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diff --git a/old/60792-h/60792-h.htm b/old/60792-h/60792-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 77f1769..0000000 --- a/old/60792-h/60792-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10620 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Adam & Eve & Pinch Me, by A. E. 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E.) Coppard - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Adam & Eve & Pinch Me - -Author: Alfred Edgar (A. E.) Coppard - -Release Date: November 26, 2019 [EBook #60792] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADAM & EVE & PINCH ME *** - - - - -Produced by ellinora, Craig Kirkwood, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - -</pre> - - - -<p class="half-title">ADAM & EVE -& PINCH ME</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<div class="boxborzoi1"> -<div class="boxborzoi2"> -<p class="center"><em>NEW BORZOI NOVELS</em></p> - -<p class="center"><em>SPRING, 1922</em></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Wanderers</span><br /> -<span class="il1"><em>Knut Hamsun</em></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Men of Affairs</span><br /> -<span class="il1"><em>Roland Pertwee</em></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">The Fair Rewards</span><br /> -<span class="il1"><em>Thomas Beer</em></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">I Walked in Arden</span><br /> -<span class="il1"><em>Jack Crawford</em></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Guest the One-Eyed</span><br /> -<span class="il1"><em>Gunnar Gunnarsson</em></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">The Longest Journey</span><br /> -<span class="il1"><em>E. M. Forster</em></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Cytherea</span><br /> -<span class="il1"><em>Joseph Hergesheimer</em></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Explorers of the Dawn</span><br /> -<span class="il1"><em>Mazo de la Roche</em></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">The White Kami</span><br /> -<span class="il1"><em>Edward Alden Jewell</em></span></p></div> -</div></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 435px;"> -<img src="images/i_title.jpg" width="435" height="650" alt="Title page." /> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h1>ADAM & EVE<br /> -& PINCH ME</h1> - - -<p class="center xlargefont" style="margin-bottom:6em">TALES BY A. E. COPPARD</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;"> -<img src="images/i_title_logo.jpg" width="150" height="93" alt="Title page logo." /> -</div> - -<p class="center smallfont"><span class="smcap">NEW YORK</span> -<span class="largefont" style="padding-left:0.5em;padding-right:0.5em">ALFRED · A · KNOPF</span> -<span class="smcap">MCMXXII</span></p> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="center">COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY<br /> -A. E. COPPARD</p> - -<p class="center"><em>Published, May, 1922</em></p> - -<div class="center p4"> -<p class="displayinline"><em>Set up and printed by the Vail-Ballou Co., Binghamton, N. Y.<br /> -Paper furnished by W. F. Etherington & Co., New York, N. Y.<br /> -Bound by the H. Wolff Estate, New York, N. Y.</em></p></div> - -<p class="center p1">MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p class="half-title">To LILY ANNE</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="zboxit"> -<p>I record my acknowledgements to the Editors -of the following journals in which a few of -these tales first appeared: <cite>Westminster Gazette</cite>, -<cite>Pearson’s Magazine</cite>, <cite>Voices</cite>, <cite>English -Review</cite>.</p> -<p class="ir0 p-1">A. E. C.</p> -</div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="no-break" style="text-align:center">CONTENTS</h2> -</div> - -<div class="center"> -<table class="toc" border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> -<tr><td class="toctitle">MARCHING TO ZION</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="toctitle">DUSKY RUTH</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="toctitle">WEEP NOT MY WANTON</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="toctitle">PIFFINGCAP</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="toctitle">THE KING OF THE WORLD</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_71">71</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="toctitle">ADAM AND EVE AND PINCH ME</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="toctitle">THE PRINCESS OF KINGDOM GONE</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="toctitle">COMMUNION</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="toctitle">THE QUIET WOMAN</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="toctitle">THE TRUMPETERS</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_141">141</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="toctitle">THE ANGEL AND THE SWEEP</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_151">151</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="toctitle">ARABESQUE</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="toctitle">FELIX TINCLER</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="toctitle">THE ELIXIR OF YOUTH</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="toctitle">THE CHERRY TREE</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_207">207</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="toctitle">CLORINDA WALKS IN HEAVEN</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_215">215</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="toctitle">CRAVEN ARMS</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_225">225</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="toctitle">COTTON</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="toctitle">A BROADSHEET BALLAD</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_283">283</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="toctitle">POMONA’S BABE</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_295">295</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="toctitle">THE HURLY-BURLY</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_319">319</a></td></tr> -</table></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">MARCHING TO ZION</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span> -<h2 class="no-break">MARCHING TO ZION</h2> -</div> - - -<p class="dropcap">In the great days that are gone I was walking the -Journey upon its easy smiling roads and came -one morning of windy spring to the side of a -wood. I had but just rested to eat my crusts and -suck a drink from the pool when a fat woman appeared -and sat down before me. I gave her the grace of the -morning.</p> - -<p>“And how many miles is it now?” I asked of her.</p> - -<p>“What!” said she, “you’re not going the journey?”</p> - -<p>“Sure, ma’am,” said I, “I’m going, and you’re going, -and we’re all going ... aren’t we?”</p> - -<p>“Not,” said she, looking at me very archly, “not -while there are well-looking young fellers sitting in the -woods.”</p> - -<p>“Well, deliver me!” said I, “d’ye take me for the -Angel Gabriel or the duke of the world!”</p> - -<p>“It’s not anything I’m taking you to be, young man ... give -me a chew of that bread.”</p> - -<p>She came and sat beside me and took it from my -hands.</p> - -<p>“Little woman ...” I began it to her; but at that -she flung the crust back in my face, laughing and -choking and screaming.</p> - -<p>“Me ... that’s fat as a ewe in January!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[10]</span></p> - -<p>“Fat, woman!” says I, “you’re no fat at all.”</p> - -<p>But, I declare it, she’d a bosom like a bolster. I lay -on my back beside her. She was a rag of a woman. -I looked up through the tree branches at the end of -the shaw; they were bare, spring was late that year. -The sky was that blue ... there wasn’t a cloud within -a million miles ... but up through the boughs it -looked hard and steely like a storm sky. I took my -hat from her, for she had put it on her own head, and -I stood on my feet.</p> - -<p>“Fat, ma’am!” says I ... and she looked up at me, -grinning like a stuffed fox.... “Oh no, ma’am, you’re -slim as the queen of Egypt!”</p> - -<p>At that she called out to another man who was passing -us by, and I went to walk on with him. He had a -furuncle on one side of his chin; his garments were -very old, both in fashion and in use; he was lean as a -mountain cow.</p> - -<p>I greeted him but he gave me glances that were -surly, like a man would be grinding scissors or setting -a saw—for you never met one of that kind that -didn’t have the woe of the world upon him.</p> - -<p>“How many miles is it now, sir?” I asked, very -respectful then. He did not heed me. He put his -hand to his ear signifying deafness. I shouted and -I shouted, so you could have heard me in the four -kingdoms, but I might just have been blowing in a -sack for all the reason I got from him.</p> - -<p>I went on alone and in the course of the days I fell -in with many persons, stupid persons, great persons, -jaunty ones. An ass passes me by, its cart burdened<span class="pagenum">[11]</span> -with a few dead sprays of larch and a log for the firing. -An old man toils at the side urging the ass onwards. -They give me no direction and I wonder -whether I am at all like the ass, or the man, or the -cart, or the log for the firing. I cannot say. There -was the lad McGlosky, who had the fine hound that -would even catch birds; the philosopher who had two -minds; the widow with one leg; Slatterby Chough, the -pugfoot man, and Grafton. I passed a little time with -them all, and made poems about them that they did not -like, but I was ever for walking on from them. None -of them could give me a direction for the thing that -was urging me except that it was “away on, away -on.”</p> - -<p>Walk I did, and it was full summer when I met -Monk, the fat fellow as big as two men with but the -clothes of a small one squeezing the joints of him together. -Would you look at the hair of him—it was -light as a stook of rye; or the face of him and the -neck of him—the hue of a new brick. He had the -mind of a grasshopper, the strength of a dray horse, -the tenderness of a bush of reeds, and was light on -his limbs as a deer.</p> - -<p>“Look ye’re,” he said to me; he had a stiff sort of -talk, and fat thumbs like a mason that he jiggled in -the corners of his pockets; “look ye’re, my friend, -my name is Monk.”</p> - -<p>“I am Michael Fionnguisa,” said I.</p> - -<p>“Well I never struck fist with a lad like you; your -conversation is agreeable to me, you have a stride on -you would beat the world for greatness.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[12]</span></p> - -<p>“I could beat you,” said I, “even if you wore the -boots of Hercules that had wings on ’em.”</p> - -<p>“It is what I like,” said he, and he made a great -mess of my boasting before we were through. “Look -ye’re, my friend, we needn’t brag our little eye-blink -of the world; but take my general character and you’ll -find I’m better than my ... inferiors. I accomplish -my ridiculous destiny without any ridiculous effort. -I’m the man to go a-travelling with.”</p> - -<p>He had that stiff way of his talk, like a man lecturing -on a stool, but my mercy, he’d a tongue of -silk that could twist a meal out of the pantry of Jews -and strange hard people; fat landladies, the wives of -the street, the widows in their villas, they would feed -him until he groaned, loving him for his blitheness and -his tales. He could not know the meaning of want -though he had never a coin in the world. Yet he did -not love towns; he would walk wide-eyed through -them counting the seams in the pavements. He liked -most to be staring at the gallant fishes in the streams, -and gasping when he saw a great one.</p> - -<p>I met him in the hills and we were gone together. -And it was not a great while before he was doing and -doing, for we came and saw a man committing a crime, -a grave crime to be done in a bad world leave alone -a good one like this, in a very lonely lovely place. -So Monk rose up and slew him, and the woman ran -blushing into the woods.</p> - -<p>I looked at Mr. Monk, and the dead man on the -road, and then at Mr. Monk again.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[13]</span></p> - -<p>“Well,” I said, “we’d ... we’d better bury this -feller.”</p> - -<p>But Monk went and sat upon a bank and wiped -his neck. The other lay upon his face as if he were -sniffing at the road; I could see his ear was full of -blood, it slipped over the lobe drip by drip as neat as -a clock would tick.</p> - -<p>And Monk, he said: “Look ye’re, my friend, there -are dirtier things than dirt, and I would not like to -mix this with the earth of our country.”</p> - -<p>So we slung him into an old well with a stone upon -his loins.</p> - -<p>And a time after that we saw another man committing -crime, a mean crime that you might do and welcome -in America or some such region, but was not -fitting to be done in our country.</p> - -<p>So Monk rose up and slew him. Awful it was to -see what Monk did to him. He was a great killer -and fighter; Hector himself was but a bit of a page -boy to Mr. Monk.</p> - -<p>“Shall we give him an interment?” I asked him. He -stood wiping his neck—he was always wiping his neck—and -Monk he said:</p> - -<p>“Look ye’re, my friend, he was a beast; a man -needn’t live in a sty in order to become a pig, and we -won’t give him an interment.” So we heaved him -into a slag pit among rats and ravels of iron.</p> - -<p>And would you believe it, again we saw a man committing -crime, crime indeed and a very bad crime.</p> - -<p>There was no withstanding Monk; he rose up and<span class="pagenum">[14]</span> -slew the man as dead as the poor beast he had tortured.</p> - -<p>“God-a-mercy!” I said to him, “it’s a lot of life -you’re taking, Mr. Monk.”</p> - -<p>And Monk he said: “Life, Michael dear, is the thing -we perish by.” He had the most terrible angers and -yet was kind, kind; nothing could exceed the greatness -of his mind or the vigour of his limbs.</p> - -<p>Those were the three combats of Monk, but he was -changed from that out. Whenever we came to any -habitations now he would not call at back doors, nor -go stravaiging in yards for odd pieces to eat, but he -would go gallantly into an inn and offer his payment -for the things we would like. I could not understand -it at all, but he was a great man and a kind.</p> - -<p>“Where did you get that treasure?” said I to him -after days of it. “Has some noble person given you -a gift?”</p> - -<p>He did not answer me so I asked him over again. -“Eh!”</p> - -<p>And Monk he said, “Oh well then, there was a lot -of coin in the fob of that feller we chucked in the well.”</p> - -<p>I looked very straight at Mr. Monk, very straight at -that, but I could not speak the things my mind wanted -me to say, and he said very artfully: “Don’t distress -yourself, Michael dear, over a little contest between -sense and sentiment.”</p> - -<p>“But that was the dirty man,” said I.</p> - -<p>“And why not?” said he. “If his deed was dirty, -his money was clean: don’t be deethery, man.”</p> - -<p>“’Tis not fitting nor honourable,” said I, “for men<span class="pagenum">[15]</span> -the like of us to grow fat on his filth. It’s grass I’d -be eating sooner.”</p> - -<p>“That’s all bombazine, Michael, bombazine! I -got two dollars more from the feller we chucked in -the pit!”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Monk, that was the pig!” said I.</p> - -<p>“And why not?” said he. “If his life was bad then -his end must be good; don’t be deethery.”</p> - -<p>“You can’t touch pitch,” I said....</p> - -<p>“Who’s touching pitch?” he cried. “Amn’t I entitled -to the spoils of the valiant, the rewards of the -conqueror....”</p> - -<p>“Bombazine!” says I to him.</p> - -<p>“O begod!” he says, “I never struck fist on a lad -the like of you, with your bombazine O! I grant you -it doesn’t come affable like, but what costs you nothing -can’t be dear; as for compunctions, you’ll see, I fatten -on ’em!”</p> - -<p>He laughed outright at me.</p> - -<p>“Don’t be deethery, Michael, there was a good purse -in the last man’s trousers!”</p> - -<p>I could no more complain to him; how could I under -the Lord! Dear me, it never was seen, a man with the -skin of that man; he’d the mind of a grasshopper, -but there was greatness in him, and Mary herself -loved him for a friend.</p> - -<p>What do I say about Mary! Ah, there was never -in anything that had the aspects of a world a girl with -her loveliness, I tell you, handsome as a lily, the jewel of -the world; and the thing that happened between us -was strange above all reckoning. We gave her the<span class="pagenum">[16]</span> -good will of the evening in a place that would be as -grand as Eden itself, though the bushes had grown -dim on the hills and the sod was darkening beside the -white water of the streams.</p> - -<p>“And are you going the Journey?” we asked of her.</p> - -<p>“I am going,” said she, “everybody is going, why -not me too?”</p> - -<p>“Will you go along with us?” I asked of her.</p> - -<p>She turned her eyes upon me like two sparks out -of the blowing dusk that was already upon us.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I will go with you.”</p> - -<p>At that she rested her hand upon my arm and we -turned upon the road together.</p> - -<p>She was barefooted and bareheaded, dressed in a -yellow gown that had buttons of ivory upon it.</p> - -<p>And we asked her as we went along the streams: -Had she no fear of the night time?</p> - -<p>“When the four ends of the world drop on you like -death?” says I.</p> - -<p>“... and the fogs rise up on you like moving -grief?” says he.</p> - -<p>“... and you hear the hoofs of the half god whisking -behind the hedges,” says I.</p> - -<p>“... and there are bad things like bats troubling -the air!” says he.</p> - -<p>“... or the twig of a tree comes and touches you -like a finger!” says I.</p> - -<p>“... the finger of some meditating doom!” says -he.</p> - -<p>“No, I am not,” cried Mary, “but I am glad to be -going with you.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[17]</span></p> - -<p>Her hand was again resting upon my arm.</p> - -<p>I lay down among the sheaves of wheat that night -with no sleep coming to me, for the stars were spilling -all out of the sky and it seemed the richness of heaven -was flowing down upon us all.</p> - -<p>“Michael!” Monk whispered, “she’s a holy-minded -girl: look, look, she’s praying!”</p> - -<p>Sure enough I could see her a little way off, standing -like a saint, as still as a monument.</p> - -<p>Fresh as a bird was our gentle comrade in the dawn -and ready to be going. And we asked her as we went -by the roads together: What was it made her to come -the Journey alone?</p> - -<p>“Sure there is no loneliness in the world,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Is there not?” asked Monk.</p> - -<p>“I take my soul with me upon this Journey,” said -Mary.</p> - -<p>“Your what!”</p> - -<p>“My soul,” she said gravely, “it is what keeps loneliness -from me.”</p> - -<p>He mused upon that a little. “Look ye’re, Mary, -soul is just but the chain of eternal mortality, that is -what I think it; but you speak as if it were something -you pick up and carry about with you, something made -of gutta-percha, like a tobacco pouch.”</p> - -<p>She smiled upon him: “It is what covers me from -loneliness ... it’s ... it’s the little garment which -sometime God will take upon him—being God.”</p> - -<p>Seven days only and seven little nights we were together -and I made scores of poems about her that were -different from any poems that have come into the<span class="pagenum">[18]</span> -world, but I could never sing them now. In the mornings -she would go wash herself in the pools, and Monk -and I would walk a little way off from her. Monk was -very delicate about that, but I would turn and see the -white-armed girl rolling up her dark hair, and her white -feet travelling to the water as she pulled the gown from -her beauty. She was made like the down of doves -and the bloom of bees. It’s like enough she did love -me in a very frail and delicate sort of way, like a bush -of lavendie might love the wind that would be snaring -it from its root in the garden, but never won a petal of -it, nor a bloom, only a little of its kind kind air.</p> - -<p>We asked her as we went upon the hills: Had she no -fear of getting her death?</p> - -<p>“Not if I make a wise use of it.”</p> - -<p>“A use of your death—and how would you do that, -tell me,” says I.</p> - -<p>And she told us grand things about death, in her -soft wonderful voice; strange talk to be giving the -likes of him and me.</p> - -<p>“I’d give the heart out of my skin,” said I, “not to -be growing old—the sin and sorrow of the world, -with no hope of life and despair in its conclusion.”</p> - -<p>But Monk was full of laughter at me.</p> - -<p>“Ha! ha! better a last hope than a hopeless conclusion,” -says Mr. Monk; “so try hope with another lozenge, -Michael, and give a free drink to despair.”</p> - -<p>“Have <em>you</em> no fear of death?” Mary asked of him.</p> - -<p>And Monk, he said: “I have no unreasonable regard -for him; I may bow before the inevitable, but I<span class="pagenum">[19]</span> -decline to grovel before it, and if I burn with the best -of ’em—well, I’d rather be torrid than torpid.”</p> - -<p>“It would be well,” said Mary, “to praise God for -such courage.”</p> - -<p>“Is that what <em>you</em> praise him for?” we asked her.</p> - -<p>“I praise God for Jesus,” Mary said to us: strange -talk to be giving the likes of him and me.</p> - -<p>We found the finest sleeping nooks, and she could -not have rested better if there had been acres of silk; -Monk, God-a-mercy, spent his money like a baron. -One night in the little darkness he said:</p> - -<p>“Look ye’re, Mary, tell us why you pray!”</p> - -<p>“I pray because of a dream I had.”</p> - -<p>“A dream! That’s strange, Mary; I could understand -a person dreaming because of a prayer she has -prayed, but not praying because of a dream she has -dreamed.”</p> - -<p>“Not even supposing,” I said to him, “you had -dreamed you were praying prayers?”</p> - -<p>“If I did,” said he, “I might pray not to dream such -dreams.”</p> - -<p>“I pray,” said Mary, “that my dream may come -true.”</p> - -<p>And Monk, he said, “So you build your life on a -prayer and a dream!”</p> - -<p>“I do not build my life at all,” said Mary; “it’s my -death I am building, in a wonderful world of mountains....”</p> - -<p>“... that can never be climbed,” cried Monk.</p> - -<p>“... and grand rivers....”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[20]</span></p> - -<p>“... that stand still and do not flow,” says he.</p> - -<p>“... and bright shining fields....”</p> - -<p>“... that will never come to the reaping,” says he -again.</p> - -<p>“... and if the climbing and the flowing and the -reaping are illusions here, they are real in the dreams -of God.”</p> - -<p>And Monk, he said: “If God himself is the illusion, -Mary, there’s little enough reward for a life of that -kind, or the death of it either. The recompense for -living is Life—not in the future or merely in the present, -but life in the past where all our intuitions had -their mould, and all our joys their eternal fountain.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes,” I added to him, “beauty walks in the -track of the mortal world, and her light is behind you.”</p> - -<p>She was silent. “Mary,” said I, “won’t you tell me -now that dream of yours?”</p> - -<p>“I will not tell you yet, Michael,” said she.</p> - -<p>But on a day after that we came to a plain, in it a -great mountain; and we went away on to the mountain -and commenced to climb. Near the top it was as -if part of the cone of the mountain had been blown out -by the side and a sweet lake of water left winking in -the scoop. We came suddenly upon it; all the cloven -cliffs that hung round three sides of the lake were of -white marble, blazing with a lustre that crashed upon -our eyes; the floor of the lake, easy to be seen, was of -white marble too, and the water was that clear you -could see the big black hole in the middle where it -bubbled from the abyss. There were beds of heather -around us with white quoins of marble, like chapels<span class="pagenum">[21]</span> -or shrines, sunk amid them; this, and the great golden -plain rolling below, far from us, on every side, almost -as far away as the sky. When we came to this place -Monk touched my arm; we both looked at Mary, walking -beside the lake like a person who knew well the -marvel that <em>we</em> were but just seeing. She was speaking -strange words—we could not understand.</p> - -<p>“Let us leave her to herself awhile,” said Monk.</p> - -<p>And we climbed round behind the white cliffs until -we left each other. I went back alone and found her -lying in the heather beside a stone shaped like an altar, -sleeping. I knelt down beside her with a love in my -heart that was greater than the mere life beating in it. -She lay very still and beautiful, and I put into her hand -a sprig of the red rowan which I had found. I -watched the wind just hoisting the strands of her hair -that was twisted in the heather.</p> - -<p>The glister was gone from the cliffs, they were softly -white like magnolia flowers; the lake water splashed its -little words in the quarries. Her lips were red as the -rowan buds, the balm of lilies was in the touch of them.</p> - -<p>She opened her eyes on me kneeling beside her.</p> - -<p>“Mary,” said I, “I will tell you what I’m thinking. -There is a great doubt in my mind, Mary, and I’m in -fear that you’ll be gone from me.”</p> - -<p>For answer she drew me down to her side until my -face was resting against her heart; I could hear its -little thunder in her breast. And I leaned up until I -was looking deeply in her eyes.</p> - -<p>“You are like the dreaming dawn,” I said, “beautiful -and silent. You’re the daughter of all the dawns that<span class="pagenum">[22]</span> -ever were, and I’d perish if you’d be gone from me.”</p> - -<p>“It’s beautiful to be in the world with you, Michael, -and to feel your strength about me.”</p> - -<p>“It’s lonely to be in the world with you, Mary, and -no hope in my heart, but doubt filling it.”</p> - -<p>“I will bring you into my heaven, Michael.”</p> - -<p>“Mary, it’s in a little thicket of cedar I would sit -with you, hearing the wild bee’s hymn; beautiful grapes -I would give you, and apples rich as the moon.”</p> - -<p>We were silent for a while and then she told me what -I have written here of her own fine words as I remember -them. We were sitting against the white altar -stone, the sun was setting; there was one great gulf -of brightness in the west of the sky, and pieces of -fiery cloud, little flukes of flame shaped like fishes, -swimming there. In the hinder part of the sky a great -bush-tailed animal had sprung into its dying fields, a -purple fox.</p> - -<p>“I dreamed,” said Mary, “that I was in marriage -with a carpenter. His name was Joseph and he was -older than I by many years. He left me at the -marriage and went away to Liverpool; there was a great -strike on in that place, but what he was to do there or -why he was gone I do not know. It was at Easter, -and when I woke in my bed on the first morning there -was bright wind blowing in the curtains, and sun upon -the bed linen. Some cattle were lowing and I heard -the very first cuckoo of the year. I can remember the -round looking glass with a brass frame upon the table, -and the queer little alabaster jar of scented oil. There -was a picture of some cranes flying on the wall, and a<span class="pagenum">[23]</span> -china figure of a man called O’Connell on the shelf -above the fire-place. My white veil was blown from its -hook down on the floor, and it was strewed over with -daffodils I had carried to my marriage.</p> - -<p>“And at that a figure was in the room—I don’t know -how—he just came, dressed in strange clothes, a dark -handsome young man with black long hair and smiling -eyes, full of every grace, and I loved him on the moment. -But he took up some of my daffodils only—and -vanished. Then I remember getting up, and after -breakfast I walked about the fields very happy. There -was a letter at the post office from my husband: I took -it home and dropped it into the fire unopened. I put -the little house into its order and set the daffodils in a -bowl close upon the bedroom window. And at night -in the darkness, when I could not see him, the dark -man came to my bed, but was gone before the morning, -taking more of my daffodils with him. And this -happened night upon night until all my flowers were -gone, and then he came no more.</p> - -<p>“It was a long time before my husband came home -from Liverpool but he came at last and we lived very -happily until Christmas when I had a little child.”</p> - -<p>“And <em>did</em> you have a child?” I asked her.</p> - -<p>“No,” she said, “this was all my dream. Michael, -O Michael, you are like that lover of the darkness.”</p> - -<p>And just then Monk came back among us roaring -for food.</p> - -<p>I gave him the bag I had carried and he helped himself.</p> - -<p>“I do not feel the need of it,” said Mary.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[24]</span></p> - -<p>“I do not feel the need of it,” said I.</p> - -<p>When he had told us his tales and the darkness was -come we went to rest among the heather.</p> - -<p>The wild stars were flowing over the sky, for it was -the time of the year when they do fall. Three of them -dropped together into the plain near the foot of the -mountain, but I lay with the bride of dreams in my -arms and if the lake and the mountain itself had been -heaped with immortal stars I would not have stirred. -Yet in the morning when I awoke I was alone. There -was a new sprig of the rowan in my hand; the grand -sun was warm on the rocks and the heather. I stood -up and could hear a few birds in the thickets below, -little showers of faint music. Mary and Monk were -conversing on a ridge under the bank of the lake. I -went to them, and Monk touched my arm again as if -to give me a warning but I had no eyes for him, Mary -was speaking and pointing.</p> - -<p>“Do you see, Michael, that green place at the foot of -the mountain?”</p> - -<p>“I do, I see a fine green ring.”</p> - -<p>“Do you see what is in it?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing is in it,” I said, and indeed it was a bare -open spot in the ring of a fence, a green slant in the -stubbles.</p> - -<p>She stared at me with strangely troubled eyes.</p> - -<p>“It’s a little green terrace, a little sacred terrace; do -you not see what is on it?” she asked of Monk.</p> - -<p>“There is nothing in it, Mary, but maybe a hare.”</p> - -<p>“O look again,” she cried out quickly, “Michael,<span class="pagenum">[25]</span> -there are three golden crosses there, the crosses of Calvary, -only they are empty now!”</p> - -<p>“There are no crosses there?” I said to Monk.</p> - -<p>“There are no crosses there,” he said.</p> - -<p>I turned to the girl; she took me in her arms and I -shall feel her cold cold lips till the fall of doom.</p> - -<p>“Michael, dear, it has been so beautiful....”</p> - -<p>She seemed to be making a little farewell and growing -vague like a ghost would be.</p> - -<p>“O lovely lovely jewel of the world, my heart is -losing you!... Monk! Monk!” I screamed, but he -could not help us. She was gone in a twink, and left -me and Monk very lonely in the world.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">DUSKY RUTH</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span> -<h2 class="no-break">DUSKY RUTH</h2> -</div> - - -<p class="dropcap">At the close of an April day, chilly and wet, -the traveller came to a country town. In the -Cotswolds, though the towns are small and -sweet and the inns snug, the general habit of the land -is bleak and bare. He had newly come upon upland -roads so void of human affairs, so lonely, that they -might have been made for some forgotten uses by departed -men, and left to the unwitting passage of such -strangers as himself. Even the unending walls, built -of old rough laminated rock, that detailed the far-spreading -fields, had grown very old again in their -courses; there were dabs of darkness, buttons of moss, -and fossils on every stone. He had passed a few -neighbourhoods, sometimes at the crook of a stream, or -at the cross of debouching roads, where old habitations, -their gangrenated thatch riddled with bird holes, had -not been so much erected as just spattered about the -places. Beyond these signs an odd lark or blackbird, -the ruckle of partridges, or the nifty gallop of a hare, -had been the only mitigation of the living loneliness -that was almost as profound by day as by night. But -the traveller had a care for such times and places.</p> - -<p>There are men who love to gaze with the mind at<span class="pagenum">[30]</span> -things that can never be seen, feel at least the throb of a -beauty that will never be known, and hear over immense -bleak reaches the echo of that which is not -celestial music, but only their own hearts’ vain cries; -and though his garments clung to him like clay it was -with deliberate questing step that the traveller trod the -single street of the town, and at last entered the inn, -shuffling his shoes in the doorway for a moment and -striking the raindrops from his hat. Then he turned -into a small smoking-room. Leather-lined benches, -much worn, were fixed to the wall under the window -and in other odd corners and nooks behind mahogany -tables. One wall was furnished with all the congenial -gear of a bar, but without any intervening counter. -Opposite a bright fire was burning, and a neatly-dressed -young woman sat before it in a Windsor chair, staring -at the flames. There was no other inmate of the -room, and as he entered the girl rose up and greeted -him. He found that he could be accommodated for -the night, and in a few moments his hat and scarf were -removed and placed inside the fender, his wet overcoat -was taken to the kitchen, the landlord, an old -fellow, was lending him a roomy pair of slippers, and -a maid was setting supper in an adjoining room.</p> - -<p>He sat while this was doing and talked to the barmaid. -She had a beautiful, but rather mournful, face -as it was lit by the firelight, and when her glance was -turned away from it her eyes had a piercing brightness. -Friendly and well-spoken as she was, the melancholy -in her aspect was noticeable—perhaps it was the dim<span class="pagenum">[31]</span> -room, or the wet day, or the long hours ministering a -multitude of cocktails to thirsty gallantry.</p> - -<p>When he went to his supper he found cheering food -and drink, with pleasant garniture of silver and mahogany. -There were no other visitors, he was to be -alone; blinds were drawn, lamps lit, and the fire at -his back was comforting. So he sat long about his -meal until a white-faced maid came to clear the table, -discoursing to him of country things as she busied -about the room. It was a long narrow room, with a -sideboard and the door at one end and the fireplace at -the other. A bookshelf, almost devoid of books, contained -a number of plates; the long wall that faced the -windows was almost destitute of pictures, but there -were hung upon it, for some inscrutable but doubtless -sufficient reason, many dish-covers, solidly shaped, of -the kind held in such mysterious regard and known -as “willow pattern”; one was even hung upon the face -of a map. Two musty prints were mixed with them, -presentments of horses having a stilted, extravagant -physique and bestridden by images of inhuman and -incommunicable dignity, clothed in whiskers, coloured -jackets, and tight white breeches.</p> - -<p>He took down the books from the shelf, but his -interest was speedily exhausted, and the almanacs, the -county directory, and various guide-books were exchanged -for the <cite>Cotswold Chronicle</cite>. With this, having -drawn the deep chair to the hearth, he whiled -away the time. The newspaper amused him with -its advertisements of stock shows, farm auctions,<span class="pagenum">[32]</span> -travelling quacks and conjurers, and there was a -lengthy account of the execution of a local felon, one -Timothy Bridger, who had murdered an infant in some -shameful circumstances. This dazzling crescendo -proved rather trying to the traveller; he threw down -the paper.</p> - -<p>The town was all quiet as the hills, and he could -hear no sounds in the house. He got up and went -across the hall to the smoke-room. The door was shut, -but there was light within, and he entered. The girl -sat there much as he had seen her on his arrival, still -alone, with feet on fender. He shut the door behind -him, sat down, and crossing his legs puffed at his pipe, -admired the snug little room and the pretty figure of -the girl, which he could do without embarrassment as -her meditative head, slightly bowed, was turned away -from him. He could see something of her, too, in the -mirror at the bar, which repeated also the agreeable -contours of bottles of coloured wines and rich -liqueurs—so entrancing in form and aspect that they -seemed destined to charming histories, even in disuse—and -those of familiar outline containing mere spirits -or small beer, for which are reserved the harsher destinies -of base oils, horse medicines, disinfectants, and -cold tea. There were coloured glasses for bitter wines, -white glasses for sweet, a tiny leaden sink beneath -them, and the four black handles of the beer engine.</p> - -<p>The girl wore a light blouse of silk, a short skirt of -black velvet, and a pair of very thin silk stockings -that showed the flesh of instep and shin so plainly that -he could see they were reddened by the warmth of the<span class="pagenum">[33]</span> -fire. She had on a pair of dainty cloth shoes with -high heels, but what was wonderful about her was the -heap of rich black hair piled at the back of her head and -shadowing the dusky neck. He sat puffing his pipe -and letting the loud tick of the clock fill the quiet room. -She did not stir and he could move no muscle. -It was as if he had been willed to come there and wait -silently. That, he felt now, had been his desire all the -evening; and here, in her presence, he was more -strangely stirred than by any event he could remember.</p> - -<p>In youth he had viewed women as futile pitiable -things that grew long hair, wore stays and garters, and -prayed incomprehensible prayers. Viewing them in -the stalls of the theatre from his vantage-point in the -gallery, he always disliked the articulation of their -naked shoulders. But still, there was a god in the -sky, a god with flowing hair and exquisite eyes, whose -one stride with an ardour grandly rendered took him -across the whole round hemisphere to which his buoyant -limbs were bound like spokes to the eternal rim -and axle, his bright hair burning in the pity of the sunsets -and tossing in the anger of the dawns.</p> - -<p>Master traveller had indeed come into this room to -be with this woman: she as surely desired him, and -for all its accidental occasion it was as if he, walking -the ways of the world, had suddenly come upon ... -what so imaginable with all permitted reverence as, -well, just a shrine; and he, admirably humble, bowed -the instant head.</p> - -<p>Were there no other people within? The clock indicated -a few minutes to nine. He sat on, still as stone,<span class="pagenum">[34]</span> -and the woman might have been of wax for all the -movement or sound she made. There was allurement -in the air between them; he had forborne his smoking, -the pipe grew cold between his teeth. He waited for a -look from her, a movement to break the trance of -silence. No footfall in street or house, no voice in -the inn but the clock beating away as if pronouncing a -doom. Suddenly it rasped out nine large notes, a bell -in the town repeated them dolefully, and a cuckoo no -further than the kitchen mocked them with three times -three. After that came the weak steps of the old landlord -along the hall, the slam of doors, the clatter of -lock and bolt, and then the silence returning unendurably -upon them.</p> - -<p>He arose and stood behind her; he touched the black -hair. She made no movement or sign. He pulled out -two or three combs, and dropping them into her lap let -the whole mass tumble about his hands. It had a -curious harsh touch in the unravelling, but was so full -and shining; black as a rook’s wings it was. He slid -his palms through it. His fingers searched it and -fought with its fine strangeness; into his mind there -travelled a serious thought, stilling his wayward fancy—this -was no wayward fancy, but a rite accomplishing -itself! (<em>Run, run, silly man, y’are lost.</em>) But having -got so far he burnt his boats, leaned over, and drew -her face back to him. And at that, seizing his wrists, -she gave him back ardour for ardour, pressing his hands -to her bosom, while the kiss was sealed and sealed -again. Then she sprang up and picking his hat and -scarf from the fender said:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[35]</span></p> - -<p>“I have been drying them for you, but the hat has -shrunk a bit, I’m sure—I tried it on.”</p> - -<p>He took them from her and put them behind him; -he leaned lightly back upon the table, holding it with -both his hands behind him; he could not speak.</p> - -<p>“Aren’t you going to thank me for drying them?” -she asked, picking her combs from the rug and repinning -her hair.</p> - -<p>“I wonder why we did that?” he asked, shamedly.</p> - -<p>“It is what I’m thinking too,” she said.</p> - -<p>“You were so beautiful about ... about it, you -know.”</p> - -<p>She made no rejoinder, but continued to bind her -hair, looking brightly at him under her brows. When -she had finished she went close to him.</p> - -<p>“Will that do?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll take it down again.”</p> - -<p>“No, no, the old man or the old woman will be -coming in.”</p> - -<p>“What of that?” he said, taking her into his arms, -“tell me your name.”</p> - -<p>She shook her head, but she returned his kisses and -stroked his hair and shoulders with beautifully melting -gestures.</p> - -<p>“What is your name, I want to call you by your -name?” he said; “I can’t keep calling you Lovely -Woman, Lovely Woman.”</p> - -<p>Again she shook her head and was dumb.</p> - -<p>“I’ll call you Ruth then, Dusky Ruth, Ruth of the -black, beautiful hair.”</p> - -<p>“That is a nice-sounding name—I knew a deaf and<span class="pagenum">[36]</span> -dumb girl named Ruth; she went to Nottingham and -married an organ-grinder—but I should like it for my -name.”</p> - -<p>“Then I give it to you.”</p> - -<p>“Mine is so ugly.”</p> - -<p>“What is it?”</p> - -<p>Again the shaken head and the burning caress.</p> - -<p>“Then you shall be Ruth; will you keep that name?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, if you give me the name I will keep it for you.”</p> - -<p>Time had indeed taken them by the forelock, and -they looked upon a ruddled world.</p> - -<p>“I stake my one talent,” he said jestingly, “and behold -it returns me fortyfold; I feel like the boy who -catches three mice with one piece of cheese.”</p> - -<p>At ten o’clock the girl said:</p> - -<p>“I must go and see how <em>they</em> are getting on,” and she -went to the door.</p> - -<p>“Are we keeping them up?”</p> - -<p>She nodded.</p> - -<p>“Are you tired?”</p> - -<p>“No, I am not tired.”</p> - -<p>She looked at him doubtfully.</p> - -<p>“We ought not to stay in here; go into the coffee-room -and I’ll come there in a few minutes.”</p> - -<p>“Right,” he whispered gaily, “we’ll sit up all night.”</p> - -<p>She stood at the door for him to pass out, and he -crossed the hall to the other room. It was in darkness -except for the flash of the fire. Standing at the hearth -he lit a match for the lamp, but paused at the globe; -then he extinguished the match.</p> - -<p>“No, it’s better to sit in the firelight.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[37]</span></p> - -<p>He heard voices at the other end of the house that -seemed to have a chiding note in them.</p> - -<p>“Lord,” he thought, “she is getting into a row?”</p> - -<p>Then her steps came echoing over the stone floors of -the hall; she opened the door and stood there with a -lighted candle in her hand; he stood at the other end of -the room, smiling.</p> - -<p>“Good night,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Oh no, no! come along,” he protested, but not moving -from the hearth.</p> - -<p>“Got to go to bed,” she answered.</p> - -<p>“Are they angry with you?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then, come over here and sit down.”</p> - -<p>“Got to go to bed,” she said again, but she had meanwhile -put her candlestick upon the little sideboard and -was trimming the wick with a burnt match.</p> - -<p>“Oh, come along, just half an hour,” he protested. -She did not answer but went on prodding the wick of -the candle.</p> - -<p>“Ten minutes, then,” he said, still not going towards -her.</p> - -<p>“Five minutes,” he begged.</p> - -<p>She shook her head, and picking up the candlestick -turned to the door. He did not move, he just called -her name: “Ruth!”</p> - -<p>She came back then, put down the candlestick and -tiptoed across the room until he met her. The bliss of -the embrace was so poignant that he was almost glad -when she stood up again and said with affected steadiness, -though he heard the tremor in her voice:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[38]</span></p> - -<p>“I must get you your candle.”</p> - -<p>She brought one from the hall, set it on the table in -front of him, and struck the match.</p> - -<p>“What is my number?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Number six room,” she answered, prodding the -wick vaguely with her match, while a slip of white wax -dropped over the shoulder of the new candle. “Number -six ... next to mine.”</p> - -<p>The match burnt out; she said abruptly “Good-night,” -took up her own candle and left him there.</p> - -<p>In a few moments he ascended the stairs and went -into his room. He fastened the door, removed his -coat, collar, and slippers, but the rack of passion had -seized him and he moved about with no inclination to -sleep. He sat down, but there was no medium of distraction. -He tried to read the newspaper which he had -carried up with him, and without realizing a single -phrase he forced himself to read again the whole account -of the execution of the miscreant Bridger. When -he had finished this he carefully folded the paper and -stood up, listening. He went to the parting wall and -tapped thereon with his finger tips. He waited half a -minute, one minute, two minutes; there was no answering -sign. He tapped again, more loudly, with his -knuckles, but there was no response, and he tapped -many times. He opened his door as noiselessly as -possible; along the dark passage there were slips of -light under the other doors, the one next his own, and -the one beyond that. He stood in the corridor listening -to the rumble of old voices in the farther room, -the old man and his wife going to their rest. Holding<span class="pagenum">[39]</span> -his breath fearfully, he stepped to <em>her</em> door and tapped -gently upon it. There was no answer, but he could -somehow divine her awareness of him; he tapped -again; she moved to the door and whispered “No, no, -go away.” He turned the handle, the door was locked.</p> - -<p>“Let me in,” he pleaded. He knew she was standing -there an inch or two beyond him.</p> - -<p>“Hush,” she called softly. “Go away, the old woman -has ears like a fox.”</p> - -<p>He stood silent for a moment.</p> - -<p>“Unlock it,” he urged; but he got no further reply, -and feeling foolish and baffled he moved back to his -own room, cast his clothes from him, doused the -candle and crept into the bed with soul as wild as a -storm-swept forest, his heart beating a vagrant summons. -The room filled with strange heat, there was -no composure for mind or limb, nothing but flaming -visions and furious embraces.</p> - -<p>“Morality ... what is it but agreement with your -own soul?”</p> - -<p>So he lay for two hours—the clocks chimed twelve—listening -with foolish persistency for <em>her</em> step along -the corridor, fancying every light sound—and the night -was full of them—was her hand upon the door.</p> - -<p>Suddenly,—and then it seemed as if his very heart -would abash the house with its thunder—he could hear -distinctly someone knocking on the wall. He got -quickly from his bed and stood at the door, listening. -Again the knocking was heard, and having half-clothed -himself he crept into the passage, which was now in -utter darkness, trailing his hand along the wall until<span class="pagenum">[40]</span> -he felt her door; it was standing open. He entered -her room and closed the door behind him. There was -not the faintest gleam of light, he could see nothing. -He whispered “Ruth!” and she was standing there. -She touched him, but not speaking. He put out his -hands, and they met round her neck; her hair was -flowing in its great wave about her; he put his lips to -her face and found that her eyes were streaming with -tears, salt and strange and disturbing. In the close -darkness he put his arms about her with no thought -but to comfort her; one hand had plunged through -the long harsh tresses and the other across her hips before -he realized that she was ungowned; then he was -aware of the softness of her breasts and the cold naked -sleekness of her shoulders. But she was crying there, -crying silently with great tears, her strange sorrow -stifling his desire.</p> - -<p>“Ruth, Ruth, my beautiful dear!” he murmured -soothingly. He felt for the bed with one hand, and -turning back the quilt and sheets he lifted her in as -easily as a mother does her child, replaced the bedding, -and, in his clothes, he lay stretched beside her comforting -her. They lay so, innocent as children, for an -hour, when she seemed to have gone to sleep. He rose -then and went silently to his room, full of weariness.</p> - -<p>In the morning he breakfasted without seeing her, -but as he had business in the world that gave him just -an hour longer at the Inn before he left it for good -and all, he went into the smoke-room and found her. -She greeted him with curious gaze, but merrily enough, -for there were other men there now, farmers, a butcher,<span class="pagenum">[41]</span> -a registrar, an old, old man. The hour passed, but -not these men, and at length he donned his coat, -took up his stick, and said good-bye. Her shining -glances followed him to the door, and from the window -as far as they could view him.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">WEEP NOT MY WANTON</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span> -<h2 class="no-break">WEEP NOT MY WANTON</h2> -</div> - - -<p class="dropcap">Air and light on Sack Down at summer sunset -were soft as ointment and sweet as milk; -at least, that is the notion the down might give -to a mind that bloomed within its calm horizons, some -happy victim of romance it might be, watching the -silken barley moving in its lower fields with the slow -movement of summer sea, reaching no harbour, having -no end. The toilers had mostly given over; their -ploughs and harrows were left to the abandoned fields; -they had taken their wages and gone, or were going, -home; but at the crown of the hill a black barn stood -by the roadside, and in its yard, amid sounds of -anguish, a score of young boar pigs were being gelded -by two brown lads and a gipsy fellow. Not half a -mile of distance here could enclose you the compass of -their cries. If a man desired peace he would step -fast down the hill towards Arwall with finger in ear -until he came to quiet at a bank overlooking slopes of -barley, and could perceive the fogs of June being born -in the standing grass beyond.</p> - -<p>Four figures, a labourer and his family, travelled -slowly up the road proceeding across the hill, a sound -mingling dully with their steps—the voice of the man.<span class="pagenum">[46]</span> -You could not tell if it were noise of voice or of footsteps -that first came into your ear, but it could be defined -on their advance as the voice of a man upbraiding -his little son.</p> - -<p>“You’re a naughty, naughty—you’re a vurry, <em>vurry</em> -naughty boy! Oi can’t think what’s comen tyeh!”</p> - -<p>The father towered above the tiny figure shuffling -under his elbow, and kept his eyes stupidly fixed upon -him. He saw a thin boy, a spare boy, a very -shrunken boy of seven or eight years, crying quietly. -He let no grief out of his lips, but his white face was -streaming with dirty tears. He wore a man’s cap, an -unclean sailor jacket, large knickerbockers that made -a mockery of his lean joints, a pair of women’s button -boots, and he looked straight ahead.</p> - -<p>“The idear! To go and lose a sixpence like that then! -Where d’ye think yer’ll land yerself, ay? Where’d I -be if I kept on losing sixpences, ay? A creature like -you, ay!” and lifting his heavy hand the man struck -the boy a blow behind with shock enough to disturb -a heifer. They went on, the child with sobs that you -could feel rather than hear. As they passed the black -barn the gipsy bawled encouragingly: “S’elp me, -father, that’s a good ’un, wallop his trousers!”</p> - -<p>But the man ignored him, as he ignored the yell of -the pig and the voice of the lark rioting above them -all; he continued his litany:</p> - -<p>“You’re a naughty, naughty <em>boy</em>, an’ I dunno what’s -comen tyeh!”</p> - -<p>The woman, a poor slip of a woman she was, walked -behind them with a smaller child: she seemed to have<span class="pagenum">[47]</span> -no desire to shield the boy or to placate the man. She -did not seem to notice them, and led the toddling babe, -to whom she gabbled, some paces in the rear of the man -of anger. He was a great figure with a bronzed face; -his trousers were tied at the knee, his wicker bag was -slung over his shoulder. With his free and massive -hand he held the hand of the boy. He was slightly -drunk, and walked with his legs somewhat wide, at the -beginning of each stride lifting his heel higher than -was required, and at the end of it placing his foot -firmly but obliquely inwards. There were two bright -medals on the breast of his waistcoat, presumably for -valour; he was perhaps a man who would stand upon -his rights and his dignities, such as they were—but then -he was drunk. His language, oddly unprofane, gave -a subtle and mean point to his decline from the heroic -standard. He only ceased his complaining to gaze -swayingly at the boy; then he struck him. The boy, -crying quietly, made no effort to avoid or resist him.</p> - -<p>“You understand me, you bad boy! As long as -you’re with me you got to come under collar. And -wher’ll you be next I <em>dunno</em>, a bad creature like you, -ay! An’ then to turn roun’ an’ answer me! <em>I dunno!</em> I -dunno <em>what’s</em> comen tyeh. Ye know ye lost that sixpence -through glammering about. Wher’ d’ye lose it, -ay? Wher’ d’ye lose it, ay?”</p> - -<p>At these questions be seized the boy by the neck and -shook him as a child does a bottle of water. The baby -behind them was taken with little gusts of laughter at -the sight, and the woman cooed back playfully at her.</p> - -<p>“George, George!” yelled the woman.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[48]</span></p> - -<p>The man turned round.</p> - -<p>“Look after Annie!” she yelled again.</p> - -<p>“What’s up?” he called.</p> - -<p>Her only answer was a giggle of laughter as she -disappeared behind a hedge. The child toddled up to -its father and took his hand, while the quiet boy took -her other hand with relief. She laughed up into their -faces, and the man resumed his homily.</p> - -<p>“He’s a bad, bad boy. He’s a vurry <em>naughty</em> bad -boy!”</p> - -<p>By-and-by the woman came shuffling after them; -the boy looked furtively around and dropped his -sister’s hand.</p> - -<p>“Carm on, me beauty!” cried the man, lifting the -girl to his shoulder. “He’s a bad boy; you ’ave a ride -on your daddy.” They went on alone, and the woman -joined the boy. He looked up at her with a sad face.</p> - -<p>“O, my Christ, Johnny!” she said, putting her arms -round the boy, “what’s ’e bin doin’ to yeh? Yer face -is all blood!”</p> - -<p>“It’s only me nose, mother. Here,” he whispered, -“here’s the tanner.”</p> - -<p>They went together down the hill towards the inn, -which had already a light in its windows. The -screams from the barn had ceased, and a cart passed -them full of young pigs, bloody and subdued. The -hill began to resume its old dominion of soft sounds. -It was nearly nine o’clock, and one anxious farmer -still made hay although, on this side of the down, day -had declined, and with a greyness that came not from<span class="pagenum">[49]</span> -the sky, but crept up from the world. From the quiet -hill, as the last skein of cocks was carted to the stack, -you could hear dimly men’s voices and the rattle of -their gear.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">PIFFINGCAP</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span> -<h2 class="no-break">PIFFINGCAP</h2> -</div> - - -<p class="dropcap">Piffingcap had the cup from an old friend, a -queer-minded man. He had given it to him -just before he had gone out of this continent, -not for the first but for the last time—a cup of lead -with an inscription upon it in decent letters but strange -words.</p> - -<p>“Here, Elmer,” said his old friend to the barber of -Bagwood, “have this—there’s the doom of half a million -beards in it!”</p> - -<p>Piffingcap laughed, but without any joy, for his -heart was heavy to lose his friend.</p> - -<p>“There is in it too,” continued Grafton, offering the -pot and tapping it with his forefinger, “a true test of -virtue—a rare thing, as you know, in these parts. -Secondly, there is in it a choice of fortunes; and -thirdly, it may be, a triple calamity and—and—and -very serious, you know, but there you are.” He gave -it into the barber’s hand with a slight sigh. While -his friend duly admired the dull gift the traveller -picked up his walking stick and winked at himself in -the mirror.</p> - -<p>And Elmer Piffingcap, the barber of Bagwood, took -his friend’s cup, set it in a conspicuous place upon the<span class="pagenum">[54]</span> -shelf of his shop, and bade that friend good-bye, a -little knot rolling into his lungs as they shook their -two hands together.</p> - -<p>“It is true then,” said he, staring at the shining baldness -of his friend who stood with hat and stick in -hand—for as Piffingcap dared not look into his friend’s -eyes, the gleam of the skull took his gaze, as a bright -thing will seize the mind of a gnat—“it is true, then, -I shall see you no more?”</p> - -<p>“No more again,” said the wanderer affably, replacing -his hat—disliking that pliant will-less stare of -the barber’s mournful eyes. This wandering man had -a heart full of bravery though he could not walk with -pride, for the corns and bunkles he suffered would -have crippled a creature of four feet, leave alone two. -But—would you believe it—he was going now to walk -himself for all his days round and round the world. -O, he was such a man as could put a deceit upon the -slyest, with his tall hat and his jokes, living as easy as -a bird in the softness and sweetness of the year.</p> - -<p>“And if it rains, it rains,” he declared to Polly, “and -I squat like a hare in the hedge and keep the blessed -bones of me dry and my feet warm—it’s not three -weeks since it happened to me; my neck as damp as -the inside of an onion, and my curly locks caught in -blackberry bushes—stint your laughing, Polly!—the -end of my nose as cold as a piece of dead pork, and -the place very inconvenient with its sharp thorns and -nettles—and no dockleaf left in the whole parish. -But there was young barley wagging in the field, and -clover to be smelling, and rooks to be watching, and<span class="pagenum">[55]</span> -doves, and the rain heaving its long sigh in the greyness—I -declare to my God it was a fine handsome -day I had that day, Polly!”</p> - -<p>In the winter he would be sleeping in decent nooks, -eating his food in quiet inns, drying his coat at the -forge; and so he goes now into the corners of the -world—the little husky fat man, with large spectacles -and fox-coloured beard and tough boots that had slits -and gouts in them—gone seeking the feathers out of -Priam’s peacock. And let him go; we take no more -concern of him or his shining skull or his tra-la-la in -the highways.</p> - -<p>The barber, who had a romantic drift of mind, went -into his saloon, and taking up the two cracked china -lather mugs he flung them from the open window into -his back garden, putting the fear of some evil into -the mind of his drowsy cat, and a great anticipation -in the brains of his two dusty hens, who were lurking -there for anything that could be devoured. Mr. -Piffingcap placed the pot made of lead upon his convenient -shelf, laid therein his brush, lit the small gas -stove under the copper urn, and when Polly, the child -from the dairy, arrived with her small can for the -barber’s large jug she found him engaged in shaving -the chin of Timmy James the butcher, what time Mr. -James was engaged in a somewhat stilted conversation -with Gregory Barnes about the carnal women of Bagwood.</p> - -<p>Polly was a little lean girl, eight or nine years old, -with a face that was soft and rosy and fresh as the bud -of gum on the black branches of the orchard. She<span class="pagenum">[56]</span> -wore a pretty dimity frock and had gay flowers in her -hat. This was her last house of call, and, sitting down -to watch Mr. Piffingcap, the town’s one barber, shaving -friends and enemies alike, she would be the butt of -their agreeable chaff because of her pleasant country -jargon—as rich as nutmeg in a homely cake—or her -yellow scattered hair, or her sweet eyes that were soft -as remembered twilight.</p> - -<p>“Your razor is roaring, Mr. Piffingcap!”—peeping -round the chair at him. “Oh, it’s that Mr. James!” -she would say in pretended surprise. Mr. James had -a gruff beard, and the act of removing it occasioned -a noise resembling that of her mother scraping the -new potatoes.</p> - -<p>“What have you got this pot for?” she chattered; -“I don’t like it, it’s ugly.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t say that now,” said Mr. Piffingcap, pausing -with his hand on the butcher’s throttle, “it was Mr. -Grafton’s parting gift to me; I shall never see him -again, nor will you neither; he’s gone round the world -for ever more this time!”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” gurgled the child in a manner that hung between -pain and delight, “has he gone to Rinjigoffer -land?”</p> - -<p>“Gone where?” roared Timothy James, lifting his -large red neck from the rest.</p> - -<p>“He’s told me all about it,” said the child, ignoring -him.</p> - -<p>“Well, he’s not gone there,” interrupted the barber.</p> - -<p>And the child continued, “It’s where the doves and<span class="pagenum">[57]</span> -the partridges are so fat that they break down the -branches of the trees where they roost....”</p> - -<p>“Garn with yer!” said Mr. James.</p> - -<p>“... and the hares are as big as foxes....”</p> - -<p>“God a mercy!” said Mr. James.</p> - -<p>“... yes, and a fox was big and brown and white -like a skewbald donkey—he! he! he! And oo yes,” -continued Polly, shrilling with excitement, “there was -a king badger as would stop your eyes from winking -if you met him walking in the dawn!”</p> - -<p>“Lord, what should the man be doing telling you -them lies,” ejaculated Timothy, now wiping his chin -on the napkin. “Did he give you that cup, Piff?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” replied the barber, “and if what he says is -true there’s a power o’ miracle in it.”</p> - -<p>The butcher surveyed it cautiously and read the inscription:</p> - -<p class="center">NE SAMBRA DIVORNAK</p> - -<p>“That’s a bit o’ Roosian, I should say,” he remarked -as he and Gregory left the saloon.</p> - -<p>Polly picked up her empty can and looked at Mr. P.</p> - -<p>“Won’t he come back no more?”</p> - -<p>“No, Polly, my pigeon, he won’t come back.”</p> - -<p>“Didn’t he like us?” asked the child.</p> - -<p>The barber stood dumb before her bright searching -eyes.</p> - -<p>“He was better than my father,” said the child, “or -me uncle, or the schoolmaster.”</p> - -<p>“He’s the goodest man alive, Polly,” said Mr. P.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[58]</span></p> - -<p>“Didn’t he like us?” again she asked; and as Mr. P. -could only look vaguely about the room she went out -and closed the latch of the door very softly behind her.</p> - -<p>In the succeeding days the barber lathered and cut -or sat smoking meditatively in his saloon; the doom -began to work its will, and business, which for a quarter -of a century had flourished like a plant, as indeed -it was, of constant and assured growth, suddenly declined. -On weekdays the barber cleaned up the chins -of his fellow townsmen alone, but on Sunday mornings -he would seek the aid of a neighbour, a youngster -whom he called Charleyboy, when four men would -be seated at one time upon his shaving-chairs, towel -upon breast and neck bared for the sacrifice, while -Charleyboy dabbed and pounded their crops into -foam. Mr. Piffingcap would follow him, plying his -weapon like the genius he was, while Charleyboy again -in turn followed <em>him</em>, drying with linen, cooling with -rhum, or soothing with splendid unguent. “Next gent, -please!” he would cry out, and the last shorn man -would rise and turn away, dabbing his right hand into -the depths of his breeches pocket and elevating that -with his left before producing the customary tribute.</p> - -<p>But the genius of Piffingcap and the neat hand of -Charley languished in distress. There was no gradual -cessation, the thing completely stopped, and Piffingcap -did not realize until too late, until, indeed, the truth -of it was current in the little town everywhere but in -his own shop, that the beards once shaven by him out -of Grafton’s pot grew no more in Bagwood; and there -came the space of a week or so when not a soul entered<span class="pagenum">[59]</span> -the saloon but two schoolboys for the cutting of hair, -and a little housemaid for a fringe net.</p> - -<p>Then he knew, and one day, having sat in the place -the whole morning like a beleaguered rat, with ruin -and damnation a hands-breath only from him, he -rushed from his shop across to the hardware merchant’s -and bought two white china mugs, delicately -lined with gold and embossed with vague lumps, and -took them back to the saloon.</p> - -<p>At dinner time he put the cup of lead into his coat -pocket and walked down the street in an anxious kind -of way until he came to the bridge at the end of the -town. It was an angular stone bridge, crossing a -deep and leisurely flowing river, along whose parapet -boys had dared a million times, wearing smooth, with -their adventuring feet, its soft yellow stone. He -stared at the water and saw the shining flank of a tench -as it turned over. All beyond the bridge were meads -thick with ripe unmown grass and sweet with scabious -bloom. But the barber’s mind was harsh with the -rancour of noon heats and the misfortunes of life. -He stood with one hand resting upon the hot stone and -one upon the heavy evil thing in his pocket. The -bridge was deserted at this hour, its little traffic having -paused for the meal. He took, at length, the cup -from his pocket, and whispering to himself “God forgive -you, Grafton,” he let it fall from his fingers into -the water; then he walked sharply home to his three -daughters and told them what he had done.</p> - -<p>“You poor loon!” said Bersa.</p> - -<p>“O man! man!” moaned Grue.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[60]</span></p> - -<p>“You’re the ruin of us all!” cried Mavie.</p> - -<p>Three fine women were Grue and Mavie and Bersa, -in spite of the clamour of the outlandish Piffingcap -names, and their father had respect for them and admired -their handsomeness. But they had for their -father, all three of them, the principal filial emotion -of compassion, and they showed that his action had -been a foolish action, that there were other towns in -the world besides Bagwood, and that thousands and -millions of men would pay a good price to be quit of -a beard, and be shaved from a pot that would complete -the destruction of all the unwanted hairiness of -the world. And they were very angry with him.</p> - -<p>“Let us go and see to it ... what is to be done now ... bring -us to the place, father!”</p> - -<p>He took them down to the river, and when they -peered over the side of the bridge they could see the -pot lying half sunk in some white sand in more than a -fathom of water.</p> - -<p>“Let us instruct the waterman,” they said, “he will -secure it for us.”</p> - -<p>In the afternoon Grue met the waterman, who was -a sly young fellow, and she instructed him, but at tea-time -word was brought to Piffingcap that the young -waterman was fallen into the river and drowned. -Then there was grief in his mind, for he remembered -the calamity which Grafton had foretold, and he was -for giving up all notions of re-taking the cup; but his -daughter Bersa went in a few days to a man was an -angler and instructed him; and he took a crooked pole -and leaned over the bridge to probe for the cup. In<span class="pagenum">[61]</span> -the afternoon word was brought to Piffingcap that the -parapet had given way, and the young angler in falling -through had dashed out his brains on the abutment -of the bridge. And the young gaffer whom Mavie -instructed was took of a sunstroke and died on the -bank.</p> - -<p>The barber was in great grief at these calamities; -he had tremors of guilt in his mind, no money in his -coffers, and the chins of the Bagwood men were still as -smooth as children’s; but it came to him one day that -he need not fear any more calamities, and that a thing -which had so much tricks in it should perhaps be cured -by trickery.</p> - -<p>“I will go,” he said, “to the Widow Buckland and -ask her to assist me.”</p> - -<p>The Widow Buckland was a wild strange woman -who lived on a heath a few miles away from Bagwood; -so he went over one very hot day to the Widow and -found her cottage in the corner of the heath. There -was a caravan beside the cottage—it was a red caravan -with yellow wheels. A blackbird hung in a wicker -cage at the door, and on the side of the roof board was -painted</p> - -<p class="center"> -FEATS & GALIAS ATENDED<br /> -AGLAURA BUCKLAND</p> - -<p>There was nobody in the caravan so he knocked at -the cottage door; the Widow Buckland led him into her -dim little parlour.</p> - -<p>“It ’ull cost you half a James!” says she when Mr. -Piffingcap had given her his requirements.</p> - -<p>“Half a what?” cried he.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[62]</span></p> - -<p>“You are <em>not</em>,” said the gipsy, “a man of a mean -heart, are you?” She said it very persuasively, and -he felt he could not annoy her for she was a very -large woman with sharp glances.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Piffingcap.</p> - -<p>“And you’ll believe what I’m telling you, won’t -you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Piffingcap.</p> - -<p>“It ’ull maybe some time before my words come -true, but come true they will, I can take my oath.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” again said Piffingcap.</p> - -<p>“George!” she bawled to someone from the doorway, -“wher’d yer put my box?”</p> - -<p>There was an indistinct reply but she bawled out -again, “Well, <em>fetch</em> it off the rabbit hutch.”</p> - -<p>“And a man like you,” she continued, turning again -to the barber, “doesn’t think twice about half a sovereign, -and me putting you in the way of what you want -to know, <em>I’m</em> sure.”</p> - -<p>And Piffingcap mumbled dubiously “No,” producing -with difficulty some shillings, some coppers, and a -postal order for one and threepence which a credulous -customer had that morning sent him for a bottle of -hairwash.</p> - -<p>“Let’s look at your ’and,” she said; taking it she -reflected gravely:</p> - -<p>“You’re a man that’s ’ad your share o’ trouble, aint -you?”</p> - -<p>Piffingcap bowed meekly.</p> - -<p>“And you’ve ’ad your ’appy days, aint you?”</p> - -<p>A nod.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[63]</span></p> - -<p>“Well listen to me; you’ve got more fortune in store -for you if you know how to pluck it ... you understand -my meaning, don’t you?... than any man in -the town this bleedun minute. Right, George,” she -exclaimed, turning to a very ugly little hunchbacked -fellow—truly he was a mere squint of a man, there -was such a little bit of him for so much uncomeliness. -The Widow Buckland took the box from the hunchback -and, thrusting him out of the room, she shut -fast the door and turned the key in the lock. Then -she drew up a bit of a table to the window, and taking -out of the box a small brass vessel and two bottles -she set them before her.</p> - -<p>“Sit down there, young feller,” she said, and Piffingcap -sat down at the end of the table facing the window. -The Widow turned to the window, which was a small -square, the only one in the room, and closed over it a -shutter. The room was clapped in darkness except -for a small ray in the middle of the shutter, coming -through a round hole about as large as a guinea. She -pulled Mr. Piffingcap’s shoulder until the ray was shining -on the middle of his forehead; she took up the -brass vessel, and holding it in the light of the ray polished -it for some time with her forefinger. All her -fingers, even her thumbs, were covered with rich -sinister rings, but there were no good looks in those -fingers for the nails had been munched almost away, -and dirty skin hid up the whites. The polished vessel -was then placed on the table directly beneath the ray; -drops from the two phials were poured into it, a green -liquid and a black liquid; mixing together they melted<span class="pagenum">[64]</span> -into a pillar of smoke which rose and was seen only -as it flowed through the beam of light, twisting and -veering and spinning in strange waves.</p> - -<p>The Widow Buckland said not a word for a time, -but contemplated the twisting shapes as they poured -through the ray, breathing heavily all the while or suffering -a slight sigh to pass out of her breast. But -shortly the smoke played the barber a trick in his nose -and heaving up his chin he rent the room with a great -sneeze. When he recovered himself she was speaking -certain words:</p> - -<p>“Fire and water I see and a white virgin’s skin. -The triple gouts of blood I see and the doom given -over. Fire and water I see and a white virgin’s skin.”</p> - -<p>She threw open the shutter, letting in the light; -smoke had ceased to rise but it filled the parlour with -a sweet smell.</p> - -<p>“Well ...” said Mr. Piffingcap dubiously.</p> - -<p>And the Widow Buckland spoke over to him plainly -and slowly, patting his shoulder at each syllable,</p> - -<p>“Fire and water and a white virgin’s skin.”</p> - -<p>Unlatching the door she thrust him out of the house -into the sunlight. He tramped away across the heath -meditating her words, and coming to the end of it he -sat down in the shade of a bush by the side of the road, -for he felt sure he was about to capture the full meaning -of her words. But just then he heard a strange -voice speaking, and speaking very vigorously. He -looked up and observed a man on a bicycle, riding -along towards him, talking to himself in a great way.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[65]</span></p> - -<p>“He is a political fellow rehearsing a speech,” said -Mr. Piffingcap to himself, “or perhaps he is some -holy-minded person devising a sermon.”</p> - -<p>It was a very bald man and he had a long face hung -with glasses; he had no coat and rode in his shirt and -knickerbockers, with hot thick stockings and white -shoes. The barber watched him after he had passed -and noted how his knees turned angularly outwards -at each upward movement, and how his saddle bag -hung at the bottom of his back like some ironical label.</p> - -<p>“Fool!” exclaimed Mr. Piffingcap, rising angrily, for -the man’s chatter had driven his mind clean away from -the Widow Buckland’s meaning. But it was only for -a short while, and when he got home he called one of -his daughters into the saloon.</p> - -<p>“My child,” said Piffingcap, “you know the great -trouble which is come on me?” and he told Bersa his -difficulty and requested her aid, that is to say: would -she go down in the early morning in her skin only and -recover the pot?</p> - -<p>“Indeed no, father!” said his daughter Bersa, “it -is a very evil thing and I will not do your request.”</p> - -<p>“You will not?” says he.</p> - -<p>“No!” says she, but it was not in the fear of her -getting her death that she refused him.</p> - -<p>So he called to another of his daughters.</p> - -<p>“My child,” said he, “you know the great trouble -that is come on me,” and he told Mavie his desire and -asked for her aid.</p> - -<p>“Why, my father,” says she, “this is a thing which<span class="pagenum">[66]</span> -a black hag has put on us all and I will get my death. -I love you as I love my life, father, but I won’t do -this!”</p> - -<p>“You will not?” says he.</p> - -<p>“No!” says she, but it was not for fear of her death -she refused him.</p> - -<p>And he went to his third daughter Grue and tried -her with the same thing. “My child, you know the -trouble that’s come on me?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, will you let me alone!” she says, “I’ve a -greater trouble on me than your mouldy pot.” And -it is true what she said of her trouble, for she was a -girl of a loose habit. So the barber said no more to -them and went to his bed.</p> - -<p>Two days later, it being Saturday, he opened in the -morning his saloon and sat down there. And while -he read his newspaper in the empty place footsteps -scampered into his doorway, and the door itself was -pushed open just an inch or two.</p> - -<p>“Come in,” he said, rising.</p> - -<p>The door opened fully.</p> - -<p>“Zennybody here?” whispered Polly walking in very -mysteriously, out of breath, and dressed in a long -mackintosh.</p> - -<p>“What is the matter, my little one?” he asked, putting -his arm around her shoulders, for he had a fondness -for her. “Ach, your hair’s all wet, what’s the -matter?”</p> - -<p>The little girl put her hand under the macintosh -and drew out the leaden pot, handing it to the barber<span class="pagenum">[67]</span> -and smiling at him with inarticulate but intense happiness. -She said not a word as he stared his surprise -and joy.</p> - -<p>“Why Polly, my <em>dear</em>, how <em>did</em> you get it?”</p> - -<p>“I dived in and got it.”</p> - -<p>“You never ... you princess ... you!”</p> - -<p>“I just bin and come straight here with it.”</p> - -<p>She opened and shut the mackintosh quickly, displaying -for a brief glance her little white naked figure -with the slightest tremulous crook at the sharp knees.</p> - -<p>“Ah, my darling,” exclaimed the enraptured barber, -“and you’re shivering with not a rag on you but them -shoes ... run away home, Polly, and get some things -on, Polly ... and ... Polly, Polly!” as she darted -away, “come back quick, won’t you?”</p> - -<p>She nodded brightly back at him as she sprang -through the doorway. He went to the entrance and -watched her taking her twinkling leaps, as bonny as -a young foal, along the pavement.</p> - -<p>And there came into the barber’s mind the notion -that this was all again a piece of fancy tricks; but -there was the dark pot, and he examined it. Thoughtfully -he took it into his backyard and busied himself -there for a while, not telling his daughters of its recovery. -When, later, Polly joined him in the garden -he had already raised a big fire in an old iron brazier -which had lain there.</p> - -<p>“Ah, Polly my dear, I’m overjoyed to get it back, -but I dasn’t keep it ... it’s a bad thing. Take it in -your fingers now, my dear little girl, and just chuck<span class="pagenum">[68]</span> -it in that fire. Ah, we must melt the wickedness out -of it,” he said, observing her disappointment, “it’s been -the death of three men and we dasn’t keep it.”</p> - -<p>They watched it among the coals until it had begun -to perish drop by drop through the grating of the -brazier.</p> - -<p>Later in the day Mr. Piffingcap drove Polly in a -little trap to a neighbouring town to see a circus, and -the pair of them had a roaring dinner at the Green -Dragon. Next morning when Polly brought the milk -to the saloon there were Timmy James and Gregory -Barnes being shaved, for beards had grown again in -Bagwood.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">THE KING OF THE WORLD</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span> -<h2 class="no-break">THE KING OF THE WORLD</h2> -</div> - - -<p class="dropcap">Once upon a time, yes, in the days of King -Sennacherib, a young Assyrian captain, valiant -and desirable, but more hapless than -either, fleeing in that strange rout of the armies against -Judah, was driven into the desert. Daily his company -perished from him until he alone, astride a camel, was -left searching desperately through a boundless desert -for the loved plains of Shinar, sweet with flocks and -rich with glittering cities. The desolation of ironic horizons -that he could never live to pierce hung hopelessly -in remote unattainable distances, endless as the blue sky. -The fate of his comrades had left upon him a small -pack of figs and wine, but in that uncharted wilderness -it was but a pitiable parrying of death’s last keen -stroke. There was no balm or succour in that empty -sky; blue it was as sapphires, but savage with rays that -scourged like flaming brass. Earth itself was not less -empty, and the loneliness of his days was an increasing -bitterness. He was so deeply forgotten of men, and so -removed from the savour of life, from his lost country, -the men he knew, the women he loved, their temples, -their markets and their homes, that it seemed<span class="pagenum">[72]</span> -the gods had drawn that sweet and easy world away -from his entangled feet.</p> - -<p>But at last upon a day he was astonished and cheered -by the sight of a black butterfly flickering in the air -before him, and towards evening he espied a giant -mound lying lonely in the east. He drove his camel -to it, but found only a hill of sand whirled up by -strange winds of the desert. He cast himself from the -camel’s back and lay miserably in the dust. His grief -was extreme, but in time he tended his tired beast -and camped in the shadow of the hill. When he gave -himself up to sleep the night covering them was very -calm and beautiful, the sky soft and streaming with -stars; it seemed to his saddened mind that the desert -and the deep earth were indeed dead, and life and love -only in that calm enduring sky. But at midnight a -storm arose with quickening furies that smote the desert -to its unseen limits, and the ten thousand stars were -flung into oblivion; winds flashed upon him with a passion -more bitter than a million waves, a terror greater -than hosts of immediate enemies. They grasped and -plunged him into gulfs of darkness, heaped mountains -upon him, lashed him with thongs of snakes and scattered -him with scimitars of unspeakable fear. His -soul was tossed in the void like a crushed star and his -body beaten into the dust with no breath left him to bemoan -his fate. Nevertheless by a miracle his soul -and body lived on.</p> - -<p>It was again day when he recovered, day in the likeness -of yesterday, the horizons still infinitely far. -Long past noon, the sun had turned in the sky; he was<span class="pagenum">[73]</span> -alone. The camel was doubtless buried in the fathoms -he himself had escaped, but a surprising wonder -greeted his half-blinded eyes; the hill of sand was -gone, utterly, blown into the eternal waste of the desert, -and in its track stood a strange thing—a shrine. -There was a great unroofed pavement of onyx and -blue jasper, large enough for the floor of a temple, -with many life-size figures, both men and women, -standing upon it all carved in rock and facing, at the -sacred end, a giant pillared in black basalt, seven -times the height of a man. The sad captain divined -at once that this was the lost shrine of Namu-Sarkkon, -the dead god of whom tradition spoke in the ancient -litanies of his country. He heaved himself painfully -from the grave of sand in which he had lain half-buried, -and staggering to the pavement leaned in the -shade of one of those figures fronting the dead god. -In a little time he recovered and ate some figs which -he carried in a leather bag at his hip, and plucked the -sand from his eyes and ears and loosened his sandals -and gear. Then he bowed himself for a moment -before the black immobile idol, knowing that he would -tarry here now until he died.</p> - -<p>Namu-Sarkkon, the priestless god, had been praised -of old time above all for his gifts of joy. Worshippers -had gathered from the cities of Assyria at this his only -shrine, offering their souls for a gift to him who, in his -time and wisdom, granted their desires. But Namu-Sarkkon, -like other gods, was a jealous god, and, because -the hearts of mankind are vain and destined -to betrayal, he turned the bodies of his devotees into<span class="pagenum">[74]</span> -rock and kept them pinioned in stone for a hundred -years, or for a thousand years, according to the nature -of their desires. Then if the consummation were -worthy and just, the rock became a living fire, the -blood of eternity quickened the limbs, and the god -released the body full of youth and joy. But what god -lives for ever? Not Namu-Sarkkon. He grew old -and forgetful; his oracle was defamed. Stronger gods -supplanted him and at last all power departed save -only from one of his eyes. That eye possessed the -favour of eternity, but only so faintly that the worshipper -when released from his trap of stone lived at -the longest but a day, some said even but an hour. -None could then be found to exchange the endurances -of the world for so brief a happiness. His worship -ceased, Namu-Sarkkon was dead, and the remote -shrine being lost to man’s heart was lost to man’s eyes. -Even the tradition of its time and place had become a -mere fantasy, but the whirlwinds of uncounted years -sowing their sands about the shrine had left it blameless -and unperishable, if impotent.</p> - -<p>Recollecting this, the soldier gazed long at the dead -idol. Its smooth huge bulk, carved wonderfully, was -still without blemish and utterly cleansed of the sand. -The strange squat body with the benign face stood on -stout legs, one advanced as if about to stride forward -to the worshipper, and one arm outstretched offered -the sacred symbol. Then in a moment the Assyrian’s -heart leaped within him; he had been staring at the -mild eyes of the god—surely there was a movement in<span class="pagenum">[75]</span> -one of the eyes! He stood erect, trembling, then -flung himself prostrate before Namu-Sarkkon, the -living god! He lay long, waiting for his doom to -eclipse him, the flaming swords of the sun scathing his -weary limbs, the sweat from his temples dripping in -tiny pools beside his eyes. At last he moved, he knelt -up, and shielding his stricken eyes with one arm he -gazed at the god, and saw now quite clearly a black -butterfly resting on the lid of one of Sarkkon’s eyes, -inflecting its wings. He gave a grunt of comprehension -and relief. He got up and went among the other -figures. Close at hand they seemed fashioned of soft -material, like camphor or wax, that was slowly dissolving, -leaving them little more than stooks of clay, -rough clod-like shapes of people, all but one figure -which seemed fixed in coloured marble, a woman of -beauty so wondrous to behold that the Assyrian bent -his head in praise before her, though but an image of -stone. When he looked again at it the black butterfly -from the eyelid of the god fluttered between them and -settled upon the girl’s delicately carved lips for a moment, -and then away. Amazedly watching it travel -back to the idol he heard a movement and a sigh behind -him. He leaped away, with his muscles distended, his -fingers outstretched, and fear bursting in his eyes. -The beautiful figure had moved a step towards him, -holding out a caressing hand, calling him by his name, -his name!</p> - -<p>“Talakku! Talakku!”</p> - -<p>She stood thus almost as if again turned to stone,<span class="pagenum">[76]</span> -until his fear left him and he saw only her beauty, -and knew only her living loveliness in a tunic of the -sacred purple fringed with tinkling discs, that was -clipped to her waist with a zone of gold and veiled, -even in the stone, her secret hips and knees. The -slender feet were guarded with pantoffles of crimson -hide. Green agates in strings of silver hung beside her -brows, depending from a fillet of gems that crowned -and confined the black locks tightly curled. Buds -of amber and coral were bound to her dusky wrists -with threads of copper, and between the delicacy of her -brown breasts an amulet of beryl, like a blue and -gentle star, hung from a necklace made of balls of opal -linked with amethysts.</p> - -<p>“Wonder of god! who are you?” whispered the warrior; -but while he was speaking she ran past him -sweetly as an antelope to the dark god. He heard the -clicking of her beads and gems as she bent in reverence -kissing the huge stone feet of Sarkkon. He did -not dare to approach her although her presence filled -him with rapture; he watched her obeisant at the shrine -and saw that one of her crimson shoes had slipped -from the clinging heel. What was she—girl or goddess, -phantom or spirit of the stone, or just some -lunatic of the desert? But whatever she was it was -marvellous, and the marvel of it shocked him; time -seemed to seethe in every channel of his blood. He -heard her again call out his name as if from very far -away.</p> - -<p>“Talakku!”</p> - -<p>He hastened to lift her from the pavement, and conquering<span class="pagenum">[77]</span> -his tremors he grasped and lifted her roughly, -as a victor might hale a captive.</p> - -<p>“Pretty antelope, who are you?”</p> - -<p>She turned her eyes slowly upon his—this was no -captive, no phantom—his intrepid arms fell back -weakly to his sides.</p> - -<p>“You will not know me, O brave Assyrian captain,” -said the girl gravely. “I was a weaver in the city of -Eridu....”</p> - -<p>“Eridu!” It was an ancient city heard of only in -the old poems of his country, as fabulous as snow in -Canaan.</p> - -<p>“Ai ... it is long since riven into dust. I was a -slave in Eridu, not ... not a slave in spirit....”</p> - -<p>“Beauty so rare is nobility enough,” he said shyly.</p> - -<p>“I worshipped god Namu-Sarkkon—behold his -shrine. Who loves Namu-Sarkkon becomes what -he wishes to become, gains what he wishes to -gain.”</p> - -<p>“I have heard of these things,” exclaimed the Assyrian. -“What did you gain, what did you wish to become?”</p> - -<p>“I worshipped here desiring in my heart to be loved -by the King of the World.”</p> - -<p>“Who is he?”</p> - -<p>She dropped her proud glances to the earth before -him.</p> - -<p>“Who was this King of the World?”</p> - -<p>Still she made no reply nor lifted her eyes.</p> - -<p>“Who are these figures that stand with us here?” -he asked.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[78]</span></p> - -<p>“Dead, all dead,” she sighed, “their destinies have -closed. Only I renew the destiny.”</p> - -<p>She took his hand and led him among the wasting -images.</p> - -<p>“Merchants and poets, dead; princesses and slaves, -dead; soldiers and kings, they look on us with eyes -of dust, dead, all dead. I alone of Sarkkon’s worshippers -live on enduringly; I desired only love. I -feed my spirit with new desire. I am the beam of his -eye.”</p> - -<p>“Come,” said the Assyrian suddenly, “I will carry -you to Shinar; set but my foot to that lost track ... -will you?”</p> - -<p>She shook her head gravely; “All roads lead to Sarkkon.”</p> - -<p>“Why do we tarry here? Come.”</p> - -<p>“Talakku, there is no way hence, no way for you, -no way for me. We have wandered into the boundless. -What star returns from the sky, what drop from -the deep?”</p> - -<p>Talakku looked at her with wonder, until the longing -in his heart lightened the shadow of his doom.</p> - -<p>“Tell me what I must do,” he said.</p> - -<p>She turned her eyes towards the dark god. “He -knows,” she cried, seizing his hands and drawing him -towards the idol, “Come, Talakku.”</p> - -<p>“No, no!” he said in awe, “I cannot worship there. -Who can deny the gods of his home and escape vengeance? -In Shinar, beloved land, goes not one bee -unhived nor a bird without a bower. Shall I slip my -allegiance at every gust of the desert?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[79]</span></p> - -<p>For a moment a look of anguish appeared in her -eyes.</p> - -<p>“But if you will not leave this place,” he continued -gently, “suffer me to stay.”</p> - -<p>“Talakku, in a while I must sink again into the -stone.”</p> - -<p>“By all the gods I will keep you till I die,” he said. -“One day at least I will walk in Paradise.”</p> - -<p>“Talakku, not a day, not an hour; moments, moments, -there are but moments now.”</p> - -<p>“Then, I am but dead,” he cried, “for in that stone -your sleeping heart will never dream of me.”</p> - -<p>“O, you whip me with rods of lilies. Quick, Talakku.” -He knew in her urgent voice the divining -hope with which she wooed him. Alas for the Assyrian, -he was but a man whose dying lips are slaked with -wise honey. He embraced her as in a dream under the -knees of towering Sarkkon. Her kisses, wrapt in the -delicate veils of love, not the harsh brief glister of -passion, were more lulling than a thousand songs of -lost Shinar, but the time’s sweet swiftness pursued -them. Her momentary life had flown like a rushing -star, swift and delighting but doomed. From the heel -of the god a beetle of green lustre began to creep towards -them.</p> - -<p>“Farewell, Talakku,” cried the girl. She stood again -in her place before Namu-Sarkkon. “Have no fear, -Talakku, prince of my heart. I will lock up in your -breast all my soft unsundering years. Like the bird of -fire they will surely spring again.”</p> - -<p>He waited, dumb, beside her, and suddenly her limbs<span class="pagenum">[80]</span> -compacted into stone once more. At the touch of his -awed fingers her breast burned with the heat of the -sun instead of the wooing blood. Then the vast silence -of the world returned upon him; he looked in -trembling loneliness at the stark sky, the unending desert, -at the black god whose eye seemed to flicker balefully -at him. Talakku turned to the lovely girl, but -once more amazement gathered in all his veins. No -longer stood her figure there—in its place he beheld -only a stone image of himself.</p> - -<p>“This is the hour, O beauteous one!” murmured the -Assyrian, and, turning again towards the giant, he -knelt in humility. His body wavered, faltered, suddenly -stiffened, and then dissolved into a little heap of -sand.</p> - -<p>The same wind that unsealed Namu-Sarkkon and his -shrine returning again at eve covered anew the idol -and its figures, and the dust of the Assyrian captain -became part of the desert for evermore.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">ADAM AND EVE AND PINCH ME</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span> -<h2 class="no-break">ADAM AND EVE AND PINCH ME</h2> -</div> - - -<p>… and in the whole of his days, vividly at -the end of the afternoon—he repeated it again and -again to himself—the kind country spaces had <em>never</em> -absorbed <em>quite</em> so rich a glamour of light, so -miraculous a bloom of clarity. He could feel streaming -in his own mind, in his bones, the same crystalline -brightness that lay upon the land. Thoughts and -images went flowing through him as easily and -amiably as fish swim in their pools; and as idly, too, -for one of his speculations took up the theme of his -family name. There was such an agreeable oddness -about it, just as there was about all the luminous sky -today, that it touched him as just a little remarkable. -What <em>did</em> such a name connote, signify, or symbolize? -It was a rann of a name, but it had euphony! Then -again, like the fish, his ambulating fancy flashed into -other shallows, and he giggled as he paused, peering at -the buds in the brake. Turning back towards his -house again he could see, beyond its roofs, the spire of -the Church tinctured richly as the vane: all round him -was a new grandeur upon the grass of the fields, and -the spare trees had shadows below that seemed to support -them in the manner of a plinth, more real than<span class="pagenum">[84]</span> -themselves, and the dykes and any chance heave of the -level fields were underlined, as if for special emphasis, -with long shades of mysterious blackness.</p> - -<p>With a little drift of emotion that had at other times -assailed him in the wonder and ecstasy of pure light, -Jaffa Codling pushed through the slit in the back hedge -and stood within his own garden. The gardener was at -work. He could hear the voices of the children about -the lawn at the other side of the house. He was very -happy, and the place was beautiful, a fine white many-windowed -house rising from a lawn bowered with plots -of mould, turretted with shrubs, and overset with a -vast walnut tree. This house had deep clean eaves, -a roof of faint coloured slates that, after rain, glowed -dully, like onyx or jade, under the red chimneys, and -half-way up at one end was a balcony set with black -balusters. He went to a French window that stood -open and stepped into the dining room. There -was no-one within, and, on that lonely instant, a strange -feeling of emptiness dropped upon him. The clock -ticked almost as if it had been caught in some indecent -act; the air was dim and troubled after that glory -outside. Well, now, he would go up at once to his -study and write down for his new book the ideas and -images he had accumulated—beautiful rich thoughts -they were—during that wonderful afternoon. He -went to mount the stairs and he was passed by one of -the maids; humming a silly song she brushed past him -rudely, but he was an easy-going man—maids were unteachably -tiresome—and reaching the landing he sauntered -towards his room. The door stood slightly open<span class="pagenum">[85]</span> -and he could hear voices within. He put his hand -upon the door ... it would not open any further. -What the devil ... he pushed—like the bear in the -tale—and he pushed, and he pushed—was there something -against it on the other side? He put his shoulder -to it ... some wedge must be there, and <em>that</em> was extraordinary. -Then his whole apprehension was swept -up and whirled as by an avalanche—Mildred, his wife, -was in there; he could hear her speaking to a man in -fair soft tones and the rich phrases that could be -used only by a woman yielding a deep affection to -him. Codling kept still. Her words burned on his -mind and thrilled him as if spoken to himself. There -was a movement in the room, then utter silence. He -again thrust savagely at the partly open door, but -he could not stir it. The silence within continued. -He beat upon the door with his fists, crying; “Mildred, -Mildred!” There was no response, but he could hear -the rocking arm chair commence to swing to and fro. -Pushing his hand round the edge of the door he tried -to thrust his head between the opening. There was -not space for this, but he could just peer into the -corner of a mirror hung near, and this is what he -saw: the chair at one end of its swing, a man sitting -in it, and upon one arm of it Mildred, the beloved -woman, with her lips upon the man’s face, caressing -him with her hands. Codling made another effort to -get into the room—as vain as it was violent. “Do -you hear me, Mildred?” he shouted. Apparently -neither of them heard him; they rocked to and fro -while he gazed stupefied. What, in the name of God,<span class="pagenum">[86]</span> ... What -this ... was she bewitched ... were -there such things after all as magic, devilry!</p> - -<p>He drew back and held himself quite steadily. The -chair stopped swaying, and the room grew awfully -still. The sharp ticking of the clock in the hall rose -upon the house like the tongue of some perfunctory -mocker. Couldn’t they hear the clock? ... Couldn’t -they hear his heart? He had to put his hand upon his -heart, for, surely, in that great silence inside there, -they would hear its beat, growing so loud now that it -seemed almost to stun him! Then in a queer way he -found himself reflecting, observing, analysing his own -actions and intentions. He found some of them to be -just a little spurious, counterfeit. He felt it would be -easy, so perfectly easy to flash in one blast of anger and -annihilate the two. He would do nothing of the kind. -There was no occasion for it. People didn’t really do -that sort of thing, or, at least, not with a genuine passion. -There was no need for anger. His curiosity -was satisfied, quite satisfied, he was certain, he had -not the remotest interest in the man. A welter of unexpected -thoughts swept upon his mind as he stood -there. As a writer of books he was often stimulated -by the emotions and impulses of other people, and now -his own surprise was beginning to intrigue him, leaving -him, O, quite unstirred emotionally, but interesting -him profoundly.</p> - -<p>He heard the maid come stepping up the stairway -again, humming her silly song. He did not want a -scene, or to be caught eavesdropping, and so turned -quickly to another door. It was locked. He sprang<span class="pagenum">[87]</span> -to one beyond it; the handle would not turn. “Bah! -what’s <em>up</em> with ’em?” But the girl was now upon him, -carrying a tray of coffee things. “O, Mary!” he exclaimed -casually, “I....” To his astonishment the -girl stepped past him as if she did not hear or see him, -tapped upon the door of his study, entered, and closed -the door behind her. Jaffa Codling then got really -angry. “Hell! were the blasted servants in it!” He -dashed to the door again and tore at the handle. It -would not even turn, and, though he wrenched with -fury at it, the room was utterly sealed against him. -He went away for a chair with which to smash the -effrontery of that door. No, he wasn’t angry, either -with his wife or this fellow—Gilbert, she had called -him—who had a strangely familiar aspect as far as -he had been able to take it in; but when one’s servants ... faugh!</p> - -<p>The door opened and Mary came forth smiling demurely. -He was a few yards further along the corridor -at that moment. “Mary!” he shouted, “leave the -door open!” Mary carefully closed it and turned her -back on him. He sprang after her with bad words -bursting from him as she went towards the stairs and -flitted lightly down, humming all the way as if in -derision. He leaped downwards after her three steps -at a time, but she trotted with amazing swiftness into -the kitchen and slammed the door in his face. Codling -stood, but kept his hands carefully away from the -door, kept them behind him. “No, no,” he whispered -cunningly, “there’s something fiendish about door -handles today, I’ll go and get a bar, or a butt of timber,”<span class="pagenum">[88]</span> -and, jumping out into the garden for some such -thing, the miracle happened to him. For it was nothing -else than a miracle, the unbelievable, the impossible, -simple and laughable if you will, but having as much -validity as any miracle can ever invoke. It was simple -and laughable because by all the known physical laws -he should have collided with his gardener, who happened -to pass the window with his wheelbarrow as -Codling jumped out on to the path. And it was unbelievable -that they should not, and impossible that they -<em>did</em> not collide; and it was miraculous, because Codling -stood for a brief moment in the garden path and -the wheelbarrow of Bond, its contents, and Bond himself -passed apparently through the figure of Codling -as if he were so much air, as if he were not a living -breathing man but just a common ghost. There was -no impact, just a momentary breathlessness. Codling -stood and looked at the retreating figure going on -utterly unaware of him. It is interesting to record -that Codling’s first feelings were mirthful. He giggled. -He was jocular. He ran along in front of the -gardener, and let him pass through him once more; -then after him again; he scrambled into the man’s -barrow, and was wheeled about by this incomprehensible -thick-headed gardener who was dead to all his -master’s efforts to engage his attention. Presently he -dropped the wheelbarrow and went away, leaving Codling -to cogitate upon the occurrence. There was no -room for doubt, some essential part of him had become -detached from the obviously not less vital part. He -felt he was essential because he was responding to the<span class="pagenum">[89]</span> -experience, he was re-acting in the normal way to -normal stimuli, although he happened for the time being -to be invisible to his fellows and unable to communicate -with them. How had it come about—this -queer thing? How could he discover what part -of him had cut loose, as it were? There was -no question of this being death; death wasn’t funny, -it wasn’t a joke; he had still all his human instincts. -You didn’t get angry with a faithless wife or -joke with a fool of a gardener if you were dead, -certainly not! He had realized enough of himself -to know he was the usual man of instincts, desires, -and prohibitions, complex and contradictory; his family -history for a million or two years would have denoted -that, not explicitly—obviously impossible—but -suggestively. He had found himself doing things he -had no desire to do, doing things he had a desire not -to do, thinking thoughts that had no contiguous meanings, -no meanings that could be related to his general -experience. At odd times he had been chilled—aye, -and even agreeably surprised—at the immense potential -evil in himself. But still, this was no mere Jekyl -and Hyde affair, that a man and his own ghost should -separately inhabit the same world was a horse of quite -another colour. The other part of him was alive and -active somewhere ... as alive ... as alive ... yes, -as <em>he</em> was, but dashed if he knew where! What a lark -when they got back to each other and compared notes! -In his tales he had brooded over so many imagined -personalities, followed in the track of so many -psychological enigmas that he <em>had</em> felt at times<span class="pagenum">[90]</span> -a stranger to himself. What if, after all, that -brooding had given him the faculty of projecting -this figment of himself into the world of men. -Or was he some unrealized latent element of being -without its natural integument, doomed now to drift -over the ridge of the world for ever. Was it his personality, -his spirit? Then how was the dashed thing -working? Here was he with the most wonderful happening -in human experience, and he couldn’t differentiate -or disinter things. He was like a new Adam -flung into some old Eden.</p> - -<p>There was Bond tinkering about with some plants -a dozen yards in front of him. Suddenly his three -children came round from the other side of the house, -the youngest boy leading them, carrying in his hand -a small sword which was made, not of steel, but of -some more brightly shining material; indeed it seemed -at one moment to be of gold, and then again of flame, -transmuting everything in its neighbourhood into the -likeness of flame, the hair of the little girl Eve, a part -of Adam’s tunic; and the fingers of the boy Gabriel as -he held the sword were like pale tongues of fire. Gabriel, -the youngest boy, went up to the gardener and -gave the sword into his hands, saying: “Bond, is this -sword any good?” Codling saw the gardener take the -weapon and examine it with a careful sort of smile; -his great gnarled hands became immediately transparent, -the blood could be seen moving diligently about the -veins. Codling was so interested in the sight that he -did not gather in the gardener’s reply. The little boy -was dissatisfied and repeated his question, “No, but<span class="pagenum">[91]</span> -Bond, <em>is</em> this sword any good?” Codling rose, and -stood by invisible. The three beautiful children were -grouped about the great angular figure of the gardener -in his soiled clothes, looking up now into his face, and -now at the sword, with anxiety in all their puckered -eyes. “Well, Marse Gabriel,” Codling could hear him -reply, “as far as a sword goes, it may be a good un, -or it may be a bad un, but, good as it is, it can never be -anything but a bad thing.” He then gave it back to -them; the boy Adam held the haft of it, and the girl -Eve rubbed the blade with curious fingers. The -younger boy stood looking up at the gardener with unsatisfied -gaze. “But, Bond, <em>can’t</em> you say if this sword’s -any <em>good</em>?” Bond turned to his spade and trowels. -“Mebbe the shape of it’s wrong, Marse Gabriel, though -it seems a pretty handy size.” Saying this he moved -off across the lawn. Gabriel turned to his brother and -sister and took the sword from them; they all followed -after the gardener and once more Gabriel made enquiry: -“Bond, is this sword any <em>good</em>?” The gardener -again took it and made a few passes in the air -like a valiant soldier at exercise. Turning then, he -lifted a bright curl from the head of Eve and cut it -off with a sweep of the weapon. He held it up to look -at it critically and then let it fall to the ground. Codling -sneaked behind him and, picking it up, stood -stupidly looking at it. “Mebbe, Marse Gabriel,” the -gardener was saying, “it ud be better made of steel, but -it has a smartish edge on it.” He went to pick up the -barrow but Gabriel seized it with a spasm of anger, and -cried out: “No, no, Bond, will you say, just yes or no,<span class="pagenum">[92]</span> -Bond, is this sword any <em>good</em>?” The gardener stood -still, and looked down at the little boy, who repeated -his question—“just yes or no, Bond!” “No, Marse -Gabriel!” “Thank you, Bond!” replied the child with -dignity, “that’s all we wanted to know,” and, calling to -his mates to follow him, he ran away to the other side -of the house.</p> - -<p>Codling stared again at the beautiful lock of hair in -his hand, and felt himself grow so angry that he -picked up a strange looking flower pot at his feet and -hurled it at the retreating gardener. It struck Bond -in the middle of the back and, passing clean through -him, broke on the wheel of his barrow, but Bond -seemed to be quite unaware of this catastrophe. Codling -rushed after, and, taking the gardener by the -throat, he yelled, “Damn you, will you tell me what -all this means?” But Bond proceeded calmly about -his work un-noticing, carrying his master about as if -he were a clinging vapour, or a scarf hung upon his -neck. In a few moments, Codling dropped exhausted -to the ground. “What.... O Hell ... what, -what am I to do?” he groaned, “What has happened -to me? What shall I <em>do</em>? What <em>can</em> I do?” He -looked at the broken flowerpot. “Did I invent that?” -He pulled out his watch. “That’s a real watch, I hear -it ticking, and it’s six o’clock.” Was he dead or disembodied -or mad? What was this infernal lapse of -identity? And who the devil, yes, who was it upstairs -with Mildred? He jumped to his feet and -hurried to the window; it was shut; to the door, it was -fastened; he was powerless to open either. Well!<span class="pagenum">[93]</span> -well! this was experimental psychology with a vengeance, -and he began to chuckle again. He’d have to -write to McDougall about it. Then he turned and -saw Bond wheeling across the lawn towards him again. -“<em>Why</em> is that fellow always shoving that infernal green -barrow around?” he asked, and, the fit of fury seizing -him again, he rushed towards Bond, but, before he -reached him, the three children danced into the garden -again, crying, with great excitement, “Bond, O, -Bond!” The gardener stopped and set down the terrifying -barrow; the children crowded about him, and -Gabriel held out another shining thing, asking: -“Bond, is this box any <em>good</em>?” The gardener took -the box and at once his eyes lit up with interest and -delight. “O, Marse Gabriel, where’d ye get it? -Where’d ye get it?” “Bond,” said the boy impatiently, -“Is the box any <em>good</em>?” “Any good?” echoed the -man, “Why, Marse Gabriel, Marse Adam, Miss Eve, -look yere!” Holding it down in front of them, he -lifted the lid from the box and a bright coloured bird -flashed out and flew round and round above their -heads. “O,” screamed Gabriel with delight, “It’s a -kingfisher!” “That’s what it is,” said Bond, “a kingfisher!” -“Where?” asked Adam. “Where?” asked -Eve. “There it flies—round the fountain—see it? see -it!” “No,” said Adam. “No,” said Eve.</p> - -<p>“O, do, do, see it,” cried Gabriel, “here it comes, it’s -coming!” and, holding his hands on high, and standing -on his toes, the child cried out as happy as the bird -which Codling saw flying above them.</p> - -<p>“I can’t see it,” said Adam.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[94]</span></p> - -<p>“Where is it, Gaby?” asked Eve.</p> - -<p>“O, you stupids,” cried the boy, “<em>There</em> it goes. -There it goes ... there ... it’s gone!”</p> - -<p>He stood looking brightly at Bond, who replaced -the lid.</p> - -<p>“What shall we do now?” he exclaimed eagerly. -For reply, the gardener gave the box into his hand, and -walked off with the barrow. Gabriel took the box -over to the fountain. Codling, unseen, went after -him, almost as excited as the boy; Eve and her brother -followed. They sat upon the stone tank that held the -falling water. It was difficult for the child to unfasten -the lid; Codling attempted to help him, but he -was powerless. Gabriel looked up into his father’s -face and smiled. Then he stood up and said to the -others:</p> - -<p>“Now, <em>do</em> watch it this time.”</p> - -<p>They all knelt carefully beside the water. He -lifted the lid and, behold, a fish like a gold carp, but -made wholly of fire, leaped from the box into the fountain. -The man saw it dart down into the water, he -saw the water bubble up behind it, he heard the hiss -that the junction of fire and water produces, and saw -a little track of steam follow the bubbles about the tank -until the figure of the fish was consumed and disappeared. -Gabriel, in ecstasies, turned to his sister with -blazing happy eyes, exclaiming:</p> - -<p>“There! Evey!”</p> - -<p>“What was it?” asked Eve, nonchalantly, “I didn’t -see anything.”</p> - -<p>“More didn’t I,” said Adam.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[95]</span></p> - -<p>“Didn’t you see that lovely fish?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Adam.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Eve.</p> - -<p>“O, stupids,” cried Gabriel, “it went right past the -bottom of the water.”</p> - -<p>“Let’s get a fishin’ hook,” said Adam.</p> - -<p>“No, no, no,” said Gabriel, replacing the lid of the -box. “O no.”</p> - -<p>Jaffa Codling had remained on his knees staring at -the water so long that, when he looked around him -again, the children had gone away. He got up and -went to the door, and that was closed; the windows, -fastened. He went moodily to a garden bench and sat -on it with folded arms. Dusk had begun to fall into -the shrubs and trees, the grass to grow dull, the air -chill, the sky to muster its gloom. Bond had overturned -his barrow, stalled his tools in the lodge, and -gone to his home in the village. A curious cat came -round the house and surveyed the man who sat chained -to his seven-horned dilemma. It grew dark and fearfully -silent. Was the world empty now? Some small -thing, a snail perhaps, crept among the dead leaves -in the hedge, with a sharp, irritating noise. A strange -flood of mixed thoughts poured through his mind until -at last one idea disentangled itself, and he began -thinking with tremendous fixity of little Gabriel. He -wondered if he could brood or meditate, or “will” with -sufficient power to bring him into the garden again. -The child had just vaguely recognized him for a moment -at the waterside. He’d try that dodge, telepathy -was a mild kind of a trick after so much of the miraculous.<span class="pagenum">[96]</span> -If he’d lost his blessed body, at least the -part that ate and smoked and talked to Mildred.... -He stopped as his mind stumbled on a strange recognition.... -What a joke, of course ... idiot ... -not to have seen <em>that</em>. He stood up in the garden with -joy ... of course, <em>he</em> was upstairs with Mildred, it -was himself, the other bit of him, that Mildred had -been talking to. What a howling fool he’d been.</p> - -<p>He found himself concentrating his mind on the purpose -of getting the child Gabriel into the garden once -more, but it was with a curious mood that he endeavoured -to establish this relationship. He could not fix -his will into any calm intensity of power, or fixity of -purpose, or pleasurable mental ecstasy. The utmost -force seemed to come with a malicious threatening -splenetic “entreaty.” That damned snail in the hedge -broke the thread of his meditation; a dog began to bark -sturdily from a distant farm; the faculties of his mind -became joggled up like a child’s picture puzzle, and -he brooded unintelligibly upon such things as skating -and steam engines, and Elizabethan drama so lapped -about with themes like jealousy and chastity. Really -now, Shakespeare’s Isabella was the most consummate -snob in.... He looked up quickly to his wife’s room -and saw Gabriel step from the window to the balcony -as if he were fearful of being seen. The boy lifted up -his hands and placed the bright box on the rail of the -balcony. He looked up at the faint stars for a moment -or two, and then carefully released the lid of the -box. What came out of it and rose into the air appeared -to Codling to be just a piece of floating light,<span class="pagenum">[97]</span> -but as it soared above the roof he saw it grow to be -a little ancient ship, with its hull and fully set sails and -its three masts all of faint primrose flame colour. It -cleaved through the air, rolling slightly as a ship -through the wave, in widening circles above the house, -making a curving ascent until it lost the shape of a -vessel and became only a moving light hurrying to some -sidereal shrine. Codling glanced at the boy on the -balcony, but in that brief instant something had happened, -the ship had burst like a rocket and released -three coloured drops of fire which came falling slowly, -leaving beautiful grey furrows of smoke in their -track. Gabriel leaned over the rail with outstretched -palms, and, catching the green star and the blue one -as they drifted down to him, he ran with a rill of -laughter back into the house. Codling sprang forward -just in time to catch the red star; it lay vividly blasting -his own palm for a monstrous second, and then, -slipping through, was gone. He stared at the ground, -at the balcony, the sky, and then heard an exclamation ... his -wife stood at his side.</p> - -<p>“Gilbert! How you frightened me!” she cried, “I -thought you were in your room; come along in to -dinner.” She took his arm and they walked up the -steps into the dining room together. “Just a moment,” -said her husband, turning to the door of the room. -His hand was upon the handle, which turned easily in -his grasp, and he ran upstairs to his own room. He -opened the door. The light was on, the fire was burning -brightly, a smell of cigarette smoke about, pen -and paper upon his desk, the Japanese book-knife,<span class="pagenum">[98]</span> -the gilt matchbox, everything all right, no one there. -He picked up a book from his desk.... <cite>Monna -Vanna.</cite> His bookplate was in it—<em>Ex Libris</em>—<em>Gilbert -Cannister</em>. He put it down beside the green dish; -two yellow oranges were in the green dish, and two -most deliberately green Canadian apples rested by their -side. He went to the door and swung it backwards -and forwards quite easily. He sat on his desk trying -to piece the thing together, glaring at the print and the -book-knife and the smart matchbox, until his wife -came up behind him exclaiming: “Come along, Gilbert!”</p> - -<p>“Where are the kids, old man?” he asked her, and, -before she replied, he had gone along to the nursery. -He saw the two cots, his boy in one, his girl in the -other. He turned whimsically to Mildred, saying, -“There <em>are</em> only two, <em>are</em> there?” Such a question did -not call for reply, but he confronted her as if expecting -some assuring answer. She was staring at him with -her bright beautiful eyes.</p> - -<p>“Are there?” he repeated.</p> - -<p>“How strange you should ask me that now!” she -said.... “If you’re a very good man ... perhaps....”</p> - -<p>“Mildred!”</p> - -<p>She nodded brightly.</p> - -<p>He sat down in the rocking chair, but got up again -saying to her gently—“We’ll call him Gabriel.”</p> - -<p>“But, suppose—”</p> - -<p>“No, no,” he said, stopping her lovely lips, “I know -all about him.” And he told her a pleasant little tale.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">THE PRINCESS OF KINGDOM GONE</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span> -<h2 class="no-break">THE PRINCESS OF KINGDOM GONE</h2> -</div> - - -<p class="dropcap">Long ago a princess ruled over a very tiny kingdom, -too small, indeed, for ambition. Had it -been larger she might have been a queen, and -had it been seven times larger, so people said, she would -certainly have been an empress. As it was, the barbarians -referred to her country as “that field!” or put -other indignities upon it which, as she was high-minded, -the princess did not heed, or, if she did heed, had too -much pride to acknowledge.</p> - -<p>In other realms her mansion, her beautiful mansion, -would have been called a castle, or even a palace, so high -was the wall, crowned with pink tiles, that enclosed -and protected it from evil. The common gaze was -warded from the door by a grove of thorns and trees, -through which an avenue curved a long way round from -the house to the big gate. The gate was of knotted -oak, but it had been painted and grained most cleverly -to represent some other fabulous wood. There was -this inscription upon it: <span class="smcap">NO HAWKERS, NO CIRCULARS, -NO GRATUITIES</span>. Everybody knew the princess had not -got any of these things, but it was because they also -knew the mansion had no throne in it that people -sneered, really—but how unreasonable; you might just<span class="pagenum">[102]</span> -as well grumble at a chime that hadn’t got a clock! -As the princess herself remarked—“What <em>is</em> a throne -without highmindedness!”—hinting, of course, at certain -people whom I dare not name. Behind the mansion -lay a wondrous garden, like the princess herself -above everything in beauty. A very private bower was -in the midst of it, guarded with corridors of shaven -yew and a half-circle hedge of arbutus and holly. A -slim river flowed, not by dispensation, but by accident, -through the bower, and the bed and bank of it, screened -by cypresses, had been lined, not by accident but by design—so -strange are the workings of destiny—with -tiles and elegant steps for a bathing pool. Here the -princess, when the blazon of the sun was enticing, -used to take off her robes of silk and her garments of -linen and walk about the turf of the bower around the -squinancy tree before slipping into the dark velvet -water.</p> - -<p>One day when she stepped out from the pool she -discovered a lot of crimson flower petals clinging to -her white skin. “How beautiful they are,” she cried, -picking up her mirror, “and where do they come from?” -As soon as convenient she enquired upon this matter of -her Lord Chancellor, a man named Smith who had -got on very well in life but was a bit of a smudge.</p> - -<p>“Crimson petals in the bath!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, they have floated down with the stream.”</p> - -<p>“How disgusting! Very! I’ll make instant enquiries!”</p> - -<p>He searched and he searched—he was very thorough -was Smith—but though his researches took no end of<span class="pagenum">[103]</span> -time, and he issued a bulky dossier commanding all and -sundry to attach the defiant person of the miscreant or -miscreants who had defiled the princess’s bath stream -or pool with refuse detritus or scum, offering, too, rewards -for information leading to his, her or their detection, -conviction, and ultimate damnation, they availed -him not. The princess continued to bathe and to -emerge joyfully from the stream covered with petals -and looking as wonderful as a crimson leopard. She -caught some of the petals with a silver net; she dried -them upon the sunlight and hid them in the lining of -her bed, for they were full of acrid but pleasing odours. -So she herself early one morning walked abroad, early -indeed, and passed along the river until she came to the -field adjoining the mansion. Very sweet and strange -the world seemed in the quiet after dawn. She stopped -beside a half-used rick to look about her; there was a -rush of surprised wings behind the stack and a thousand -starlings fled up into the air. She heard their -wings beating the air until they had crossed the river -and dropped gradually into an elm tree like a black -shower. Then she perceived a tall tree shining with -crimson blooms and long dark boughs bending low -upon the river. Near it a tiny red cottage stood in -the field like a painted box, surrounded by green triangular -bushes. It was a respectable looking cottage, -named <em>River View</em>. On her approach the door suddenly -opened, and a youth with a towel, just that and -nothing more, emerged. He took flying rejoicing leaps -towards the flaming tree, sprung upon its lowest limb -and flung himself into the stream. He glided there<span class="pagenum">[104]</span> -like a rod of ivory, but a crimson shower fell from -the quivering tree and veiled the pleasing boy until -he climbed out upon the opposite bank and stood -covered, like a leopard, with splendid crimson scars. -The princess dared peer no longer; she retraced her -steps, musing homewards to breakfast, and was rude -to Smith because he was such a fool not to have discovered -the young man who lived next door under the -mysterious tree.</p> - -<p>At the earliest opportunity she left a card at <em>River -View</em>. Narcissus was the subject’s name, and in due -time he came to dinner, and they had green grapes -and black figs, nuts like sweet wax and wine like -melted amethysts. The princess loved him so much -that he visited her very often and stayed very late. -He was only a poet and she a princess, so she could -not possibly marry him although this was what she very -quickly longed to do; but as she was only a princess, -and he a poet clinking his golden spurs, he did not -want to be married to her. He had thick curling -locks of hair red as copper, the mild eyes of a child, -and a voice that could outsing a thousand delightful -birds. When she heard his soft laughter in the dim -delaying eve he grew strange and alluring to the princess. -She knew it was because he was so beautiful -that everybody loved him and wanted to win and keep -him, but he had no inclination for anything but his art—which -was to express himself. That was very sad -for the princess; to be able to retain nothing of him -but his poems, his fading images, while he himself -eluded her as the wind eludes all detaining arms,<span class="pagenum">[105]</span> -forest and feather, briar and down of a bird. He did -not seem to be a man at all but just a fairy image that -slipped from her arms, gone, like brief music in the -moonlight, before she was aware.</p> - -<p>When he fell sick she watched by his bed.</p> - -<p>“Tell me,” she murmured, her wooing palms caressing -his flaming hair, “tell me you love me.”</p> - -<p>All he would answer was: “I dream of loving you, -and I love dreaming of you, but how can I tell if I -love you?”</p> - -<p>Very tremulous but arrogant she demanded of him: -“Shall I not know if you love me at all?”</p> - -<p>“Ask the fox in your brake, the hart upon your -mountain. I can never know if you love <em>me</em>.”</p> - -<p>“I have given you my deepest vows, Narcissus; -love like this is wider than the world.”</p> - -<p>“The same wind blows in desert as in grove.”</p> - -<p>“You do not love at all.”</p> - -<p>“Words are vain, princess, but when I die, put -these white hands like flowers about my heart; if I -dream the unsleeping dream I will tell you there.”</p> - -<p>“My beloved,” she said, “if you die I will put upon -your grave a shrine of silver, and in it an ark of gold -jewelled with green garnets and pink sapphires. My -spirit should dwell in it alone and wait for you; until -you came back again I could not live.”</p> - -<p>The poet died.</p> - -<p>The princess was wild with grief, but she commanded -her Lord Chancellor and he arranged magnificent -obsequies. The shrine of silver and the ark of -jewelled gold were ordered, a grave dug in a new<span class="pagenum">[106]</span> -planted garden more wonderful than the princess’s -bower, and a <em>To Let</em> bill appeared in the window of -<em>River View</em>. At last Narcissus, with great pomp, was -buried, the shrine and the ark of gold were clapped -down upon him, and the princess in blackest robes -was led away weeping on the arm of Smith—Smith -was wonderful.</p> - -<p>The sun that evening did not set—it mildly died -out of the sky. Darkness came into the meadows, the -fogs came out of them and hovered over the river and -the familiar night sounds began. The princess sat in -the mansion with a lonely heart from which all hopes -were receding; no, not receding, she could see only the -emptiness from which all her hopes had gone.</p> - -<p>At midnight the spirit of Narcissus in its cerecloth -rose up out of the grave, frail as a reed; rose out of -its grave and stood in the cloudy moonlight beside the -shrine and the glittering ark. He tapped upon the -jewels with his fingers but there was no sound came -from it, no fire, no voice. “O holy love,” sighed the -ghost, “it is true what I feared, it is true, alas, it is -true!” And lifting again his vague arm he crossed -out the inscription on his tomb and wrote there instead -with a grey and crumbling finger his last poem:</p> - -<div class="center"> -<p class="displayinline"><em>Pride and grief in your heart,<br /> -Love and grief in mine.</em></p></div> - -<p>Then he crept away until he came to the bower in the -princess’s garden. It was all silent and cold; the moon -was touching with brief beam the paps of the plaster<span class="pagenum">[107]</span> -Diana. The ghost laid himself down to rest for ever -beneath the squinancy tree, to rest and to wait; he -wanted to forestall time’s inscrutable awards. He -sank slowly into the earth as a knot of foam slips -through the beach of the seashore. Deep down he -rested and waited.</p> - -<p>Day after day, month after month, the constant -princess went to her new grove of lamentation. The -grave garden was magnificent with holy flowers, the -shrine polished and glistening, the inscription crisp -and clear—the ghost’s erasure being vain for mortal -eyes. In the ark she knew her spirit brooded and -yearned, she fancied she could see its tiny flame behind -the garnets and sapphires, and in a way this -gave her happiness. Meanwhile her own once happy -bower was left to neglect. The bolt rusted in its -gate, the shrubs rioted, tree trunks were crusted with -oozy fungus, their boughs cracked to decay, the rose -fell rotten, and toads and vermin lurked in the desolation -of the glades. ’Twas pitiful; ’twas as if the -heart of the princess had left its pleasant bower and -had indeed gone to live in her costly shrine.</p> - -<p>In the course of time she was forced to go away -on business of state and travelled for many months; -on her return the face of the Lord Chancellor was -gloomy with misery. The golden ark had been stolen. -Alarm and chagrin filled the princess. She went to -the grave. It too had now grown weedy and looked -forlorn. It was as if her own heart had been stolen -away from her. “Oh,” she moaned, “what does it -matter!” and, turning away, went home to her bower.<span class="pagenum">[108]</span> -There, among that sad sight, she saw a strange new -tree almost in bloom. She gave orders for the pool -to be cleansed and the bower restored to its former -beauty. This was done, and on a bright day when -the blazon of the sun was kind she went into the -bower again, flung her black robes from her, and -slipped like a rod of ivory into the velvet water. -There were no blooms to gather now, though she -searched with her silver net, but as she walked from -the pool her long hair caught in the boughs of the -strange tall squinancy tree, and in the disentangling it -showered upon her beautiful crimson blooms that as -they fell lingered upon her hips, her sweet shoulders, -and kissed her shining knees.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">COMMUNION</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span> -<h2 class="no-break">COMMUNION</h2> -</div> - - -<p class="dropcap">He was of years calendared in unreflecting -minds as tender years, and he was clothed in -tough corduroy knickerbockers, once the -habiliments of a huger being, reaching to the tops of -some boots shod with tremendous nails and fastened -by bits of fugitive string. His jacket was certainly the -jacket of a child—possibly some dead one, for it was -not his own—and in lieu of a collar behold a twist of -uncoloured, unclean flannel. Pink face, pink hands, -yellow hair, a quite unredeemable dampness about -his small nose—altogether he was a country boy.</p> - -<p>“What are you doing there, Tom Prowse?” asked -Grainger, the sexton, entering to him suddenly one -Saturday afternoon. The boy was sitting on a bench -in the empty nave, hands on knees, looking towards -the altar. He rose to his feet and went timidly through -the doorway under the stern glance of that tall tall -man, whose height enabled him to look around out of -a grave when it was completely dug. “You pop on out -of ’ere,” said Grainger, threateningly, but to himself, -when the boy had gone.</p> - -<p>Walking into the vestry Grainger emptied his pockets -of a number of small discarded bottles and pots of -various shapes and uses—ink bottles, bottles for gum<span class="pagenum">[112]</span> -and meat extract, fish-paste pots, and tins which had -contained candy. He left them there. The boy, after -he had watched him go away, came back and resumed -his seat behind one of the round piers.</p> - -<p>A lady dressed in black entered and, walking to the -front stall under the pulpit, knelt down. The boy -stared at the motionless figure for a long time until his -eyes ached and the intense silence made him cough a -little. He was surprised at the booming hollow echo -and coughed again. The lady continued bowed in her -place; he could hear her lips whispering sibilantly: the -wind came into the porch with sudden gust and lifted -the arras at the door. Turning he knocked his clumsy -boots against the bench. After that the intense silence -came back again, humming in his ears and almost stopping -his breath, until he heard footsteps on the gravel -path. The vicar’s maid entered and went towards the -vestry. She wished to walk softly when she observed -the kneeling lady but her left shoe squeaked stubbornly -as she moved, and both heels and soles echoed in sharp -tones along the tiles of the chancel. The boy heard -the rattle of a bucket handle and saw the maid place -the bucket beside the altar and fetch flowers and -bottles and pots from the vestry. Some she stood -upon the table of the altar; others, tied by pieces of -string, she hung in unique positions upon the front -and sides, filling them with water from the pail as she -did so; and because the string was white, and the -altar was white, and the ugly bottles were hidden in -nooks of moss, it looked as if the very cloth of the -altar sprouted with casual bloom.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[113]</span></p> - -<p>Not until the maid had departed did the lady who -had been bowed so long lift up her head adoringly towards -the brass cross; the boy overheard her deep -sigh; then she, too, went away, and in a few moments -more the boy followed and walked clumsily, thoughtfully, -to his home.</p> - -<p>His father was the village cobbler. He was a -widower, and he was a freethinker too; no mere passive -rejector of creeds, but an active opponent with a creed -of his own, which if less violent was not less bigoted -than those he so witheringly decried. The child Tom -had never been allowed to attend church; until today, -thus furtively, he had never even entered one, and in -the day school religious instruction had been forbidden -by his atheistic father. But while faith goes on working -its miracles the whirligigs of unfaith bring on -revenges. The boy now began to pay many secret -visits to the church. He would walk under the -western tower and slip his enclosing palms up and -down the woolly rope handles, listen to the slow beat -of the clock, and rub with his wristband the mouldings -of the brass lectern with the ugly bird on a ball and the -three singular chubby animals at the foot, half ox, -half dog, displaying monstrous teeth. He scrutinized -the florid Georgian memorial fixed up the wall, recording -the virtues, which he could not read, of a departed -Rodney Giles; made of marble, there were two -naked fat little boys with wings; they pointed each with -one hand towards the name, and with the other held -a handkerchief each to one tearful eye. This was -very agreeable to young Prowse, but most he loved to<span class="pagenum">[114]</span> -sit beside one of the pillars—the stone posties, he called -them—and look at the window above the altar where -for ever half a dozen angels postured rhythmically upon -the ladder of Jacob.</p> - -<p>One midsummer evening, after evensong, he entered -for his usual meditation. He had no liking for any -service or ritual; he had no apprehension of the -spiritual symbols embodied in the building; he only -liked to sit there in the quiet, gazing at things in a -dumb sort of way, taking, as it were, a bath of holiness. -He sat a long time; indeed, so still was he, he -might have been dozing as the legions of dead -parishioners had dozed during interminable dead sermons. -When he went to the door—the light having -grown dim—he found it was locked. He was not at -all alarmed at his situation: he went and sat down -again. In ten minutes or so he again approached the -door ... it was still locked. Then he walked up the -aisle to the chancel steps and crossed the choir for the -first time. Choristers’ robes were in the vestry, and -soon, arrayed in cassock and surplice, he was walking -with a singular little dignity to his old seat by one of -the pillars. He sat there with folded hands, the church -growing gloomier now; he climbed into the pulpit and -turned over the leaves of the holy book; he sat in the -choir stalls, pretended to play the organ, and at last -went before the altar and, kneeling at the rails, clasped -his orthodox hands and murmured, as he had heard -others murmuring there, a rigmarole of his scholastic -hours:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[115]</span></p> - -<div class="center"> -<p class="displayinline"> -<em>Thirty days hath September,<br /> -April, June and November.<br /> -All the rest have thirty-one,<br /> -Excepting February alone,<br /> -And leap year coming once in four,<br /> -February then has one day more.</em></p> -</div> - -<p>Re-entering the vestry, he observed on a shelf in -a niche a small loaf wrapped in a piece of linen. He -felt hungry and commenced to devour the bread, and -from a goblet there he drank a little sip of sweet tasting -wine. He liked the wine very much, and drank -more and more of it.</p> - -<p>There was nothing else to be done now in the darkness, -so he went on to the soft carpet within the altar -rails, and, piling up a few of the praying mats from the -choir—little red cushions they were, stamped with -black fleur-de-lys, which he admired much in the daylight—he -fell asleep.</p> - -<p>And he slept long and deeply until out of some -wonderful place he began to hear the word “Ruffian, -Ruffian,” shouted with anger and harshness. He was -pulled roughly to his feet, and apprehension was shaken -into his abominable little head.</p> - -<p>The morning sunlight was coming through the altar -window, and the vicar’s appearance was many-coloured -as a wheelwright’s door; he had a green face, and his -surplice was scaled with pink and purple gouts like a -rash from some dreadful rainbow. And dreadful indeed -was the vicar as he thrust the boy down the altar<span class="pagenum">[116]</span> -steps into the vestry, hissing as he did, “Take off those -things!” and darting back to throw the cushions into -proper places to support the knees of the expected -devotees.</p> - -<p>“Now, how did you get in here?” he demanded, -angrily.</p> - -<p>The boy hung up the cassock: “Someone locked me -in last night, Sir.”</p> - -<p>“Who was it?”</p> - -<p>“I dunno, Sir, they locked me in all night.”</p> - -<p>His interrogator glared at him for a moment in -silence, and the boy could not forbear a yawn. -Thereat the vicar seized him by the ear and, pulling it -with such animation as to contort his own features as -well as the child’s, dragged him to the vestry door, gurgling -with uncontrolled vexation, “Get out of this. Get -out ... you ... you beast!”</p> - -<p>As the boy went blinking down the nave the tenor -bell began to ring; the stone posties looked serene and -imperturbable in new clean sunlight, and that old blackbird -was chirping sweetly in the lilac at the porch.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">THE QUIET WOMAN</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span> -<h2 class="no-break">THE QUIET WOMAN</h2> -</div> - - -<p class="dropcap">It was the loneliest place in the world, Hardross -said. A little cogitation and much experience had -given him the fancy that the ark of the kingdom -of solitude was lodged in a lift, any lift, carrying a -charter of mute passengers from the pavement to any -sort of Parnassus. Nothing ever disturbs its velveteen -progression; no one ever speaks to the lift man (unless -it happens to be a lift girl). At Hardross’s place -of abode it happened to be a lift boy, sharp and white-faced, -whose tough hair was swept backwards in a stiff -lock from his brow, while his pert nose seemed inclined -to pursue it. His name was Brown. His absences -from duty were often coincident with the arrivals -and departures of Mr. Hardross. His hands were -brown enough if the beholder carried some charity in -his bosom, but the aspect of his collar or his -shoes engendered a deal of vulgar suspicion, and -his conduct was at once inscrutable and unscrupulous. -It may have been for this reason that Hardross had -lately begun walking the whole downward journey -from his high chamber, but it must have been something -less capricious that caused him always to essay the -corresponding upward flight. A fancy for exercise -perhaps, for he was a robust musician, unmarried, -and of course, at thirty-three or thirty-four, had come<span class="pagenum">[120]</span> -to the years of those indiscretions which he could with -impunity and without reprobation indulge.</p> - -<p>On the second floor, outside the principal door of -one set of chambers, there always stood a small console -table; it was just off the landing, in an alcove that -covered two other doors, a little dark angular-limbed -piece of furniture bearing a green lacquer dish of -void visiting cards, a heap that seemed neither to increase -nor dwindle but lay there as if soliciting, so -naïvely, some further contributions. Two maiden -ladies, the Misses Pilcher, who kept these rooms, had -gone to France for a summer holiday, but though the -flat had for the time being some new occupants the -console table still kept its place, the dish of cards of -course languishing rather unhopefully. The new tenants -were also two ladies, but they were clearly not -sisters and just as clearly not Pilcherly old maids. -One of them, Hardross declared, was the loveliest -creature he had ever seen. She was dark, almost tall, -about as tall as Hardross though a little less robust -and rather more graceful. Her mature scarlet lips -and charming mature eyes seemed always to be wanting -to speak to him. But she did not speak to him, -even when he modestly tried to overcome, well, not -her reserve—no one with such sparkling eyes could -possibly be reserved—but her silence. He often passed -her on the landing but he did not hear her voice, or -music, or speech, or any kind of intercourse within the -room. He called her The Quiet Woman. The other -lady, much older, was seldom seen; she was of great -dignity. The younger one walked like a woman conscious<span class="pagenum">[121]</span> -and proud of the beauty underneath her beautiful -clothes; the soft slippers she wore seemed charged -with that silent atmosphere. Even the charwoman -who visited them daily and rattled and swept about -was sealed of the conspiracy of silence; at least he -never caught—though it must be confessed that he -guiltily tried—the passage of a single word. What -was the mystery of the obstinately silent ménage? Did -the elder lady suffer from sorrow or nerves; was she -under a vow; was she a genius writing a sublime -book?</p> - -<p>The voiceless character of the intercourse did not -prevent Hardross becoming deeply enamoured and at -the same time deeply baffled. Morning and evening -as he went to the great city church of which he was -organist he would often catch a glimpse of his quiet -woman on the stairs. At favourable junctures he had -lifted his hat and said Good-morning or Good-evening, -but she had turned away as if overcome by confusion -or an excess of propriety.</p> - -<p>“I am a coward,” he would think; “shyness and -diffidence rule me, they curse me, they ruin my life; -but she, good heavens! is extraordinarily retiring. -Why, I am just a satyr, a rampant raging satyr, a -satyr!” And he would liken her to Diana, always -darting with such fawnlike modesty from the alcove -whenever he approached. He did not even know her -name. He wanted to enquire of the lift boy Brown or -the porter, but there again he lacked the casual touch to -bring off the information. The boy was too young, too -cute, too vulgar, and the porter too taciturn, as difficult<span class="pagenum">[122]</span> -for Hardross to approach as an archbishop would -have been. But Miss Barker now, that milliner, down -below on the ground floor! She would know; she -knew everybody and everything about the chambers including, -quite familiarly, Hardross himself—she would -be sure to know. But even she would have to be -approached with discrimination.</p> - -<p>“Evening, Miss Barker!” he cried. The good-looking -spinster peered up from a half-trimmed bonnet. -“When do <em>you</em> go for a holiday, then?”</p> - -<p>“Holidays,” she sighed, though the corner of her -mouth was packed with pins, “I cannot afford holidays.”</p> - -<p>“Ho-ho, you can’t afford!”</p> - -<p>Their common fund of repartee lay in his confident -assumption that she was rolling in surplus income and -her counter assertion that she was stricken in poverty; -that people—the pigs—would not pay her prices, or -that those who did not flinch at her prices would not -pay her bills.</p> - -<p>“Astonishing, deplorable, this Mammon-worship!” -he declared, leaning genially upon her table; “you -know, it breaks my heart to see you a slave to it, a -woman of a thousand, ten thousand in fact. Give it -up, O,”—he beat the table with his hand—“give it up -before it is too late!”</p> - -<p>“Too late for what?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“Why, all the delightful things a woman like you -could do.”</p> - -<p>“As what?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[123]</span></p> - -<p>“O ... travel, glories of nature, you know, friendship, -men ... love itself.”</p> - -<p>“Give me all the money I want,”—she was brusque -about it, and began to dab the unwanted pins back -into their cushion—“and I’ll buy, yes <em>buy</em>, a sweetheart -for each day in the week.”</p> - -<p>“Heavens now!” He was chilled by this implication -of an experience that may have been dull, that -must have been bitter, but he floundered on: “What -now would you give for me?”</p> - -<p>“For you!” She contemplated him with gravity: -“To be sure I had not thought of you, not in that -way.”</p> - -<p>“O but please <em>do</em> think of me, dear lady, put me in -your deepest regard.”</p> - -<p>The ghost of a knowing grin brushed her features. -Really a charming woman, in parts. A little stout, -perhaps, and she had fat red hands, but her heart was -a good substantial organ, it was in the right place, and -her features seemed the best for wear.</p> - -<p>“You are one of those surprising ladies”—he plunged -gaily—“who’ve a long stocking somewhere, with trunks -full of shares and scrip, stocks at the bank and mortgages -at your solicitor’s. O yes, yes,” he cried out -against her protestation, “and you will make a strange -will leaving it all to me!”</p> - -<p>She shook her head hopelessly, bending again -over the bonnet whose desperate skeleton she had -clothed with a flounce of crimson velvet. She was -very quiet.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[124]</span></p> - -<p>“Have I been rude?” he hazarded. “Forgive me.”</p> - -<p>“Well, it’s not true,” she insisted.</p> - -<p>“Forgive me—I have hurt you—of course it’s not -true.”</p> - -<p>Apparently she forgave him; he was soon asking -if there were any rooms to let in the building. “Furnished, -I mean.” He gave rein to his naïve strategy: -“I have friends who want to come here and stay with -me for a short holiday. I thought you might know -of some.”</p> - -<p>“In these flats?” She shook her head, but he persisted -and played his artful card:</p> - -<p>“The Miss Pilchers, on the second floor, haven’t -they gone away?”</p> - -<p>She did not know—why not ask the porter.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I must ask the porter, but I can never catch -the porter, he is so fugitive, he is always cutting his -lucky. I hate that man, don’t you?”</p> - -<p>And there, temporarily, he had to leave it.</p> - -<p>So many days passed now without a glimpse of his -lovely one that he had almost brought himself to the -point of tapping at the door and enquiring after her -welfare, only the mysterious air of the apartment—how -strange, how soundless it was—forbade any such -crudeness. One morning he recklessly took a cigarette -from his case and laid it upon the console table as he -passed. When he returned later the cigarette was -gone; it had been replaced by a chocolate cream, just -one, a big one. He snatched it away and rapturously -ate it. Later in the day he was blessed by a deep -friendly gaze, as she flitted into her room. Hardross<span class="pagenum">[125]</span> -rejoiced; in the morning he left another cigarette and -was again rewarded.</p> - -<p>“But O God help me,” he thought, “I can’t go on -like this!”</p> - -<p>So he bought a whole box of bonbons, but his -courage deserted him as he approached their door; he -left the package upon the console table and slunk -guiltily away. The next morning he observed a whole -box of cigarettes, a well-known exquisite brand, laid -temptingly there. He stretched his eager hand towards -it, but paused. Could that be a gift for him? Heavens -above! What were the miraculous gods about to -shower upon him? Was this their delicate symbol? -He could not believe it, no, he could not, he left the -box lying there. And it lay there for hours indeed until -he crept down and seized it. Afterwards he walked -trembling into the brighter air and went for a long -ride on the top of an omnibus. There had been no -letter, but he fancied that he had got hold of a clue. -“Be very careful, Hardross my boy, this is too -too splendid to spoil.”</p> - -<p>An afternoon or so later he met her coming into -the hall, a delicious figure with gay parasol and wide -white hat. He delayed her:</p> - -<p>“Let me thank you, may I, for those perfect cigarettes?”</p> - -<p>The lovely creature did not reply. She just smiled -her recognition of him; she did not speak nor move -away, she stood there quite silent and timid.</p> - -<p>“I wonder,” he began again, “if I might”—it sounded -dreadfully silly to him, but having begun he went on—“if<span class="pagenum">[126]</span> -I might invite you to my church this evening, a -rather special choral service, very jolly, you know. -I’m the organist; would you come?”</p> - -<p>No answer.</p> - -<p>“Would you care to come?”</p> - -<p>She lifted both her hands and touching her lips and -ears with significant gestures shook her head ever so -hopelessly at him.</p> - -<p>“Deaf and dumb!” he exclaimed. Perhaps the shock -of the revelation showed too painfully in his face for -she turned now sadly away. But the hall was divinely -empty. He caught one of the exquisite hands and -pressed it to his lips.</p> - -<p>Thereafter Hardross walked about as if he too were -deaf and dumb, except for a vast effusion of sighs. -He could praise that delicacy of the rarest whereby she -had forborne to lure him, as she could so easily have -done, into a relation so shrouded and so vague. But -that did not solve his problem, it only solidified it. He -wanted and awaited the inspiration of a gesture she -could admire, something that would propitiate her -delicacy and alarms. He did not want to destroy -by clumsy persistencies the frail net of her regard for -him; he was quite clear about that, the visible fineness -of her quality so quelled him. Applying himself to the -task he took lessons in the alphabet language, that inductile -response of fingers and thumbs.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile she had marked her sense of the complication -by hiding like a hurt bird, and although the -mystery of the quiet rooms was now exposed she herself -remained unseen. He composed a graceful note<span class="pagenum">[127]</span> -and left it upon the console table. The note disappeared -but no reply came: she made no sign and he -regretted his ardour.</p> - -<p>Such a deadlock of course could not exist for ever, -and one evening he met her walking up the stairs. She -stopped mutually with him. He was carrying his -music. He made a vain attempt to communicate with -her by means of his finger alphabet, but she did not -understand him although she delightedly made a reply -on her fingers which he was too recently initiated to -interpret. They were again at a standstill: he could -think of nothing to do except to open his book of organ -music and show her the title page. She looked it over -very intelligently as he tried by signs to convey his -desire to her, but he was certain she was blank about -it all. He searched his pockets for a pencil—and swore -at his non-success. There he stood like a fool, staring -at her smiling face until to his amazement she took -his arm and they descended the stairs, they were in the -street together. He walked to the church on something -vastly less substantial than air, and vastly superior.</p> - -<p>Hardross’s church was square and ugly, with large -round-headed windows. Its entrance was up some steps -between four Corinthian pillars upon the bases of -which cabmen snoozed when it was warm or coughed -and puffed in the winter cold. There was a pump on -the kerb and a stand for hackney cabs. A jungle of -evergreens squatted in a railed corner under the tower, -with a file of iris plants that never flowered. Upon the -plinth of the columns a ribald boy had chalked:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[128]</span></p> - -<p class="center">REMOVE THIS OBSTACLE</p> - -<p>Eternally at the porch tired cabhorses drooped and -meditated, while the drivers cut hunches of bread and -meat or cheese or onion and swallowed from their -tin bottles the cold tea or other aliment associated -with tin bottles. There was always a smell of dung -at the entrance, and an aroma of shag tobacco from -the cabmen’s pipes curled into the nave whenever the -door opened for worshippers. Inside the church -Hardross ushered his friend to a seat that he could -watch from his organ loft. There were few people -present. He borrowed a lead pencil from a choir boy, -and while the lesson was being perfunctorily intoned, -sounding like some great voice baffled by its infinitely -little mind, he scribbled on a sheet of paper the questions -he was so eager to ask; what was her name -and things like that:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p><em>How can we communicate? May I write to you? -Will you to me? Excuse the catechism and scribble -but I want so much to know you and grab at this -opportunity.</em></p> - -<p class="ir2"><em><span style="padding-right:1em">Yours devotedly</span><br /> -John Hardross</em></p></div> - -<p>When he looked up her place was empty; she had -gone away in the middle of the service. He hurried -home at last very perturbed and much abashed, for it -was not so much the perplexities of intercourse, the -torment of his dilemma, that possessed him now as a -sense of felicities forbidden and amenities declined.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[129]</span></p> - -<p>But his fickle intelligence received a sharp admonitory -nudge on the following evening when he espied -her sitting in the same place at church for all the world -as if she had not deserted it on the evening before. -Then he remembered that of course she couldn’t hear -a thing—idiot he was to have invited her. Again she -left the church before the close of the service. This -for several days, the tantalized lover beholding her -figure always hurrying from his grasp.</p> - -<p>He pursued the practice of the deaf and dumb -alphabet with such assiduity that he became almost -apt in its use; the amount of affection and devotion that -he could transcribe on finger and thumb was prodigious, -he yearned to put it to the test. When at last he met -her again in the hall he at once began spelling out -things, absurd things, like: “May I beg the honour of -your acquaintance?” She watched this with interest, -with excitement even, but a shadow of doubt crept -into her lovely eyes. She moved her own fingers -before him, but in vain; he could not interpret a single -word, not one. He was a dense fool; O how dense, -how dense! he groaned. But then he searched his -pockets and brought out the note he had scribbled in -church. It was a little the worse for wear but he -smoothed it, and standing close by her side held it for -her perusal. Again his hopes were dashed. She -shook her head, not at all conclusively but in a vague -uncomprehending way. She even with a smile indicated -her need of a pencil, which he promptly supplied. -To his amazement what she scribbled upon the page -were some meaningless hieroglyphs, not letters, though<span class="pagenum">[130]</span> -they were grouped as in words, but some strange abracadabra. -He looked so dismally at her that she smiled -again, folding the paper carefully ere she passed on up -the stairs.</p> - -<p>Hardross was now more confounded than ever. A -fearful suspicion seized him: was she an idiot, was it -a mild insanity, were those marks just the notation of -a poor diseased mind? He wished he had kept that -letter. God, what a tragedy! But as he walked into -the town his doubts about her intellect were dispelled. -Poof! only an imbecile himself could doubt that -beautiful staring intelligence. That was not it; it was -some jugglery, something to do with those rooms. -Nothing was solved yet, nothing at all; how uncanny -it was becoming!</p> - -<p>He returned in the afternoon full of determination. -Behold, like a favourable augury, the door by the console -table stood open, wide open. It did occur to him -that an open door might be a trap for unwary men -but he rapped the brass knocker courageously. Of -course there was no response—how could there be—and -he stepped inside the room. His glance had but -just time to take in the small black piano, the dark -carpet, the waxed margins of the floor, the floral -dinginess of the walls brightened by mirrors and -softened by gilt and crimson furniture, when the quiet -woman, his Diana, came to him joyfully holding out -both her hands. Well, there was no mystery here -after all, nothing at all, although the elder lady was -out and they were apparently alone. Hardross held -her hands for some moments, the intensity of which<span class="pagenum">[131]</span> -was as deeply projected in her own eyes as in the -tightness of his clasp. And there was tea for him! -She was at her brightest, in a frock of figured muslin, -and sitting before her he marvelled at the quickness -of her understanding, the vividness of her gestures, -the gentleness with which she touched his sleeve. -That criminal suspicion of her sanity crowned him -with infamy. Such communication was deliciously -intimate; there came a moment when Hardross in a -wild impulsive ecstasy flung himself before her, bowing -his head in her lap. The quiet woman was giving -him back his embraces, her own ardour was drooping -beautifully upon him, when he heard a strange voice -exclaim in the room: “God is my help! Well then!” -A rattle of strange words followed which he could -not comprehend. He turned to confront the elder -woman, who surveyed them with grim amusement. -The other stood up, smiling, and the two women spoke -in finger language. The newcomer began to remove -her gloves, saying:</p> - -<p>“It is Mr. Hardross then. I am glad to meet. -There is a lot of things to be spoken, eh?”</p> - -<p>She was not at all the invalid he had half expected -to find. She removed her hat and came back a competent-looking -woman of about fifty, who had really -an overwhelming stream of conversation. She took -tea and, ignoring the girl as if she were a block of -uncomprehending ornament, addressed herself to the -interloper.</p> - -<p>“You do not know me, Mr. Hardross?”</p> - -<p>“It is a pleasure I have but looked forward to,”<span class="pagenum">[132]</span> -he replied, in the formal manner that at times irresistibly -seized him, “with the keenest possible anticipation -and....”</p> - -<p>“No, I am Madame Peshkov. We are from Odessa, -do you know it? We go back to our Russia tomorrow; -yes, it is true.”</p> - -<p>His organs of comprehension began to crackle in -his skull, but he went on stirring his fresh cup of tea -and continued to do so for quite a long time.</p> - -<p>“No, you ... are ... Russian! I did not know.” -Amid his musing astonishment that fact alone was -portentous; it explained so much, everything in fact, -but how he could ever contrive to learn such a language -was the question that agitated him, so fearfully difficult -a language, and on his fingers too! Then that other -thunderclap began to reverberate: they were going, -when was it? Tomorrow! All this while Madame -Peshkov ran on with extravagant volubility. She had -the habit of picking one of the hairpins from her hair -and gently rubbing her scalp with the rounded end of -it; she would replace the pin with a stylish tap of her -fingers. It was a long time before Hardross extracted -the pith from her remarks, and then only when the -hypnotism induced by the stirring of his tea suddenly -lapsed; he became aware of the dumb girl’s gaze fixed -piercingly upon him, while his own was drawn away -by the force of the other’s revelations. What he had -already taken in was sad and strange. Her name was -Julia Krasinsky. She was not at all related to Madame -Peshkov, she was an orphan. Madame’s own daughter -had been deaf and dumb, too, and the girls had been inseparable<span class="pagenum">[133]</span> -companions until two years ago, when Natalia -Peshkov had died—O, an unspeakable grief still. -He gathered that Madame was a widow, and that since -Natalia’s death the two women had lived and travelled -together. Madame talked on; it was tremendously exciting -to Hardross crouching in his chair, but all that -echoed in his mind were the words Julia Krasinsky, -Julia Krasinsky, until she suddenly asked him:</p> - -<p>“Do you love her?”</p> - -<p>He was startled by this appalling directness; he -stammered a little but he finally brought out:</p> - -<p>“I adore her. Beyond everything I deeply deeply -love her.” He then added: “I feel shameful enough -now. I rage inwardly. All these many weeks I have -dallied like a boy, I did not understand the situation. -I have wasted our chances, our time, and now you are -going.”</p> - -<p>“You can’t waste time”; retorted the abrupt lady. -“Time deals with you no matter how you use his -hours.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose so,” he agreed quite helplessly, “but we -might have been extraordinary friends.”</p> - -<p>“O, but you are, eh! She is bewitched, you cannot -speak to her, she cannot speak to you, but yet you -love. O, she is vairy vairy fond of you, Mr. Hardross. -Why not? She has the best opinions of you.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, she will change her opinion now. A fool like -me?”</p> - -<p>“No one ever changes an opinion. Your opinions -govern and guide and change you. If they don’t they -are not worth holding. And most of them are not,<span class="pagenum">[134]</span> -eh, do you see, we are such fools but God is our help.”</p> - -<p>She talked confidently, intimately and quickly, but -Hardross wished she would not do so, or use her hairpins -in that absurd distracting way. He himself had -no confidence; he was reserved by nature, irrevocably, -and the mask of deliberation was necessary to him.</p> - -<p>“Madame Peshkov, I shall take her out for a walk -in the town, now, at once!” he cried.</p> - -<p>“Ah, so?” Madame nodded her head vigorously, -even approvingly. He had sprung up and approached -the quiet woman. All her gentle nearness overcame -him and he took her audaciously into his arms. Not -less eagerly she slid to his breast and clung there like a -bird to the shelter of its tree. Julia turned to Madame -Peshkov with a smiling apologetic shrug, as much as to -say: “What can one do with such a fellow, so strong -he is, you see!” Madame bade him bring Julia later -on to the café where they always dined.</p> - -<p>His happiness was profound. He had never had an -experience so moving as the adorable dumb woman by -his side: yet so unsurprising, as if its possibility had -always lain goldenly in his mind like an undreamed -dream, or like music, half-remembered music. There -was nothing, of course, just nothing they could talk -about. They could look into shop windows together -rather intimately, and they were a long time in a shady -arcade of the park, full of lime-browsing bees, where -they sat watching a peacock picking the gnats off the -shrubs. It was the pleasantest possible defeat of time. -Then there was the handsome girl crossing the yard -of a weaving mill as they passed. She was carrying<span class="pagenum">[135]</span> -a great bale of bright blue wool and had glanced at -them with a friendly smile. Her bare white arms -encircled the wool: she had big gilt rings in her ears, -and her fine shining chestnut-coloured hair was disarrayed -and tumbled upon the bale. Julia had pressed -his arm with joy. Yes, she delighted in the things -he delighted in; and she felt too that sense of sorrow -that hung in the air about them.</p> - -<p>Her appearance in the café stirred everybody like a -wave of sweet air. Hardross was filled with pride. -He felt that it was just so that she would enrich the -world wherever she wandered, that things would respond -to her appearance in astonishing mysterious -ways. Why, even the empty wine glasses seemed to -behave like large flowers made miraculously out of -water, a marvel of crystal petals blooming but for her; -certainly the glasses on other tables didn’t look at all -like these. He drank four glasses of wine and -after dinner they all sat together in the flat until the half -darkness was come. And now Madame Peshkov too -was very silent; she sat smoking or scratching her head -with her pins. It was nine o’clock, but there remained -a preposterous glare in the west that threw -lateral beams against the tops of tall buildings, although -the pavements were already dim. It made the fronts of -the plastered houses over the way look like cream -cheese. Six scarlet chimney pots stood stolidly at -attention—the torsos of six guardsmen from whom -head and limbs had been unkindly smitten; the roof -seemed to be rushing away from them. Beyond was an -echo of the sunset, faint in the northern sky. How<span class="pagenum">[136]</span> -sweet, how sad, to sit so silently in this tremulous -gloom. It was only at the last when they parted at her -door that the shadow of their division became omnipresent. -Then it overwhelmed them.</p> - -<p>Hardross crept upstairs to his own rooms. In such -plights the mind, careless of time present and time past, -full of an anguish that quenches and refills like a -sponge, writhes beyond hope with those strange lesions -of demeanour that confound the chronicler. Tra-la-la, -sang the distracted man, snapping his sweating fingers -in time with a ribald leering ditty, Tra-la-la. He -dropped plumb to Atlantean depths of grief, only to -emerge like a spouting whale with the maddening Tra-la-la -tugging him, a hook in his body, from despair to -dementia. He was roused from this vertiginous exercise -by a knocking at his door. The door was thrust -open, and Madame Peshkov asked if he was there. -He rose up and switched on a light.</p> - -<p>“What is to be done now?” cried the lady. If her -silence below had been complete, as complete as poor -Julia’s, she was now fully audible and not a little agitated. -“What is to be done? I cannot believe it of -her but it is true, as true as God!”</p> - -<p>Hardross beheld her sink, stricken with some -trouble, into an armchair, beating her hands together.</p> - -<p>“I have no influence, gone it is, no power over her, -none whatever. What is to be done? Assist us -please. She has been so.... O, for days, and now -it comes, it comes....”</p> - -<p>“What has come?” he interrupted sharply.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[137]</span></p> - -<p>“I cannot believe it of her, but it is true ... as God. -She is like a vast ... cold ... stone, a mountain.”</p> - -<p>“Is this about Julia?”</p> - -<p>“She will not go. Of course she will not go! She -declines, she will not come back to Odessa. She says -she will not come. I have to tell you this, Mr. Hardross, -I cannot move her. She is like a vast ... cold ... stone. -What then?”</p> - -<p>Madame’s appeal seemed pregnant with a significance -that he but dimly savoured. He asked: “What -is she going to do then?”</p> - -<p>“To stop in this England, here, in this very place! -But our passages are booked, tomorrow it is—pooh, -it does not matter!—I am to leave her here in this -place, here she will stay, in a foreign land, without -speech or understanding. But what is to be done, I -ask of you?”</p> - -<p>He was delirious himself; he kept whispering Julia, -Julia, but he managed to ask with a lugubrious covering -of propriety:</p> - -<p>“What? I don’t know. Shall I go to her?”</p> - -<p>“But can you not see? Do you comprehend, you -Hardross? O, it is a madness, I want to explain it -to you but it is all so gross, so swift, like a vulture. -You see it is impossible for me to remain an hour -longer, an hour in England impossible absolutely; -there are reasons, lives perhaps, depending on my return. -Yes, it is true; we live in Russia, do you see, -and in Russia ... ah, you understand! But how -shall I leave this woman here?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[138]</span></p> - -<p>Madame stared at him with curious inquisitiveness, -beating her hands upon the arm of the chair as if she -expected an answer, a prompt one:</p> - -<p>“Of course she will not go away from you now, -of course, of course, she has never had a lover before—how -could she, poor thing. I understand it, she is -not a child. And you Mr. Hardross you are a generous -man, you have courage, a good man, a man of his -honour, O yes, it is true, I see it, I feel it, and so she -will not be torn away from you now. I understand -that, she is no longer a child.”</p> - -<p>Madame rose and took him by the arm. “Marry -her, my friend! Do not you see? I can leave her to -you. Marry her at once, marry her!” She stood as -if it were something that could be done on the spot, as -easy as giving one a cup of tea. But he did not hesitate.</p> - -<p>“Why, I would give my soul to do it!” he cried, -and rushed away down the stairs to Julia.</p> - -<p>And surely she was as wise as she was beautiful, -and as rich as she was wise.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">THE TRUMPETERS</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span> -<h2 class="no-break">THE TRUMPETERS</h2> -</div> - - -<p class="dropcap">They were crossing the Irish Sea. It -was night, blowing a moderate gale, -but the moon, aloft on the port bow -with a wind, was chock full of such astounding -brightness that the turmoil of the dark waves was easy -and beautiful to see. The boat was crowded with -soldiers on leave; the few civilian passengers—mechanics, -labourers, and a miner going to his home in Wexford, -who had got drunk at the harbour inn before -coming aboard—were congregated in the angles on the -lee-side of the saloon bunks and trying to sleep amid -the chill seething, roaring, and thudding. The miner, -young, powerful, and very much at his ease, sprawled -among them intoxicated. He sang, and continued to -sing at intervals, a song about “The hat that my father -wore,” swaying, with large dreamy gestures, to and fro, -round and about, up and down upon the unfortunate -men sitting to right and left of him. Close at hand -sat another young man, but smaller, who carried a big -brass trumpet.</p> - -<p>“Throw him in the sea, why not, now!” the trumpeter -shouted to the drunken man’s weary supporters. -“Begad I would do it if he put his pig’s face on e’er<span class="pagenum">[142]</span> -a shoulder of me!” He was a small, emphatic young -man: “Give him a crack now, and lay on him, or by -the tears of God we’ll get no repose at all!”</p> - -<p>His advice was tendered as constantly and as insistently -as the miner’s song about his parent’s headgear, -and he would encourage these incitements to vicarious -violence by putting the brass trumpet to his lips and -blowing some bitter and not very accurate staves. So -bitter and so inaccurate that at length even the drunken -miner paused in his song and directed the trumpeter -to “shut up.” The little man sprang to his feet in fury, -and approaching the other he poured a succession of -trumpet calls close into his face. This threw the miner -into a deep sleep, a result so unexpected that the enraged -trumpeter slung his instrument under his arm -and pranced belligerently upon the deck.</p> - -<p>“Come out o’ that, ye drunken matchbox, and by -the Queen of Heaven I’ll teach ye! Come now!”</p> - -<p>The miner momentarily raised himself and recommenced -his song: “’Tis the Hat that me Father wore!” -At this the trumpeter fetched him a mighty slap across -the face.</p> - -<p>“Ah, go away,” groaned the miner, “or I’ll be sick on -ye.”</p> - -<p>“Try it, ye rotten gossoon! ye filthy matchbox! -Where’s yer khar<em>kee</em>?”</p> - -<p>The miner could display no khaki; indeed, he was -sleeping deeply again.</p> - -<p>“I’m a man o’ me principles, ye rotten matchbox!” -yelled the trumpeter. “In the Munsters I was ... -seven years ... where’s your khar<em>kee</em>?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[143]</span></p> - -<p>He seized the miner by the collar and shook that -part of the steamer into a new commotion until he was -collared by the sailors and kicked up on to the foredeck.</p> - -<p>Nothing up there, not even his futile trumpeting, -could disturb the chill rejoicing beauty of the night. -The wind increased, but the moonlight was bland and -reassuring. Often the cope of some tall wave would -plunge dully over the bows, filling the deck with water -that floundered foaming with the ship’s movement or -dribbled back through the scuppers into the sea. Yet -there was no menace in the dark wandering water; each -wave tossed back from its neck a wreath of foam that -slewed like milk across the breast of its follower.</p> - -<p>The trumpeter sat upon a heap of ropes beside a big -soldier.</p> - -<p>“The rotten matchbox, did ye ever see the like o’ -that? I’ll kill him against the first thing we step -ashore, like ye would a flea!”</p> - -<p>“Be aisy,” said the soldier; “why are ye making -trouble at all? Have ye hurt your little finger?”</p> - -<p>“Trouble, is it? What way would I be making -trouble in this world?” exclaimed the trumpeter. -“Isn’t it the world itself as puts trouble on ye, so it -is, like a wild cat sitting under a tub of unction! O, -very pleasant it is, O ay! No, no, my little sojee, that -is not it at all. You can’t let the flaming world rush -beyant ye like that....”</p> - -<p>“Well, it’s a quiet life I’m seeking,” interjected the -soldier, wrapping his great coat comfortingly across his -breast, “and by this and by that, a quiet night too.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[144]</span></p> - -<p>“Is that so? Quiet, is it? But I say, my little -sojee, you’ll not get it at all and the whole flaming world -whickering at ye like a mad cracker itself. Would ye -sleep on that wid yer quiet life and all? It’s to -tame life you’d be doing, like it was a tiger. And -it’s no drunken boozer can tame me as was with the -Munsters in the East ... for seven holy years.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, go off wid you, you’ve hurt your little finger.”</p> - -<p>“Me little finger, is it?” cried the trumpeter, holding -his thin hands up for inspection in the moonlight, -“I have not then.”</p> - -<p>“You surprise me,” the soldier said, gazing at him -with sleepy amused tolerance. “Did you never hear -of Tobin the smith and Mary of Cappoquin?”</p> - -<p>“I did not then,” snapped the other. “Who was -they?”</p> - -<p>“He was a roaring, fatal feller, a holy terror, a giant. -He lived in the mountains but he went over the country -killing things—a tiger or two at an odd time, I’m -thinking—and destroying the neat condition of the -world. And he had a nasty little bit of a bugle....”</p> - -<p>“Was it the like o’ that?” demanded the other, holding -out the trumpet and tapping it with his fingers.</p> - -<p>“‘A bugle,’ I said,” replied the soldier sternly, “and -every time he puffed in its tubes the noise of it was -so severe the hens in the town fell dead....”</p> - -<p>“The hens!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, and the ducks on the ponds were overcome -with emotion and sank to the bottom. One day he -was in his forge driving a few nails into the shoe of<span class="pagenum">[145]</span> -an ass when he hit his little finger such a blow, a terrible -blow, that it bled for a day. Then he seared the -wound with his searing iron, but it was no better, and -it bled for a night. I will go—says he—to the physician -of Cappoquin and be sewn up with some golden -wire. So he drove into Cappoquin, but when he was -in it the physician was gone to a christening; there -was only his daughter Mary left to attend to him, a -bright good girl entirely, and when she saw the finger -she said to Tobin: ‘I declare on my soul if I don’t -chop it off it’s not long till you have your death.’ -‘Chop it off, then,’ says Tobin, and she did so. He -came back the next day and this is how it was; the -physician was gone to a wake. ‘What’s your need?’ -asked Mary. He showed her his hand and it dripping -with blood. ‘I declare to my God,’ said Mary, ‘if I -don’t chop it off it’s short till you have your death.’ -‘Chop it off,’ says Tobin, and she struck off the hand. -The day after that he drove in again, but the physician -was gone to an inquest about a little matter concerning -some remains that had been found. ‘What is it today, -Tobin?’ and he showed her his arm bleeding in great -drops. ‘I declare by the saints,’ says she, ‘that unless -I chop it off you’ll die in five minutes.’ ‘Chop it off,’ -says Tobin, and she struck off his arm. The next day -he was back again with the stump of his arm worse -than before. ‘Oh, I see what it is,’ said Mary, and going -behind him she struck off his head with one blow of -her father’s sharp knife and gave it to the cat.”</p> - -<p>“That is a neat tale,” said the trumpeter. “Did you<span class="pagenum">[146]</span> -hear the story of the dirty soldier and the drummer?”</p> - -<p>“No—” The soldier hesitated reflectively. “No, I -never heard it.”</p> - -<p>“Well, this is how it was....”</p> - -<p>But just then the steamer began to approach the harbour, -and in the hurry and scurry of preparations to -land the two friends were separated and the tale was -never told.</p> - -<p>At the disembarkation passengers and soldiers -crowded on the pier awaiting the boat train. The harbour -was full of lights; the moon was still high in the -heavens, but her glory faded as the sun began to rise. -The thick densities of the night sky quivered into frail -blues, violet and silver were mingled in the sea, the -buildings on the wharf looked strange; icily, bitterly -grey. The trumpeter ran about in the bleak air seeking -the “rotten matchbox,” but he could not find him. -He comforted himself by executing some castigating -blares upon his instrument. The hollow wharves and -the pier staging echoed with acrid sound that pleased -his simple heart. He blew and blew and blew until he -was surrounded by people watching him strain his -determined eyes and inflate his pale cheeks—all of them -secretly hoping that the ones might fall out or the -others might crack. Suddenly he caught sight of the -now-sobered miner, quite close to him, almost touching -him! The call he was blowing faded with a stupid -squeak. The world began to flame again ... when -an officer burst into the circle, demanding to know who -he was, where from, and what in all the realm of blasphemous<span class="pagenum">[147]</span> -things he meant by tootling in that infernal -manner on that infernal thing.</p> - -<p>The trumpeter drew himself proudly to attention -and saluted.</p> - -<p>“Discharged I am, sir, it’s with the Munsters I was, -seven years, sir, with the Munsters, in the east.”</p> - -<p>“You disgrace the Army! If I hear another -tootle on that thing, I ... I’ll have you clapped in -irons—I will! And ... and transported ... damn -me if I don’t! You understand?”</p> - -<p>The trumpeter meekly saluted as the captain swaggered -away. At that moment the miner laid his hand -upon his arm.</p> - -<p>“What, my little man,” said he, “have you lost your -teeth? Give it me now!”</p> - -<p>And putting the trumpet to his own lips he blew a -brilliant and mocking reveille, whose echoes hurtled far -over the harbour and into the neighbouring hills.</p> - -<p>“God save us!” cried the trumpeter with a furtive -eye on the captain at the end of the platform, who did -not appear to have heard that miraculous salvo, “it’s a -great grand breath you’ve got, sir.”</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">THE ANGEL AND THE SWEEP</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span> -<h2 class="no-break">THE ANGEL AND THE SWEEP</h2> -</div> - - -<p class="dropcap">I’d been sitting in the <em>Axe & Cleaver</em> along of -Mrs. Pellegrini for an hour at least; I hadn’t -seen her in five years since she was doing the -roads near Pontypool. An hour at least, for isn’t the -<em>Axe & Cleaver</em> the pleasant kind of place? Talking or -not talking you can always hear the water lashing from -the outfall above Hinney Lock, the sound of it making -you feel drowsy and kind. And isn’t the old bridge -there a thing to be looking at indeed?</p> - -<p>Mrs. Pellegrini had a family of pikeys who traded in -horses, willow-wattles, and rocksalt; she was as cunning -as a jacksnipe, and if she <em>had</em> a deep voice like a -man she was full of wisdom. A grand great woman -was Rosa Pellegrini, with a face silky-brown like a -beechnut, and eyes and hair the equal of a rook for -darkness. The abundance of jewellery hooked and -threaded upon her was something to be looking at too. -Old man and young Isaac kept going out to look at -the horses, or they’d be coming in to upbraid her for -delaying, but she could drink a sconce of beer without -the least sparkle of hilarity, as if it were a tribute she -owed her whole magnificent constitution, or at least a -reward for some part of it. So she kept doing it,<span class="pagenum">[152]</span> -while her son and her husband could do no other and -did it with nothing of her inevitable air.</p> - -<p>Well, I was sitting in the <em>Axe & Cleaver</em> along of -Mrs. Pellegrini when who should rove in but Larry -McCall, good-looking Larry, bringing a friend with -him, a soft kind of fellow who’d a harsh voice and a -whining voice that we didn’t like the noise of tho’ he -had good money in his purse. Larry gave me the -grace of the day directly he entered the door, and then, -letting a cry of joy out of him, he’d kissed Mrs. Pellegrini -many times before she knew what was happening -to her. She got up and punished him with a welt on -his chin that would have bruised an oak-tree, and bade -him behave himself. He sat down soothingly beside -her and behaved very well. His companion stood -very shy and nervous, like a kitten might be watching -a cockfight.</p> - -<p>“Who is this young man?” Mrs. Pellegrini asks.</p> - -<p>“That’s Arthur,” said Larry: “I forget what -Arthur knocks a living out of—I’ve known him but -these three bits of an hour since we were walking in the -one direction.”</p> - -<p>“My dad,” said Arthur slowly and raspingly, “is an -undertaker, and he lets me help him in his business: -we bury people.”</p> - -<p>“Oh come, young man,” said Mrs. Pellegrini, “that’s -no sort of a trade at all—d’ye think it, Mr. McCall?”</p> - -<p>“No, I do not,” replied Larry, “but Arthur does. -It don’t seem to be a trade with very much humour in -it. Life ain’t a sad solid chunk.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[153]</span></p> - -<p>“Now that’s just where you’re wrong,” drawled -Arthur.</p> - -<p>“’Tain’t a life at all,” Rosa interrupted severely, “it’s -only sniffing, having a bad cold! No sort of a life at -all—d’ye think it, Mr. McCall?”</p> - -<p>“No, I do not,” said Larry with a chuckle, “but -Arthur does!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know what you’re a deluding on,” commenced -the young man again, “but....”</p> - -<p>“Strike me dead if I can see any fun in funerals!” -Mrs. Pellegrini said with finality, taking up her mug. -“But if you <em>will</em> have your grief, young man,” she -added, pausing in one of her gulps to gaze at Arthur -until he quivered, “you must have it, and may fortune -fall in love with what we like. Fill up that cup now!”</p> - -<p>The young man in agitation obeyed, and while this -was doing we all heard someone come over the bridge -singing a song, and that was Jerry Ogwin, who could -tell the neatest tales and sing the littlest songs. Well, -there were great salutations, for we all knew Jerry and -loved Jerry, and he loved some of us. But he was the -fiercest looking, fieriest gipsy man you ever saw, and -he had all the gullible prescience of a cockney.</p> - -<p>“My fortune! Where are you from, you cunning -little man?”</p> - -<p>“I bin doing a bit o’ road down Kent and London -way. D’ye know Lewisham?” commenced Jerry.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Larry, grinning at me, “but Arthur -does!”</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t; I never been there,” chanted Arthur.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[154]</span></p> - -<p>“Now what’s the good of talking like that!” said -McCall sternly, and letting a wink at me.</p> - -<p>“More I ain’t,” asserted Arthur.</p> - -<p>“Then I was at Deptford and Greenwich—know -Greenwich?” continued Jerry.</p> - -<p>“No,” replied Larry, then adding nonchalantly, -“Arthur does.”</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t, I don’t,” said Arthur wormily, for -Jerry was glaring at him, and that fighting scar -all down his nose, where his wife Katey once hit him -with the spout of a kettle, was very disturbing.</p> - -<p>“What’s the good of that?” urged the devilish-minded -Larry. “Why don’t you talk to the gentleman, -you don’t want to vex him, do you?”</p> - -<p>“You ain’t blooming silly, are you?” queried Jerry.</p> - -<p>Without waiting for reply he drifted off again.</p> - -<p>“Me and my mate was doing a bit o’ road with -oranges and things, you know—three for a ’eaver—down -Mary’s Cray; d’ye know Mary’s Cray?”</p> - -<p>But this time Arthur was looking avidly out of the -window.</p> - -<p>“Well, we was ’avin’ a bit of grub one night, just -about dark it was, you know, with a little fire, we’d bin -cookin’ something, when a blooming sweep come along. -I’ll tell it to you; it was just inside a bit of a wood and -we was sleeping rough. My mate was a bit nervous, -you know, ’e kept looking round as if ’e could see something, -but it was that dark you might be looking in a -sack. I says to Timmy: what’s up with you? I -dunno, ’e says, something going on, and just as ’e says -that this blooming sweep ’oofs in from nowhere and<span class="pagenum">[155]</span> -falls over our beer. I says to Timmy, ’e’s knocked -over our beer; are you going to fight ’im or shall I? -And Timmy shouts: look at ’im, ’e’s laying on the -fire! And s’elp me God so ’e was, ’is legs was in the -sticks and ’is trousers was a-burning. Come out of -it, we says, but ’e didn’t move. No, my oath, ’e layed -there like a dead sheep. Well, we pulled ’im off it, -but ’e was like a silly bloke. ’E couldn’t stand up and -’e couldn’t say anything. ’E got a lot of froth round -’is mouth like a ’orse that’s going wicked. And ’e -wasn’t drunk, neither, but, <em>you</em> know, ’e was just -frightened out of ’is life about something. We sit -’im down with ’is back against a tree and made the -fire up again. What’s the matter with you, we says; -you got a fit, we says; what d’ye want coming ’ere, -we says? But we couldn’t get no answer from ’im. -’Is face was that dam white ’cept where it was smudged -with soot, and there was this froth dribbling on ’im, and -what d’yer think, ’e’d got a red rose stuck in ’is button-’ole. -’E was a horrible sight; we couldn’t bear ’im, so -we picks ’im up, and Timmy give ’im a clout in the -ear and shoves ’im out among some bushes where we -couldn’t see ’im. Sw’elp me if ’e didn’t come crawling -back on ’is hands and knees where we was sitting -round the fire. Oh, ’e was horrible. Timmy went -nearly daft and I thought ’e was going to give ’im one -good kick in the mouth and finish ’im. ’Stead of that -we picks ’im up again and runs ’im further down the -wood and heaves ’im into some blackberry bushes and -tells ’im what we’d do to ’im if ’e come again. That -was no good; in five minutes ’e crawled back. Timmy<span class="pagenum">[156]</span> -was shaking like a dog, and fell on ’im as if ’e was going -to strangle ’im, but we had to let ’im stay, and old -Timmy was blacker than the sweep when ’e’d done -with ’im. But the bloke <em>wouldn’t</em> say nothing or open -’is eyes, <em>you</em> know, he <em>wouldn’t</em> open his eyes, ’e was -like something what had been murdered and wouldn’t -die, if you know what I mean. Blast ’im, I could kill -’im, Timmy says. That’s no good of, says I, and at -last we left ’im ’side the fire, and we went off somewhere -just outside the wood and packed up in a clump -of ur-grass. I went to sleep, but I don’t believe old -Timmy did, well, I know ’e didn’t. Now we hadn’t -’eard nothing all night, nothing at all, but when I wakes -up in the morning the blooming sweep was gone and -not a chink of ’im left anywhere. But,” said Jerry -impressively to Arthur, who eyed him with horror, -“we found something else!” There was silence while -Jerry’s face was connected to his mug of beer. Nobody -spoke. We eyed him with eager interest. He -vanquished his thirst and smacked his lips but held the -mug in readiness for further libation.</p> - -<p>“Not twenty chain away a woman was laying down. -Timmy touches me frightened like and says, Look, -what’s that? My eyes was nearly skinned out of me. -I couldn’t speak. We walked quietly up to ’er like two -sick men. She lay there just as if she’d dropped out -of the sky, naked as an angel, not a shift nor a stocking, -not a button on ’er.” There was again silence -until Larry struck a match loudly on a jar, his pipe, -hooked tightly in his forefinger, having gone out. Mrs. -Pellegrini stared, and breathed audibly. “And,” said<span class="pagenum">[157]</span> -Jerry impressively, “she was the grandest creature -what ever you see. I touched ’er with them -two fingers and she was cold as iron, stiff, gone a bit -dull like pearls look, but the fine build of that lady was -the world’s wonder. There was not a scratch or a -wound on ’er or the sign of ’er death anywhere. One -of ’er legs was cocked up at the knee like she’d lay in -bed. ’Er two eyes was just looking at the ground and -there was a kind of funny smile on ’er face. Fine -long hair she had, black as a cat’s back and long as the -tail of a horse. And in it there was a red rose, and in -one of ’er hands she was holding a white lily. There -was a little bird’s dropping on ’er stomach. I wiped -it off. I says to Timmy: That sweep! And ’e says -to me, Jerry Ogwin, we’re ’aving a share out. What -about that sweep I says to ’im, but all ’e says was: -we’re ’aving a share out. ’E was afraid of getting -pulled for this job, <em>you</em> know. I never seen a man so -frightened afore, and ’e was not a chap as renagged -ever, not Timmy.”</p> - -<p>“That ’e wasn’t,” said Mrs. Pellegrini, “I seen ’im -once half murder two sojers for beating a deaf and -dumb man.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” continued Jerry, “I says all right Timmy, -and so we ’as a share out and gits on different roads. -My share was a clothes basket and a pair of spectacles -cost tuppence ha’penny, <em>you</em> know, and I walked all -that day as ’ard as ever I could. Then I bushes for the -night, and when I woke up nex’ morning I ’eard some -talking going on. I looks under the ’edge and found -I was side a strawberry field, <em>you</em> know, a lot of strawberries.<span class="pagenum">[158]</span> -So I ’ops in and sells my basket to the strawberry -pickers for a shilling. They give me a shilling -for it, so that was all right. ’Ad a shilling and a pair -of spectacles for my share out. I goes on a bit and -then I comes across a beanfeast party, and I showed -’em my pair o’ gold spectacles—I’d just found ’em—<em>you</em> -know!”</p> - -<p>Larry burst into a peal of laughter that seemed to -surprise Jerry and he said:</p> - -<p>“Ain’t you ever met a feller what’s found a pair of -gold spectacles?”</p> - -<p>Larry couldn’t reply and Jerry continued:</p> - -<p>“No, ain’t you really? God, what a laugh! Yes, -I sells ’em to a fly young party for two and fo’ pence -and off I goes. Never ’eard no more of Timmy. -Never ’eard no more of anything. I dunno if they -found the girl. I dunno if they found that sweep. -They didn’t find <em>me</em>.”</p> - -<p>He paused for a moment.</p> - -<p>“They didn’t find <em>me</em>,” he repeated.</p> - -<p>There was silence at last; the room was getting dim -with evening. Mrs. Pellegrini spoke:</p> - -<p>“And you wiped it off her stomach, did you, Jerry?”</p> - -<p>“I did,” said he.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Pellegrini turned to Arthur and said in a sharp -voice:</p> - -<p>“Fill that pot for the gentleman!”</p> - -<p>The young man in terror obeyed, he exceedingly -obeyed.</p> - -<p>When the last pot was emptied Jerry and Larry and -the wretched mute went off along the road together.<span class="pagenum">[159]</span> -Rosa Pellegrini said “So long” to me and drove off -with her cavalcade. The inn was empty and quiet again -so you could hear the water at the outfall.</p> - -<p>I walked along the bank of the old river until I came -to the lock where the water roaring windily from the -lasher streamed like an old man’s beard; a pair of -swans moved in the slack water of the pool. Away -there was a fine lea of timothy grass looking as soft -as wool. And at the end of the lea there was a low -long hill covered with trees full of the arriving darkness; -a train that you could not hear the noise of shot -through a grove and poured a long spool of white -fume upon the trees quietly, a thing to be looking at, -it was so white and soft. But I was thinking ... -thinking ... thinking of the grand white slim woman -who did not seem dead at all to me, lying with a lily -in her hand, a red rose in her hair. And I could not -think it to be true at all; I believe Jerry was only telling -us one of his tales.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">ARABESQUE</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span> -<h2 class="no-break">ARABESQUE: THE MOUSE</h2> -</div> - - -<p class="dropcap">In the main street amongst tall establishments of -mart and worship was a high narrow house -pressed between a coffee factory and a bootmaker’s. -It had four flights of long dim echoing -stairs, and at the top, in a room that was full of the -smell of dried apples and mice, a man in the middle -age of life had sat reading Russian novels until he -thought he was mad. Late was the hour, the night outside -black and freezing, the pavements below empty -and undistinguishable when he closed his book and sat -motionless in front of the glowing but flameless fire. -He felt he was very tired yet he could not rest. He -stared at a picture on the wall until he wanted to cry; it -was a colour print by Utamaro of a suckling child -caressing its mother’s breasts as she sits in front of a -blackbound mirror. Very chaste and decorative it was, -in spite of its curious anatomy. The man gazed, empty -of sight though not of mind, until the sighing of the -gas jet maddened him. He got up, put out the light, -and sat down again in the darkness trying to compose -his mind before the comfort of the fire. And he was -just about to begin a conversation with himself when -a mouse crept from a hole in the skirting near the fireplace<span class="pagenum">[164]</span> -and scurried into the fender. The man had the -crude dislike for such sly nocturnal things, but this -mouse was so small and bright, its antics so pretty, -that he drew his feet carefully from the fender and sat -watching it almost with amusement. The mouse -moved along the shadows of the fender, out upon the -hearth, and sat before the glow, rubbing its head, ears, -and tiny belly with its paws as if it were bathing itself -with the warmth, until, sharp and sudden, the fire sank, -an ember fell, and the mouse flashed into its hole.</p> - -<p>The man reached forward to the mantelpiece and put -his hand upon a pocket lamp. Turning on the beam, -he opened the door of a cupboard beside the fireplace. -Upon one of the shelves there was a small trap baited -with cheese, a trap made with a wire spring, one of -those that smashed down to break the back of ingenuous -and unwary mice.</p> - -<p>“Mean—so mean,” he mused, “to appeal to the hunger -of any living thing just in order to destroy it.”</p> - -<p>He picked up the empty trap as if to throw it in the -fire.</p> - -<p>“I suppose I had better leave it though—the place -swarms with them.” He still hesitated. “I hope that -little beastie won’t go and do anything foolish.” He -put the trap back quite carefully, closed the door of the -cupboard, sat down again and extinguished the lamp.</p> - -<p>Was there any one else in the world so squeamish -and foolish about such things! Even his mother, -mother so bright and beautiful, even she had laughed at -his childish horrors. He recalled how once in his -childhood, not long after his sister Yosine was born, a<span class="pagenum">[165]</span> -friendly neighbour had sent him home with a bundle -of dead larks tied by the feet “for supper.” The pitiful -inanimity of the birds had brought a gush of -tears; he had run weeping home and into the kitchen, -and there he had found the strange thing doing. It -was dusk; mother was kneeling before the fire. He -dropped the larks.</p> - -<p>“Mother!” he exclaimed softly. She looked at his -tearful face.</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter, Filip?” she asked, smiling too -at his astonishment.</p> - -<p>“Mother! What you doing?”</p> - -<p>Her bodice was open and she was squeezing her -breasts; long thin streams of milk spurted into the fire -with a plunging noise.</p> - -<p>“Weaning your little sister,” laughed mother. She -took his inquisitive face and pressed it against the -delicate warmth of her bosom, and he forgot the dead -birds behind him.</p> - -<p>“Let me do it, mother,” he cried, and doing so he -discovered the throb of the heart in his mother’s breast. -Wonderful it was for him to experience it, although -she could not explain it to him.</p> - -<p>“Why does it do that?”</p> - -<p>“If it did not beat, little son, I should die and the -Holy Father would take me from you.”</p> - -<p>“God?”</p> - -<p>She nodded. He put his hand upon his own breast. -“Oh feel it, Mother!” he cried. Mother unbuttoned -his little coat and felt the gentle <em>tick tick</em> with her warm -palm.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[166]</span></p> - -<p>“Beautiful!” she said.</p> - -<p>“Is it a good one?”</p> - -<p>She kissed his upsmiling lips. “It is good if it beats -truly. Let it always beat truly, Filip, let it always -beat truly.”</p> - -<p>There was the echo of a sigh in her voice, and he -had divined some grief, for he was very wise. He -kissed her bosom in his tiny ecstasy and whispered -soothingly: “Little mother! little mother!” In such -joys he forgot his horror of the dead larks; indeed he -helped mother to pluck them and spit them for supper.</p> - -<p>It was a black day that succeeded, and full of tragedy -for the child. A great bay horse with a tawny mane -had knocked down his mother in the lane, and a heavy -cart had passed over her, crushing both her hands. She -was borne away moaning with anguish to the surgeon -who cut off the two hands. She died in the night. -For years the child’s dreams were filled with the horror -of the stumps of arms, bleeding unendingly. Yet he -had never seen them, for he was sleeping when she -died.</p> - -<p>While this old woe was come vividly before him he -again became aware of the mouse. His nerves -stretched upon him in repulsion, but he soon relaxed -to a tolerant interest, for it was really a most engaging -little mouse. It moved with curious staccato scurries, -stopping to rub its head or flicker with its ears; they -seemed almost transparent ears. It spied a red cinder -and skipped innocently up to it ... sniffing ... -sniffing ... until it jumped back scorched. It would -crouch as a cat does, blinking in the warmth, or scamper<span class="pagenum">[167]</span> -madly as if dancing, and then roll upon its side rubbing -its head with those pliant paws. The melancholy man -watched it until it came at last to rest and squatted -meditatively upon its haunches, hunched up, looking -curiously wise, a pennyworth of philosophy; then once -more the coals sank with a rattle and again the mouse -was gone.</p> - -<p>The man sat on before the fire and his mind filled -again with unaccountable sadness. He had grown into -manhood with a burning generosity of spirit and rifts -of rebellion in him that proved too exacting for his -fellows and seemed mere wantonness to men of casual -rectitudes. “Justice and Sin,” he would cry, “Property -and Virtue—incompatibilities! There can be no sin -in a world of justice, no property in a world of virtue!” -With an engaging extravagance and a certain clear-eyed -honesty of mind he had put his two and two together -and seemed then to rejoice, as in some topsy-turvy -dream, in having rendered unto Cæsar, as you -might say, the things that were due to Napoleon! But -this kind of thing could not pass unexpiated in a -world of men having an infinite regard for Property -and a pride in their traditions of Virtue and Justice. -They could indeed forgive him his sins but they could -not forgive him his compassions. So he had to go seek -for more melodious-minded men and fair unambiguous -women. But rebuffs can deal more deadly blows than -daggers; he became timid—a timidity not of fear but -of pride—and grew with the years into misanthropy, -susceptible to trivial griefs and despairs, a vessel of -emotion that emptied as easily as it filled, until he came<span class="pagenum">[168]</span> -at last to know that his griefs were half deliberate, his -despairs half unreal, and to live but for beauty—which -is tranquillity—to put her wooing hand upon him.</p> - -<p>Now, while the mouse hunts in the cupboard, one -fair recollection stirs in the man’s mind—of Cassia and -the harmony of their only meeting, Cassia who had -such rich red hair, and eyes, yes, her eyes were full of -starry enquiry like the eyes of mice. It was so long -ago that he had forgotten how he came to be in it, that -unaccustomed orbit of vain vivid things—a village -festival, all oranges and houp-là. He could not remember -how he came to be there, but at night, in the court -hall, he had danced with Cassia—fair and unambiguous -indeed!—who had come like the wind from among the -roses and swept into his heart.</p> - -<p>“It is easy to guess,” he had said to her, “what you -like most in the world.”</p> - -<p>She laughed; “To dance? Yes, and you...?”</p> - -<p>“To find a friend.”</p> - -<p>“I know, I know,” she cried, caressing him with -recognitions. “Ah, at times I quite love my friends—until -I begin to wonder how much they hate me!”</p> - -<p>He had loved at once that cool pale face, the abundance -of her strange hair as light as the autumn’s clustered -bronze, her lilac dress and all the sweetness about -her like a bush of lilies. How they had laughed at the -two old peasants whom they had overheard gabbling -of trifles like sickness and appetite!</p> - -<p>“There’s a lot of nature in a parsnip,” said one, a -fat person of the kind that swells grossly when stung by<span class="pagenum">[169]</span> -a bee, “a lot of nature when it’s young, but when it’s -old it’s like everything else.”</p> - -<p>“True it is.”</p> - -<p>“And I’m very fond of vegetables, yes, and I’m very -fond of bread.”</p> - -<p>“Come out with me,” whispered Cassia to Filip, and -they walked out in the blackness of midnight into what -must have been a garden.</p> - -<p>“Cool it is here,” she said, “and quiet, but too dark -even to see your face—can you see mine?”</p> - -<p>“The moon will not rise until after dawn,” said he, -“it will be white in the sky when the starlings whistle -in your chimney.”</p> - -<p>They walked silently and warily about until they -felt the chill of the air. A dull echo of the music came -to them through the walls, then stopped, and they heard -the bark of a fox away in the woods.</p> - -<p>“You are cold,” he whispered, touching her bare -neck with timid fingers. “Quite, quite cold,” drawing -his hand tenderly over the curves of her chin and face. -“Let us go in,” he said, moving with discretion from the -rapture he desired. “We will come out again,” said -Cassia.</p> - -<p>But within the room the ball was just at an end, the -musicians were packing up their instruments and the -dancers were flocking out and homewards, or to the -buffet which was on a platform at one end of the room. -The two old peasants were there, munching hugely.</p> - -<p>“I tell you,” said one of them, “there’s nothing in -the world for it but the grease of an owl’s liver. That’s<span class="pagenum">[170]</span> -it, that’s it! Take something on your stomach now, -just to offset the chill of the dawn!”</p> - -<p>Filip and Cassia were beside them, but there were so -many people crowding the platform that Filip had to -jump down. He stood then looking up adoringly at -Cassia, who had pulled a purple cloak around her.</p> - -<p>“For Filip, Filip, Filip,” she said, pushing the last -bite of her sandwich into his mouth, and pressing upon -him her glass of Loupiac. Quickly he drank it with -a great gesture, and, flinging the glass to the wall, took -Cassia into his arms, shouting: “I’ll carry you home, -the whole way home, yes, I’ll carry you!”</p> - -<p>“Put me down!” she cried, beating his head and pulling -his ears, as they passed among the departing -dancers. “Put me down, you wild thing!”</p> - -<p>Dark, dark was the lane outside, and the night an -obsidian net, into which he walked carrying the girl. -But her arms were looped around him, she discovered -paths for him, clinging more tightly as he staggered -against a wall, stumbled upon a gulley, or when her -sweet hair was caught in the boughs of a little lime -tree.</p> - -<p>“Do not loose me, Filip, will you, do not loose me,” -Cassia said, putting her lips against his temple.</p> - -<p>His brain seemed bursting, his heart rocked within -him, but he adored the rich grace of her limbs against -his breast. “Here it is,” she murmured, and he carried -her into a path that led to her home in a little lawned -garden where the smell of ripe apples upon the branches -and the heavy lustre of roses stole upon the air. Roses -and apples! Roses and apples! He carried her right<span class="pagenum">[171]</span> -into the porch before she slid down and stood close to -him with her hands still upon his shoulders. He could -breathe happily at the release, standing silent and looking -round at the sky sprayed with wondrous stars but -without a moon.</p> - -<p>“You are stronger than I thought you, stronger than -you look, you are really very strong,” she whispered, -nodding her head to him. Opening the buttons of his -coat she put her palm against his breast.</p> - -<p>“Oh how your heart does beat: does it beat truly—and -for whom?”</p> - -<p>He had seized her wrists in a little fury of love, crying: -“Little mother, little mother!”</p> - -<p>“What are you saying?” asked the girl, but before -he could continue there came a footstep sounding behind -the door, and the clack of a bolt....</p> - -<p>What was that? Was that really a bolt or was it ... was -it ... the snap of the trap? The man sat -up in his room intently listening, with nerves quivering -again, waiting for the trap to kill the little philosopher. -When he felt it was all over he reached guardedly in -the darkness for the lantern, turned on the beam, and -opened the door of the cupboard. Focussing the light -upon the trap he was amazed to see the mouse sitting on -its haunches before it, uncaught. Its head was bowed, -but its bead-like eyes were full of brightness, and it -sat blinking, it did not flee.</p> - -<p>“Shoosh!” said the man, but the mouse did not move. -“Why doesn’t it go? Shoosh!” he said again, and -suddenly the reason of the mouse’s strange behaviour -was made clear. The trap had not caught it completely,<span class="pagenum">[172]</span> -but it had broken off both its forefeet, and the thing -crouched there holding out its two bleeding stumps -humanly, too stricken to stir.</p> - -<p>Horror flooded the man, and conquering his repugnance -he plucked the mouse up quickly by the neck. -Immediately the little thing fastened its teeth in his -finger; the touch was no more than the slight prick -of a pin. The man’s impulse then exhausted itself. -What should he do with it? He put his hand behind -him, he dared not look, but there was nothing to be done -except kill it at once, quickly, quickly. Oh, how should -he do it? He bent towards the fire as if to drop the -mouse into its quenching glow; but he paused and shuddered, -he would hear its cries, he would have to listen. -Should he crush it with finger and thumb? A glance -towards the window decided him. He opened the sash -with one hand and flung the wounded mouse far into -the dark street. Closing the window with a crash he -sank into a chair, limp with pity too deep for tears.</p> - -<p>So he sat for two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes. -Anxiety and shame filled him with heat. He opened -the window again, and the freezing air poured in and -cooled him. Seizing his lantern he ran down the echoing -stairs, into the dark empty street, searching long -and vainly for the little philosopher until he had to -desist and return to his room, shivering, frozen to his -very bones.</p> - -<p>When he had recovered some warmth he took the -trap from its shelf. The two feet dropped into his -hand; he cast them into the fire. Then he once more -set the trap and put it back carefully into the cupboard.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">FELIX TINCLER</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span> -<h2 class="no-break">FELIX TINCLER</h2> -</div> - - -<p class="dropcap">The child was to have a birthday tomorrow -and was therefore not uneasy about being -late home from school this afternoon. He -had lost his pencil case; a hollow long round thing it -was, like a rolling-pin, only it had green and yellow -rings painted upon it. He kept his marbles in it and -so he was often in a trouble about his pencils. He -had not tried very much to find the pencil case because -the boys “deludered” him—that’s what his father -always said. He had asked Heber Gleed if he had seen -it—he had strange suspicions of that boy—but Heber -Gleed had sworn so earnestly that the greengrocer -opposite the school had picked it up, he had even “saw -him do it,” that Felix Tincler went into Mr. Gobbit’s -shop, and when the greengrocer lady appeared in -answer to the ring of the door bell he enquired politely -for his pencil case. She was tall and terrible with a -squint and, what was worse, a large velvety mole with -hairs sprouting from it. She immediately and with -inexplicable fury desired him to flee from her greengrocer -shop, with a threat of alternative castigation in -which a flatiron and a red-hot pick-axe were to figure -with unusual and unpleasant prominence. Well he had<span class="pagenum">[176]</span> -run out of Mr. Gobbit’s shop, and there was Heber -Gleed standing in the road giggling derisively at him. -Felix walked on alone, looking in the gutters and areas -for his pencil case, until he encountered another -friendly boy who took him to dig in a garden where -they grew castor-oil plants. When he went home it -was late; as he ran along under the high wall of the -orphanage that occupied one end of his street its harsh -peevish bell clanged out six notes. He scampered past -the great gateway under the dismal arch that always -filled him with uneasiness, he never passed it without -feeling the sad trouble that a prison might give. He -stepped into his own pleasant home, a little mute, and -a little dirty in appearance; but at six years of age in a -home so comfortable and kind the eve of the day that -is to turn you into seven is an occasion great enough -to yield an amnesty for peccadilloes. His father was -already in from work, he could hear him singing. He -gave his mother the sprigs he had picked from the -castor-oil plant and told her about the pencil case. -The meal was laid upon the table, and while mother -was gone into the kitchen to boil the water for tea he -sat down and tried to smooth out the stiff creases in -the white table cloth. His father was singing gaily -in the scullery as he washed and shaved:</p> - -<div class="center"> -<p class="displayinline"><em>High cockalorum,<br /> -Charlie ate the spinach....</em></p> -</div> - -<p>He ceased for a moment to give the razor a vigorous -stropping and then continued:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[177]</span></p> - -<div class="center"> -<p class="displayinline"><em>High cockalorum,<br /> -High cockalee....</em></p> -</div> - -<p>Felix knew that was not the conclusion of the song. -He listened, but for some moments all that followed -was the loud crepitation of a razor searching a stubborn -beard and the sigh of the kettle. Then a new vigour -seized the singer:</p> - -<div class="center"> -<p class="displayinline"><em>But mother brought the pandy down<br /> -And bate the gree....</em></p> -</div> - -<p>Again that rasping of chin briefly intervened, but the -conclusion of the cropping was soon denoted by the -strong rallentando of the singer:</p> - -<div class="center"> -<p class="displayinline"><em><span style="padding-left:6em">...dy image,</span><br /> -High cock-alorum,<br /> -High cock-a-lee.</em></p> -</div> - -<p>Mrs. Tincler brought in the teapot and her husband -followed her with his chin tightly shaven but blue, -crying with mock horror:</p> - -<p>“Faylix, my son! that is seven years old tomorrow! -look at him, Mary, the face of him and the hands of -him! I didn’t know there was a bog in this parish; -is it creeping in a bog you have been?”</p> - -<p>The boy did not blench at his father’s spurious austerity, -he knew he was the soul of kindness and fun.</p> - -<p>“Go wash yourself at the sink,” interposed his -mother. Kevin Tincler, taking his son by the hand, -continued with mocking admonishment: “All the fine<span class="pagenum">[178]</span> -copybooks of the world that you’ve filled up with that -blather about cleanliness and holiness, the up strokes -very thin and the down strokes very thick! What -was it, Mary, he has let it all out of his mind?”</p> - -<p>“Go and wash, Felix, and come quickly and have -your tea,” laughed Mary Tincler.</p> - -<p>“Ah, but what was it—in that grand book of yours?”</p> - -<p>The boy stood, in his short buff tunic, regarding his -father with shy amusement. The small round clear-skinned -face was lovely with its blushes of faint rose; -his eyes were big and blue, and his head was covered -with thick curling locks of rich brown hair.</p> - -<p>“Cleanliness comes next to godliness,” he replied.</p> - -<p>“Does it so, indeed?” exclaimed his father. “Then -you’re putting your godliness in a pretty low category!”</p> - -<p>“What nonsense,” said Mary Tincler as the boy -left them.</p> - -<p>The Irishman and his dark-eyed Saxon wife sat -down at the table waiting for their son.</p> - -<p>“There’s a bit of a randy in the Town Gardens tonight, -Mary—dancing on the green, fireworks! -When the boy is put to bed we’ll walk that way.”</p> - -<p>Mary expressed her pleasure but then declared she -could not leave the boy alone in his bed.</p> - -<p>“He’ll not hurt, Mary, he has no fear in him. Give -him the birthday gift before we go. Whisht, he’s coming!”</p> - -<p>The child, now clean and handsome, came to his -chair and looked up at his father sitting opposite to -him.</p> - -<p>“Holy Mother!” exclaimed the admiring parent, “it’s<span class="pagenum">[179]</span> -the neck of a swan he has. Faylix Tincler, may ye -live to be the father of a bishop!”</p> - -<p>After tea his father took him up on the down for an -hour. As they left their doorway a group of the tidy -but wretched orphans was marching back into their -seminary, little girls moving in double columns behind -a stiff-faced woman. They were all dressed alike -in garments of charity exact as pilchards. Grey capes, -worsted stockings, straw hats with blue bands round -them, and hard boots. The boys were coming in from -a different direction, but all of them, even the minutest, -were clad in corduroy trousers and short jackets high -throated like a gaoler’s. This identity of garment was -contrary to the will of God for he had certainly made -their pinched bodies diverse enough. Some were -short, some tall, dark, fair, some ugly, others handsome. -The sight of them made Felix unhappy, he -shrank into himself, until he and his father had slipped -through a gap in a hedge and were going up the hill -that stretched smoothly and easily almost from their -very door. The top of the down here was quiet and -lovely, but a great flank of it two miles away was scattered -over with tiny white figures playing very deliberately -at cricket. Pleasant it was up there in the calm -evening, and still bright, but the intervening valley was -full of grey ungracious houses, allotments, railway -arches, churches, graveyards, and schools. Worst of -all was the dull forbidding aspect of the Orphanage -down beyond the roof of their own house.</p> - -<p>They played with a ball and had some wrestling -matches until the declining day began to grow dim even<span class="pagenum">[180]</span> -on the hill and the fat jumbo clouds over the town were -turning pink. If those elephants fell on him—what -would they do? Why, they’d mix him up like ice-cream! -So said his father.</p> - -<p>“Do things ever fall out of the sky?”</p> - -<p>“Rain,” said Mr. Tincler.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know.”</p> - -<p>“Stars—maybe.”</p> - -<p>“Where do they go?”</p> - -<p>“O they drop on the hills but ye can never find ’em.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t Heaven ever?”</p> - -<p>“What, drop down! no,” said Mr. Tincler, “it don’t. -I have not heard of it doing that, but maybe it all just -stoops down sometimes, Faylix, until it’s no higher -than the crown of your hat. Let us be going home -now and ye’ll see something this night.”</p> - -<p>“What is it?”</p> - -<p>“Wait, Faylix, wait!”</p> - -<p>As they crossed from the hill Mary drawing down -the blinds signalled to them from the window.</p> - -<p>“Come along, Felix,” she cried, and the child ran -into the darkened room. Upon the table was set a -little church of purest whiteness. Kevin had bought -it from an Italian hawker. It had a wonderful tall -steeple and a cord that came through a hole and pulled -a bell inside. And that was not all; the church was -filled with light that was shining through a number of -tiny arched windows, blue, purple, green, violet, the -wonderful windows were everywhere. Felix was -silent with wonder; how could you get a light in a<span class="pagenum">[181]</span> -church that hadn’t got a door! then Mary lifted the -hollow building from the table; it had no floor, and -there was a night-light glowing in one of her patty-pans -filled with water. The church was taken up to bed -with him in the small chamber next his parents’ room -and set upon a bureau. Kevin and Mary then went -off to the “bit of devilment” in the town gardens. -Felix kept skipping from his bed, first to gaze at the -church, and then to lean out of the window in his nightshirt, -looking for the lamplighter who would come to -the street lamp outside. The house was the very last, -and the lamp was the very last lamp, on one of the -roads that led from the town and thence went poking -out into the steady furze-covered downs. And as the -lamp was the very last to be lit darkness was always -half-fallen by the time the old man arrived at his -journey’s end. He carried a pole with a brass tube at -one end. There were holes in the brass tube showing -gleams of light. The pole rested upon his shoulders -as he trudged along humming huskily.</p> - -<p>“Here he is,” cried Felix, leaning from the window -and waving a white arm. The dull road, empty of -traffic and dim as his mother’s pantry by day, curved -slightly, and away at the other end of the curve a jet -of light had sprung suddenly into the gloom like a -bright flower bursting its sheath; a black figure moved -along towards him under the Orphanage wall. Other -lamps blossomed with light and the lamplighter, -approaching the Tinclers’ lamp, thrust the end of his -pole into the lantern, his head meanwhile craning back<span class="pagenum">[182]</span> -like the head of a horse that has been pulled violently -backwards. He deftly turned the tap; with a tiny dull -explosion that sounded like a doormat being beaten -against the wall in the next street the lamp was lit and -the face of the old man sprang into vague brilliance, -for it was not yet utterly dark. Vague as the light -was, the neighbouring hills at once faded out of recognition -and became black bulks of oblivion.</p> - -<p>“Oi.... Oi....” cried the child, clapping his -hands. The old man’s features relaxed, he grunted in -relief, the pole slid down in his palm. As the end of -it struck the pavement a sharp knock he drew an old -pipe from his pocket and lit it quite easily although one -of his hands was deficient of a thumb and some -fingers. He was about to travel back into the sparkling -town when Felix called to him:</p> - -<p>“Soloman! Soloman!”</p> - -<p>“Goo an to yer bed, my little billycock, or you’ll -ketch a fever.”</p> - -<p>“No, but what’s this?” Felix was pointing to the -ground below him. The old man peered over the iron -railings into the front garden that had just sufficient -earth to cherish four deciduous bushes, two plants of -marigold, and some indeterminate herbs. In the dimness -of their shadows a glowworm beamed clearly.</p> - -<p>“That?” exclaimed he. “O s’dripped off the moon, -yas, right off, moon’s wastin’ away, you’ll see later on -if you’m watch out fer it, s’dripped off the moon, right -off.” Chuckling, he blew out the light at the end of -his pole, and went away, but turned at intervals to -wave his hand towards the sky, crying “Later on,<span class="pagenum">[183]</span> -right off!” and cackling genially until he came to a -tavern.</p> - -<p>The child stared at the glowworm and then surveyed -the sky, but the tardy moon was deep behind -the hills. He left the open window and climbed into -bed again. The house was empty, but he did not -mind, father and mother had gone to buy him another -birthday gift. He did not mind, the church glowed -in its corner on the bureau, the street lamp shined all -over the ceiling and a little bit upon the wall where the -splendid picture of Wexford Harbour was hanging. -It was not gloomy at all although the Orphanage bell -once sounded very piercingly. Sometimes people -would stroll by, but not often, and he would hear them -mumbling to each other. He would rather have a -Chinese lantern first, and next to that a little bagpipe, -and next to that a cockatoo with a yellow head, and -then a Chinese lantern, and then.... He awoke; -he thought he heard a heavy bang on the door as if -somebody had thrown a big stone. But when he -looked out of the window there was nobody to be seen. -The little moon drip was still lying in the dirt, the sky -was softly black, the stars were vivid, only the lamp -dazzled his eyes and he could not see any moon. But -as he yawned he saw just over the down a rich globe -of light moving very gradually towards him, swaying -and falling, falling in the still air. To the child’s -dazzled eyes the great globe, dropping towards him -as if it would crush the house, was shaped like an -elephant, a fat squat jumbo with a green trunk. -Then to his relief it fell suddenly from the sky right<span class="pagenum">[184]</span> -on to the down where he and father had played. The -light was extinguished and black night hid the deflated -fire-balloon.</p> - -<p>He scrambled back into bed again but how he -wished it was morning so that he could go out and -capture the old elephant—he knew he would find it! -When at last he slept he sank into a world of white -churches that waved their steeples like vast trunks, -and danced with elephants that had bellies full of -fire and hidden bells that clanged impetuously to a -courageous pull of each tail. He did not wake again -until morning was bright and birds were singing. It -was early but it was his birthday. There were no -noises in the street yet, and he could not hear his -father or mother moving about. He crawled silently -from his bed and dressed himself. The coloured -windows in the little white fane gleamed still, but it -looked a little dull now. He took the cake that -mother always left at his bedside and crept down the -stairs. There he put on his shoes and, munching the -cake, tiptoed to the front door. It was not bolted -but it was difficult for him to slip back the latch -quietly, and when at last it was done and he stood outside -upon the step he was doubly startled to hear a -loud rapping on the knocker of a house a few doors -away. He sidled quickly but warily to the corner of -the street, crushing the cake into his pocket, and then -peeped back. It was more terrible than he had anticipated! -A tall policeman stood outside that house -bawling to a woman with her hair in curl papers who -was lifting the sash of an upper window. Felix<span class="pagenum">[185]</span> -turned and ran through the gap in the hedge and onwards -up the hill. He did not wait; he thought he -heard the policeman calling out “Tincler!” and he ran -faster and faster, then slower and more slow as the -down steepened, until he was able to sink down -breathless behind a clump of the furze, out of sight and -out of hearing. The policeman did not appear to be -following him; he moved on up the hill and through -the soft smooth alleys of the furze until he reached -the top of the down, searching always for the white -elephant which he knew must be hidden close there -and nowhere else, although he had no clear idea in -his mind of the appearance of his mysterious quarry. -Vain search, the elephant was shy or cunning and -eluded him. Hungry at last and tired he sat down and -leaned against a large ant hill close beside the thick -and perfumed furze. Here he ate his cake and then -lolled, a little drowsy, looking at the few clouds in -the sky and listening to birds. A flock of rooks was -moving in straggling flight towards him, a wide flat -changing skein, like a curtain of crape that was being -pulled and stretched delicately by invisible fingers. -One of the rooks flapped just over him; it had a -small round hole right through the feathers of one -wing—what was that for? Felix was just falling to -sleep, it was so soft and comfortable there, when a tiny -noise, very tiny but sharp and mysterious, went “Ping!” -just by his ear, and something stung him lightly in -the neck. He knelt up, a little startled, but he peered -steadily under the furze. “Ping!” went something -again and stung him in the ball of the eye. It made<span class="pagenum">[186]</span> -him blink. He drew back; after staring silently at -the furze he said very softly “Come out!” Nothing -came; he beckoned with his forefinger and called -aloud with friendliness “Come on, come out!” At that -moment his nose was almost touching a brown dry -sheath of the furze bloom, and right before his eyes -the dried flower burst with the faint noise of “Ping!” -and he felt the shower of tiny black seeds shooting -against his cheek. At once he comprehended the -charming mystery of the furze’s dispersal of its seeds, -and he submitted himself to the fairylike bombardment -with great glee, forgetting even the elephant -until in one of the furze alleys he came in sight of a -heap of paper that fluttered a little heavily. He went -towards it; it was so large that he could not make out -its shape or meaning. It was a great white bag made -of paper, all crumpled and damp, with an arrangement -of wire where the hole was and some burned tow -fixed in it. But at last he was able to perceive the -green trunk, and it also had pink eyes! He had -found it and he was triumphant! There were words -in large black letters painted upon it which he could -not read, except one word which was <span class="smcap">CURE</span>. It was -an advertisement fire-balloon relating to a specific -for catarrh. He rolled the elephant together carefully, -and carrying the mass of it clasped in his two -arms he ran back along the hill chuckling to himself, -“I’m carrying the ole elephant.” Advancing down the -hill to his home he was precariously swathed in a -drapery of balloon paper. The door stood open; he -walked into the kitchen. No one was in the kitchen<span class="pagenum">[187]</span> -but there were sharp strange voices speaking in the -room above. He thought he must have come into the -wrong house but the strange noises frightened him into -silence; he stood quite still listening to them. He had -dropped the balloon and it unfolded upon the floor, -partly revealing the astounding advertisement of</p> - -<p class="center">PEASEGOOD’S PODOPHYLLIN</p> - -<p>The voices above were unravelling horror upon -horror. He knew by some divining instinct that -tragedy was happening to him, had indeed already enveloped -and crushed him. A mortar had exploded -at the fireworks display, killing and wounding people -that he knew.</p> - -<p>“She had a great hole of a wound in the soft part -of her thigh as you could put a cokernut in....”</p> - -<p>“God a mighty...!”</p> - -<p>“Died in five minutes, poor thing.”</p> - -<p>“And the husband ... they couldn’t...?”</p> - -<p>“No, couldn’t identify ... they could not identify -him ... only by some papers in his pocket.”</p> - -<p>“And he’d got a little bagpipe done up in a package ... for -their little boy....”</p> - -<p>“Never spoke a word....”</p> - -<p>“Never a word, poor creature.”</p> - -<p>“May Christ be good to ’em.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes,” they all said softly.</p> - -<p>The child walked quietly up the stairs to his -mother’s bedroom. Two policemen were there making -notes in their pocket books, their helmets lying on the -unused bed. There were also three or four friendly<span class="pagenum">[188]</span> -women neighbours. As he entered the room the -gossip ceased abruptly. One of the women gasped -“O Jesus!” and they seemed to huddle together eyeing -him as if he had stricken them with terror. With his -fingers still upon the handle of the door he looked up -at the tallest policeman and said:</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter?”</p> - -<p>The policeman did not reply immediately; he folded -up his notebook, but the woman who had gasped came -to him with a yearning cry and wrapped him in her -protesting arms with a thousand kisses.</p> - -<p>“Ye poor lamb, ye poor little orphan, whatever -’ull become of ye!”</p> - -<p>At that moment the bell of the Orphanage burst -into a peal of harsh impetuous clangour, and the -policemen picked up their helmets from the bed.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">THE ELIXIR OF YOUTH</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span> -<h2 class="no-break">THE ELIXIR OF YOUTH</h2> -</div> - - -<p class="dropcap">Since the earth began its twisting, or since very -soon after it began, there have been persons -on it who perceived more or less early in life -that it was seldom possible to get something in return -for quite nothing, and that even if you did the delicate -situation then arising was attended often with at least -as much personal danger as delight, and generally with -much more. Tom Toole knew all about it, so he was not -going to sell his own little white soul to the devil, -though he was sixty years of age and his soul, he expected, -was shrivelled a bit now like a dried fig. He -had no faith in Wishing Hats, or Magic Carpets, or -Herbs of Longevity, and he had not heard of the -Philosopher’s Stone, but he had a belief in an Elixir, -somewhere in the world, that would make you young -again. He had heard, too, of the Transmutation of -Metals; indeed, he had associated himself a great -many years ago with a Belfast brassfounder in the -production of certain sovereigns. The brassfounder -perished under the rigours of his subsequent incarceration -in gaol, but Tom Toole had been not at all uncomfortable -in the lunatic asylum to which a compassionate -retribution had assigned him. It was in<span class="pagenum">[192]</span> -the Asylum that he met the man from Kilsheelan who, -if you could believe him, really had got a “touch” -from the fairies and could turn things he had no wish -for into the things he would be wanting. The man -from Kilsheelan first discovered his gift, so he told Tom -Toole, when he caught a turtle dove one day and -changed it into a sheep. Then he turned the sheep -into a lather-pot just to make sure, and it was sure. -So he thought he would like to go to the land of the -Ever Young which is in the western country, but he -did not know how he could get there unless he went -in a balloon. Sure, he sat down in his cabin and -turned the shaving-pot into a fine balloon, but the -balloon was so large it burst down his house and he -was brought to the asylum. Well that was clear -enough to Tom Toole, and after he had got good -advice from the man from Kilsheelan it came into his -mind one day to slip out of the big gates of the -asylum, and, believe me, since then he had walked -the roads of Munster singing his ballads and -searching for something was difficult to find, and -that was his youth. For Tom Toole was growing -old, a little old creature he was growing, gay -enough and a bit of a philanderer still, but age is -certain and puts the black teeth in your mouth and the -whiteness of water on your hair.</p> - -<p>One time he met a strange little old quick-talking -man who came to him; he seemed to just bob up in -front of him from the road itself.</p> - -<p>“Ah, good day t’ye, and phwat part are ye fram?”</p> - -<p>“I’m from beyant,” said Tom Toole, nodding back<span class="pagenum">[193]</span> -to the Knockmealdown Mountains where the good -monks had lodged him for a night.</p> - -<p>“Ah, God deliver ye and indeed I don’t want to -know your business at all but ... but ... where -are ye going?”</p> - -<p>Between his words he kept spitting, in six or seven -little words there would be at least one spit. There was -yellow dust in the flaps of his ears and neat bushes of -hair in the holes. Cranks and wrinkles covered his -nose, and the skull of him was bare but there was a -good tuft on his chin. Tom Toole looked at him -straight and queer for he did not admire the fierce expression -of him, and there were smells of brimstone -on him like a farmer had been dipping his ewes, and -he almost expected to see a couple of horns growing -out of his brow.</p> - -<p>“It’s not meself does be knowing at all, good little -man,” said Tom Toole to him, “and I might go to the -fair of Cappoquin, or I might walk on to Dungarvan, -in the harbour now, to see will I buy a couple of -lobsters for me nice supper.”</p> - -<p>And he turned away to go off upon his road but -the little old man followed and kept by his side, telling -him of a misfortune he had endured; a chaise of -his, a little pony chaise, had been almost destroyed, -but the ruin was not so great for a kind lady of his -acquaintance, a lady of his own denomination, had -given him four pounds, one shilling and ninepence. -“Ah, not that I’m needing your money, ma’am, says I, -but damage is damage, I says, and it’s not right, I says, -that I should be at the harm of your coachman.” And<span class="pagenum">[194]</span> -there he was spitting and going on like a clock spilling -over its machinery when he unexpectedly grasped Tom -Toole by the hand, wished him Good day, and Good -luck, and that he might meet him again.</p> - -<p>Tom Toole walked on for an hour and came to a -cross roads, and there was the same old man sitting in -a neat little pony chaise smoking his pipe.</p> - -<p>“Where are ye going?” says he.</p> - -<p>“Dungarvan,” said Tom Toole.</p> - -<p>“Jump in then,” said the little old man, and they -jogged along the road conversing together; he was -sharp as an old goat.</p> - -<p>“What is your aspiration?” he said, and Tom Toole -told him.</p> - -<p>“That’s a good aspiration, indeed. I know what -you’re seeking, Tom Toole; let’s get on now and there’ll -be tidings in it.”</p> - -<p>When Tom Toole and the little old man entered the -public at Dungarvan there was a gang of strong young -fellows, mechanics and people to drive the traction -engines, for there was a circus in it. Getting their -fill of porter, they were, and the nice little white -loaves; very decent boys, but one of them a Scotchman -with a large unrejoicing face. And he had a hooky -nose with tussocks of hair in the nostrils and the two -tails of hair to his moustache like an old Chinese man. -Peter Mullane was telling a tale, and there was a sad -bit of a man from Bristol, with a sickness in his breast -and a cough that would heave out the side of a mountain. -Peter Mullane waited while Tom Toole and his -friend sat down and then he proceeded with his tale.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[195]</span></p> - -<p>“Away with ye! said the devil to Neal Carlin, and -away he was gone to the four corners of the world. -And when he came to the first corner he saw a place -where the rivers do be rushing, ...”</p> - -<p>“... the only darn thing that does rush then in this -country,” interrupted the Scotchman with a sneer.</p> - -<p>“Shut your ...” began the man from Bristol, but -he was taken with the cough, until his cheeks were -scarlet and his eyes, fixed angrily upon the Highland -man, were strained to teardrops. “Shut your ...” he -began it again, but he was rent by a large and vexing -spasm that rocked him, while his friends looked at -him and wondered would he be long for this world. -He recovered quite suddenly and exclaimed “... dam -face” to that Highland man. And then Peter Mullane -went on:</p> - -<p>“I am not given to thinking,” said he, “that the Lord -would put a country the like of Ireland in a wee corner -of the world and he wanting the nook of it for thistles -and the poor savages that devour them. Well, Neal -Carlin came to a place where the rivers do be rushing ...” -he paused invitingly—“and he saw a little -fairy creature with fine tresses of hair sitting under -a rowan tree.”</p> - -<p>“A rowan?” exclaimed the Highland man.</p> - -<p>Peter nodded.</p> - -<p>“A Scottish tree!” declared the other.</p> - -<p>“O shut your ...” began the little coughing man, -but again his conversation was broken, and by the -time he had recovered from his spasms the company -was mute.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[196]</span></p> - -<p>“If,” said Peter Mullane, “you’d wish to observe the -rowan in its pride and beauty just clap your eye upon -it in the Galtee Mountains. How would it thrive, I -ask you, in a place was stiff with granite and sloppy -with haggis? And what would ye do, my clever man, -what would ye do if ye met a sweet fairy -woman...?”</p> - -<p>“I’d kiss the Judy,” said the Highland man spitting -a great splash.</p> - -<p>Peter Mullane gazed at him for a minute or two -as if he did not love him very much, but then he continued:</p> - -<p>“Neal Carlin was attracted by her, she was a sweet -creature. Warm! says she to him with a friendly -tone. Begod, ma’am, it is a hot day, he said, and -thinks he, she is a likely person to give me my aspiration. -And sure enough when he sat down beside her -she asked him What is your aspiration, Neal Carlin? -and he said, saving your grace, ma’am, it is but to -enjoy the world and to be easy in it. That is a good -aspiration, she said, and she gave him some secret -advice. He went home to his farm, Neal Carlin did, -and he followed the advice, and in a month or two he -had grown very wealthy and things were easy with -him. But still he was not satisfied, he had a greedy -mind, and his farm looked a drifty little place that was -holding him down from big things. So he was not -satisfied though things were easy with him, and one -night before he went sleeping he made up his mind -‘It’s too small it is. I’ll go away from it now and a farm -twice as big I will have, three times as big, yes, I will<span class="pagenum">[197]</span> -have it ten times as big.’ He went sleeping on the -wildness of his avarice, and when he rolled off the -settle in the morning and stood up to stretch his limbs -he hit his head a wallop against the rafter. He cursed -it and had a kind of thought that the place had got -smaller. As he went from the door he struck his -brow against the lintel hard enough to beat down the -house. What is come to me, he roared in his pains; -and looking into his field there were his five cows and -his bullock no bigger than sheep—will ye believe that, -then—and his score of ewes no bigger than rabbits, -mind it now, and it was not all, for the very jackdaws -were no bigger than chafers and the neat little wood -was no more account than a grove of raspberry bushes. -Away he goes to the surgeon’s to have drops put in his -eyes for he feared the blindness was coming on him, but -on his return there was his bullock no bigger than -an old boot, and his cabin had wasted to the size of -a birdcage.”</p> - -<p>Peter leaned forward, for the boys were quiet, and -consumed a deal of porter. And the Highland man -asked him “Well, what happened?”</p> - -<p>“O he just went up to his cabin and kicked it over -the hedge as you might an old can, and then he -strolled off to another corner of the world, Neal Carlin -did, whistling ‘The Lanty Girl.’”</p> - -<p>Tom Toole’s friend spoke to Peter Mullane. “Did -ye say it was in the Galtee Mountains that the young -fellow met the lady?”</p> - -<p>“In the Galtee Mountains,” said Peter.</p> - -<p>“To the Galtee Mountains let us be going, Tom<span class="pagenum">[198]</span> -Toole,” cried the little old man, “Come on now, there’ll -be tidings in it!”</p> - -<p>So off they drove; and when they had driven a day -and slept a couple of nights they were there, and they -came to a place where the rivers do be rushing and -there was a rowan tree but no lady in it.</p> - -<p>“What will we do now, Tom Toole?” says the old -man.</p> - -<p>“We’ll not stint it,” says he, and they searched by -night and by day looking for a person would give them -their youth again. They sold the chaise for some -guineas and the pony for a few more, and they were -walking among the hills for a thousand days but never -a dust of fortune did they discover. Whenever they -asked a person to guide them they would be swearing -at them or they would jeer.</p> - -<p>“Well, may a good saint stretch your silly old skins -for ye!” said one.</p> - -<p>“Thinking of your graves and travelling to the priest -ye should be!” said another.</p> - -<p>“The nails of your boots will be rusty and rotted -searching for the like of that,” said a third.</p> - -<p>“It’s two quarts of black milk from a Kerry cow ye -want,” said one, “take a sup of that and you’ll be -young again!”</p> - -<p>“Of black milk!” said Tom Toole’s friend; “where -would we get that?”</p> - -<p>The person said he would get a pull of it in the -Comeragh Mountains, fifty miles away.</p> - -<p>“Tom Toole,” said the little old-man, “it’s what I’ll -do. I’ll walk on to the Comeragh Mountains to see<span class="pagenum">[199]</span> -what I will see, and do you go on searching here, for -to find that young girl would be better than forty -guineas’ worth of blather. And when I find the cow -I’ll take my fill of a cup and bring you to it.”</p> - -<p>So they agreed upon it and the old man went away -saying, “I’ll be a score of days, no more. Good day, -Tom Toole, good day!” much as an old crow might -shout it to a sweep.</p> - -<p>When he was gone Tom Toole journeyed about the -world and the day after he went walking to a fair. -Along the road the little ass carts were dribbling into -town from Fews and Carrigleena, when he saw a young -girl in a field trying to secure an ass.</p> - -<p>“Oi.... Oi...!” the girl was calling out to him -and he went in the field and helped her with the ass, -which was a devil to capture and it not wanting. She -thanked him; she was a sweet slip of a colleen with a -long fall of hair that the wind was easy with.</p> - -<p>“’Tis warm!” she said to Tom Toole. “Begod, -ma’am,” says he to her quickly, taking his cue, “it is a -hot day.”</p> - -<p>“Where are ye going, Tom Toole?” she asked him, -and he said, “I am seeking a little contrivance, ma’am, -that will let me enjoy the world and live easy in it. -That is my aspiration.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll give you what you are seeking,” and she gave -him a wee bottle with red juices in it.</p> - -<p>“Indeed, ma’am, I’m obliged to ye,” and he took -her by the hand and wished her Good day and Good -luck and that he might meet her again.</p> - -<p>When he got the elixir of youth he gave over his<span class="pagenum">[200]</span> -searching. He hid the bottle in his breast and went up -into the mountains as high as he could go to bide the -coming of the little old man. It is a queer thing but -Tom Toole had never heard the name of him—it would -be some foreign place in the corners of the world like -Portugal, that he had come from; no doubt. Up he -went; first there was rough pasture for bullocks, then -fern and burst furze, and then little but heather, and -great rocks strewn about like shells, and sour brown -streams coming from the bog. He wandered about -for twenty days and the old man did not return, and -for forty days he was still alone.</p> - -<p>“The divil receive him but I’ll die against his return!” -And Tom Toole pulled the wee bottle from his -breast. He was often minded to lift the cork and take -a sup of the elixir of youth. “But,” says he, “it -would be an unfriendly deed. Sure if I got me youth -sudden I’d be off to the wonders of the land and leave -that old fool roaming till the day of Judgment.” And -he would put the bottle away and wait for scores of -days until he was sick and sorry with grieving. A -thousand days he was on his lonely wanderings, soft -days as mellow as cream, and hard days when it is ribs -of iron itself you would want to stiffen you against -the crack of the blast. His skimpy hair grew down to -the lappet of his coat, very ugly he was, but the little -stranger sheep of the mountain were not daunted when -he moved by, and even the flibeens had the soft call -for him. A thousand days was in it and then he said:</p> - -<p>“Good evening to me good luck. I’ve had my enough -of this. Sure I’ll despise myself for ever more if I<span class="pagenum">[201]</span> -wait the tide of another drifting day. It’s tonight I’ll -sleep in a bed with a quilt of down over me heart, for -I’m going to be young again.”</p> - -<p>He crept down the mountain to a neat little town and -went in a room in the public to have a cup of porter. -A little forlorn old man also came in from the road and -sat down beside, and when they looked at each other -they each let out a groan. “Glory be!” says he. -“Glory be,” cried Tom Toole, “it’s the good little man -in the heel of it. Where in hell are ye from?”</p> - -<p>“From the mountains.”</p> - -<p>“And what fortune is in it, did ye find the farm?”</p> - -<p>“Divil a clod.”</p> - -<p>“Nor the Kerry cow?”</p> - -<p>“Divil a horn.”</p> - -<p>“Nor the good milk?”</p> - -<p>“Divil a quart, and I that dry I could be drunk with -the smell of it. Tom Toole, I have traipsed the high -and the deep of this realm and believe you me it is not -in it; the long and the wide of this realm ... not in -it.” He kept muttering sadly “not in it.”</p> - -<p>“Me good little man,” cried Tom Toole, “don’t be -havering like an old goat. Here it is! the fortune of -the world!”</p> - -<p>He took the wee bottle from his breast and shook it -before his eyes. “The drops that ’ull give ye your -youth as easy as shifting a shirt. Come, now. I’ve -waited the long days to share wid ye, for I couldn’t -bring myself to desart a comrade was ranging the back -of the wild regions for the likes of me. Many’s the -time I’ve lifted that cork, and thinks I: He’s gone,<span class="pagenum">[202]</span> -and soon I’ll be going, so here goes. Divil a go was -in it. I could not do it, not for silver and not for gold -and not for all the mad raging mackerel that sleep in -the sea.”</p> - -<p>The little old stranger took the wee bottle in his two -hands. He was but a quavering stick of a man now; -half dead he was, and his name it is Martin O’Moore.</p> - -<p>“Is it the tale stuff, Tom Toole?”</p> - -<p>“From herself I got it,” he said, and he let on to him -about that sweet-spoken young girl.</p> - -<p>“Did she give you the directions on the head of it?”</p> - -<p>“What directions is it?”</p> - -<p>“The many drops is a man to drink!”</p> - -<p>“No, but a good sup of it will do the little job.”</p> - -<p>“A good sup of it, Tom Toole, a good sup of it, -ay?” says he unsqueezing the cork. “The elixir of -youth, a good sup of it, says you, a good sup of it, a -great good good sup of it!”</p> - -<p>And sticking it into his mouth he drained the wee -bottle of its every red drop. He stood there looking -like a man in a fit, holding the empty bottle in his hand -until Tom Toole took it from him with reproaches in -his poor old eyes. But in a moment it was his very -eyes he thought were deceiving him; not an inch of -his skin but had the dew of fear on it, for the little old -man began to change his appearance quick like the sand -running through a glass, or as fast as the country -changes down under a flying swan.</p> - -<p>“Mother o’ God!” screamed Martin O’Moore, “it’s -too fast backward I’m growing, dizzy I am.”</p> - -<p>And indeed his bald head suddenly got the fine black<span class="pagenum">[203]</span> -hair grown upon it, the whiskers flew away from him -and his face was young. He began to wear a strange -old suit that suddenly got new, and he had grown down -through a handsome pair of trousers and into the little -knickerbockers of a boy before you could count a score. -And he had a bit of a cold just then, though he was out -of it in a twink, and he let a sneeze that burst a button -off his breeches, a little tin button, which was all that -ever was found of him. Smaller and smaller he fell -away, like the dust in an hour glass, till he was no -bigger than an acorn and then devil a bit of him was -left there at all.</p> - -<p>Tom Toole was frightened at the quiet and the emptiness -and he made to go away, but he turned in the -doorway and stretching out his arms to the empty -room he whispered “The greed! the avarice! May hell -pour all its buckets on your bad little heart! May....” -But just then he caught sight of the cup of porter that -Martin O’Moore had forgotten to drink, so he went -back to drink his enough and then went out into the -great roaring world where he walked from here to -there until one day he came right back to his old -Asylum. He had been away for twenty years, he was -an old man, very old indeed. And there was the man -from Kilsheelan digging potatoes just inside the gates -of the sunny garden.</p> - -<p>“’Tis warm!” said the traveller staring at him -through the railings, but the man from Kilsheelan only -said “Come in, Tom Toole, is it staying or going ye -are?”</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">THE CHERRY TREE</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span> -<h2 class="no-break">THE CHERRY TREE</h2> -</div> - - -<p class="dropcap">There was uproar somewhere among the -backyards of Australia Street. It was so -alarming that people at their midday meal sat -still and stared at one another. A fortnight before -murder had been done in the street, in broad daylight -with a chopper; people were nervous. An upper window -was thrown open and a startled and startling -head exposed.</p> - -<p>“It’s that young devil, Johnny Flynn, again! Killing -rats!” shouted Mrs. Knatchbole, shaking her fist -towards the Flynns’ backyard. Mrs. Knatchbole was -ugly; she had a goitred neck and a sharp skinny nose -with an orb shining at its end, constant as grief.</p> - -<p>“You wait, my boy, till your mother comes home, you -just wait!” invited this apparition, but Johnny was -gazing sickly at the body of a big rat slaughtered by -the dogs of his friend George. The uproar was caused -by the quarrelling of the dogs, possibly for honours, -but more probably, as is the custom of victors, for loot.</p> - -<p>“Bob down!” warned George, but Johnny bobbed up -to catch the full anger of those baleful Knatchbole -eyes. The urchin put his fingers promptly to his nose.</p> - -<p>“Look at that for eight years old!” screamed the lady.<span class="pagenum">[208]</span> -“Eight years old ’e is! As true as God’s my maker -I’ll....”</p> - -<p>The impending vow was stayed and blasted for ever, -Mrs. Knatchbole being taken with a fit of sneezing, -whereupon the boys uttered some derisive “Haw -haws!”</p> - -<p>So Mrs. Knatchbole met Mrs. Flynn that night as she -came from work, Mrs. Flynn being a widow who toiled -daily and dreadfully at a laundry and perforce left her -children, except for their school hours, to their own -devices. The encounter was an emphatic one and the -tired widow promised to admonish her boy.</p> - -<p>“But it’s all right, Mrs. Knatchbole, he’s going from -me in a week, to his uncle in London he is going, a -person of wealth, and he’ll be no annoyance to ye then. -I’m ashamed that he misbehaves but he’s no bad boy -really.”</p> - -<p>At home his mother’s remonstrances reduced Johnny -to repentance and silence; he felt base indeed; he -wanted to do something great and worthy at once to -offset it all; he wished he had got some money, he’d -have gone and bought her a bottle of stout—he knew -she liked stout.</p> - -<p>“Why do ye vex people so, Johnny?” asked Mrs. -Flynn wearily. “I work my fingers to the bone for ye, -week in and week out. Why can’t ye behave like -Pomony?”</p> - -<p>His sister was a year younger than he; her name -was Mona, which Johnny’s elegant mind had disliked. -One day he re-baptized her; Pomona she became and -Pomona she remained. The Flynns sat down to supper.<span class="pagenum">[209]</span> -“Never mind, mum,” said the boy, kissing her as he -passed, “talk to us about the cherry tree!” The cherry -tree, luxuriantly blooming, was the crown of the -mother’s memories of her youth and her father’s farm; -around the myth of its wonderful blossoms and fruit -she could weave garlands of romance, and to her own -mind as well as to the minds of her children it became -a heavenly symbol of her old lost home, grand with -acres and delightful with orchard and full pantry. -What wonder that in her humorous narration the joys -were multiplied and magnified until even Johnny was -obliged to intervene. “Look here, how many horses -<em>did</em> your father have, mum ... really, though?” Mrs. -Flynn became vague, cast a furtive glance at this son -of hers and then gulped with laughter until she recovered -her ground with “Ah, but there <em>was</em> a cherry -tree!” It was a grand supper—actually a polony and -some potatoes. Johnny knew this was because he was -going away. Ever since it was known that he was to go -to London they had been having something special like -this, or sheep’s trotters or a pig’s tail. Mother seemed -to grow kinder and kinder to him. He wished he had -some money, he would like to buy her a bottle of stout—he -knew she liked stout.</p> - -<p>Well, Johnny went away to live with his uncle, but -alas he was only two months in London before he was -returned to his mother and Pomony. Uncle was an -engine-driver who disclosed to his astounded nephew -a passion for gardening. This was incomprehensible to -Johnny Flynn. A great roaring boiling locomotive was -the grandest thing in the world. Johnny had rides on<span class="pagenum">[210]</span> -it, so he knew. And it was easy for him to imagine -that every gardener cherished in the darkness of his -disappointed soul an unavailing passion for a steam -engine, but how an engine-driver could immerse himself -in the mushiness of gardening was a baffling problem. -However, before he returned home he discovered -one important thing from his uncle’s hobby, and he sent -the information to his sister:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p><em>Dear Pomona—</em></p> - -<p><em>Uncle Harry has got a alotment and grow veggutables. -He says what makes the mold is worms. You -know we pulled all the worms out off our garden and -chukked them over Miss Natchbols wall. Well you -better get some more quick a lot ask George to help -you and I bring som seeds home when I comes next -week by the xcursion on Moms birthday</em></p> - -<p class="ir1"><em><span style="padding-right:2em">Your sincerely brother</span><br /> -John Flynn</em></p></div> - -<p>On mother’s birthday Pomona met him at the station. -She kissed him shyly and explained that mother was -going to have a half holiday to celebrate the double -occasion and would be home with them at dinner time.</p> - -<p>“Pomony, did you get them worms?”</p> - -<p>Pomona was inclined to evade the topic of worms -for the garden, but fortunately her brother’s enthusiasm -for another gardening project tempered the wind -of his indignation. When they reached home he unwrapped -two parcels he had brought with him; he explained -his scheme to his sister; he led her into the -garden. The Flynns’ backyard, mostly paved with<span class="pagenum">[211]</span> -bricks, was small and so the enclosing walls, truculently -capped by chips of glass, although too low for privacy -were yet too high for the growth of any cherishable -plant. Johnny had certainly once reared a magnificent -exhibit of two cowslips, but these had been mysteriously -destroyed by the Knatchbole cat. The dank -little enclosure was charged with sterility; nothing -flourished there except a lot of beetles and a dauntless -evergreen bush, as tall as Johnny, displaying a profusion -of thick shiny leaves that you could split on -your tongue and make squeakers with. Pomona -showed him how to do this and they then busied themselves -in the garden until the dinner siren warned them -that Mother would be coming home. They hurried -into the kitchen and Pomona quickly spread the cloth -and the plates of food upon the table, while Johnny -placed conspicuously in the centre, after laboriously -extracting the stopper with a fork and a hair-pin, a -bottle of stout brought from London. He had been -much impressed by numberless advertisements upon -the hoardings respecting this attractive beverage. The -children then ran off to meet their mother and they -all came home together with great hilarity. Mrs. -Flynn’s attention having been immediately drawn -to the sinister decoration of her dining table, Pomona -was requested to pour out a glass of the -nectar. Johnny handed this gravely to his parent, saying:</p> - -<p>“Many happy returns of the day, Mrs. Flynn!”</p> - -<p>“O, dear, dear!” gasped his mother merrily, “you -drink first!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[212]</span></p> - -<p>“Excuse me, no, Mrs. Flynn,” rejoined her son, -“many happy returns of the day!”</p> - -<p>When the toast had been honoured Pomona and -Johnny looked tremendously at each other.</p> - -<p>“Shall we?” exclaimed Pomona.</p> - -<p>“O yes,” decided Johnny; “come on, mum, in the -garden, something marvellous!”</p> - -<p>She followed her children into that dull little den, -and fortuitously the sun shone there for the occasion. -Behold, the dauntless evergreen bush had been -stripped of its leaves and upon its blossomless twigs -the children had hung numerous couples of ripe -cherries, white and red and black.</p> - -<p>“What do you think of it, mum?” cried the children, -snatching some of the fruit and pressing it into -her hands, “what do you think of it?”</p> - -<p>“Beautiful!” said the poor woman in a tremulous -voice. They stared silently at their mother until she -could bear it no longer. She turned and went sobbing -into the kitchen.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">CLORINDA WALKS IN HEAVEN</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span> -<h2 class="no-break">CLORINDA WALKS IN HEAVEN</h2> -</div> - - -<p class="dropcap">Miss Smith, Clorinda Smith, desired not to -die on a wet day. Her speculations upon -the possibilities of one’s demise were quite -ingenuous and had their mirth, but she shrunk from -that figure of her dim little soul—and it was only -dimly that she could figure it at all—approaching the -pathways of the Boundless in a damp, bedraggled condition.</p> - -<p>“But the rain couldn’t harm your spirit,” declared -her comforting friends.</p> - -<p>“Why not?” asked Clorinda, “if there is a ghost -of me, why not a ghost of the rain?”</p> - -<p>There were other aspects, delectable and illusive, -of this imagined apotheosis, but Clorinda always hoped—against -hope be it said—that it wouldn’t be wet. -On three evenings there had been a bow in the sky, -and on the day she died rain poured in fury. With -a golden key she unlocked the life out of her bosom -and moved away without fear, as if a great light had -sprung suddenly under her feet in a little dark place, -into a region where things became starkly real and one -seemed to live like the beams rolling on the tasselled -corn in windy acres. There was calmness in those<span class="pagenum">[216]</span> -translucent leagues and the undulation amid a vast implacable -light until she drifted, like a feather fallen -from an unguessed star, into a place which was extraordinarily -like the noon-day world, so green and -warm was its valley.</p> - -<p>A little combe lay between some low hills of turf, -and on a green bank beside a few large rocks was a -man mending a ladder of white new-shaven willow -studded with large brass nails, mending it with hard -knocks that sounded clearly. The horizon was terraced -only just beyond and above him, for the hills -rolled steeply up. Thin pads of wool hung in the -arch of the ultimate heavens, but towards the end of -the valley the horizon was crowded with clouds -torn and disbattled. Two cows, a cow of white and -a cow of tan, squatted where one low hill held up, as -it were, the sunken limits of the sky. There were -larks—in such places the lark sings for ever—and -thrushes—the wind vaguely active—seven white ducks—a -farm. Each nook was a flounce of blooms and -a bower for birds. Passing close to the man—he was -sad and preoccupied, dressed in a little blue tunic—she -touched his arm as if to enquire a direction, saying -“Jacob!”</p> - -<p>She did not know what she would have asked of -him, but he gave her no heed and she again called to -him “Jacob!” He did not seem even to see her, so -she went to the large white gates at the end of the -valley and approached a railway crossing. She had -to wait a long time for trains of a vastness and grandeur -were passing, passing without sound. Strange<span class="pagenum">[217]</span> -advertisements on the hoardings and curious direction -posts gathered some of her attention. She observed -that in every possible situation, on any available post -or stone, people had carved initials, sometimes a whole -name, often with a date, and Clorinda experienced -a doubt of the genuineness of some of these so remote -was the antiquity implied. At last, the trains were -all gone by, and as the barriers swung back she crossed -the permanent way.</p> - -<p>There was neither ambiguity in her movements nor -surprise in her apprehensions. She just crossed over -to a group of twenty or thirty men who moved to -welcome her. They were barelegged, sandal-footed, -lightly clad in beautiful loose tunics of peacock and -cinnamon, which bore not so much the significance -of colour as the quality of light; one of them rushed -eagerly forward, crying “Clorinda!” offering to her -a long coloured scarf. Strangely, as he came closer, -he grew less perceivable; Clorinda was aware in a -flash that she was viewing him by some other mechanism -than that of her two eyes. In a moment he utterly -disappeared and she felt herself wrapt into his being, -caressed with faint caresses, and troubled with dim -faded ecstasies and recognitions not wholly agreeable. -The other men stood grouped around them, glancing -with half-closed cynical eyes. Those who stood farthest -away were more clearly seen: in contiguity a -presence could only be divined, resting only—but how -admirably!—in the nurture of one’s mind.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” Clorinda asked: and all the voices -replied, “Yes, we know you!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[218]</span></p> - -<p>She felt herself released, and the figure of the man -rejoined the waiting group. “I was your husband -Reuben,” said the first man slowly, and Clorinda, who -had been a virgin throughout her short life, exclaimed -“Yes, yes, dear Reuben!” with momentary tremors -and a queer fugitive drift of doubt. She stood there, -a spook of comprehending being, and all the uncharted -reefs in the map of her mind were anxiously engaging -her. For a time she was absorbed by this new knowledge.</p> - -<p>Then another voice spoke:</p> - -<p>“I was your husband Raphael!”</p> - -<p>“I know, I know,” said Clorinda, turning to the -speaker, “we lived in Judea.”</p> - -<p>“And we dwelt in the valley of the Nile,” said another, -“in the years that are gone.”</p> - -<p>“And I too ... and I too ... and I too,” they all -clamoured, turning angrily upon themselves.</p> - -<p>Clorinda pulled the strange scarf from her shoulders -where Reuben had left it, and, handling it so, she -became aware of her many fugitive sojournings upon -the earth. It seemed that all of her past had become -knit in the scarf into a compact pattern of beauty -and ugliness of which she was entirely aware; all -its multiplexity being immediately resolved ... the -habitations with cave men, and the lesser human unit of -the lesser later day. Patagonian, Indian, Cossack, Polynesian, -Jew ... of such stuff the pattern was intimately -woven, and there were little plangent perfect moments -of the past that fell into order in the web. Clorinda -watching the great seabird with pink feet louting<span class="pagenum">[219]</span> -above the billows that roared upon Iceland, or Clorinda -hanging her girdle upon the ebony hooks of the -image of Tanteelee. She had taken voyaging drafts -upon the whole world, cataract jungle and desert, ingle -and pool and strand, ringing the changes upon a whole -gamut of masculine endeavour ... from a prophet -to a haberdasher. She could feel each little life lying -now as in a sarsnet of cameos upon her visible breasts: -thereby for these ... these <em>men</em> ... she was draped -in an eternal wonder. But she could not recall any -image of her past life in <em>these</em> realms, save only that -her scarf was given back to her on every return by -a man of these men.</p> - -<p>She could remember with humility her transient -passions for them all. None, not one, had ever given -her the measure of her own desire, a strong harsh flame -that fashioned and tempered its own body; nothing -but a nebulous glow that was riven into embers before -its beam had sweetened into pride. She had gone -from them childless always and much as a little child.</p> - -<p>From the crowd of quarrelling ghosts a new figure -detached itself, and in its approach it subdued that -vague vanishing which had been so perplexing to Clorinda. -Out of the crowd it slipped, and loomed lovingly -beside her, took up her thought and the interrogation -that came into her mind.</p> - -<p>“No,” it said gravely, “there is none greater than -these. The ultimate reaches of man’s mind produce -nothing but images of men.”</p> - -<p>“But,” said Clorinda, “do you mean that our ideals, -previsions of a vita-nuova....”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[220]</span></p> - -<p>“Just so,” it continued, “a mere intoxication. Even -here you cannot escape the singular dower of dreams ... you -can be drunk with dreams more easily and -more permanently than with drugs.”</p> - -<p>The group of husbands had ceased their quarrelling -to listen; Clorinda swept them with her glances -thoughtfully and doubtfully.</p> - -<p>“Could mankind be so poor,” the angel resumed, “as -poor as these, if it housed something greater than itself?”</p> - -<p>With a groan the group of outworn husbands drew -away. Clorinda turned to her companion with disappointment -and some dismay.... “I hardly understand -yet ... is this all then just....”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” it replies, “just the ghost of the world.”</p> - -<p>She turned unhappily and looked back across the -gateway into the fair combe with its cattle, its fine -grass, and the man working diligently therein. A sense -of bleak loneliness began to possess her; here, then, -was no difference save that there were no correlations, -no consequences; nothing had any effect except to -produce the ghost of a ghost. There was already in -the hinterland of her apprehensions a ghost, a ghost of -her new ghostship: she was to be followed by herself, -pursued by figures of her own ceaseless being!</p> - -<p>She looked at the one by her side: “Who are you?” -she asked, and at the question the group of men drew -again very close to them.</p> - -<p>“I am your unrealized desires,” it said: “Did you -think that the dignity of virginhood, rarely and deliberately<span class="pagenum">[221]</span> -chosen, could be so brief and barren? Why, that -pure idea was my own immaculate birth, and I was -born, the living mate of you.”</p> - -<p>The hungry-eyed men shouted with laughter.</p> - -<p>“Go away!” screamed Clorinda to them; “I do not -want you.”</p> - -<p>Although they went she could hear the echoes of -their sneering as she took the arm of her new lover -“Let us go,” she said, pointing to the man in the combe, -“and speak to him.” As they approached the man he -lifted his ladder hugely in the air and dashed it to the -ground so passionately that it broke.</p> - -<p>“Angry man! angry man!” mocked Clorinda. He -turned towards her fiercely. Clorinda began to fear -him; the muscles and knots of his limbs were uncouth -like the gnarl of old trees; she made a little pretence -of no more observing him.</p> - -<p>“Now what is it like,” said she jocularly to the angel -at her side, and speaking of her old home, “what is it -like now at Weston-super-Mare?”</p> - -<p>At that foolish question the man with the ladder -reached forth an ugly hand and twitched the scarf -from her shoulders.</p> - -<p>It cannot now be told to what remoteness she had -come, or on what roads her undirected feet had travelled -there, but certain it is that in that moment she -was gone.... Why, where, or how cannot be established: -whether she was swung in a blast of annihilation -into the uttermost gulfs, or withdrawn for her -beauty into that mysterious Nox, into some passionate<span class="pagenum">[222]</span> -communion with the eternal husbands, or into some -eternal combat with their passionate other wives ... -from our scrutiny at least she passed for ever.</p> - -<p>It is true there was a beautiful woman of this -name who lay for a month in a deep trance in the -West of England. On her recovery she was balladed -about in the newspapers and upon the halls for quite a -time, and indeed her notoriety brought requests for her -autograph from all parts of the world, and an offer -of marriage from a Quaker potato merchant. But -she tenderly refused him and became one of those -faded grey old maids who wear their virginity like -antiquated armour.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">CRAVEN ARMS</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span> -<h2 class="no-break">CRAVEN ARMS</h2> -</div> - - -<h3>I</h3> - -<p class="dropcap">The teacher of the sketching class at the evening -school was a man who had no great capacity -for enduring affection, but his handsome -appearance often inspired in women those emotions -which if not enduring are deep and disturbing. -His own passions may have been deep but they were -undeniably fickle.</p> - -<p>The townspeople were proud of their new school -for in addition to the daily curriculum evening instruction -of an advanced modern kind was given. Of -course all schools since the beginning of time have been -modern at some period of their existence but this one -was modern, so the vicar declared, because it was so -blessedly hygienic. It was built upon a high tree-arboured -slope overlooking the snug small town and on -its western side stared ambiguously at a free upland -country that was neither small nor snug. The seventeen -young women and the nine young men were definitely, -indeed articulately, inartistic, they were as unæsthetic -as pork pies, all except Julia Tern, a golden-haired -fine-complexioned fawn of a girl whose talent<span class="pagenum">[226]</span> -was already beyond the reach of any instruction the -teacher could give. He could not understand why she -continued to attend his classes.</p> - -<p>One evening she brought for his criticism a portrait -sketch of himself.</p> - -<p>“This is extraordinarily beautiful,” he murmured.</p> - -<p>“Yes?” said Julia.</p> - -<p>“I mean the execution, the presentation and so -on.”</p> - -<p>Julia did not reply. He stared at her picture of him, -a delicately modelled face with a suggestion of nobility, -an air that was kind as it was grave. The gravity -and nobility which so pleased him were perhaps the -effect of a high brow from which the long brown hair -flowed thinly back to curve in a tidy cluster at his -neck. Kindness beamed in the eyes and played around -the thin mouth, sharp nose, and positive chin. What -could have inspired her to make this idealization of -himself, for it was idealization in spite of its fidelity -and likeness? He knew he had little enough nobility -of character—too little to show so finely—and as for -that calm gravity of aspect, why gravity simply was -not in him. But there it was on paper, deliberate and -authentic, inscribed with his name—<em>David Masterman -1910</em>.</p> - -<p>“When, how did you come to do it?”</p> - -<p>“I just wanted it, you were a nice piece, I watched -you a good deal, and there you are!” She said it jauntily -but there was a pink flush in her cheeks.</p> - -<p>“It’s delicious,” he mused, “I envy you. I can’t -touch a decent head—not even yours. But why have<span class="pagenum">[227]</span> -you idealized me so?” He twitted her lightly about -the gravity and nobility.</p> - -<p>“But you are like that, you are. That’s how I see -you, at this moment.”</p> - -<p>She did not give him the drawing as he hoped she -would. He did not care to ask her for it—there was -delicious flattery in the thought that she treasured it so -much. Masterman was a rather solitary man of about -thirty, with a modest income which he supplemented -with the fees from these classes. He lived alone in a -wooden bungalow away out of the town and painted -numbers of landscapes, rather lifeless imitations, as he -knew, of other men’s masterpieces. They were -frequently sold.</p> - -<p>Sometimes on summer afternoons he would go into -woods or fields with a few of his pupils to sketch or -paint farmhouses, trees, clouds, stacks, and other rural -furniture. He was always hoping to sit alone with -Julia Tern but there were other loyal pupils who never -missed these occasions, among them the two Forrest -girls, Ianthe the younger, and Katharine, daughters of -a thriving contractor. Julia remained inscrutable, she -gave him no opportunities at all; he could never divine -her feelings or gather any response to his own, but -there could be no doubt of the feelings of the Forrest -girls—they quite certainly liked him enormously. Except -for that, they too, could have no reason for continuing -in his classes for both were as devoid of artistic -grace as an inkstand. They brought fruit or chocolate -to the classes and shared them with him. Their -attentions, their mutual attentions, were manifested in<span class="pagenum">[228]</span> -many ways, small but significant and kind. On these -occasions Julia’s eyes seemed to rest upon him with an -ironical gaze. It was absurd. He liked them well -enough and sometimes from his shy wooing of the -adorable but enigmatic Julia he would turn for solace -to Ianthe. Yet strangely enough it was Kate, the least -alluring to him of the three girls, who took him to -her melancholy heart.</p> - -<p>Ianthe was a little bud of womanhood, dark-haired -but light-headed, dressed in cream coloured clothes. -She was small and right and tight, without angularities -or rhythms, just one dumpy solid roundness. But she -had an astonishing vulgarity of speech, if not of mind, -that exacerbated him and in the dim corridors of his -imagination she did not linger, she scurried as it were -into doorways or upon twisting staircases or stood -briefly where a loop of light fell upon her hair, her -dusky face, her creamy clothes, and her delightful -rotundities. She had eyes of indiscretion and a mind -like a hive of bees, it had such a tiny opening and was -so full of a cloying content.</p> - -<p>One day he suddenly found himself alone with Ianthe -in a glade of larch trees which they had all been sketching. -They had loitered. He had been naming wild -flowers which Ianthe had picked for the purpose and -then thrown wantonly away. She spied a single plant -of hellebore growing in the dimness under the closely -planted saplings.</p> - -<p>“Don’t! don’t!” he cried. He kept her from plucking -it and they knelt down together to admire the white -virginal flower.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[229]</span></p> - -<p>His arm fell round Ianthe’s waist in a light casual -way. He scarcely realized its presumption. He had -not intended to do it; as far as that went he did not -particularly want to do it, but there his arm was. -Ianthe took no notice of the embrace and he felt foolish, -he could not retreat until they rose to walk on; -then Ianthe pressed close to his side until his arm once -more stole round her and they kissed.</p> - -<p>“Heavens above!” she said, “you do get away with it -quick.”</p> - -<p>“Life’s short, there’s no time to lose, I do as I’d -be done by.”</p> - -<p>“And there are so many of us! But glory,” said -the jolly girl, taking him to her bosom, “in for a penny, -in for a pound.”</p> - -<p>She did not pick any more flowers and soon they -were out of the wood decorously joining the others. -He imagined that Julia’s gaze was full of irony, and -the timid wonder in Kate’s eyes moved him uncomfortably. -There was something idiotic in the whole -affair.</p> - -<p>Until the end of the summer he met Ianthe often -enough in the little town or the city three miles off. -Her uncouthness still repelled him; sometimes he disliked -her completely, but she was always happy to be -with him, charmingly fond and gay with all the endearing -alertness of a pert bird.</p> - -<p>Her sister Kate was not just the mere female that -Ianthe was; at once sterner and softer her passions -were more strong but their defences stood solid as a -rock. In spite of her reserve she was always on the<span class="pagenum">[230]</span> -brink of her emotions and they, unhappily for her, -were often not transient, but enduring. She was -nearly thirty, still unwed. Her dark beauty, for she, -too, was fine, seemed to brood in melancholy over his -attentions to the other two women. She was quiet, -she had little to say, she seemed to stand and wait.</p> - -<p>One autumn night at the school after the pupils had -gone home he walked into the dim lobby for his hat and -coat. Kate Forrest was there. She stood with her -back to him adjusting her hat. She did not say a word -nor did he address her. They were almost touching -each other, there was a pleasant scent about her. In the -classroom behind the caretaker was walking about the -hollow-sounding floor, humming loudly as he clapped -down windows and mounted the six chairs to turn out -the six gas lamps. When the last light through the -glazed door was gone and the lobby was completely -dark Kate all at once turned to him, folded him in her -arms and held him to her breast for one startling -moment, then let him go, murmuring O ... O.... -It made him strangely happy. He pulled her back in -the gloom, whispering tender words. They walked -out of the hall into the dark road and stopped to confront -each other. The road was empty and dark except -for a line of gas lamps that gleamed piercingly -bright in the sharp air and on the polished surface of -the road that led back from the hill down past her -father’s villa. There were no lamps in the opposite -direction and the road groped its way out into the dark -country where he lived, a mile beyond the town. It<span class="pagenum">[231]</span> -was windy and some unseen trees behind a wall near -them swung and tossed with many pleasant sounds.</p> - -<p>“I will come a little way with you,” Kate said.</p> - -<p>“Yes, come a little way,” he whispered, pressing -her arm, “I’ll come back with you.”</p> - -<p>She took his arm and they turned towards the country. -He could think of nothing to say, he was utterly -subdued by his surprise; Kate was sad, even moody; -but at last she said slowly: “I am unlucky, I always -fall in love with men who can’t love me.”</p> - -<p>“O but I can and do, dear Kate,” he cried lightly. -“Love me, Kate, go on loving me, I’m not, well, I’m -not very wicked.”</p> - -<p>“No, no, you do not.” She shook her head mournfully: -after a few moments she added: “It’s Julia -Tern.”</p> - -<p>He was astounded. How could she have known -this, how could any one have known—even Julia herself? -It was queer that she did not refer to his friendship -with Ianthe; he thought that was much more -obvious than his love for Julia. In a mood that he -only half understood he began to deny her reproachful -charge.</p> - -<p>“Why, you must think me very fickle indeed. I -really love you, dear Kate, really you.” His arm was -around her neck, he smoothed her cheek fondly against -his own. She returned his caresses but he could -glimpse the melancholy doubt in her averted eyes.</p> - -<p>“We often talk of you, we often talk of you at night, -in bed, often.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[232]</span></p> - -<p>“What do you say about me—in bed? Who?”</p> - -<p>“Ianthe and me. She likes you.”</p> - -<p>“She likes me! What do you say about me—in -bed?”</p> - -<p>He hoped Ianthe had not been indiscreet but Kate -only said: “She doesn’t like you as I do—not like this.”</p> - -<p>Soon they began to walk back toward the town. He -smiled once when, as their footsteps clattered unregularly -upon the hard clean road, she skipped to adjust -the fall of her steps to his.</p> - -<p>“Do not come any further,” she begged as they -neared the street lamps. “It doesn’t matter, not at all, -what I’ve said to you. It will be all right. I shall -see you again.”</p> - -<p>Once more she put her arms around his neck murmuring: -“Goodnight, goodnight, goodnight.”</p> - -<p>He watched her tripping away. When he turned -homewards his mind was full of thoughts that were -only dubiously pleasant. It was all very sweet, surprisingly -sweet, but it left him uneasy. He managed -to light a cigarette, but the wind blew smoke into his -eyes, tore the charred end into fiery rags and tossed -the sparkles across his shoulder. If it had only been -Julia Tern!—or even Ianthe!—he would have been -wholly happy, but this was disturbing. Kate was good-looking -but these quietly passionate advances amazed -him. Why had he been so responsive to her? He -excused himself, it was quite simple; you could not -let a woman down, a loving woman like that, not at -once, a man should be kind. But what did she mean<span class="pagenum">[233]</span> -when she spoke of always falling in love with men -who did not like her? He tossed the cigarette away -and turned up the collar of his coat for the faintest -fall of warm rain blew against his face like a soft -beautiful net. He thrust his hands into his pockets and -walked sharply and forgettingly home.</p> - - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p>Two miles away from the little town was the big city -with tramways, electric light, factories, canals, and tens -of thousands of people, where a few nights later he -met Ianthe. Walking around and away from the happy -lighted streets they came out upon the bank of a canal -where darkness and loneliness were intensified by the -silent passage of black water whose current they could -divine but could not see. As they stepped warily -along the unguarded bank he embraced her. Even as -he did so he cursed himself for a fool to be so fond -of this wretched imp of a girl. In his heart he believed -he disliked her, but he was not sure. She was childish, -artful, luscious, stupid—this was no gesture for a man -with any standards. Silently clutching each other they -approached an iron bridge with lamps upon it and a -lighted factory beyond it. The softly-moving water -could now be seen—the lamps on the bridge let down -thick rods of light into its quiet depths and beyond the -arch the windows of the factory, inverted in the stream, -bloomed like baskets of fire with flaming fringes among -the eddies caused by the black pillars. A boy shuffled -across the bridge whistling a tune; there was the rumble<span class="pagenum">[234]</span> -and trot of a cab. Then all sounds melted into a quiet -without one wave of air. The unseen couple had -kissed, Ianthe was replying to him:</p> - -<p>“No, no, I like it, I like you.” She put her brow -against his breast. “I like you, I like you.”</p> - -<p>His embracing hand could feel the emotion streaming -within the girl.</p> - -<p>“Do you like me better than her?”</p> - -<p>“Than whom?” he asked.</p> - -<p>Ianthe was coy. “You know, you know.”</p> - -<p>Masterman’s feelings were a mixture of perturbation -and delight, delight at this manifestation of -jealousy of her sister which was an agreeable thing, -anyway, for it implied a real depth of regard for him; -but he was perturbed for he did not know what Kate -had told this sister of their last strange meeting. He -saluted her again exclaiming: “Never mind her. -This is our outing, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t like her,” Ianthe added naïvely, “she is so -awfully fond of you.”</p> - -<p>“O confound her,” he cried, and then, “you mustn’t -mind me saying that so, so sharply, you don’t mind, -do you?”</p> - -<p>Ianthe’s lips were soft and sweet. Sisters were -quite unscrupulous, Masterman had heard of such -cases before, but he had tenderness and a reluctance to -wound anybody’s susceptibility, let alone the feelings -of a woman who loved. He was an artist not only in -paint, but in sentiment, and it is possible that he excelled -in the less tangible medium.</p> - -<p>“It’s a little awkward,” he ventured. Ianthe didn’t<span class="pagenum">[235]</span> -understand, she didn’t understand that at all.</p> - -<p>“The difficulty, you see,” he said with the air of one -handling whimsically a question of perplexity that yet -yielded its amusement, “is ... is Kate.”</p> - -<p>“Kate?” said Ianthe.</p> - -<p>“She is so—so gone, so absolutely gone.”</p> - -<p>“Gone?”</p> - -<p>“Well, she’s really really in love, deeply, deeply,” -he said looking away anywhere but at her sister’s -eyes.</p> - -<p>“With Chris Halton, do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“Ho, ho!” he laughed, “Halton! Lord, no, with me, -with me, isn’t she?”</p> - -<p>“With you!”</p> - -<p>But Ianthe was quite positive even a little ironical -about that. “She is not, she rather dislikes you, Mr. -Prince Charming, so there. We speak of you sometimes -at night in bed—we sleep together. She knows -what <em>I</em> think of you but she’s quite, well she doesn’t -like you at all—she acts the heavy sister.”</p> - -<p>“O,” said Masterman, groping as it were for some -light in his darkness.</p> - -<p>“She—what do you think—she warns me against -you,” Ianthe continued.</p> - -<p>“Against me?”</p> - -<p>“As if I care. Do you?”</p> - -<p>“No, no. I don’t care.”</p> - -<p>They left the dark bank where they had been standing -and walked along to the bridge. Halfway up its -steps to the road he paused and asked: “Then who is it -that is so fond of me?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[236]</span></p> - -<p>“O you know, you know.” Ianthe nestled blissfully -in his arm again.</p> - -<p>“No, but who is it, I may be making another howler. -I thought you meant Kate, what did she warn you of, -I mean against me?”</p> - -<p>They were now in the streets again, walking towards -the tram centre. The shops were darkened and closed, -but the cinemas lavished their unwanted illuminations -on the street. There were no hurrying people, there -was just strolling ease; the policemen at corners were -chatting to other policemen now in private clothes. -The brilliant trams rumbled and clanged and stopped, -the saloons were full and musical.</p> - -<p>“What did she warn you against?” he repeated.</p> - -<p>“You,” chuckled Ianthe.</p> - -<p>“But what about? What has she got against me?”</p> - -<p>“Everything. You know, you know you do.” The -archness of Ianthe was objectively baffling but under -it all he read its significance, its invitation.</p> - -<p>He waited beside her for a tram but when it came -he pleaded a further engagement in the city. He had -no other engagement, he only wanted to be alone, to -sort out the things she had dangled before his mind, -so he boarded the next car and walked from the Tutsan -terminus to his cottage. Both girls were fond of him, -then—Ianthe’s candour left him no room for doubt—and -they were both lying to each other about him. -Well, he didn’t mind that, lies were a kind of protective -colouring, he lied himself whenever it was necessary, -or suited him. Not often, but truth was not always -possible to sensitive minded men. Why, after all,<span class="pagenum">[237]</span> -should sympathetic mendacity be a monopoly of polite -society? “But it’s also the trick of thieves and seducers, -David Masterman,” he muttered to himself. “I’m not -a thief, no, I’m not a thief. As for the other thing, -well, what is there against me—nothing, nothing at all.” -But a strange voiceless sigh seemed to echo from the -trees along the dark road, “Not as yet, not as yet.”</p> - -<p>He walked on more rapidly.</p> - -<p>Three women! There was no doubt about the -third, Ianthe had thought of Julia, too, just as Kate -had. What a fate for a misogamist! He felt like a -mouse being taken for a ride in a bath chair. He had -an invincible prejudice against marriage not as an institution -but because he was perfectly aware of his -incapacity for faithfulness. His emotions were deep -but unprolonged. Love was love, but marriage turned -love into the stone of Sisyphus. At the sound of the -marriage bell—a passing bell—earth at his feet would -burst into flame and the sky above would pour upon -him an unquenching profusion of tears. Love was a -fine and ennobling thing, but though he had the will to -love he knew beyond the possibility of doubt that his -own capacity for love was a meandering strengthless -thing. Even his loyalty to Julia Tern—and that had the -strongest flavour of any emotion that had ever beset -him, no matter how brief its term—even that was a -deviating zigzag loyalty. For he wanted to go on being -jolly and friendly with Ianthe if only Julia did -not get to know. With Kate, too, that tender melancholy -woman; she would be vastly unhappy. Who -was this Christopher whom Ianthe fondly imagined her<span class="pagenum">[238]</span> -sister to favour? Whoever he was, poor devil, he -would not thank D. M. for his intervention. But he -would drop all this; however had he, of all men, come -to be plunged so suddenly into a state of things for -which he had shown so little fancy in the past? Julia -would despise him, she would be sure to despise him, -sure to; and yet if he could only believe she would -not it would be pleasant to go on being friendly with -Ianthe pending ... pending what?</p> - -<p>Masterman was a very pliant man, but as things -shaped themselves for him he did not go a step further -with Ianthe, and it was not to Julia at all that he made -love.</p> - - -<h3>III</h3> - -<p>The amour, if it may be described as such, of David -Masterman and Kate Forrest took a course that was -devoid of ecstasy, whatever other qualities may have -illuminated their desires. It was an affair in which -the human intentions, which are intellectual, were on -both sides strong enough to subdue the efforts of passion, -which are instinctive, to rid itself of the customary -curbs; and to turn the clash of inhibitions wherein -the man proposes and the woman rejects into a conflict -not of ideal but of mere propriety. They were -like two negative atoms swinging in a medium from -which the positive flux was withdrawn; for them the -nebulæ did not “cohere into an orb.”</p> - -<p>Kate’s fine figure was not so fine as Julia Tern’s; -her dusky charms were excelled by those of Ianthe; -but her melancholy immobility, superficial as it was,<span class="pagenum">[239]</span> -had a suggestive emotional appeal that won Masterman -away from her rivals. Those sad eyes had but -to rest on his and their depths submerged him. Her -black hair had no special luxuriance, her stature no unusual -grace; the eyes were almost blue and the thin oval -face had always the flush of fine weather in it; but -her strong hands, though not as white as snow, were -paler than milk, their pallor was unnatural. Almost -without an effort she drew him away from the entangling -Ianthe, and even the image of Julia became -but a fair cloud seen in moonlight, delicate and desirable -but very far away; it would never return. Julia -had observed the relations between them—no discerning -eye could misread Kate’s passion—and she gave up -his class, a secession that had a deep significance for -him, and a grief that he could not conceal from Kate -though she was too wise to speak of it.</p> - -<p>But in spite of her poignant aspect—for it was in -that appearance she made such a powerful appeal to -Masterman; the way she would wait silently for him on -the outside of a crowd of the laughing chattering students -was touching—she was an egotist of extraordinary -type. She believed in herself and in her virtue -more strongly than she believed in him or their mutual -love. By midsummer, after months of wooing, she -knew that the man who so passionately moved her and -whose own love she no less powerfully engaged was a -man who would never marry, who had a morbid preposterous -horror of the domesticity and devotion that -was her conception of living bliss. “The hand that -rocks the cradle rocks the world,” he said. He, too,<span class="pagenum">[240]</span> -knew that the adored woman, for her part, could not -dream of a concession beyond the limits her virginal -modesty prescribed. He had argued and stormed and -swore that baffled love turns irrevocably to hatred. -She did not believe him, she even smiled. But he had -behaved grossly towards her, terrified her, and they -had parted in anger.</p> - -<p>He did not see her for many weeks. He was surprised -and dismayed that his misery was so profound. -He knew he had loved her, he had not doubted its -sincerity but he had doubted its depth. Then one September -evening she had come back to the class and -afterwards she had walked along the road with him -towards his home.</p> - -<p>“Come to my house,” he said, “you have never been -to see it.”</p> - -<p>She shook her head, it was getting dark, and they -walked on past his home further into the country. -The eve was late but it had come suddenly without the -deliberation of sunset or the tenuity of dusk. Each -tree was a hatful of the arriving blackness. They -stood by a white gate under an elm, but they had little -to say to each other.</p> - -<p>“Come to my house,” he urged again and again; she -shook her head. He was indignant at her distrust of -him. Perhaps she was right but he would never forgive -her. The sky was now darker than the road; -the sighing air was warm, with drifting spots of -rain.</p> - -<p>“Tell me,” she suddenly said taking his arm, “has -anybody else ever loved you like that.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[241]</span></p> - -<p>He prevaricated: “Like what?” He waited a long -time for her answer. She gave it steadily.</p> - -<p>“Like you want me to love you.”</p> - -<p>He, too, hesitated. He kissed her. He wanted to -tell her that it was not wise to pry.</p> - -<p>“Tell me,” she urged, “tell me.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he replied. He could not see her plainly in -the darkness, but he knew of the tears that fell from -her eyes.</p> - -<p>“How unreasonable,” he thought, “how stupid!” -He tried to tell the truth to her—the truth as he conceived -it—about his feelings towards her, and towards -those others, and about themselves as he perceived it.</p> - -<p>She was almost alarmed, certainly shocked.</p> - -<p>“But you don’t believe such things,” she almost -shivered, “I’m sure you don’t, it isn’t right, it is not -true.”</p> - -<p>“It may not be true,” he declared implacably, “but -I believe it. The real warrant for holding a belief -is not that it is true but that it satisfies you.” She -did not seem to understand that; she only answered -irrelevantly. “I’ll make it all up to you some day. -I shall not change, David, toward you. We have got -all our lives before us. I shan’t alter—will you?”</p> - -<p>“Not alter!” he began angrily but then subduedly -added with a grim irony that she did not gather in: -“No, I shall not alter.”</p> - -<p>She flung herself upon his breast murmuring: -“I’ll make it all up to you, some day.”</p> - -<p>He felt like a sick-minded man and was glad when -they parted. He went back to his cottage grumbling<span class="pagenum">[242]</span> -audibly to himself. Why could he not take this woman -with the loving and constant heart and wed her? He -did not know why, but he knew he never would do -that. She was fine to look upon but she had ideas -(if you could call them ideas) which he disliked. -Her instincts and propensities were all wrong, they -were antagonistic to him, just, as he felt, his -were antagonistic to her. What was true, though, -was her sorrow at what she called their misunderstandings -and what was profound, what was -almost convincing, was her assumption (which but -measured her own love for him) that he could not -cease to love <em>her</em>. How vain that was. He had not -loved any woman in the form she thought all love must -take. These were not misunderstandings, they were -just simply at opposite ends of a tilted beam; he the -sophisticated, and she the innocent beyond the reach -of his sophistries. But Good Lord, what did it all -matter? what did anything matter? He would not -see her again. He undressed, got into bed. He -thought of Julia, of Ianthe, of Kate. He had a dream -in which he lay in a shroud upon a white board and -was interrogated by a saint who carried a reporter’s -notebook and a fountain pen.</p> - -<p>“What is your desire, sick-minded man?” the saint -interrogated him, “what consummation would exalt -your languid eyes?”</p> - -<p>“I want the present not to be. It is neither grave -nor noble.”</p> - -<p>“Then that is your sickness. That mere negation is -at once your hope and end.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[243]</span></p> - -<p>“I do not know.”</p> - -<p>“If the present so derides the dignified past surely -your desire lies in a future incarnating beautiful old -historic dreams?”</p> - -<p>“I do not know.”</p> - -<p>“Ideals are not in the past. They do not exist in -any future. They rush on, and away, beyond your -immediate activities, beyond the horizons that are for -ever fixed, for ever charging down upon us.”</p> - -<p>“I do not know.”</p> - -<p>“What is it you do know?” asked the exasperated -saint, jerking his fountain pen to loosen its flow, and -Masterman replied like a lunatic:</p> - -<p>“I know that sealing wax is a pure and beautiful -material and you get such a lot of it for a penny.”</p> - -<p>He woke and slept no more. He cursed Kate, he -sneered at Julia, he anathematized Ianthe, until the -bright eye of morning began to gild once more their -broken images.</p> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h3 style="page-break-before:avoid">IV</h3> -</div> - -<p>Between the sisters there grew a feud; Ianthe behaved -evilly when she discovered their mutual infatuation -for their one lover. The echoes of that feud, at -first dim, but soon crashingly clear, reached him, -touched him and moved him on Kate’s behalf: all his -loyalty belonged to her. What did it matter if he -could not fathom his own desire, that Ianthe was still -his for a word, that Kate’s implacable virtue still offered -its deprecatory hand, when Kate herself came back to -him?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[244]</span></p> - -<p>They were to spend a picnic day together and she -went to him for breakfast. Her tremors of propriety -were fully exercised as she cycled along to his home; -she was too fond of him and he was more than fond -of her; but all her qualms were lulled. He did not -appear in any of the half-expected negligee, he was -beautifully and amusingly at home.</p> - -<p>“My dear!” he exclaimed in the enjoyment of her -presence; she stood staring at him as she removed her -wrap, the morn though bright being fresh and cool: -“Why do I never do you justice! Why do I half forget! -You are marvellously, irresistibly lovely. How -do you do it—or how do I fail so?”</p> - -<p>She could only answer him with blushes. His -bungalow had but two rooms, both on the ground -floor, one a studio and the other his living and sleeping -room. It was new, built of bricks and unpainted -boards. The interior walls were unplastered and undecorated -except for three small saucepans hung on -hooks, a shelf of dusty volumes, and nails, large rusty -nails, projecting everywhere, one holding a discarded -collar and a clothes brush. A tall flat cupboard contained -a narrow bed to be lowered for sleeping, huge -portmanteaus and holdalls reposed in a corner beside -a bureau, there was a big brass candle-pan on a chair -beside the round stove. While he prepared breakfast -the girl walked about the room, making shy replies -to his hilarious questions. It was warm in there but -to her tidy comfort-loving heart the room was disordered -and bare. She stood looking out of the window:<span class="pagenum">[245]</span> -the April air was bright but chilly, the grass in -thin tufts fluttered and shivered.</p> - -<p>“It is very nice,” she said to him once, “but it’s -strange and I feel that I ought not to be here.”</p> - -<p>“O, never mind where you ought to be,” he cried, -pouring out her coffee, “that’s where you are, you -suit the place, you brighten and adorn it, it’s your native -setting, Kate. No—I know exactly what is running -in your mind, you are going to ask if I suffer loneliness -here. Well, I don’t. A great art in life is the -capacity to extract a flavour from something not obviously -flavoured, but here it is all flavour. Come -and look at things.”</p> - -<p>He rose and led her from egg and toast to the world -outside. Long fields of pasture and thicket followed -a stream that followed other meadows, soon hidden -by the ambulating many folding valleys, and so on to -the sea, a hundred miles away. Into his open door -were blown, in their season, balls of thistledown, -crisp leaves, twigs and dried grass, the reminder, the -faint brush, of decay. The airs of wandering winds -came in, odours of herb, the fragrance of viewless -flowers. The land in some directions was now being -furrowed where corn was greenly to thrive, to wave -in glimmering gold, to lie in the stook, to pile on giant -stack. Horses were trailing a harrow across an upland -below the park, the wind was flapping the coats of the -drivers, the tails and manes of the horses, and heaving -gladly in trees. A boy fired the heaps of squitch -whose smoke wore across the land in dense deliberate<span class="pagenum">[246]</span> -wreaths. Sportsmen’s guns were sounding from the -hollow park.</p> - -<p>Kate followed Masterman around his cottage; he -seemed to be fascinated by the smoke, the wind, the -horses and men.</p> - -<p>“Breakfast will be cold.”</p> - -<p>How queerly he looked at her before he said: “Yes, -of course, breakfast will be getting cold,” and then -added, inconsequently: “Flowers are like men and -women, they either stare brazenly at the sun or they -bend humbly before it, but even the most modest desire -the sun.”</p> - -<p>When he spoke like that she always felt that the -words held a half-hidden, perhaps libidinous, meaning, -which she could not understand but only guess at; -and she was afraid of her guesses. Full of curious, -not to say absurd superstitions about herself and about -him, his strange oblique emotions startled her virginal -understanding; her desire was to be good, very very -good, but to be that she could not but suspect the impulses -of most other people, especially the impulses of -men. Well, perhaps she was right: the woman who -hasn’t any doubts must have many illusions.</p> - -<p>He carried a bag of lunch and they walked out into -the day. Soon the wind ceased, the brightness grew -warm, the warmth was coloured; clouds lolled in the -air like tufts of lilac. At the edge of a spinney they -sat down under a tree. Boughs of wood blown down -by the winter gales were now being hidden by the -spring grass. A rabbit, twenty yards away, sat up and -watched the couple, a fat grey creature. “Hoi,” cried<span class="pagenum">[247]</span> -Kate, and the rabbit hopped away. It could not run -very fast, it did not seem much afraid.</p> - -<p>“Is it wounded?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“No, I think it is a tame one, escaped from a farm or -a cottage near us, I expect.”</p> - -<p>Kate crept after it on hands and knees and it let -her approach. She offered it the core of an apple she -had just eaten. The rabbit took it and bit her finger. -Then Kate caught it by the ears. It squealed but Kate -held it to her bosom with delight, and the rabbit soon -rested there if not with delight at least with ease. It -was warm against her breast, it was delicious to feel -it there, to pull its ears and caress its fat flanks, but as -she was doing this she suddenly saw that its coat was -infested with fleas. She dropped the rabbit with a -scream of disgust and it rushed into the thicket.</p> - -<p>“Come here,” said Masterman to her, “let me search -you, this is distressing.”</p> - -<p>She knelt down before him and in spite of her wriggling -he reassured her.</p> - -<p>“It’s rather a nice blouse,” he said.</p> - -<p>“I don’t care for it. I shall not wear it again. I -shall sell it to someone or give it to them.”</p> - -<p>“I would love to take it from you stitch by stitch.”</p> - -<p>With an awkward movement of her arm she thrust -at his face, crying loudly, “No, how dare you speak to -me like that!”</p> - -<p>“Is it very daring?” For a moment he saw her -clenched hands, detestably bloodless, a symbol of -roused virtue: but at once her anger was gone, Kate -was contrite and tender. She touched his face with<span class="pagenum">[248]</span> -her white fingers softly as the settling of a moth. “O, -why did we come here?”</p> - -<p>He did not respond to her caresses, he was sullen, -they left the spinney; but as they walked she took his -arm murmuring: “Forgive me, I’ll make it all up to -you some day.”</p> - -<p>Coyness and cunning, passion and pride, were so -much at odds that later on they quarrelled again. Kate -knew that he would neither marry her nor let her go; -she could neither let him go nor keep him. This -figure of her distress amused him, he was callously -provoking, and her resentment flowed out at the touch -of his scorn. With Kate there seemed to be no intermediate -stages between docility and fury, or even -between love and hatred.</p> - -<p>“Why are you like this?” she cried, beating her pallid -hands together, “I have known you for so long.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, we have known each other for so long, but as -for really knowing you—no! I’m not a tame rabbit -to be fondled any more.”</p> - -<p>She stared for a moment, as if in recollection; then -burst into ironical laughter. He caught her roughly -in his arms but she beat him away.</p> - -<p>“O, go to ... go to....”</p> - -<p>“Hell?” he suggested.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she burst out tempestuously, “and stop there.”</p> - -<p>He was stunned by her unexpected violence. She -was coarse like Ianthe after all. But he said steadily:</p> - -<p>“I’m willing to go there if you will only keep out of -my way when I arrive.”</p> - -<p>Then he left her standing in a lane, he hurried and<span class="pagenum">[249]</span> -ran, clambering over stiles and brushing through -hedges, anything to get away from the detestable -creature. She did not follow him and they were soon -out of sight of each other. Anger and commination -swarmed to his lips, he branded her with frenzied -opprobrium and all the beastliness that was in him. -Nothing under heaven should ever persuade him to -approach the filthy beast again, the damned intolerable -pimp, never, never again, never.</p> - -<p>But he came to a bridge. On it he rested. And in -that bright air, that sylvan peace, his rancour fell away -from him, like sand from a glass, leaving him dumb -and blank at the meanness of his deed. He went back -to the lane as fast as he could go. She was not there. -Kate, Kate, my dove! But he could not find her.</p> - -<p>He was lost in the fields until he came at last upon a -road and a lonely tavern thereby. It had a painted sign; -a very smudgy fox, in an inexplicable attitude, destroying -a fowl that looked like a plum-pudding but was intended -to depict a snipe. At the stable door the tiniest -black kitten in the world was shaping with timid belligerency -at a young and fluffy goose who, ignoring it, -went on sipping ecstatically from a pan of water. On -the door were nailed, in two semicircles of decoration, -sixteen fox pads in various stages of decay, an entire -spiral shaving from the hoof of a horse, and some -chalk jottings:</p> - -<div class="center"> -<p class="displayinline">2 pads<br /> -3 cruppers<br /> -1 Bellyband<br /> -2 Set britchin</p> -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum">[250]</span></p> - -<p>The tavern was long and low and clean, its garden was -bare but trim. There was comfort, he rested, had tea, -and then in the bar his painful musings were broken -by a ragged unfortunate old pedlar from Huddersfield.</p> - -<p>“Born and bred in Slatterwick, it’s no lie ah’m speaking, -ah were born and bred Slatterwick, close to Arthur -Brinkley’s farm, his sister’s in Canady, John Orkroyd -took farm, Arthur’s dead.”</p> - -<p>“Humph!”</p> - -<p>“And buried. That iron bridge at Jackamon’s belong -to Daniel Cranmer. He’s dead.”</p> - -<p>“Humph!”</p> - -<p>“And buried. From th’ iron bridge it’s two miles -and a quarter to Herbert Oddy’s, that’s the ‘Bay -Horse,’ am ah right, at Shelmersdyke. Three miles -and three-quarters from dyke to the ‘Cock and Goat’ -at Shapley Fell, am ah right?”</p> - -<p>Masterman, never having been within a hundred -miles of Yorkshire, puffed at his cigarette and nodded -moodily, “I suppose so” or “Yes, yes.”</p> - -<p>“From Arthur Brinkley’s to th’ iron bridge is one -mile and a half and a bit, and from Arthur Brinkley’s -to Jury Cartright’s is just four mile. He’s dead, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“And buried. Is that wrong? Am ah speaking -wrong? No. It’s long step from yon, rough tramp -for an old man.”</p> - -<p>Masterman—after giving sixpence to the pedlar who, -uttering a benediction, pressed upon him a card of -shirt buttons—said “Good evening” and walked out<span class="pagenum">[251]</span> -to be alone upon the road with his once angry but now -penitent mind. Kate, poor dear Kate!</p> - -<p>The sun was low down lolling near the horizon but -there was an astonishing light upon the land. Cottage -windows were blocks of solid gold in this lateral -brilliance, shafts of shapely shade lay across leagues -of field, he could have counted every leaf among the -rumpled boskage of the sycamores. A vast fan of -indurated cloud, shell-like and pearly, was wavering over -the western sky but in the east were snowy rounded -masses like fabulous balloons. At a cross road he stood -by an old sign post, its pillar plastered with the faded -bill of a long-ago circus. He could read every word of -it but when he turned away he found everything had -grown dimmer. The wind arose, the forest began to -roar like a heaving beast. All verdurous things leaned -one way. A flock of starlings flew over him with one -movement and settled in a rolling elm. How lonely -it was. He took off his hat. His skull was fearfully -tender—he had dabbed it too hard with his hair brush -that morning. His hair was growing thin, like his -youth and his desires.</p> - -<p>What had become of Kate, where had she hidden? -What <em>would</em> become of her? He would never see her -again. He disliked everything about her, except her -self. Her clothes, her speech, her walk, the way she -carried her umbrella, her reticence that was nothing -if not conspicuous, her melancholy, her angular concrete -piety, her hands—in particular he disliked her -pale hands. She had a mind that was cultivated as perfunctorily<span class="pagenum">[252]</span> -as a kitchen garden, with ideas like roots or -beans, hostilities like briars, and a fence of prudery that -was as tough as hoops of galvanized iron. And yet he -loved her—or almost. He was ready to love her, he -wanted to, he wanted her; her deep but guarded devotion—it -was limited but it was devotion—compelled -this return from him. It was a passionate return. -He had tried to mould that devotion into a form that -could delight him—he had failed. He knew her now, -he could peer into her craven soul as one peers into -an empty bottle, with one eye. For her the opportunities -afforded by freedom were but the preludes to misadventure. -What a fool she was!</p> - -<p>When he reached home Kate stood in darkness at -the doorway of his house. He exclaimed with delight, -her surprising presence was the very centre of his desire, -he wanted to embrace her, loving her deeply, inexplicably -again; just in a moment.</p> - -<p>“I want my bike,” the girl said sullenly. “I left -it inside this morning.</p> - -<p>“Ah, your bicycle! Yes, you did.” He unlocked -the door. “Wait, there should be a candle, there should -be.”</p> - -<p>She stood in the doorway until he had lit it.</p> - -<p>“Come in, Kate,” he said, “let me give you something. -I think there is some milk, certainly I have -some cake, come in, Kate, or do you drink beer, I have -beer, come in, I’ll make you something hot.”</p> - -<p>But Kate only took her bicycle. “I ought to have -been home hours ago,” she said darkly, wheeling it -outside and lighting the lantern. He watched her<span class="pagenum">[253]</span> -silently as she dabbed the wick, the pallor of her hands -had never appeared so marked.</p> - -<p>“Let’s be kind to each other,” he said, detaining her, -“don’t go, dear Kate.”</p> - -<p>She pushed the bicycle out into the road.</p> - -<p>“Won’t you see me again?” he asked as she mounted -it.</p> - -<p>“I am always seeing you,” she called back, but her -meaning was dark to him.</p> - -<p>“Faugh! The devil! The fool!” He gurgled -anathemas as he returned to his cottage. “And me too! -What am I?”</p> - -<p>But no mortal man could ever love a woman of that -kind. She did not love him at all, had never loved -him. Then what was it she did love? Not her virtue—you -might as well be proud of the sole of your foot; -it was some sort of pride, perhaps the test of her virtue -that the conflict between them provoked, the contest -itself alone alluring her, not its aim and end. She was -never happier than when having led him on she -thwarted him. But she would find that his metal was -as tough as her own.</p> - -<p>Before going to bed he spent an hour in writing -very slowly a letter to Kate, telling her that he felt -they would not meet again, that their notions of love -were so unrelated, their standards so different. “My -morals are at least as high as yours though likely -enough you regard me as a rip. Let us recognize -then,” he wrote concludingly, “that we have come to -the end of the tether without once having put an ounce -of strain upon its delightful but never tense cord. But<span class="pagenum">[254]</span> -the effort to keep the affair down to the level at which -you seem satisfied has wearied me. The task of living -down to that assured me that for you the effort of -living up to mine would be consuming. I congratulate -you, my dear, on coming through scatheless and -that the only appropriate condolences are my own—for -myself.”</p> - -<p>It was rather pompous, he thought, but then she -wouldn’t notice that, let alone understand it. She -suffered not so much from an impediment of speech—how -could she when she spoke so little?—as from an -impediment of intellect, which was worse, much worse, -but not so noticeable being so common a failing. She -was, when all was said and done, just a fool. It was a -pity, for bodily she must indeed be a treasure. -What a pity! But she had never had any love for -him at all, only compassion and pity for his bad thoughts -about her; he had neither pity for her nor compunction—only -love. Dear, dear, dear. Blow out the candle, -lock the door, Good-night!</p> - - -<h3>V</h3> - -<p>He did not see her again for a long time. He would -have liked to have seen her, yes, just once more, but of -course he was glad, quite glad, that she did not wish to -risk it and drag from dim depths the old passion to -break again in those idiotic bubbles of propriety. She -did not answer his letter—he was amused. Then her -long silence vexed him, until vexation was merged in -alarm. She had gone away from Tutsan—of course—gone -away on family affairs—oh, naturally!—she might<span class="pagenum">[255]</span> -be gone for ever. But a real grief came upon him. -He had long mocked the girl, not only the girl but his -own vision of her; now she was gone his mind elaborated -her melancholy immobile figure into an image of -beauty. Her absence, her silence, left him wretched. -He heard of her from Ianthe who renewed her blandishments; -he was not unwilling to receive them now—he -hoped their intercourse might be reported to -Kate.</p> - -<p>After many months he did receive a letter from her. -It was a tender letter though ill-expressed, not very -wise or informative, but he could feel that the old affection -for him was still there, and he wrote her a long -reply in which penitence and passion and appeal were -mingled.</p> - -<p>“I know now, yes, I see it all now; solutions are so -easy when the proof of them is passed. We were cold -to each other, it was stupid, I should have <em>made</em> you love -me and it would have been well. I see it now. How -stupid, how unlucky; it turned me to anger and you to -sorrow. Now I can think only of you.”</p> - -<p>She made no further sign, not immediately, and he -grew dull again. His old disbelief in her returned. -Bah! she loved him no more than a suicide loved the -pond it dies in; she had used him for her senseless -egoism, tempting him and fooling him, wantonly, he -had not begun it, and she took a chaste pride in saving -herself from him. What was it the old writer had -said?</p> - -<p>“Chastity, by nature the gentlest of all affections—give -it but its head—’tis like a ramping and roaring<span class="pagenum">[256]</span> -lion.” Saving herself! Yes, she would save herself -for marriage.</p> - -<p>He even began to contemplate that outcome.</p> - -<p>Her delayed letter, when it came, announced that she -was coming home at once; he was to meet her train -in the morning after the morrow.</p> - -<p>It was a dull autumnal morning when he met her. -Her appearance was not less charming than he had -imagined it, though the charm was almost inarticulate -and there were one or two crude touches that momentarily -distressed him. But he met with a flush of emotion -all her glances of gaiety and love that were somehow, -vaguely, different—perhaps there was a shade less reserve. -They went to lunch in the city and at the end -of the meal he asked her:</p> - -<p>“Well, why have you come back again?”</p> - -<p>She looked at him intently: “Guess!”</p> - -<p>“I—well, no—perhaps—tell me, Kate, yourself.”</p> - -<p>“You are different now, you look different, David.”</p> - -<p>“Am I changed? Better or worse?”</p> - -<p>She did not reply and he continued:</p> - -<p>“You too, are changed. I can’t tell how it is, or -where, but you are.”</p> - -<p>“O, I am changed, much changed,” murmured Kate.</p> - -<p>“Have you been well?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“And happy?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Then how unwise of you to come back.”</p> - -<p>“I have come back,” said Kate, “to be happier. But -somehow you are different.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[257]</span></p> - -<p>“You are different, too. Shall we ever be happy -again?”</p> - -<p>“Why—why not!” said Kate.</p> - -<p>“Come on!” he cried hilariously, “let us make a day -of it, come along!”</p> - -<p>Out in the streets they wandered until rain began -to fall.</p> - -<p>“Come in here for a while.” They were passing a -roomy dull building, the museum, and they went in together. -It was a vast hollow-sounding flagstone place -that had a central brightness fading into dim recesses -and galleries of gloom. They examined a monster -skeleton of something like an elephant, three stuffed -apes, and a picture of the dodo. Kate stood before -them without interest or amusement, she just contemplated -them. What did she want with an elephant, an -ape, or a dodo? The glass exhibit cases were leaned -upon by them, the pieces of coal neatly arranged and -labelled were stared at besides the pieces of granite -or coloured rock with long names ending in <em>orite -dorite</em> and <em>sorite</em> and so on to the precious gems including -an imitation, as big as a bun, of a noted diamond. -They leaned over them, repeating the names on the -labels with the quintessence of vacuity. They hated -it. There were beetles and worms of horror, butterflies -of beauty, and birds that had been stuffed so long -that they seemed to be intoxicated; their beaks fitted -them as loosely as a drunkard’s hat, their glassy eyes -were pathetically vague. After ascending a flight of -stone steps David and Kate stooped for a long time over -a case of sea-anemones that had been reproduced in<span class="pagenum">[258]</span> -gelatine by a German with a fancy for such things. -From the railed balcony they could peer down into -the well of the fusty-smelling museum. No one else -was visiting it, they were alone with all things dead, -things that had died millions of years ago and were yet -simulating life. A footfall sounded so harsh in the -corridors, boomed with such clangour, that they took -slow diffident steps, almost tiptoeing, while Kate -scarcely spoke at all and he conversed in murmurs. -Whenever he coughed the whole place seemed to -shudder. In the recess, hidden from prying eyes, -David clasped her willing body in his arms. For once -she was unshrinking and returned his fervour. The -vastness, the emptiness, the deadness, worked upon -their feelings with intense magic.</p> - -<p>“Love me, David,” she murmured, and when they -moved away from the gelatinous sea-urchins she kept -both her arms clasped around him as they walked the -length of the empty corridors. He could not understand -her, he could not perceive her intimations, their -meaning was dark to him. She was so altered, this -was another Kate.</p> - -<p>“I have come home to make it all up to you,” she -repeated, and he scarcely dared to understand her.</p> - -<p>They approached a lecture-room; the door was -open, the room was empty, they went in and stood near -the platform. The place was arranged like a tiny -theatre, tiers of desks rising in half-circles on three -sides high up towards the ceiling. A small platform -with a lecturer’s desk confronted the rising tiers; on -the wall behind it a large white sheet; a magic lantern<span class="pagenum">[259]</span> -on a pedestal was near and a blackboard on an easel. -A pencil of white chalk lay broken on the floor. Behind -the easel was a piano, a new piano with a duster -on its lid. The room smelled of spilled acids. The -lovers’ steps upon the wooden floor echoed louder than -ever after their peregrinations upon the flagstones; -they were timid of the sound and stood still, close -together, silent. He touched her bosom and pressed -her to his heart, but all her surrender seemed strange -and nerveless. She was almost violently different; -he had liked her old rejections, they were fiery and -passionate. He scarce knew what to do, he understood -her less than ever now. Dressed as she was in thick -winter clothes it was like embracing a tree, it tired -him. She lay in his arms waiting, waiting, until he -felt almost stifled. Something like the smell of the -acids came from her fur necklet. He was glad when -she stood up, but she was looking at him intently. -To cover his uneasiness he went to the blackboard and -picking up a piece of the chalk he wrote the first inconsequent -words that came into his mind. Kate stood -where he had left her, staring at the board as he traced -the words upon it:</p> - -<p class="center"><em>We are but little children weak</em></p> - -<p>Laughing softly she strolled towards him.</p> - -<p>“What do you write that for? I know what it is.”</p> - -<p>“What it is! Well, what is it?”</p> - -<p>She took the chalk from his fingers.</p> - -<p>“It’s a hymn,” she went on, “it goes....”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[260]</span></p> - -<p>“A hymn!” he cried, “I did not know that.”</p> - -<p>Underneath the one he had written she was now writing -another line on the board.</p> - -<p class="center"><em>Nor born to any high estate.</em></p> - -<p>“Of course,” he whispered, “I remember it now. -I sang it as a child—at school—go on, go on.”</p> - -<p>But she had thereupon suddenly turned away, silent, -dropping her hands to her side. One of her old black -moods had seized her. He let her go and picking up -another fragment of chalk completed the verse.</p> - -<div class="center"> -<p class="displayinline"><em>What can we do for Jesu’s sake<br /> -Who is so high and good and great?</em></p> -</div> - -<p>She turned when he had finished and without a word -walked loudly to the piano, fetched the duster and -rubbed out the words they had written on the blackboard. -She was glaring angrily at him.</p> - -<p>“How absurd you are,”—he was annoyed—“let us -go out and get some tea.” He wandered off to the -door, but she did not follow. He stood just outside -gazing vacantly at a stuffed jay that had an indigo eye. -He looked into the room again. She was there still, -just as he had left her; her head bent, her hands hanging -clasped before her, the dimness covering and caressing -her—a figure full of sad thoughts. He ran to her -and crushed her in his arms again.</p> - -<p>“Kate, my lovely.”</p> - -<p>She was saying brokenly: “You know what I said.<span class="pagenum">[261]</span> -I’ve come to make it all up to you. I promised, didn’t -I?”</p> - -<p>Something shuddered in his very soul—too late, too -late, this was no love for him. The magic lantern -looked a stupid childish toy, the smell of the acid was -repulsive. Of all they had written upon the blackboard -one word dimly remained: <em>Jesu</em>.</p> - -<p>She stirred in his arms. “You are changed, David.”</p> - -<p>“Changed, yes, everything is changed.”</p> - -<p>“This is just like a theatre, like a play, as if we were -acting.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, as if we were acting. But we are not acting. -Let us go up and sit in the gallery.”</p> - -<p>They ascended the steps to the top ring of desks and -looked down to the tiny platform and the white curtain. -She sat fondling his hands, leaning against him.</p> - -<p>“Have you ever acted—you would do it so well?”</p> - -<p>“Why do you say that? Am I at all histrionic?”</p> - -<p>“Does that mean insincere? O no. But you are -the person one expects to be able to do anything.”</p> - -<p>“Nonsense! I’ve never acted. I suppose I could. -It isn’t difficult, you haven’t to be clever, only courageous. -I should think it very easy to be only an ordinary -actor, but I’m wrong, no doubt. I thought it was -easy to write—to write a play—until I tried. I once -engaged myself to write a little play for some students -to act. I had never done such a thing before and like -other idiots I thought I hadn’t ever done it simply because -I hadn’t ever wanted to. Heavens, how harassed -I was and how ashamed! I could not do it, I got no -further than the author’s speech.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[262]</span></p> - -<p>“Well that was something. Tell me it.”</p> - -<p>“It’s nothing to do with the play. It’s what the -author says to the audience when the play is finished.”</p> - -<p>She insisted on hearing it whatever it was. “O well,” -he said at last, “let’s do that properly, at least. I’ll go -down there and deliver it from the stage. You must -pretend that you are the enthusiastic audience. Come -and sit in the stalls.”</p> - -<p>They went down together.</p> - -<p>“Now imagine that this curtain goes up and I -suddenly appear.”</p> - -<p>Kate faintly clapped her hands. He stood upon the -platform facing her and taking off his hat, began:</p> - -<p>“Ladies and Gentlemen,</p> - -<p>“I am so deeply touched by the warmth of this reception, -this utterly undeserved appreciation, that—forgive -me—I have forgotten the speech I had carefully -prepared in anticipation of it. Let me meet my obligation -by telling you a story; I think it is true, I made -it up myself. Once upon a time there was a poor playwright—something -like me—who wrote a play—something -like this—and at the end of the performance the -audience, a remarkably handsome well-fed intellectual -audience—something like this—called him before the -curtain and demanded a speech. He protested that he -was unprepared and asked them to allow him to tell -them a story—something like this. Well, that, too, was -a remarkably handsome well-fed intellectual audience, -so they didn’t mind and he began again.—Once upon a -time a poor playwright—and was just about to repeat -the story I have already twice told you when<span class="pagenum">[263]</span> -suddenly, without a word of warning, without a sound, -without a compunction, the curtain swooped down and -chopped him clean in half.”</p> - -<p>Masterman made an elaborate obeisance and stepped -off the platform.</p> - -<p>“Is that all?” asked Kate.</p> - -<p>“That’s all.”</p> - -<p>At that moment a loud bell clanged throughout the -building signifying that the museum was about to -close.</p> - -<p>“Come along!” he cried, but Kate did not move, she -still sat in the stalls.</p> - -<p>“Don’t leave me, David, I want to hear the play?” -she said archly.</p> - -<p>“There <em>was</em> no play. There <em>is</em> no play. Come, or -we shall be locked in for the night.”</p> - -<p>She still sat on. He went to her and seized her -hands.</p> - -<p>“What does it matter!” she whispered, embracing -him. “I want to make it all up to you.”</p> - -<p>He was astoundingly moved. She was marvellously -changed. If she hadn’t the beauty of perfection she -had some of the perfection of beauty. He adored her.</p> - -<p>“But, no,” he said, “it won’t do, it really won’t. -Come, I have got to buy you something at once, a -ring with a diamond in it, as big as a bun, an engagement -ring, quickly, or the shops will be shut.”</p> - -<p>He dragged the stammering bewildered girl away, -down the stairs and into the street. The rain had -ceased, the sunset sky was bright and Masterman was -intensely happy.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">COTTON</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span> -<h2 class="no-break">COTTON</h2> -</div> - - -<p class="dropcap">At the place where the road from Carnaby -Down ends in the main western highway -that goes towards Bath there stands, or once -stood, a strongly built stone cottage confronting, on the -opposite side of the highroad, a large barn and some -cattle stalls. A man named Cotton lived with his wife -lonely in this place, their whole horizon bounded by -the hedges and fences of their farm. His Christian -name, for some unchristian reason, was Janifex, people -called him Jan, possibly because it rhymed with his -wife’s name, which was Ann. And Ann was a robust -managing woman of five and thirty, childless, full of -desolating cleanliness and kindly tyrannies, with no perceptions -that were not determined by her domestic ambition, -and no sympathies that could interfere with her -diurnal energies whatever they might be. Jan was a -mild husbandman, prematurely aged, with large teeth -and, since “forty winters had besieged his brow,” but -little hair. Sometimes one of the large teeth would -drop out, leaving terrible gaps when he opened his -mouth and turning his patient smile to a hideous leer. -These evacuations, which were never restored, began -with the death of Queen Victoria; throughout the reign<span class="pagenum">[268]</span> -of her successor great events were punctuated by similar -losses until at last Jan could masticate, in his staid -old manner, only in one overworked corner of his -mouth.</p> - -<p>He would rise of a morning throughout the moving -year at five of the clock; having eaten his bread and -drunk a mug of cocoa he would don a long white jacket -and cross the road diagonally to the gate at the eastern -corner of the sheds; these were capped by the bright -figure of a golden cockerel, voiceless but useful, -flaunting always to meet the challenge of the wind. -Sometimes in his deliberate way Jan would lift his -forlorn eyes in the direction of the road coming from -the east, but he never turned to the other direction as -that would have cost him a physical effort and bodily -flexion had ceased years and years ago. Do roads ever -run backward—leaps not forward the eye? As he -unloosed the gate of the yard his great dog would lift -its chained head from some sacks under a cart, and a -peacock would stalk from the belt of pines that partly -encircled the buildings. The man would greet them, -saying “O, ah!” In the rickyard he would pause to -release the fowls from their hut and watch them run to -the stubbles or spurn the chaff with their claws as they -ranged between the stacks. If the day were windy the -chaff would fall back in clouds upon their bustling -feathers, and that delighted his simple mind. It is -difficult to account for his joy in this thing for though -his heart was empty of cruelty it seemed to be empty -of everything else. Then he would pass into the stalls<span class="pagenum">[269]</span> -and with a rattle of can and churn the labour of the -day was begun.</p> - -<p>Thus he lived, with no temptations, and few desires -except perhaps for milk puddings, which for some -reason concealed in Ann’s thrifty bosom he was only -occasionally permitted to enjoy. Whenever his wife -thought kindly of him she would give him a piece -of silver and he would traipse a mile in the evening, a -mile along to the <em>Huntsman’s Cup</em>, and take a -tankard of beer. On his return he would tell Ann of -the things he had seen, the people he had met, and -other events of his journey.</p> - -<p>Once, in the time of spring, when buds were bursting -along the hedge coverts and birds of harmony and -swiftness had begun to roost in the wood, a blue-chinned -Spaniard came to lodge at the farm for a -few weeks. He was a labourer working at some particular -contract upon the estate adjoining the Cottons’ -holding, and he was accommodated with a bed and an -abundance of room in a clean loft behind the house. -With curious shoes upon his feet, blazing check -trousers fitting tightly upon his thighs, a wrapper of -pink silk around his neck, he was an astonishing figure -in that withdrawn corner of the world. When the season -chilled him a long black cloak with a hood for his -head added a further strangeness. Juan da Costa was -his name. He was slightly round-shouldered with an -uncongenial squint in his eyes; though he used but -few words of English his ways were beguiling; he -sang very blithely shrill Spanish songs, and had a<span class="pagenum">[270]</span> -pleasant courtesy of manner that presented a deal of -attraction to the couple, particularly Ann, whose casual -heart he reduced in a few hours to kindness, and in -a few days, inexplicably perhaps, to a still warmer -emotion—yes, even in the dull blankness of that mind -some ghostly star could glimmer. From the hour -of his arrival she was an altered woman although, with -primitive subtlety the transition from passivity to -passion was revealed only by one curious sign, and -that was the spirit of her kindness evoked for the -amiable Jan, who now fared mightily upon his favourite -dishes.</p> - -<p>Sometimes the Spaniard would follow Jan about the -farm. “Grande!” he would say, gesturing with his arm -to indicate the wide-rolling hills.</p> - -<p>“O, ah!” Jan would reply, “there’s a heap o’ land -in the open air.”</p> - -<p>The Spaniard does not understand. He asks: -“What?”</p> - -<p>“O, ah!” Jan would echo.</p> - -<p>But it was the cleanly buxom Ann to whom da Costa -devoted himself. He brought home daily, though not -ostensibly to her, a bunch of the primroses, a stick -of snowbudded sallow, or a sprig of hazel hung with -catkins, soft caressable things. He would hold the -hazel up before Ann’s uncomprehending gaze and strike -the lemon-coloured powder from the catkins on to the -expectant adjacent buds, minute things with stiff -female prongs, red like the eyes of the white rabbit -which Ann kept in the orchard hutch.</p> - -<p>One day Juan came home unexpectedly in mid-afternoon.<span class="pagenum">[271]</span> -It was a cold dry day and he wore his black -cloak and hood.</p> - -<p>“See,” he cried, walking up to Ann, who greeted -him with a smile; he held out to her a posy of white -violets tied up with some blades of thick grass. She -smelt them but said nothing. He pressed the violets -to his lips and again held them out, this time to her -lips. She took them from him and touched them with -the front of her bodice while he watched her with -delighted eyes.</p> - -<p>“You ... give ... me ... something ... for ... los -flores?”</p> - -<p>“Piece a cake!” said Ann, moving towards the pantry -door.</p> - -<p>“Ah ... cake...!”</p> - -<p>As she pulled open the door, still keeping a demure -eye upon him, the violets fell out and down upon the -floor, unseen by her. He rushed towards them with -a cry of pain and a torrent of his strange language; -picking them up he followed her into the pantry, a -narrow place almost surrounded by shelves with pots -of pickles and jam, plates, cups and jugs, a scrap of -meat upon a trencher, a white bowl with cob nuts and a -pair of iron crackers.</p> - -<p>“See ... lost!” he cried shrilly as she turned to him. -She was about to take them again when he stayed her -with a whimsical gesture.</p> - -<p>“Me ... me,” he said, and brushing her eyes with -their soft perfume he unfastened the top button of her -bodice while the woman stood motionless; then the -second button, then the third. He turned the corners<span class="pagenum">[272]</span> -inwards and tucked the flowers between her flesh and -underlinen. They stood eyeing one another, breathing -uneasily, but with a pretence of nonchalance. “Ah!” -he said suddenly; before she could stop him he had -seized a few nuts from the white bowl and holding -open her bodice where the flowers rested he dropped -the nuts into her warm bosom. “One ... two ... -three!”</p> - -<p>“Oh...!” screamed Ann mirthfully, shrinking -from their tickling, but immediately she checked her -laughter—she heard footsteps. Beating down the -grasping arms of the Spaniard she darted out of the -doorway and shut him in the pantry, just in time to -meet Jan coming into the kitchen howling for a chain -he required.</p> - -<p>“What d’ye want?” said Ann.</p> - -<p>“That chain for the well-head, gal, it’s hanging in -the pantry.” He moved to the door.</p> - -<p>“Tain’t,” said Ann barring his way. “It’s in -the barn. I took it there yesterday, on the oats -it is, you’ll find it, clear off with your dirty boots.” -She “hooshed” him off much as she “hooshed” the -hens out of the garden. Immediately he was gone -she pulled open the pantry door and was confronted by -the Spaniard holding a long clasp knife in his -raised hand. On seeing her he just smiled, threw down -the knife and took the bewildered woman into his arms.</p> - -<p>“Wait, wait,” she whispered, and breaking from him -she seized a chain from a hook and ran out after her -husband with it, holding up a finger of warning to the -Spaniard as she brushed past him. She came back<span class="pagenum">[273]</span> -panting, having made some sort of explanation to -Jan; entering the kitchen quietly she found the Spaniard’s -cloak lying upon the table; the door of the pantry -was shut and he had apparently gone back there to -await her. Ann moved on tiptoe round the table; -picking up the cloak she enveloped herself in it and -pulled the hood over her head. Having glanced with -caution through the front window to the farmyard, she -coughed and shuffled her feet on the flags. The door -of the pantry moved slowly open; the piercing ardour -of his glance did not abash her, but her curious appearance -in his cloak moved his shrill laughter. As he -approached her she seized his wrists and drew him to -the door that led into the orchard at the back of the -house; she opened it and pushed him out, saying, “Go -on, go on.” She then locked the door against him. -He walked up and down outside the window making -lewd signs to her. He dared not call out for fear of -attracting attention from the farmyard in front of the -house. He stood still, shivered, pretended in dumb -show that he was frozen. She stood at the window -in front of him and nestled provocatively in his cloak. -But when he put his lips against the pane he drew the -gleam of her languishing eyes closer and closer to meet -his kiss through the glass. Then she stood up, took -off the black cloak, and putting her hand into her bosom -brought out the three nuts, which she held up to him. -She stood there fronting the Spaniard enticingly, -dropped the nuts back into her bosom one ... two ... three ... and -then went and opened the door.</p> - -<p>In a few weeks the contract was finished, and one<span class="pagenum">[274]</span> -bright morning the Spaniard bade them each farewell. -Neither of them knew, so much was their intercourse -restricted, that he was about to depart, and Ann -watched him with perplexity and unhappiness in her -eyes.</p> - -<p>“Ah, you Cotton, good-bye I say, and you señora, -I say good-bye.”</p> - -<p>With a deep bow he kissed the rough hand of the -blushing country woman. “Bueno.” He turned with -his kit bag upon his shoulder, waved them an airy -hand and was gone.</p> - -<p>On the following Sunday Jan returned from a visit -in the evening and found the house empty; Ann was -out, an unusual thing, for their habits were fixed and -deliberate as the stars in the sky. The sunsetting light -was lying in meek patches on the kitchen wall, turning -the polished iron pans to the brightness of silver, -reddening the string of onions, and filling glass jars -with solid crystal. He had just sat down to remove -his heavy boots when Ann came in, not at all the workaday -Ann but dressed in her best clothes smelling of -scent and swishing her stiff linen.</p> - -<p>“Hullo,” said Jan, surprised at his wife’s pink face -and sparkling eyes, “bin church?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, church,” she replied, and sat down in her -finery. Her husband ambled about the room for various -purposes and did not notice her furtive dabbing -of her eyes with her handkerchief. Tears from Ann -were inconceivable.</p> - -<p>The year moved through its seasons, the lattermath -hay was duly mown, the corn stooked in rows; Ann was<span class="pagenum">[275]</span> -with child and the ridge of her stays was no longer -visible behind her plump shoulders. Fruit dropped -from the orchard boughs, the quince was gathered from -the wall, the hunt swept over the field. Christmas came -and went, and then a child was born to the Cottons, a -dusky boy, who was shortly christened Juan.</p> - -<p>“He was a kind chap, that man,” said Ann, “and -we’ve no relations to please, and it’s like your name—and -your name <em>is</em> outlandish!”</p> - -<p>Jan’s delight was now to sit and muse upon the child -as he had ever mused upon chickens, lambs and calves. -“O, ah!” he would say, popping a great finger into the -babe’s mouth, “O, ah!” But when, as occasionally -happened, the babe squinted at him, a singular fancy -would stir in his mind, only to slide away before it -could congeal into the likeness of suspicion.</p> - -<p>Snow, when it falls near spring upon those Cotswold -hills, falls deeply and the lot of the husbandmen is hard. -Sickness, when it comes, comes with a flail and in its -hobnailed boots. Contagious and baffling, disease had -stricken the district; in mid March great numbers of -the country folk were sick abed, hospitals were full, -and doctors were harried from one dawn to another. -Jan would come in of an evening and recite the calendar -of the day’s dooms gathered from men of the -adjacent fields.</p> - -<p>“Amos Green ’ave gone then, pore o’ chap.”</p> - -<p>“Pore Amos,” the pitying Ann would say, wrapping -her babe more warmly.</p> - -<p>“And Buttifant’s coachman.”</p> - -<p>“Dear, dear, what ’ull us all come to!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[276]</span></p> - -<p>“Mrs. Jocelyn was worse ’en bad this morning.”</p> - -<p>“Never, Jan! Us’ll miss ’er.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, and they do say Parson Rudwent won’t last out -the night.”</p> - -<p>“And whom’s to bury us then?” asked Ann.</p> - -<p>The invincible sickness came to the farm. Ann one -morning was weary, sickly, and could not rise from -her bed. Jan attended her in his clumsy way and kept -coming in from the snow to give her comforts and -food, but at eve she was in fever and lay helpless in -the bed with the child at her breast. Jan went off for -the doctor, not to the nearest village for he knew that -quest to be hopeless, but to a tiny town high on the -wolds two miles away. The moon, large, sharp and -round, blazed in the sky and its light sparkled upon -the rolling fields of snow; his boots were covered at -every muffled step; the wind sighed in the hedges and -he shook himself for warmth. He came to the hill -at last; halfway up was a church, its windows glowing -with warm-looking light and its bells pealing cheerfully. -He passed on and higher up met a priest trotting -downwards in black cassock and saintly hat, his -hands tucked into his wide sleeves, trotting to keep -himself warm and humming as he went. Jan asked a -direction of the priest, who gave it with many circumstances -of detail, and after he had parted he could -hear the priest’s voice call still further instructions -after him as long as he was in sight. “O, ah!” said -Jan each time, turning and waving his hand. But after -all his mission was a vain one; the doctor was out and -away, it was improbable that he would be able to<span class="pagenum">[277]</span> -come, and the simple man turned home with a dull -heart. When he reached the farm Ann was delirious -but still clung to the dusky child, sleeping snugly at -her bosom. The man sat up all night before the fire -waiting vainly for the doctor, and the next day he -himself became ill. And strangely enough as he -worked among his beasts the crude suspicion in his -mind about the child took shape and worked without -resistance until he came to suspect and by easy degrees -to apprehend fully the time and occasion of Ann’s -duplicity.</p> - -<p>“Nasty dirty filthy thing!” he murmured from his -sick mind. He was brushing the dried mud from the -hocks of an old bay horse, but it was not of his horse -he was thinking. Later he stood in the rickyard and -stared across the road at the light in their bedroom. -Throwing down the fork with which he had been tossing -beds of straw he shook his fist at the window and -cried out: “I hate ’er, I does, nasty dirty filthy thing!”</p> - -<p>When he went into the house he replenished the fire -but found he could take no further care for himself -or the sick woman; he just stupidly doffed his clothes -and in utter misery and recklessness stretched himself -in the bed with Ann. He lay for a long while with aching -brows, a snake-strangled feeling in every limb, an -unquenchable drouth in his throat, and his wife’s body -burning beside him. Outside the night was bright, -beautiful and still sparkling with frost; quiet, as if the -wind had been wedged tightly in some far corner of the -sky, except for a cracked insulator on the telegraph -pole just near the window, that rattled and hummed<span class="pagenum">[278]</span> -with monstrous uncare. That, and the ticking of the -clock! The lighted candle fell from its sconce on the -mantelpiece; he let it remain and it flickered out. The -glow from the coals was thick upon the ceiling and -whitened the brown ware of the teapot on the untidy -hearth. Falling asleep at last he began dreaming at -once, so it seemed, of the shrill cry of lambs hailing -him out of wild snow-covered valleys, so wild and prolonged -were the cries that they woke him, and he knew -himself to be ill, very ill indeed. The child was wailing -piteously, the room was in darkness, the fire out, -but the man did not stir, he could not care, what could -he do with that flame behind his eyes and the misery of -death consuming him? But the child’s cries were unceasing -and moved even his numbed mind to some -effort. “Ann!” he gasped. The poor wife did not -reply. “Ann!” He put his hand out to nudge her; in -one instant the blood froze in his veins and then boiled -again. Ann was cold, her body hard as a wall, dead ... dead. -Stupor returned upon him; the child, unhelped, -cried on, clasped to that frozen breast until the -man again roused himself to effort. Putting his great -hands across the dead wife he dragged the child from -her arms into the warmth beside him, gasping as he did -so, “Nasty ... dirty ... thing.” It exhausted him -but the child was still unpacified and again he roused -himself and felt for a biscuit on the table beside the -bed. He crushed a piece in his mouth and putting the -soft pap upon his finger fed thus the hungry child until -it was stilled. By now the white counterpane spread -vast like a sea, heaving and rocking with a million<span class="pagenum">[279]</span> -waves, the framework of the bedstead moving like the -tackle of tossed ships. He knew there was only one -way to stem that sickening movement. “I hate ’er, I -does,” rose again upon his lips, and drawing up his -legs that were at once chilly and streaming with sweat, -full of his new hatred he urged with all his might his -wife’s cold body to the edge of the bed and withdrew -the bedclothes. Dead Ann toppled and slid from him -and her body clumped upon the floor with a fall that -shook the room; the candle fell from the mantelpiece, -bounced from the teapot and rolled stupidly along the -bare boards under the bed. “Hate ’er!” groaned the -man; he hung swaying above the woman and tried to -spit upon her. He sank back again to the pillow and -the child, murmuring “O, ah!” and gathering it clumsily -to his breast. He became tranquil then, and the hollow-sounding -clock beat a dull rhythm into his mind, -until that sound faded out with all light and sound, and -Jan fell into sleep and died, with the dusky child -clasped in his hard dead arms.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">A BROADSHEET BALLAD</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span> -<h2 class="no-break">A BROADSHEET BALLAD</h2> -</div> - - -<p class="dropcap">At noon the tiler and the mason stepped down -from the roof of the village church which -they were repairing and crossed over the road -to the tavern to eat their dinner. It had been a nice -little morning, but there were clouds massing in the -south; Sam the tiler remarked that it looked like thunder. -The two men sat in the dim little taproom eating, -Bob the mason at the same time reading from a newspaper -an account of a trial for murder.</p> - -<p>“I dunno what thunder looks like,” Bob said, “but -I reckon this chap is going to be hung, though I can’t -rightly say for why. To my thinking he didn’t do it at -all: but murder’s a bloody thing and someone ought to -suffer for it.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think,” spluttered Sam as he impaled a flat -piece of beetroot on the point of a pocket-knife and -prepared to contemplate it with patience until his -stuffed mouth was ready to receive it, “he ought to -be hung.”</p> - -<p>“There can be no other end for him though, with -a mob of lawyers like that, and a judge like that, and -a jury too ... why the rope’s half round his neck -this minute; he’ll be in glory within a month, they<span class="pagenum">[284]</span> -only have three Sundays, you know, between the -sentence and the execution. Well, hark at that rain -then!”</p> - -<p>A shower that began as a playful sprinkle grew to -a powerful steady summer downpour. It splashed -in the open window and the dim room grew more dim -and cool.</p> - -<p>“Hanging’s a dreadful thing, continued Sam, and -’tis often unjust I’ve no doubt, I’ve no doubt at all.”</p> - -<p>“Unjust! I tell you ... at the majority of trials -those who give their evidence mostly knows nothing -at all about the matter; them as knows a lot—they -stays at home and don’t budge, not likely!”</p> - -<p>“No? But why?”</p> - -<p>“Why? They has their reasons. I know that, I -knows it for truth ... hark at that rain, it’s made the -room feel cold.”</p> - -<p>They watched the downfall in complete silence for -some moments.</p> - -<p>“Hanging’s a dreadful thing,” Sam at length repeated, -with almost a sigh.</p> - -<p>“I can tell you a tale about that, Sam, in a minute,” -said the other. He began to fill his pipe from Sam’s -brass box which was labelled cough lozenges and -smelled of paregoric.</p> - -<p>“Just about ten years ago I was working over in -Cotswold country. I remember I’d been in to Gloucester -one Saturday afternoon and it rained. I was -jogging along home in a carrier’s van; I never seen it -rain like that afore, no, nor ever afterwards, not like -that. B-r-r-r-r! it came down ... bashing! And<span class="pagenum">[285]</span> -we come to a cross roads where there’s a public -house called <em>The Wheel of Fortune</em>, very lonely and -onsheltered it is just there. I see’d a young woman -standing in the porch awaiting us, but the carrier was -wet and tired and angry or something and wouldn’t -stop. ‘No room’—he bawled out to her—‘full up, -can’t take you!’ and he drove on. ‘For the love o’ -God. Mate,’—I says—‘pull up and take that young -creature! She’s ... she’s ... can’t you see!’ ‘But -I’m all behind as ’tis’—he shouts to me—‘you know -your gospel, don’t you: time and tide wait for no man?’ -‘Ah, but dammit all, they always call for a feller’—I -says. With that he turned round and we drove back -for the girl. She clumb in and sat on my knees; I -squat on a tub of vinegar, there was nowhere else and -I was right and all, she was going on for a birth. Well, -the old van rattled away for six or seven miles; whenever -it stopped you could hear the rain clattering on the -tarpaulin, or sounding outside on the grass as if it was -breathing hard, and the old horse steamed and shivered -with it. I had knowed the girl once in a friendly way, -a pretty young creature, but now she was white and -sorrowful and wouldn’t say much. By and bye we -came to another cross roads near a village, and she got -out there. ‘Good day, my gal’—I says, affable like, -and ‘Thank you, sir,’—says she, and off she popped in -the rain with her umbrella up. A rare pretty girl, -quite young, I’d met her before, a girl you could get -uncommon fond of, you know, but I didn’t meet her -afterwards, she was mixed up in a bad business. It all -happened in the next six months while I was working<span class="pagenum">[286]</span> -round these parts. Everybody knew of it. This girl’s -name was Edith and she had a younger sister Agnes. -Their father was old Harry Mallerton, kept <em>The -British Oak</em> at North Quainy; he stuttered. Well, this -Edith had a love affair with a young chap William, and -having a very loving nature she behaved foolish. Then -she couldn’t bring the chap up to the scratch nohow by -herself, and of course she was afraid to tell her mother -or father: you know how girls are after being so -pesky natural, they fear, O they do fear! But soon it -couldn’t be hidden any longer as she was living at -home with them all, so she wrote a letter to her mother. -‘Dear Mother,’ she wrote, and told her all about her -trouble.</p> - -<p>“By all accounts the mother was angry as an old lion, -but Harry took it calm like and sent for young William, -who’d not come at first. He lived close by in the village -so they went down at last and fetched him.</p> - -<p>“‘All right, yes,’ he said, ‘I’ll do what’s lawful to be -done. There you are, I can’t say no fairer, that I can’t.’</p> - -<p>“‘No,’ they said, ‘you can’t.’</p> - -<p>“So he kissed the girl and off he went, promising -to call in and settle affairs in a day or two. The next -day Agnes, which was the younger girl, she also wrote -a note to her mother telling her some more strange -news:</p> - -<p>“‘God above!’ the mother cried out, ‘can it be true, -both of you girls, my own daughters, and by the same -man! whatever were you thinking on, both of ye! -Whatever can be done now!’”</p> - -<p>“What!” ejaculated Sam, “both on ’em, both on ’em!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[287]</span></p> - -<p>“As true as God’s my mercy—both on ’em—same -chap. Ah! Mrs. Mallerton was afraid to tell her -husband at first, for old Harry was the devil born -again when he were roused up, so she sent for young -William herself, who’d not come again, of course, not -likely. But they made him come, O yes, when they -told the girls’ father.</p> - -<p>“‘Well, may I go to my d ... d ... d ... damnation -at once!’ roared old Harry—he stuttered, you -know—‘at once, if that ain’t a good one!’ So he took -off his coat, he took up a stick, he walked down the -street to William and cut him off his legs. Then he -beat him until he howled for his mercy, and you couldn’t -stop old Harry once he were roused up—he was the -devil born again. They do say as he beat him for a -solid hour; I can’t say as to that, but then old Harry -picked him up and carried him off to <em>The British Oak</em> -on his own back, and threw him down in his own -kitchen between his own two girls like a dead dog. -They do say that the little one Agnes flew at her father -like a raging cat until he knocked her senseless with a -clout over head; rough man he was.”</p> - -<p>“Well, a’ called for it, sure,” commented Sam.</p> - -<p>“Her did,” agreed Bob, “but she was the quietest -known girl for miles round those parts, very shy and -quiet.”</p> - -<p>“A shady lane breeds mud,” said Sam.</p> - -<p>“What do you say?—O ah!—mud, yes. But pretty -girls both, girls you could get very fond of, skin like -apple bloom, and as like as two pinks they were. They -had to decide which of them William was to marry.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[288]</span></p> - -<p>“Of course, ah!”</p> - -<p>“‘I’ll marry Agnes’—says he.</p> - -<p>“‘You’ll not’—says the old man—‘You’ll marry -Edie.’</p> - -<p>“‘No, I won’t,’—William says—‘it’s Agnes I love -and I’ll be married to her or I won’t be married to e’er -of ’em.’ All the time Edith sat quiet, dumb as a -shovel, never a word, crying a bit; but they do say -the young one went on like a ... a young ... Jew.”</p> - -<p>“The jezebel!” commented Sam.</p> - -<p>“You may say it; but wait, my man, just wait. Another -cup of beer. We can’t go back to church until -this humbugging rain have stopped.”</p> - -<p>“No, that we can’t.”</p> - -<p>“Its my belief the ’bugging rain won’t stop this side -of four o’clock.”</p> - -<p>“And if the roof don’t hold it off it ’ull spoil they -Lord’s commandments that’s just done up on the chancel -front.”</p> - -<p>“O, they be dry by now.” Bob spoke reassuringly -and then continued his tale. “‘I’ll marry Agnes or I -won’t marry nobody’—William says—and they couldn’t -budge him. No, old Harry cracked on but he wouldn’t -have it, and at last Harry says: ‘It’s like this.’ He -pulls a half crown out of his pocket and ‘Heads it’s -Agnes,’ he says, ‘or tails it’s Edith,’ he says.”</p> - -<p>“Never! Ha! Ha!” cried Sam.</p> - -<p>“‘Heads it’s Agnes, tails it’s Edie,’ so help me God. -And it come down Agnes, yes, heads it was—Agnes—and -so there they were.”</p> - -<p>“And they lived happy ever after?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[289]</span></p> - -<p>“Happy! You don’t know your human nature, -Sam; wherever was you brought up? ‘Heads it’s -Agnes,’ said old Harry, and at that Agnes flung her -arms round William’s neck and was for going off with -him then and there, ha! But this is how it happened -about that. William hadn’t any kindred, he was a -lodger in the village, and his landlady wouldn’t have -him in her house one mortal hour when she heard of -it; give him the rightabout there and then. He couldn’t -get lodgings anywhere else, nobody would have anything -to do with him, so of course, for safety’s sake, -old Harry had to take him, and there they all lived -together at <em>The British Oak</em>—all in one happy family. -But they girls couldn’t bide the sight of each other, so -their father cleaned up an old outhouse in his yard that -was used for carts and hens and put William and his -Agnes out in it. And there they had to bide. They -had a couple of chairs, a sofa, and a bed and that kind -of thing, and the young one made it quite snug.”</p> - -<p>“’Twas a hard thing for that other, that Edie, Bob.”</p> - -<p>“It was hard, Sam, in a way, and all this was happening -just afore I met her in the carrier’s van. She was -very sad and solemn then; a pretty girl, one you could -like. Ah, you may choke me, but there they lived -together. Edie never opened her lips to either of them -again, and her father sided with her, too. What was -worse, it came out after the marriage that Agnes was -quite free of trouble—it was only a trumped-up game -between her and this William because he fancied her -better than the other one. And they never had no child, -them two, though when poor Edie’s mischance came<span class="pagenum">[290]</span> -along I be damned if Agnes weren’t fonder of it than -its own mother, a jolly sight more fonder, and William—he -fair worshipped it.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t say!”</p> - -<p>“I do. ’Twas a rum go, that, and Agnes worshipped -it, a fact, can prove it by scores o’ people to this day, -scores, in them parts. William and Agnes worshipped -it, and Edie—she just looked on, ’long of it all, in the -same house with them, though she never opened her -lips again to her young sister to the day of her death.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, she died? Well, it’s the only way out of such -a tangle, poor woman.”</p> - -<p>“You’re sympathizing with the wrong party.” Bob -filled his pipe again from the brass box; he ignited it -with deliberation; going to the open window he spat -into a puddle in the road. “The wrong party, Sam; -’twas Agnes that died. She was found on the sofa one -morning stone dead, dead as a adder.”</p> - -<p>“God bless me!” murmured Sam.</p> - -<p>“Poisoned!” added Bob, puffing serenely.</p> - -<p>“Poisoned!”</p> - -<p>Bob repeated the word poisoned. “This was the -way of it,” he continued: “One morning the mother -went out in the yard to collect her eggs, and she began -calling out ‘Edie, Edie, here a minute, come and look -where that hen have laid her egg; I would never have -believed it,’—she says. And when Edie went out her -mother led her round the back of the outhouse, and -there on the top of a wall this hen had laid an egg. -‘I would never have believed it, Edie’—she says—‘scooped -out a nest there beautiful, ain’t she? I wondered<span class="pagenum">[291]</span> -where her was laying. T’other morning the -dog brought an egg round in his mouth and laid it on -the doormat. There now Aggie, Aggie, here a minute, -come and look where the hen have laid that egg.’ And -as Aggie didn’t answer the mother went in and found -her on the sofa in the outhouse, stone dead.”</p> - -<p>“How’d they account for it?” asked Sam, after a -brief interval.</p> - -<p>“That’s what brings me to the point about that young -feller that’s going to be hung,” said Bob, tapping the -newspaper that lay upon the bench. “I don’t know -what would lie between two young women in a wrangle -of that sort; some would get over it quick, but -some would never sleep soundly any more not for a -minute of their mortal lives. Edie must have been one -of that sort. There’s people living there now as could -tell a lot if they’d a mind to it. Some knowed all -about it, could tell you the very shop where Edie -managed to get hold of the poison, and could describe -to me or to you just how she administrated it in a glass -of barley water. Old Harry knew all about it, he -knew all about everything, but he favoured Edith and -he never budged a word. Clever old chap was Harry, -and nothing came out against Edie at the inquest—nor -the trial neither.”</p> - -<p>“Was there a trial then?”</p> - -<p>“There was a kind of a trial. Naturally. A beautiful -trial. The police came and fetched poor William. -They took him away and in due course he was hanged.”</p> - -<p>“William! But what had he got to do with it?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing. It was rough on him, but he hadn’t<span class="pagenum">[292]</span> -played straight and so nobody struck up for him. They -made out a case against him—there was some onlucky -bit of evidence which I’ll take my oath old Harry knew -something about—and William was done for. Ah, -when things take a turn against you it’s as certain as -twelve o’clock, when they take a turn; you get no more -chance than a rabbit from a weasel. It’s like dropping -your matches into a stream, you needn’t waste the -bending of your back to pick them out—they’re no -good on, they’ll never strike again. And Edith, she -sat in court through it all, very white and trembling -and sorrowful, but when the judge put his black cap -on they do say she blushed and looked across at William -and gave a bit of a smile. Well, she had to suffer -for his doings, so why shouldn’t he suffer for hers. -That’s how I look at it....”</p> - -<p>“But God-a-mighty...!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, God-a-mighty knows. Pretty girls they were, -both, and as like as two pinks.”</p> - -<p>There was quiet for some moments while the tiler -and the mason emptied their cups of beer. “I think,” -said Sam then, “the rain’s give over now.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, that it has,” cried Bob. “Let’s go and do a -bid more on this ’bugging church or she won’t be done -afore Christmas.”</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">POMONA’S BABE</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[295]</span> -<h2 class="no-break">POMONA’S BABE</h2> -</div> - - -<p class="dropcap">Johnny Flynn was then seventeen years old. -At that age you could not call him boy without -vexing him, or man without causing him to blush—his -teasing, ruddy and uproarious mother delighted -to produce either or both of these manifestations for -her off-spring was a pale mild creature—but he had -given a deal of thought to many manly questions. -Marriage, for instance, was one of these. That was -an institution he admired but whose joys, whatever -they were, he was not anxious to experience; its difficulties -and disasters as ironically outlined by the -widow Flynn were the subject of his grossest scepticism, -scepticism in general being not the least prominent -characteristic of Johnny Flynn.</p> - -<p>Certainly his sister Pomona was not married; she -was only sixteen, an age too early for such bliss, but -all the same she was going to have a baby; he had -quarrelled with his mother about that. He quarrelled -with his mother about most things, she delighted in -quarrels, they amused her very much; but on this -occasion she was really very angry, or she pretended -to be so—which was worse, much worse than the real -thing.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[296]</span></p> - -<p>The Flynns were poor people, quite poor, living in -two top-floor rooms at the house of a shoemaker, also -moderately poor, whose pelting and hammering of -soles at evening were a durable grievance to Johnny. -He was fond of the shoemaker, a kind bulky tall man -of fifty, though he did not like the shoemaker’s wife, -as bulky as her husband and as tall but not kind to -him or to anything except Johnny himself; nor did he -like any of the other lodgers, of whom there were -several, all without exception beyond the reach of -affluence. The Flynn apartments afforded a bedroom -in front for Mrs. Flynn and Pomona, a room where -Johnny seldom intruded, never without a strained sense -of sanctity similar to the feeling he experienced when -entering an empty church as he sometimes did. He -slept in the other room, the living room, an arrangement -that also annoyed him. He was easily annoyed, -but he could never go to bed until mother and sister -had retired, and for the same reason he had always to -rise before they got up, an exasperating abuse of -domestic privilege.</p> - -<p>One night he had just slipped happily into his bed and -begun to read a book called “Rasselas,” which the odd-eyed -man at the public library had commended to him, -when his mother returned to the room, first tapping -at the door, for Johnny was a prude as she knew not -only from instinct and observation but from protests -which had occasionally been addressed to her by the -indignant boy. She came in now only half clad, in -petticoat and stockinged feet, her arms quite bare.<span class="pagenum">[297]</span> -They were powerful arms as they had need to be, for -she was an ironer of linen at a laundry, but they -were nice to look at and sometimes Johnny liked -looking at them, though he did not care for her to run -about like that very often. Mrs. Flynn sat down at -the foot of his couch and stared at her son.</p> - -<p>“Johnny,” she began steadily, but paused to rub her -forehead with her thick white shiny fingers. “I don’t -know how to tell you, I’m sure, or what you’ll say....” -Johnny shook “Rasselas” rather impatiently and heaved -a protesting sigh. “I can’t think,” continued his -mother, “no, I can’t think that it’s our Pomony, but -there she is and it’s got to be done, I must tell you; -besides you’re the only man in our family now, so it’s -only right for you, you see, and she’s going to have a -baby. Our Pomony!”</p> - -<p>The boy turned his face to the wall, although his -mother was not looking at him—she was staring at that -hole in the carpet near the fender. At last he said, -“Humph ... well?” And as his mother did not say -anything, he added, “What about it, I don’t mind?” -Mrs. Flynn was horrified at his unconcern, or she pretended -to be so; Johnny was never sure about the -genuineness of her moods. It was most unfilial, but -he was like that—so was Mrs. Flynn. Now she cried -out, “You’ll have to mind, there, you must. I can’t -take everything on my own shoulders. You’re the only -man left in our family now, you must, Johnny. What -are we to do?”</p> - -<p>He glared at the wallpaper a foot from his eyes.<span class="pagenum">[298]</span> -It had an unbearable pattern of blue but otherwise indescribable -flowers; he had it in his mind to have some -other pattern there—some day.</p> - -<p>“Eh?” asked his mother sharply, striking the foot of -the bed with her fist.</p> - -<p>“Why ... there’s nothing to be done ... now ... I -suppose.” He was blushing furiously. “How -did it happen, when will it be?”</p> - -<p>“It’s a man she knows, he got hold of her, his name -is Stringer. Another two months about. Stringer. -Hadn’t you noticed anything? Everybody else has. -You are a funny boy, I can’t make you out at all, -Johnny, I can’t make you out. Stringer his name is, -but I’ll make him pay dearly for it, and that’s what I -want you—to talk to you about. Of course he denies -of everything, they always do.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Flynn sighed at this disgusting perfidy, -brightening however when her son began to discuss the -problem. But she talked so long and he got so sleepy -at last that he was very glad when she went to bed -again. Secretly she was both delighted and disappointed -at his easy acceptance of her dreadful revelation; -fearing a terrible outburst of anger she had kept -the knowledge from him for a long time. She was -glad to escape that, it is true, but she rather hungered -for some flashing reprobation of this unknown beast, -this Stringer. She swore she would bring him to -book, but she felt old and lonely, and Johnny was a -strange son, not very virile. The mother had told -Pomona terrifying prophetic tales of what Johnny -would do, what he would be certain to do; he would,<span class="pagenum">[299]</span> -for instance, murder that Stringer and drive Pomony -into the street; of course he would. Yet here he was, -quite calm about it, as if he almost liked it. Well, she -had told him, she could do no more, she would leave -it to him.</p> - -<p>In the morning Johnny greeted his sister with tender -affection and at evening, having sent her to bed, he -and his mother resumed their discussion.</p> - -<p>“Do you know, mother,” he said, “she is quite handsome, -I never noticed it before.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Flynn regarded him with desperation and then -informed him that his sister was an ugly disgusting -little trollop who ought to be birched.</p> - -<p>“No, no, you are wrong, mother, it’s bad, but it’s -all right.”</p> - -<p>“You think you know more about such things than -your own mother, I suppose.” Mrs. Flynn sniffed and -glared.</p> - -<p>He said it to her gently: “Yes.”</p> - -<p>She produced a packet of notepaper and envelopes -“<em>The Monster Packet for a Penny</em>,” all complete with -a wisp of pink blotting paper and a penholder without -a nib, which she had bought at the Chandler’s on her -way home that evening, along with some sago and -some hair oil for Johnny whose stiff unruly hair provoked -such spasms of rage in her bosom that she declared -that she was “sick to death of it.” On the -supper table lay also a platter, a loaf, a basin of mustard -pickle, and a plate with round lengths of cheese -shaped like small candles.</p> - -<p>“Devil blast him!” muttered Mrs. Flynn as she<span class="pagenum">[300]</span> -fetched from a cupboard shelf a sour-looking bottle -labelled <em>Writing Fluid</em>, a dissolute pen, and requested -Johnny to compose a letter to Stringer—devil blast -him!—telling him of the plight of her daughter Pomona -Flynn, about whom she desired him to know that she -had already consulted her lawyers and the chief of -police and intimating that unless she heard from him -satisfactory by the day after tomorrow the matter -would pass out of her hands.</p> - -<p>“That’s no good, it’s not the way,” declared her son -thoughtfully; Mrs. Flynn therefore sat humbly confronting -him and awaited the result of his cogitations. -Johnny was not a very robust youth, but he was growing -fast now, since he had taken up with running; -he was very fleet, so Mrs. Flynn understood, and had -already won a silver-plated hot water jug, which they -used for the milk. But still he was thin and not tall, -his dark hair was scattered; his white face was a nice -face, thought Mrs. Flynn, very nice, only there was always -something strange about his clothes. She -couldn’t help that now, but he had such queer fancies, -there was no other boy in the street whose trousers -were so baggy or of such a colour. His starched -collars were all right of course, beautifully white and -shiny, she got them up herself, and they set his neck -off nicely.</p> - -<p>“All we need do,” her son broke in, “is just tell him.”</p> - -<p>“Tell him?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, just tell him about it—it’s very unfortunate—and -ask him to come and see you. I hope, though,”<span class="pagenum">[301]</span> -he paused, “I hope they won’t want to go and get -married.”</p> - -<p>“He ought to be made to, devil blast him,” cried -Mrs. Flynn, “only she’s frightened, she is; afraid of -her mortal life of him! We don’t want him here, -neither, she says he’s a nasty horrible man.”</p> - -<p>Johnny sat dumb for some moments. Pomona was a -day girl in service at a restaurant. Stringer was a clerk -to an auctioneer. The figure of his pale little sister -shrinking before a ruffian (whom he figured as a fat -man with a red beard) startled and stung him.</p> - -<p>“Besides,” continued Mrs. Flynn, “he’s just going to -be married to some woman, some pretty judy, God -help her ... in fact, as like as not he’s married to her -already by now. No, I gave up that idea long ago, I -did, before I told you, long ago.”</p> - -<p>“We can only tell him about Pomony then, and ask -him what he would like to do.”</p> - -<p>“What he would <em>like</em> to do, well, certainly!” protested -the widow.</p> - -<p>“And if he’s a decent chap,” continued Johnny -serenely, “it will be all right, there won’t be any difficulty. -If he ain’t, then we can do something else.”</p> - -<p>His mother was reluctant to concur but the boy had -his way. He sat with his elbows on the table, his -head pressed in his hands, but he could not think out -the things he wanted to say to this man. He would -look up and stare around the room as if he were in a -strange place, though it was not strange to him at all -for he had lived in it many years. There was not<span class="pagenum">[302]</span> -much furniture in the apartment, yet there was but little -space in it. The big table was covered with American -cloth, mottled and shiny. Two or three chairs full -of age and discomfort stood upon a carpet that was full -of holes and stains. There were some shelves in a recess, -an engraving framed in maple of the player -scene from “Hamlet,” and near by on the wall hung a -gridiron whose prongs were woven round with coloured -wools and decorated with satin bows. Mrs. -Flynn had a passion for vases, and two of these florid -objects bought at a fair companioned a clock whose -once snowy face had long since turned sallow because -of the oil Mrs. Flynn had administered “to make it go -properly.”</p> - -<p>But he could by no means think out this letter; -his mother sat so patiently watching him that he asked -her to go and sit in the other room. Then he sat on, -sniffing, as if thinking with his nose, while the room -began to smell of the smoking lamp. He was remembering -how years ago, when they were little children, he -had seen Pomony in her nightgown and, angered with -her for some petty reason, he had punched her on the -side. Pomony had turned white, she could not speak, -she could not breathe. He had been momentarily -proud of that blow, it was a good blow, he had never -hit another boy like that. But Pomony had fallen -into a chair, her face tortured with pain, her eyes -filled with tears that somehow would not fall. Then -a fear seized him, horrible, piercing, frantic: she was -dying, she would die, and there was nothing he could -do to stop her! In passionate remorse and pity he had<span class="pagenum">[303]</span> -flung himself before her, kissing her feet—they were -small and beautiful though not very clean,—until at -last he had felt Pomony’s arms droop caressingly -around him and heard Pomony’s voice speaking lovingly -and forgivingly to him.</p> - -<p>After a decent interval his mother returned to him.</p> - -<p>“What are we going to do about <em>her</em>?” she asked, -“she’ll have to go away.”</p> - -<p>“Away! Do you mean go to a home? No, but -why go away? I’m not ashamed; what is there to be -ashamed of?”</p> - -<p>“Who the deuce is going to look after her? You -talk like a tom-fool—yes, you are,” insisted Mrs. -Flynn passionately. “I’m out all day from one week’s -end to the other. She can’t be left alone, and the people -downstairs are none too civil about it as it is. She’ll -have to go to the workhouse, that’s all.”</p> - -<p>Johnny was aghast, indignant, and really angry. -He would never never consent to such a thing! -Pomony! Into a workhouse! She should not, she -should stop at home, here, like always, and have a -nurse.</p> - -<p>“Fool!” muttered his mother, with castigating scorn. -“Where’s the money for nurses and doctors to come -from? I’ve got no money for such things!”</p> - -<p>“I’ll get some!” declared Johnny hotly.</p> - -<p>“Where?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll sell something.”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll save up.”</p> - -<p>“How?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[304]</span></p> - -<p>“And I’ll borrow some.”</p> - -<p>“You’d better shut up now or I’ll knock your head -off,” cried his mother. “Fidding and fadding about—you’re -daft!”</p> - -<p>“She shan’t go to any workhouse!”</p> - -<p>“Fool!” repeated his mother, revealing her disgust at -his hopeless imbecility.</p> - -<p>“I tell you she shall not go there,” shouted the boy, -stung into angry resentment by her contempt.</p> - -<p>“She shall, she must.”</p> - -<p>“I say she shan’t!”</p> - -<p>“O don’t be such a blasted fool,” cried the distracted -woman, rising from her chair.</p> - -<p>Johnny sprang to his feet almost screaming, “You -are the blasted fool, you, you!”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Flynn seized a table knife and struck at her -son’s face with it. He leaped away in terror, his -startled appearance, glaring eyes and strained figure -so affecting Mrs. Flynn that she dropped the knife, and, -sinking into her chair, burst into peals of hysterical -laughter. Recovering himself the boy hastened to the -laughing woman. The maddening peals continued and -increased, shocking him, unnerving him again; she was -dying, she would die. His mother’s laughter had always -been harsh but delicious to him, it was so infectious, -but this was demoniacal, it was horror.</p> - -<p>“O, don’t, don’t, mother, don’t,” he cried, fondling -her and pressing her yelling face to his breast. But -she pushed him fiercely away and the terrifying laughter -continued to sear his very soul until he could bear it no<span class="pagenum">[305]</span> -longer. He struck at her shoulders with clenched fist -and shook her frenziedly, frantically, crying:</p> - -<p>“Stop it, stop, O stop it, she’ll go mad, stop it, stop.”</p> - -<p>He was almost exhausted, when suddenly Pomona -rushed into the room in her nightgown. Her long -black hair tumbled in lovely locks about her pale face -and her shoulder; her feet were bare.</p> - -<p>“O Johnny, what are you doing?” gasped his little -pale sister Pomony, who seemed so suddenly, so unbelievably, -turned into a woman. “Let her alone.”</p> - -<p>She pulled the boy away, fondling and soothing -their distracted mother until Mrs. Flynn partially recovered.</p> - -<p>“Come to bed now,” commanded Pomona, and Mrs. -Flynn thereupon, still giggling, followed her child. -When he was alone trembling Johnny turned down the -lamp flame which had filled the room with smoky -fumes. His glance rested upon the table knife; the -room was silent and oppressive now. He glared at the -picture of Hamlet, at the clock with the oily face, at -the notepaper lying white upon the table. They had -all turned into quivering semblances of the things they -were; he was crying.</p> - - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p>A letter, indited in the way he desired, was posted -by Johnny on his way to work next morning. He was -clerk in the warehouse of a wholesale provision merchant -and he kept tally, in some underground cellars -carpeted with sawdust, of hundreds of sacks of sugar<span class="pagenum">[306]</span> -and cereals, tubs of butter, of lard, of treacle, chests -of tea, a regular promontory of cheeses, cases of -candles, jam, starch, and knife polish, many of them -stamped with the mysterious words “Factory Bulked.” -He did not like those words, they sounded ugly and their -meaning was obscure. Sometimes he took the cheese-tasting -implement from the foreman’s bench and, when -no one was looking, pierced it into a fine Cheddar or -Stilton, withdrawing it with a little cylinder of cheese -lying like a small candle in the curved blade. Then he -would bite off the piece of rind, restore it neatly to -the body of the cheese, and drop the other candle-like -piece into his pocket. Sometimes his pocket was so full -of cheese that he was reluctant to approach the foreman -fearing he would smell it. He was very fond of -cheese. All of them liked cheese.</p> - -<p>The Flynns waited several days for a reply to the -letter, but none came. Stringer did not seem to think -it called for any reply. At the end of a week Johnny -wrote again to his sister’s seducer. Pomona had given -up her situation at the restaurant; her brother was -conspicuously and unfailingly tender to her. He saved -what money he could, spent none upon himself, and -brought home daily an orange or an egg for the girl. -He wrote a third letter to the odious Stringer, not at -all threateningly, but just invitingly, persuasively. -And he waited, but waited in vain. Then in that underground -cheese tunnel where he worked he began to -plot an alternate course of action, and as time passed -bringing no recognition from Stringer his plot began -to crystallize and determine itself. It was nothing<span class="pagenum">[307]</span> -else than to murder the man; he would kill him, he -had thought it out, it could be done. He would -wait for him near Stringer’s lodgings one dark night -and beat out his brains with a club. All that was -necessary then would be to establish an alibi. For some -days Johnny dwelt so gloatingly upon the details of -this retribution that he forgot about the alibi. By this -time he had accumulated from his mother—for he could -never once bring himself to interrogate Pomona personally -about her misfortune—sufficient description of -Stringer to recognize him among a thousand, so he -thought. It appeared that he was not a large man -with a red beard, but a small man with glasses, spats, -and a slight limp, who always attended a certain club -of which he was the secretary at a certain hour on -certain nights in each week. To Johnny’s mind, the -alibi was not merely important in itself, it was a romantic -necessity. And it was so easy; it would be quite -sufficient for Johnny to present himself at the public -library where he was fairly well known. The library -was quite close to Stringer’s lodgings and they, fortunately, -were in a dark quiet little street. He would -borrow a book from the odd-eyed man in the reference -department, retire to one of the inner study rooms, and -at half past seven creep out unseen, creep out, creep -out with his thick stick and wait by the house in that -dark quiet little street; it was very quiet, and it would -be very dark; wait there for him all in the dark, just -creep quietly out—and wait. But in order to get that -alibi quite perfect he would have to take a friend with -him to the library room, so that the friend could swear<span class="pagenum">[308]</span> -that he had really been there all the time, because it -was just possible the odd-eyed man wouldn’t be prepared -to swear to it; he did not seem able to see -very much, but it was hard to tell with people like -that.</p> - -<p>Johnny Flynn had not told any of his friends about -his sister’s misfortune; in time, time enough, they were -bound to hear of it. Of all his friends he rejected the -close ones, those of whom he was very fond, and -chose a stupid lump of a fellow, massive and nasal, -named Donald. Though awkward and fat he had -joined Johnny’s running club; Johnny had trained him -for his first race. But he had subjected Donald to -such exhausting exercise, what with skipping, gymnastics, -and tiring jaunts, that though his bulk disappeared -his strength went with it; to Johnny’s great -chagrin he grew weak, and failed ignominiously in the -race. Donald thereafter wisely rejected all offers of -assistance and projected a training system of his own. -For weeks he tramped miles into hilly country, in the -heaviest of boots to the soles of which he had nailed -some thick pads of lead. When he donned his light -running shoes for his second race he displayed an -agility and suppleness, a god-like ease, that won not -only the race, but the admiration and envy of all the -competitors. It was this dull lumpish Donald that -Johnny fixed upon to assist him. He was a great tool -and it would not matter if he did get himself into -trouble. Even if he did Johnny could get him out again, -by confessing to the police; so that was all right. He -asked Donald to go to the library with him on a certain<span class="pagenum">[309]</span> -evening to read a book called “Rasselas”—it was a -grand book, very exciting—and Donald said he would -go. He did not propose to tell Donald of his homicidal -intention; he would just sit him down in the -library with “Rasselas” while he himself sat at another -table behind Donald, yes, behind him; even if Donald -noticed him creeping out he would say he was only -going to the counter to get another book. It was all -quite clear, and safe. He would be able to creep out, -creep out, rush up to the dark little street—yes, he -would ask Donald for a piece of that lead and wrap it -round the head of the stick—he would creep out, and -in ten minutes or twenty he would be back in the -library again asking for another book or sitting down -by Donald as if he had not been outside the place, as if -nothing had happened as far as he was concerned, -nothing at all!</p> - -<p>The few intervening days passed with vexing deliberation. -Each night seemed the best of all possible -nights for the deed, each hour that Stringer survived -seemed a bad hour for the world. They were bad slow -hours for Johnny, but at last the day dawned, passed, -darkness came, and the hour rushed upon him.</p> - -<p>He took his stick and called for Donald.</p> - -<p>“Can’t come,” said Donald, limping to the door in -answer to Johnny’s knock. “I been and hurt my leg.”</p> - -<p>For a moment Johnny was full of an inward silent -blasphemy that flashed from a sudden tremendous -hatred, but he said calmly:</p> - -<p>“But still ... no, you haven’t ... what have you -hurt it for?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[310]</span></p> - -<p>Donald was not able to deal with such locution. He -ignored it and said:</p> - -<p>“My knee-cap, my shin, Oo, come and have a look. -We was mending a flue ... it was the old man’s -wheelbarrow.... Didn’t I tell him of it neither!”</p> - -<p>“O, you told him of it?”</p> - -<p>Johnny listened to his friend’s narration very abstractedly -and at last went off to the library by himself. -As he walked away he was conscious of a great -feeling of relief welling up in him. He could not get -an alibi without Donald, not a sure one, so he would not -be able to do anything tonight. He felt relieved, he -whistled as he walked, he was happy again, but he went -on to the library. He was going to rehearse the alibi -by himself, that was the wise thing to do, of course, rehearse -it, practise it; it would be perfect next week -when Donald was better. So he did this. He got out -a book from the odd-eyed man, who strangely enough -was preoccupied and did not seem to recognize him. -It was disconcerting, that; he specially wanted the man -to notice him. He went into the study room rather -uneasily. Ten minutes later he crept out unseen, -carrying his stick—he had forgotten to ask Donald for -the piece of lead—and was soon lurking in the shadow -of the dark quiet little street.</p> - -<p>It was a perfect spot, there could not be a better -place, not in the middle of a town. The house had an -area entry through an iron gate; at the end of a brick -pathway, over a coalplate, five or six stone steps led -steeply up to a narrow front door with a brass letter -box, a brass knocker, and a glazed fanlight painted 29.<span class="pagenum">[311]</span> -The windows too were narrow and the whole house -had a squeezed appearance. A church clock chimed -eight strokes. Johnny began to wonder what he would -do, what would happen, if Stringer were suddenly to -come out of that gateway. Should he—would he—could -he...? And then the door at the top of the -steps did open wide and framed there in the lighted -space young Flynn saw the figure of his own mother.</p> - -<p>She came down the steps alone and he followed her -short jerky footsteps secretly until she reached the -well-lit part of the town, where he joined her. It was -quite simple, she explained to him with an air of superior -understanding: she had just paid Mr. Stringer a -visit, waiting for letters from that humbug had made -her “popped.” Had he thought she would creep on -her stomach and beg for a fourpenny piece when she -could put him in jail if all were known, as she would -too, if it hadn’t been for her children, poor little fatherless -things? No, middling boxer, not that! So she -had left off work early, had gone and caught him at his -lodgings and taxed him with it. He denied of it; he was -that cocky, it so mortified her, that she had snatched up -the clock and thrown it at him. Yes, his own clock.</p> - -<p>“But it was only a little one, though. He was frightened -out of his life and run upstairs. Then his landlady -came rushing in. I told her all about it, everything, -and she was that ‘popped’ with him she give me -the name and address of his feons—their banns is been -put up. She made him come downstairs and face me, -and his face was as white as the driven snow. Johnny, -it was. He was obliged to own up. The lady said to<span class="pagenum">[312]</span> -him ‘Whatever have you been at, Mr. Stringer,’ she -said to him. ‘I can’t believe it, knowing you for ten -years, you must have forgot yourself.’ O, a proper -understanding it was,” declared Mrs. Flynn finally; “his -lawyers are going to write to us and put everything in -order; Duckle & Hoole, they are.”</p> - -<p>Again a great feeling of relief welled up in the boy’s -breast, as if, having been dragged into a horrible vortex -he had been marvellously cast free again.</p> - -<p>The days that followed were blessedly tranquil, -though Johnny was often smitten with awe at the -thought of what he had contemplated. That fool, Donald, -too, one evening insisted on accompanying him to -the library where he spent an hour of baffled understanding -over the pages of “Rasselas.” But the lawyers -Duckle & Hoole aroused a tumult of hatred in Mrs. -Flynn. They pared down her fond anticipations to the -minimum; they put so much slight upon her family, and -such a gentlemanly decorum and generous forbearance -upon the behaviour of their client, Mr. Stringer, that -she became inarticulate. When informed that that -gentleman desired no intercourse whatsoever with any -Flynn or the offspring thereof she became speechless. -Shortly, Messrs. Duckle & Hoole begged to submit -for her approval a draft agreement embodying their -client’s terms, one provision of which was that if the -said Flynns violated the agreement by taking any -proceedings against the said Stringer they should thereupon -<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">ipso facto</i> willy nilly or whatever forfeit and -pay unto him the said Stringer not by way of penalty<span class="pagenum">[313]</span> -but as damages the sum of £100. Whereupon Mrs. -Flynn recovered her speech and suffered a little tender -irony to emerge.</p> - -<p>The shoemaker, whose opinion upon this draft agreement -was solicited, confessed himself as much baffled -by its phraseology as he was indignant at its tenor -and terms.</p> - -<p>“That man,” he declared solemnly to Johnny, “ought -to have his brain knocked out”; and he conveyed by -subtle intimations to the boy that that was the course -he would favour were he himself standing in Johnny’s -shoes. “One dark night,” he had roared with a dreadful -glare in his eyes, “with a neat heavy stick!”</p> - -<p>The Flynns also consulted a cabman who lodged in -the house. His legal qualifications appeared to lie in -the fact that he had driven the private coach of a major -general whose son, now a fruit farmer in British Columbia, -had once been entered for the bar. The cabman -was a very positive and informative cabman. -“List and learn,” he would say, “list and learn”: and -he would regale Johnny, or any one else, with an -oration to which you might listen as hard as you liked -but from which you could not learn. He was husky, -with a thick red neck and the cheek bones of a horse. -Having perused the agreement with one eye judicially -cocked, the other being screened by a drooping lid -adorned with a glowing nodule, he carefully refolded -the folios and returned them to the boy:</p> - -<p>“Any judge—who was up to snuff—would impound -that dockyment.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[314]</span></p> - -<p>“What’s that?”</p> - -<p>“They would impound it,” repeated the cabman smiling -wryly.</p> - -<p>“But what’s impound it? What for?”</p> - -<p>“I tell you it would be impounded, that dockyment -would,” asseverated the cabman. Once more he took -the papers from Johnny, opened them out, reflected -upon them and returned them again without a word. -Catechism notwithstanding, the oracle remained impregnably -mystifying.</p> - -<p>The boy continued to save his pocket money. His -mother went about her work with a grim air, having -returned the draft agreement to the lawyers with an -ungracious acceptance of the terms.</p> - -<p>One April evening Johnny went home to an empty -room; Pomona was out. He prepared his tea and -afterwards sat reading “Tales of a Grandfather.” -That was a book if anybody wanted a book! When -darkness came he descended the stairs to enquire of -the shoemaker’s wife about Pomony, he was anxious. -The shoemaker’s wife was absent too and it was late -when she returned accompanied by his mother.</p> - -<p>Pomona’s hour had come—they had taken her to the -workhouse—only just in time—a little boy—they were -both all right—he was an uncle.</p> - -<p>His mother’s deceit stupified him, he felt shamed, -deeply shamed, but after a while that same recognizable -feeling of relief welled up in his breast and -drenched him with satisfactions. After all what could -it matter where a person was born, or where one died, -as long as you had your chance of growing up at all,<span class="pagenum">[315]</span> -and, if lucky, of growing up all right. But this babe -had got to bear the whole burden of its father’s misdeed, -though; it had got to behave itself or it would -have to pay its father a hundred pounds as damages. -Perhaps that was what that queer bit of poetry meant, -“The child is father of the man.”</p> - -<p>His mother swore that they were very good and clean -and kind at the workhouse, everything of the best and -most expensive; there was nothing she would have -liked better than to have gone there herself when -Johnny and Pomony were born.</p> - -<p>“And if ever I have any more,” Mrs. Flynn sighed, -but with profound conviction, “I will certainly go -there.”</p> - -<p>Johnny gave her half the packet of peppermints he -had bought for Pomona. With some of his saved money -he bought her a bottle of stout—she looked tired and -sad—she was very fond of stout. The rest of the -money he gave her for to buy Pomony something when -she visited her. He would not go himself to visit her, -not there. He spent the long intervening evenings at -the library—the odd-eyed man had shown him a lovely -book about birds. He was studying it. On Sundays, -in the spring, he was going out to catch birds himself, -out in the country, with a catapult. The cuckoo was a -marvellous bird. So was a titlark. Donald Gower -found a goatsucker’s nest last year.</p> - -<p>Then one day he ran from work all the way home, -knowing Pomony would at last be there. He walked -slowly up the street to recover his breath. He stepped -up the stairs, humming quite casually, and tapped at<span class="pagenum">[316]</span> -the door of their room—he did not know why he -tapped. He heard Pomony’s voice calling him. A -thinner paler Pomony stood by the hearth, nursing a -white-clothed bundle, the fat pink babe.</p> - -<p>“O, my dear!” cried her ecstatic brother, “the beauty -he is! what larks we’ll have with him!”</p> - -<p>He took Pomona into his arms, crushing the infant -against her breast and his own. But she did not mind. -She did not rebuke him, she even let him dandle her -precious babe.</p> - -<p>“Look, what is his name to be, Pomony? Let’s call -him Rasselas.”</p> - -<p>Pomona looked at him very doubtfully.</p> - -<p>“Or would you like William Wallace then, or Robert -Bruce?”</p> - -<p>“I shall call him Johnny,” said Pomona.</p> - -<p>“O, that’s silly!” protested her brother. But -Pomona was quite positive about this. He fancied -there were tears in her eyes, she was always tender-hearted.</p> - -<p>“I shall call him Johnny, Johnny Flynn.”</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="half-title">THE HURLY-BURLY</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[319]</span> -<h2 class="no-break">THE HURLY-BURLY</h2> -</div> - - -<p class="dropcap">The Weetmans, mother, son, and daughter, -lived on a thriving farm. It was small -enough, God knows, but it had always been -a turbulent place of abode. For the servant it was: -“Phemy, do this,” or “Phemy, have you done that?” -from dawn to dark, and even from dark to dawn there -was a hovering of unrest. The widow Weetman, a -partial invalid, was the only figure that manifested any -semblance of tranquillity, and it was a misleading one -for she sat day after day on her large hams knitting -and nodding and lifting her grey face only to grumble, -her spectacled eyes transfixing the culprit with a basilisk -glare. And her daughter Alice, the housekeeper, -who had a large face, a dominating face, in some respects -she was all face, was like a blast in a corridor -with her “Maize for the hens, Phemy!—More firewood, -Phemy!—Who has set the trap in the harness room?—Come -along!—Have you scoured the skimming pans?—Why -not!—Where are you idling?—Come along, -Phemy, I have no time to waste this morning, you -really must help me.” It was not only in the house that -this cataract of industry flowed; outside there was -activity enough for a regiment. A master-farmer’s<span class="pagenum">[320]</span> -work consists largely of a series of conversations with -other master-farmers, a long-winded way of doing long-headed -things, but Glastonbury Weetman, the son, was -not like that at all; he was the incarnation of energy, -always doing and doing, chock-full of orders, adjurations, -objurgatives, blame, and blasphemy, That was -the kind of place Phemy Madigan worked at. No one -could rest on laurels there. The farm and the home -possessed everybody, lock, stock, and barrel; work was -like a tiger, it ate you up implacably. The Weetmans -did not mind—they liked being eaten by such a tiger.</p> - -<p>After six or seven years of this Alice went back to -marry an old sweetheart in Canada, where the Weetmans -had originally come from, but Phemy’s burden -was in no way lessened thereby. There were as many -things to wash and sew and darn; there was always -a cart of churns about to dash for a train it could not -possibly catch, or a horse to shoe that could not possibly -be spared. Weetman hated to see his people merely -walking: “Run over to the barn for that hay-fork,” or -“Slip across to the ricks, quick now,” he would cry, and -if ever an unwary hen hampered his own path it did so -only once—and no more. His labourers were mere -things of flesh and blood, but they occasionally resented -his ceaseless flagellations. Glas Weetman did not like -to be impeded or controverted; one day in a rage he -had smashed that lumbering loon of a carter called -Gathercole. For this he was sent to jail for a month.</p> - -<p>The day after he had been sentenced Phemy Madigan, -alone in the house with Mrs. Weetman, had waked -at the usual early hour. It was a foggy September<span class="pagenum">[321]</span> -morning; Sampson and his boy Daniel were clattering -pails in the dairy shed. The girl felt sick and gloomy -as she dressed; it was a wretched house to work in, -crickets in the kitchen, cockroaches in the garret, spiders -and mice everywhere. It was an old long low house; -she knew that when she descended the stairs the walls -would be stained with autumnal dampness, the banisters -and rails oozing with moisture. She wished she was a -lady and married and living in a palace fifteen stories -high.</p> - -<p>It was fortunate that she was big and strong, though -she had been only a charity girl taken from the workhouse -by the Weetmans when she was fourteen years -old. That was seven years ago. It was fortunate that -she was fed well at the farm, very well indeed; it was -the one virtue of the place. But her meals did not -counterbalance things; that farm ate up the body and -blood of people. And at times the pressure was -charged with a special excitation, as if a taut elastic -thong had been plucked and released with a reverberating -ping.</p> - -<p>It was so on this morning. Mrs. Weetman was dead -in her bed.</p> - -<p>At that crisis a new sense descended upon the girl, -a sense of responsibility. She was not in fear, she -felt no grief or surprise. It concerned her in some -way, but she herself was unconcerned, and she slid without -effort into the position of mistress of the farm. She -opened a window and looked out of doors. A little -way off a boy with a red scarf stood by an open gate.</p> - -<p>“Oi ... oi, kup, kup, kup!” he cried to the cows in<span class="pagenum">[322]</span> -that field. Some of the cows having got up stared -amiably at him, others sat on ignoring his hail, while -one or two plodded deliberately towards him. “Oi ... -oi, kup, kup, kup!”</p> - -<p>“Lazy rascal, that boy,” remarked Phemy, “we shall -have to get rid of him. Dan’l! Come here, Dan’l!” -she screamed, waving her arm wildly. “Quick!”</p> - -<p>She sent him away for police and doctor. At -the inquest there were no relatives in England who -could be called upon, no witnesses other than Phemy. -After the funeral she wrote a letter to Glastonbury -Weetman in jail informing him of his bereavement, -but to this he made no reply. Meanwhile the work -of the farm was pressed forward under her control, for -though she was revelling in her personal release from -the torment she would not permit others to share her -intermission. She had got Mrs. Weetman’s keys and -her box of money. She paid the two men and the -boy their wages week by week. The last of the barley -was reaped, the oats stacked, the roots hoed, the churns -sent daily under her supervision. And always she was -bustling the men.</p> - -<p>“O dear me, these lazy rogues!” she would complain -to the empty rooms, “they waste time, so it’s -robbery, it <em>is</em> robbery. You may wear yourself to the -bone and what does it signify to such as them? All -the responsibility, too!—They would take your skin if -they could get it off you—and they can’t!”</p> - -<p>She kept such a sharp eye on the corn and meal and -eggs that Sampson got surly. She placated him by -handing him Mr. Weetman’s gun and a few cartridges,<span class="pagenum">[323]</span> -saying: “Just shoot me a couple of rabbits over in the -warren when you got time.” At the end of the day -Mr. Sampson had not succeeded in killing a rabbit so -he kept the gun and the cartridges many more days. -Phemy was really happy. The gloom of the farm had -disappeared. The farmhouse and everything about it -looked beautiful, beautiful indeed with its yard full of -ricks, the pond full of ducks, the fields full of sheep -and cattle, and the trees still full of leaves and birds. -She flung maize about the yard; the hens scampered -towards it and the young pigs galloped, quarrelling -over the grains which they groped and snuffed for, -grinding each one separately in their iron jaws, while the -white pullets stalked delicately among them, picked up -the maize seeds, One, Two, Three, and swallowed them -like ladies. Sometimes on cold mornings she would -go outside and give an apple to the fat bay pony when -he galloped back from the station. He would stand -puffing with a kind of rapture, the wind from his nostrils -discharging in the frosty air vague shapes like -smoky trumpets. Presently upon his hide a little ball -of liquid mysteriously suspired, grew, slid, dropped -from his flanks into the road. And then drops would -begin to come from all parts of him until the road -beneath was dabbled by a shower from his dew-distilling -outline. Phemy would say:</p> - -<p>“The wretches! They were so late they drove him -near distracted, poor thing. Lazy rogues, but wait till -master comes back, they’d better be careful!”</p> - -<p>And if any friendly person in the village asked her: -“How are you getting on up there, Phemy?” she<span class="pagenum">[324]</span> -would reply, “Oh, as well as you can expect with so -much to be done—and such men.” The interlocutor -might hint that there was no occasion in the circumstances -to distress oneself, but then Phemy would be -vexed. To her, honesty was as holy as the sabbath to -a little child. Behind her back they jested about her -foolishness; but, after all, wisdom isn’t a process, it’s a -result, it’s the fruit of the tree. One can’t be wise, one -can only be fortunate.</p> - -<p>On the last day of her Elysium the workhouse master -and the chaplain had stalked over the farm shooting -partridges. In the afternoon she met them and asked -for a couple of birds for Weetman’s return on the -morrow. The workhouse was not far away, it was on -a hill facing west, and at sunset time its windows would -often catch the glare so powerfully that the whole -building seemed to burn like a box of contained -and smokeless fire. Very beautiful it looked to Phemy.</p> - - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p>The men had come to work punctually and Phemy -herself found so much to do that she had no time to -give the pony an apple. She cleared the kitchen once -and for all of the pails, guns, harness, and implements -that so hampered its domestic intention, and there were -abundant signs elsewhere of a new impulse at work -in the establishment. She did not know at what hour -to expect the prisoner so she often went to the garden -gate and glanced up the road. The night had been wild -with windy rain, but the morn was sparklingly clear though -breezy still. Crisp leaves rustled about the road where<span class="pagenum">[325]</span> -the polished chestnuts beside the parted husks lay in -numbers, mixed with coral buds of the yews. The -sycamore leaves were black rags, but the delicate elm -foliage fluttered down like yellow stars. There was a -brown field neatly adorned with white coned heaps of -turnips, behind it a small upland of deeply green lucerne, -behind that nothing but blue sky and rolling -cloud. The turnips, washed by the rain, were creamy -polished globes.</p> - -<p>When at last he appeared she scarcely knew him. -Glas Weetman was a big, though not fleshy, man of -thirty with a large boyish face and a flat bald head. -Now he had a thick dark beard. He was hungry, but -his first desire was to be shaved. He stood before -the kitchen mirror, first clipping the beard away with -scissors, and as he lathered the remainder he said:</p> - -<p>“Well, it’s a bad state of things this, my sister dead -and my mother gone to America. What shall us do?”</p> - -<p>He perceived in the glass that she was smiling.</p> - -<p>“There’s naught funny in it, my comic gal,” he -bawled indignantly, “what are you laughing at?”</p> - -<p>“I wer’n’t laughing. It’s your mother that’s dead.”</p> - -<p>“My mother that’s dead. I know.”</p> - -<p>“And Miss Alice that’s gone to America.”</p> - -<p>“To America, I know, I know, so you can stop making -your bullock’s eyes and get me something to eat. -What’s been going on here?”</p> - -<p>She gave him an outline of affairs. He looked at -her sternly when he asked her about his sweetheart.</p> - -<p>“Has Rosa Beauchamp been along here?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Phemy, and he was silent. She was<span class="pagenum">[326]</span> -surprised at the question. The Beauchamps were such -respectable high-up people that to Phemy’s simple mind -they could not possibly favour an alliance, now, with a -man that had been in prison: it was absurd, but she did -not say so to him. And she was bewildered to find that -her conviction was wrong, for Rosa came along later -in the day and everything between her master and his -sweetheart was just as before; Phemy had not divined -so much love and forgiveness in high-up people.</p> - -<p>It was the same with everything else. The old harsh -rushing life was resumed, Weetman turned to his farm -with an accelerated vigour to make up for the lost time -and the girl’s golden week or two of ease became an -unforgotten dream. The pails, the guns, the harness, -crept back into the kitchen. Spiders, cockroaches, and -mice were more noticeable than ever before, and Weetman -himself seemed embittered, harsher. Time alone -could never still him, there was a force in his frame, -a buzzing in his blood. But there was a difference between -them now; Phemy no longer feared him. She -obeyed him, it is true, with eagerness, she worked in -the house like a woman and in the fields like a man. -They ate their meals together, and from this dissonant -comradeship the girl in a dumb kind of way began to -love him.</p> - -<p>One April evening on coming in from the fields he -found her lying on the couch beneath the window, dead -plumb fast asleep, with no meal ready at all. He flung -his bundle of harness to the flags and bawled angrily -to her. To his surprise she did not stir. He was<span class="pagenum">[327]</span> -somewhat abashed, he stepped over to look at her. She -was lying on her side. There was a large rent in her -bodice between sleeve and shoulder; her flesh looked -soft and agreeable to him. Her shoes had slipped off -to the floor; her lips were folded in a sleepy pout.</p> - -<p>“Why, she’s quite a pretty cob,” he murmured. -“She’s all right, she’s just tired, the Lord above knows -what for.”</p> - -<p>But he could not rouse the sluggard. Then a fancy -moved him to lift her in his arms; he carried her from -the kitchen and staggering up the stairs laid the sleeping -girl on her own bed. He then went downstairs and ate -pie and drank beer in the candle-light, guffawing once -or twice, “A pretty cob, rather.” As he stretched himself -after the meal a new notion amused him: he put a -plateful of food upon a tray together with a mug of -beer and the candle. Doffing his heavy boots and leggings -he carried the tray into Phemy’s room. And he -stopped there.</p> - - -<h3>III</h3> - -<p>The new circumstance that thus slipped into her life -did not effect any noticeable alteration of its general -contour and progress, Weetman did not change towards -her. Phemy accepted his mastership not alone because -she loved him but because her powerful sense of loyalty -covered all the possible opprobrium. She did not -seem to mind his continued relations with Rosa.</p> - -<p>Towards midsummer one evening Glastonbury came -in in the late dusk. Phemy was there in the darkened<span class="pagenum">[328]</span> -kitchen. “Master,” she said immediately he entered. -He stopped before her. She continued: “Something’s -happened.”</p> - -<p>“Huh, while the world goes popping round something -shall always happen.”</p> - -<p>“It’s me—I’m took—a baby, master,” she said. He -stood stock-still. His face was to the light, she could -not see the expression on his face, perhaps he wanted -to embrace her.</p> - -<p>“Let’s have a light, sharp,” he said in his brusque -way. “The supper smells good but I can’t see what -I’m smelling, and I can only fancy what I be looking -at.”</p> - -<p>She lit the candles and they ate supper in silence. -Afterwards he sat away from the table with his legs -outstretched and crossed, hands sunk into pockets, pondering -while the girl cleared the table. Soon he put his -powerful arm around her waist and drew her to sit on -his knees.</p> - -<p>“Are ye sure o’ that?” he demanded.</p> - -<p>She was sure.</p> - -<p>“Quite?”</p> - -<p>She was quite sure.</p> - -<p>“Ah, well then,” he sighed conclusively, “we’ll be -married.”</p> - -<p>The girl sprang to her feet. “No, no, no—how can -you be married—you don’t mean that—not married—there’s -Miss Beauchamp!” She paused and added, a -little unsteadily: “She’s your true love, master.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, but I’ll not wed her,” he cried sternly. “If -there’s no gainsaying this that’s come on you, I’ll<span class="pagenum">[329]</span> -stand to my guns. It’s right and proper for we to -have a marriage.”</p> - -<p>His great thick-fingered hands rested upon his knees; -the candles threw a wash of light upon his polished -leggings; he stared into the fireless grate.</p> - -<p>“But we do not want to do that,” said the girl, dully -and doubtfully. “You have given your ring to her, -you’ve given her your word. I don’t want you to do -this for me. It’s all right, master, it’s all right.”</p> - -<p>“Are ye daft?” he cried. “I tell you we’ll wed. -Don’t keep clacking about Rosa.... I’ll stand to my -guns.” He paused before adding: “She’d gimme -the rightabout, fine now—don’t you see, stupid—but -I’ll not give her the chance.”</p> - -<p>Her eyes were lowered. “She’s your true love, -master.”</p> - -<p>“What would become of you and your child? Ye -couldn’t bide here!”</p> - -<p>“No,” said the trembling girl.</p> - -<p>“I’m telling you what we must do, modest and -proper; there’s naught else to be done, and I’m middling -glad of it, I am. Life’s a see-saw affair. I’m -middling glad of this.”</p> - -<p>So, soon, without a warning to any one, least of all to -Rosa Beauchamp, they were married by the registrar. -The change in her domestic status produced no other -change; in marrying Weetman she had married all -his ardour, she was swept into its current. She helped -to milk cows, she boiled nauseating messes for pigs, -chopped mangolds, mixed meal, and sometimes drove -a harrow in his windy fields. Though they slept together<span class="pagenum">[330]</span> -she was still his servant. Sometimes he -called her his “pretty little cob” and then she knew he -was fond of her. But in general his custom was disillusioning. -His way with her was his way with his -beasts; he knew what he wanted, it was easy to get. If -for a brief space a little romantic flower began to bud -in her breast it was frozen as a bud, and the vague -longing disappeared at length from her eyes. And she -became aware that Rosa Beauchamp was not yet done -with; somewhere in the darkness of the fields Glastonbury -still met her. Phemy did not mind.</p> - -<p>In the new year she bore him a son that died as it -came to life. Glas was angry at that, as angry as if -he had lost a horse. He felt that he had been duped, -that the marriage had been a stupid sacrifice, and in -this he was savagely supported by Rosa. And yet -Phemy did not mind; the farm had got its grip upon -her, it was consuming her body and blood.</p> - -<p>Weetman was just going to drive into town; he sat -fuming in the trap behind the fat bay pony.</p> - -<p>“Bring me that whip from the passage,” he shouted; -“there’s never a damn thing handy!”</p> - -<p>Phemy appeared with the whip. “Take me with -you,” she said.</p> - -<p>“God-a-mighty! What for? I be comin’ back in -an hour. They ducks want looking over and you’ve -all the taties to grade.”</p> - -<p>She stared at him irresolutely.</p> - -<p>“And who’s to look after the house? You know it -won’t lock up—the key’s lost. Get up there!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum">[331]</span></p> - -<p>He cracked his whip in the air as the pony dashed -away.</p> - -<p>In the summer Phemy fell sick, her arm swelled -enormously. The doctor came again and again. It -was blood-poisoning, caught from a diseased cow that -she had milked with a cut finger. A nurse arrived but -Phemy knew she was doomed, and though tortured with -pain she was for once vexed and protestant. For it -was a June night, soft and nubile, with a marvellous -moon; a nightingale threw its impetuous garland into -the air. She lay listening to it, and thinking with sad -pleasure of the time when Glastonbury was in prison, -how grand she was in her solitude, ordering everything -for the best and working superbly. She wanted to go -on and on for evermore, though she knew she had -never known peace in maidenhood or marriage. The -troubled waters of the world never ceased to flow; in -the night there was no rest—only darkness. Nothing -could emerge now. She was leaving it all to Rosa -Beauchamp. Glastonbury was gone out somewhere—perhaps -to meet Rosa in the fields. There was the -nightingale, and it was very bright outside.</p> - -<p>“Nurse,” moaned the dying girl, “what was I born -into the world at all for?”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="transnote"> -<h2 class="boldfont" style="margin-top: 0em; text-align:center; font-size:150%">Transcriber’s Notes:</h2> - -<p>Punctuation has been made consistent.</p> - -<p>Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in -the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors -have been corrected.</p> -</div></div> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Adam & Eve & Pinch Me, by -Alfred Edgar (A. E.) 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