of the fresh attack.  The latch gave its loose, metallic clink as she
-raised it and let it drop, and then the door began to open with the
-almost human grudging of old doors.  The stranger put out a hand to help
-it on its way, and with a harsh shriek that sounded like protest it
-dragged across the flags.
-
-At once the bulk of his big form was in the open square, substantial
-even in the dissolving light.  There was a last pause as the shock of
-the actual meeting smote upon their minds, and then his voice, cheerful
-and loud as the knocking, flooded the house.
-
-"Everybody dead here?" he demanded gaily, bending forward to peer at the
-figure set like a statue just inside.  The tone of his voice, deep and
-kindly, had yet a touch of nervousness at its back.  The strain of the
-waiting had told upon him as well as on her.  "Say, you _are_ real,
-ain't you?" he enquired sharply, and then laughed.  "Mercy!  I sure
-thought everybody must be dead!"
-
-Sarah had another shock at the sound of his voice, topped by the accent
-from over the pond as the deep note of flood is topped by the thinner
-note of the surf.  She had listened instinctively for the
-Jim-an'-Geordie voice, but this was the voice of neither Geordie nor
-Jim. It was as strange to her who knew nothing of other peoples' speech
-as if it had been a voice from another star.  She shrank away from him,
-saying--"I thought it was Jim."  And then, almost violently, "You're
-never Jim!"
-
-The man laughed a second time, but more naturally, as if reassured the
-moment he heard her speak.  "I sure am!" he answered her joyfully.  "Why
-shouldn't I be?  Leastways, I'm all of Jim Thornthet that's managed to
-swim across!"  The smile stayed on his lips as he stared, but died when
-she did not respond. "May I come in a spell?" he enquired anxiously.
-"I've only struck England to-day, and I've a bag of news."
-
-But again she blocked the entrance as she had blocked it for May.  It
-was the way into herself as well as into the house that these people
-sought, and she yielded to neither of them by an inch.  "You can get
-out, if you're Jim," she said caustically, "and as smart as you like!
-Blindbeck's your spot.  We want nowt wi' you here."
-
-The sharp words did not depress him, however. They were too reminiscent
-of old time.
-
-"That's a real mean Howdy!" he answered her humorously, advancing a
-foot.  "'Tisn't like Westmorland folk to keep folk tugging at the
-latch....  Shucks for Blindbeck!" he added laughingly, as she began the
-word again. "Sandholes is my little old home,--always was, and always
-will be."  He advanced further, a merry, teasing note in his big voice.
-"You can't keep me out, old woman!  You never could.  I'm coming right
-in, old woman! ... I'm sure coming....  I'm right in!"
-
-It was true, too.  He was in the passage now, making his way by a force
-of desire stronger than May's entreating love.  Something else helped
-him as well, perhaps,--some old extorted freedom of house and board.  He
-put out his hand to Sarah as he turned to the light, but she shrank away
-from him against the wall.
-
-"I won't have you in t'house!" she cried angrily to his dim form.  "Be
-off with you now, and look sharp about it!"
-
-But again he seemed to be pleasantly cheered by her wrath, as if with a
-happy echo from the past.
-
-"I'll shin off right quick when I've had a word," he coaxed.  "Come on
-in, old woman, and look at me where there's a bit more sun!"  The
-flickering light seemed to beckon him on, for he began to move towards
-its dim dwelling. "I've news of Geordie for you," he called back to her,
-as she did not stir.  "You'll sure be wanting to hear that!"
-
-She heard him pass into the kitchen, his firm, confident tread raising a
-ring from every flag, and wondered, as with the knocking, why it did not
-carry all over the marsh.  But still she stayed behind, fighting with
-herself and with the longing to hear his news.  It could be of nothing
-but failure, she reminded herself, and her heart answered that that
-would be better than nothing at all.  She heard him walking about the
-kitchen, as if he walked from this memory to that, peering into old
-cupboards and laying a hand upon old chairs.  Presently, however, there
-came a silence as if he had seen enough, and, in a sudden panic lest he
-should be gone, she hurried after him into the room.
-
-At once, as she went in, she traced the shape of him on the hearth,
-though she could not see his huge shadow that climbed the ceiling and
-swamped the wall.  Clearly, too, she could feel his dominant personality
-all about, too heady a wine for the frail, cob webbed bottle of the
-place. Paused on the hearth, he was still looking around him with a
-wistful, humorous smile.  He was thinking, as all think who return, how
-strong and yet how slender was the chain, how futile and yet how
-tenacious were the humble things which had held him through the years!
-He was thinking, too, how amazingly tiny everything had grown,--the
-house, the kitchen, and the old woman within the door.  Even the stretch
-of sand, which he could vaguely see, seemed narrow to him who had known
-much greater wastes.
-
-He turned his smiling eyes suddenly to Sarah's face.
-
-"How's the old man, by the way?  Still keeping uppermost of the weeds?"
-
-"He's nobbut middlin', that's all," she forced herself to reply.
-
-"Is he anywhere about?"
-
-"Like enough ... but you needn't wait."
-
-"I'd like a chin with him, all the same!"  He hugged himself as he stood
-on the hearth, and his huge shadow hugged itself on the wall.  The same
-mischievous sound crept back into his voice.  "I'm mighty glad to see
-you again, old woman, I am that!  Perhaps you'll feel like slinging me a
-smile or two after a bit."
-
-"Eliza'll smile, I'll warrant, if you've nobbut a pound or two in your
-poke."
-
-"I have that--sure!"  He slapped his coat as he spoke, laughing a great
-laugh which shook her as cruelly as his knock.  "It's up to me to keep
-my pockets stitched, nowadays," he finished, in a contented tone.
-
-"I'm main glad to hear it," she said sardonically, and he nodded gaily.
-
-"That's real nice of you, old woman!  You can keep right on.  You'd a
-terrible down on me in the old days, hadn't you now?"
-
-"I've no use for you, Jim Thornthwaite, and never had.  You know that as
-well as me."
-
-"That's so!"  He laughed again.  "But I was always mighty fond of
-_you_."  He made a movement as if to cross to her side, but she backed
-instantly, as if she guessed.  "Of course, you'd a deal rather it had
-been Geordie," he said.  "I know that.  But he was never much of a
-sparkle in the family tarara, and that's honest.  I left him serving in
-a store,--poor lad Geordie,--and hankering like honey after the old
-spot!"
-
-"And you left him behind," Sarah flung at him,--"you wi' brass?"
-
-"He wouldn't take a red cent.  I looked him up as soon as I struck it
-rich, but he was always set on hoeing his own row.  He'd have taken it
-from his own folks, but he wouldn't from me.  Guess it was Blindbeck
-hate in him coming out at last!  But if ever he'd had the dollars, he'd
-have been home before you could hear him shout."
-
-"He's best where he is," Sarah said coldly, repenting her charge.
-Eliza's son should not see that she grudged or cared.  "Them as makes
-beds can likely lie on the straw."
-
-"Well, Blindbeck luck still holds, anyway!" Jim smiled.  "See here!"  He
-put his hand in the great-coat that seemed to hide from her that he was
-a creature of flesh and blood, and instantly she heard the rustle of
-notes.  He opened the big pocket-book under the light, running his hand
-over the clean slips with joyous pride. "Don't that talk?" he said
-cheerfully. "Doesn't it sure talk?" and in spite of her resolve she
-shrank from the crisp, unaccustomed sound.
-
-"Good enough, eh?" he demanded warmly,--"and there's plenty more behind!
-That's only to pass the time o' day with, so to speak. Guess it'll do
-for a fairing for my old mother, that's about all."  He snapped the
-elastic again and flung the book on the table, so that it slid across
-within Sarah's reach.  Lifting his eyes he met her gaze fixed blindly
-upon his face, and his brow contracted as he puzzled over that hard,
-unrecognising stare.
-
-"Can't we sit down for a spell?" he asked her coaxingly, turning back to
-the hearth.  "I feel real unwanted, standing on my hind legs."
-
-"Eliza'll be waiting on you," Sarah said, through a stiff throat.
-
-"She's waited twenty years."  He laid a hand on a chair, and pulled it
-nearer to the warmth.  It protested violently when it felt his weight,
-but he settled himself snugly, and did not care.  The fire, as if
-heartened at sight of him on the hearth, changed its cold yellow for a
-crimson glow.
-
-"It's good to be home," he said happily,--"good as a Sunday-school,
-treat,--sure!"  He pulled his pipe from his pocket, and began to fill it
-meditatively, with quiet hands....  "Now, if it had been Geordie that
-had struck it rich, it would have been a real hum for you, wouldn't it,
-old woman?  Guess I feel real mean, for your sake, that it's only me.
-Guess I could almost wish it was Geordie out and out!"
-
-He leaned forward with the firelight on his face, looking at her with
-the same smile that was like a hand that he reached out.
-
-"He was always making a song," he said, "about what he'd do when he
-struck it rich. 'I'll be off home that slick you'll hear the bump,' he
-used to say, 'and I'll be planning all the way how I'll burn the cash!'
-I'd like to buy the farm for the old dad;--guess Squire'd part all right
-if I could pass him enough.  As for the old woman, there's just no end
-to what I'd do,--glad rags and brooches, and help all round the house.
-It'd be just Heaven and Witham Gala, playing Providence to the old
-woman! ... That's what I want my brass for, when I strike it rich!'"
-
-"A fool's dream!" Sarah said.
-
-"A fine fool's dream."
-
-"Them as dreams over much likely never does nowt else."
-
-He leaned forward still further, the smile more urgent on his lips.
-"There was only one thing used to fret him," he went on, "and he spent a
-powerful lot of time thinking about it, and wearing himself thin.
-'S'pose she don't know me when I sail in?' he used to say.  'S'pose I'm
-that changed I might as well be any other mother's son as well as hers?
-There's a mighty pile o' years between us,--big, terrible years! I'd
-sure break my heart if she didn't know me right off, even if I'd grown a
-face like a pump-handle and a voice like a prize macaw!  But I guess I
-needn't trouble,' he used to say, 'because mothers always know.  I've
-got that slick by heart,--they always know.'"  He waited a moment, and
-then pressed on, with a note that was like alarm.  "Say, he was right,
-wa'n't he?"--he asked anxiously,--"dead right?  It's a sure cinch that
-mothers always know?"
-
-The force of his demand seemed almost to shake the obstinate figure so
-cynically aloof. It was as if he were prompting her to something that
-she knew as well as he, but would not admit for some reason of her own.
-Even after he had stopped speaking the demand seemed to persist, and she
-answered at last with a cold smile on her hard face.
-
-"Nay, my lad," she said sneeringly, "you needn't put yourself about!
-Eliza'll be fain to see you, wherever you got your brass.  She'll know
-you well enough, never fret, wi' yon pack o' cards in your hand!"
-
-His smile died as if she had struck him,--the whole laughing pleasure of
-him died.  "I worked for it honest," he said in reply, but his voice
-sounded dull and tired.  Even in the dusk she might have seen the spirit
-go out of him, the lines in his face deepen, his head sink, his
-shoulders droop.  The merry boy that had come into the house was gone,
-leaving the stern man of middle age.  Sarah could not see what she had
-done to him, but she could feel the change. Scenes with Jim in the old
-days had always ended much as this.  Many a time he had come to her full
-of affection and fun, and in a few moments she had slain them both.  He
-had looked up at her with hurt eyes that still laughed because they
-couldn't do anything else, and had held to his old cry--"I'm _your_ lad
-_really_, Aunt Sarah,--same as Geordie is!"
-
-He sat for a few minutes staring at the floor, his pipe with its filled
-bowl hanging idly from his hand.  He seemed to be adjusting himself to
-new ideas, painfully making room for them by throwing overboard the old.
-Then he rose to his feet with a half-sigh, half-yawn,--and laughed.
-Sarah heard him, and started,--it was so like the old-time Jim!  But
-though she might have winced in the old days, it did not trouble her
-now.  If she had had no tenderness for the scapegrace lad she was not
-likely to pity the grown, successful man....  Without looking at her
-again he went across to the window and stared out.  The pane swung open
-wide on its bent rod, and not a breath of wind troubled its buckled
-frame.  Across the vanished sands the light still glowed from the
-'Ship,' red on the dark that seemed like a mere dissolution of
-everything into mist.
-
-"Old Fleming still at the 'Ship'?" he enquired, keeping his back turned.
-"And May?"  His voice warmed again on the little name.  "May's married
-this many a year, I guess!"
-
-"Nay, not she!" Sarah said.  "She's not wed, nor like to be."
-Unconsciously she relaxed a little.  "She was always terble sweet on
-Geordie, was May."
-
-The man looking out smiled at the light as if it had been a face.  He
-spoke low, as if speaking to himself.
-
-"I'd sure forgot!"
-
-"I reckon she's waiting for him yet, but I doubt she'll wait till the
-Judgment, and after that!"
-
-"She was always a sticker, was May...."  He swung round, cheerful again,
-though lacking the ecstasy with which he had come in.  "Sweet on
-Geordie, was she?  Well, I guess a live dog's better than a dead lion!
-I'll hop across for a chin."
-
-"You'll loss yourself, crossing t'sand."
-
-"I've crossed it every night in my dreams!"  He came back to her, with
-his face tender again, the thin flame of the candle showing his pleasant
-eyes and kindly lips.  "Say, though!" he added anxiously.  "I can come
-back?"
-
-"Best bide at t' 'Ship.'"
-
-"But I'd a deal rather sleep here!"
-
-"Well, you wain't, and that's flat!"
-
-"There's Geordie's bed, ain't there?" he urged her, in pleading tones.
-"I'll lay you've kept it fixed for him all along!"
-
-"Ay,--for Geordie!" said Geordie's mother, setting her mouth.
-
-"Couldn't you kinder think I was Geordie once in a while?"
-
-"Nay."
-
-"Not for a mite of a minute?"  His voice shook.
-
-"Nay, not I!"
-
-He lifted his shoulders, and let them droop again.  "I'm sure coming
-back, though!" he finished, in his persistent way....  "Stop a shake,
-though!  What about the tide?"
-
-His eyes turned from old custom to the table over the hearth, and,
-crossing over to it, he struck a light.  The silver box in his hand
-flashed a tiny scintilla on the dusky air.  He looked up at the table,
-but he did not see it, the match dwindling above his brooding face.
-
-"You might ha' been just a mite glad to see me!" he exclaimed wistfully,
-stamping it out upon the flags.  "Why, you'd never ha' known me from
-Adam if I hadn't given you the call!  It'll give me the knock right out
-if May don't know me neither when I sail in.  They say sweethearts don't
-forget, no more than mothers, but perhaps it's all a doggoned lie!"
-
-"She was Geordie's lass,--not yours!" Sarah told him, with jealous
-haste.
-
-"Sure!" he said with a smile, and struck a second match.
-
-Now he looked at the table in earnest, but only for a space.
-"Saturday," she heard him murmuring, in an absent voice.  "Martinmas,
-ain't it? ... Tide at ten...."
-
-She made a movement forward and put out her hands.
-
-"Nay, but yon's never----" she began; and stopped.
-
-"Eh, old woman?"
-
-"Nay, it's nowt."
-
-"It's Saturday, ain't it?"
-
-"I reckon it is."
-
-"Saturday's my day for luck," she heard him saying, as the match died
-down.  "I've got a cinch on Saturdays, that's sure!"  The gaiety in his
-tone was only a mockery of what it had been before.  "Tide at ten,
-eh?--and it's six, now."  He drew his watch from his pocket and gave it
-a glance.  "Well, so long!  I'll be right back!"
-
-To both the moments seemed endless in which he moved across the floor.
-His look dwelt upon her in a last effort to reach her heart, and then
-lingered about the room on the dim fellowships of his youth.  But even
-Geordie himself could hardly have touched her in that hour.  The
-strongest motive that had ruled her life had her finally by the throat.
-
-Yet she called to him even as he went, afraid, woman-like, of the sound
-of the shut door. "Jim!" she flung after him.  "Jim, lad! ... Jim!"
-
-"Say!  Did you call?"  He was back again on wings.
-
-"Nay ... it was nowt."  She indicated the pocket-book within reach of
-her hand.  "You'd best take yon truck along wi' you an' all."
-
-Even in his disappointment he was still able to smile.  "It don't need a
-safe between it and a Thornthet, I guess!" was all he said.  In that
-moment, indeed, the money was nothing and less than nothing to them
-both.  Sarah was honest to the core, and never remembered once that dead
-men tell no tales and that the sea does not betray....  The thing that
-had conquered her soul was at least also above that.
-
-"Ten, wa'n't it?" he asked, drifting reluctantly out again.  His voice
-came from further away, like the gull's voice from the sky.  "So long!
-Cheero!  I'll be back again with the tide...."
-
-
-
-
-                                   IV
-
-
-She heard rather than felt the silence re-enfold the house, like the
-swish of a curtain softly tumbled down.  She was vividly on the alert
-for every change in the brooding quiet, but she was not afraid of the
-inevitable sound that must shortly break it again.  To herself she
-seemed to be shut into the very heart of things, where everyone knows
-his secret hiding-place to be.  Nothing could hurt her there, because it
-was shut away from pain.  Neither remorse nor fear could touch her in
-that calm.
-
-Yet all the time her mind had followed the man who had gone out, hearing
-the thud of his feet on the sandy ground, and seeing the bulk of him
-huge on the sea-wall.  The sound of his feet would be sharper on the
-beach, but when he got to the sand it would be muffled as if with
-cloths.  When he came to the channel he would stand and hail, and the
-light from the 'Ship' would lie on the water like a road....
-
-But never to-night or in all time would he get as far as the bank.
-Suddenly, as he walked, he would hear a whisper out of the west.  It
-would mean nothing to him at first, nor the wind feeling along his
-cheek.  He would only say to himself that the trees were astir on the
-far point.  Then he would hear a noise like a coming shower, and lift up
-his face to meet the first of the rain.  But the sound that came after
-would come running along the sand, until every rib was vibrating its
-message to his feet.  When he knew what it was, he would stand perfectly
-still, and then he would spring in the air and start to run.  But, run
-as he might, he would never reach the shore, or stand on the gold road
-that would take him over to May.  The white tide-horses were swifter far
-than he; their unshod hoofs would outrun his heavy boots.  The sweeping
-advance-water would suddenly hem him in, swirling before his feet and
-shooting behind his back.  He would run this way and that in the dark,
-but it would be no use.  He would run and run, but it would never be any
-use....
-
-From complete detachment she passed gradually to a comforting sense of
-quittance and ease.  It was as if a burden that she had carried all her
-life had been cut away, so that she could lift up her head and look in
-front of her and breathe free.  The sickening jealousy was gone, the
-gnawing pain at her heart, the fierce up-swelling of decimating rage,
-the long, narrowed-down brooding of helpless hate.  Never again would
-she be able to see herself as the poor relation fawning at Eliza's
-skirts.  The thing had been done at last which paid Eliza in full.
-
-She had, as she came back within range of feeling again, one last, great
-moment of exultant pride.  She seemed to herself actually to grow in
-size, to tower in the low room as the shadow of the home-comer had
-towered over ceiling and wall.  Into the hands of this oppressed and
-poverty-stricken woman there had suddenly been given the heady power of
-life and death, and the stimulant of it was like wine in her thin blood,
-making her heart steady as a firm-blown forge.  She felt strong enough
-in that moment to send every child of Eliza's out to its death in the
-maw of the Night Wave.  She felt an epic figure poised on the edge of
-the world, heroic, tremendous, above all laws.  Indeed, she seemed, as
-it were, to be the very Finger of God itself....
-
-And then faintly the exultation sank; dimmed, rather, as on a summer day
-the sharpness goes out of the high lights on lawn and wall.  The sun is
-not gone, but the farthest and finest quality of it is suddenly
-withdrawn. In some such way a blurring of vivid certainties came upon
-her brain.  A breath of wind was blown sharply through the open window,
-and with a touch of surprise she found that she was cold.  The fire, so
-lately encouraged by the visitor's presence, had died sulkily into grey
-clinkers tinged with red that had no more warmth to it than a splash of
-paint.  The candle, on the other hand, had sprung into a tall flame from
-a high wick.  It was as if it was making a last effort to illumine the
-world for the woman over whose mind was creeping that vague and blurring
-mist.
-
-With the slackening of the mental tension her physical self slackened,
-too.  She began to rock to and fro, muttering softly as she swayed.
-
-"Blind thoughts in a blind body's brain!" she was saying to herself....
-"Ay, it's about time.  A blind night and a blind tide....  Ay, it's
-about time...."
-
-And yet through the blind night and with her blind sight she still saw
-the figure swinging over the sands, broad, confident, strong, as were
-all at Blindbeck,--successful and rich.  Always her mind kept close at
-its back, seeing the solid print of it on the air, feeling the muscular
-firmness of its tread, and hearing the little whistled tune that kept
-escaping between its teeth....
-
-Suddenly she raised her voice, as if addressing somebody a long way off.
-
-"What d'you want wi' a bed as'll never sleep in bed again?  Nay, my lad,
-you'll have nowt but churchyard mould! ... Yon's if they find him, when
-the tide comes in.  There'll be a bonny fairing for Eliza when the tide
-comes in!"
-
-She stopped abruptly as Simon clattered into the room, holding herself
-motionless by a final effort of will.  He glanced uneasily at the still
-figure, the unspread table and the dead fire, but he did not speak.  He
-was still conscious of guilt and ready to make amends, even to the
-extent of going supperless to bed.  Outside the door, he had felt
-curiously certain that Sarah was not alone, and even now he looked into
-corners for figures that were not there.  Coming in from the dark on the
-marsh, his instinct had told him instantly that the atmosphere had
-changed, but the knowledge faded once he was well inside.  He wondered
-whether anything had been done with the milk, but did not like to ask,
-and, setting the still-lighted lantern on the floor, stooped to unloose
-his boots.
-
-"All yon talk about Geordie's fair give me the jumps!" he remarked
-suddenly, with an embarrassed laugh.  "I could ha' sworn I heard his
-voice as I was snecking shuppon door!"
-
-She did not answer, and with an inward curse at his own foolishness he
-bent lower over his boots.  "Another o' yon big tides," he went on
-hurriedly, when the thongs were loosed.  "It's sharp on t'road now.  I
-could hear it as I come in."
-
-Even as he spoke the room was suddenly filled with the sound of the sea.
-Before the majesty of the coming presence the whole house seemed to
-cringe and cower.  Sarah felt the room swing round with her, and caught
-at the table, gripping the edge of it until her very fingers seemed of
-wood.
-
-"There it be!" Simon said, raising himself. "It's big, as I said."  He
-clanked across to the window as he spoke, the laces slapping and
-trailing on the flags, and again, as he put his face to the square, the
-wind that blows before the tide stirred mightily through the room.
-Far-off, but coming fast, they could hear the messenger from the deep,
-sweeping its garment over the head of the crouched waste, as it sped to
-deliver its challenge at the locked gate of the sea-wall.
-
-Sarah had still control over her actual body, but no more.  With Simon's
-entrance she had realised herself again, and knew that she was weak and
-old, with a mind that had got beyond her, and cried and ran to and fro
-as Jim would run when he heard the Wave.  Always she seemed to herself
-to be close at his back, but now she ran to warn him and stumbled as she
-ran.  She flung out her arms towards him in an aching passion to hold
-him close, and in that moment felt the truth drop, stilly, into her
-whirling brain.  He turned his face towards her swiftly as they went,
-and for all its likeness it was not Jim's face.  She saw him swept and
-helpless in the swirl of the tide, and in the dark and the tumult knew
-that the precious body was not Jim's.  She saw him borne in the
-stillness of morning to the haunted Tithe-Barn where all the drowned
-were laid, and by the light of the truth that there is between living
-and dead knew she had always known it was not Jim....
-
-"I hope May's gitten back," Simon was saying anxiously, as he peered
-out.  "I hope she's landed back...."  Presently he leaned further, and
-gave a sigh of relief.  "Ay,--there goes Fleming's lamp!"
-
-Instantly, as the light went out, there came from the sands a whistle
-and then a cry.  Simon spun round, saying, "What's yon?" with a
-frightened look, and when the call came again he snatched the lantern
-from the floor.  The third call came suddenly faint, as if its author
-were running towards the tide, and with a harsh cry a gull swept white
-and huge beyond the pane.  Simon fell back at the sight of it, crying
-aloud, and throwing his arm before his eyes.
-
-But at the same moment Sarah burst her bonds.  "Geordie, Geordie!" she
-screamed, and ran frenziedly to the door.  "Nay, it's over now," she
-finished, falling back against the wall.  "Gang out and seek our
-fairing, master,--mine and thine!"
-
-
-
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