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diff --git a/old/61016-0.txt b/old/61016-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 599537d..0000000 --- a/old/61016-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8690 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Black Dog, by A. E. (Alfred Edgar) 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: The Black Dog - And Other Stories - - -Author: A. E. (Alfred Edgar) Coppard - - - -Release Date: December 25, 2019 [eBook #61016] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK DOG*** - - -E-text prepared by ellinora, Les Galloway, and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made -available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) - - - -Note: Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/blackdogothersto00coppuoft - - -Transcriber’s note: - - Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). - - - - - -THE BLACK DOG - -Tales - - - * * * * * - -By the Same Author - -ADAM AND EVE AND PINCH ME -CLORINDA WALKS IN HEAVEN -HIPS AND HAWS - - * * * * * - - -THE BLACK DOG - -And Other Stories by - -A. E. COPPARD - - -[Illustration; Publisher's Device] - - - - - - -New York -Alfred A. Knopf -1923 - -Made and printed in Great Britain by Charles Whittingham -and Griggs (Printers), Ltd., London. - - - - - _to_ - GAY - - - - -I record my acknowledgments to the Editors of the following journals in -which some of these tales first appeared: - - _The Saturday Review_, _The Westminster Gazette_, - _The Sovereign Magazine_, _The English Review_, - _The Dial_, _The Metropolitan_, _The Double Dealer_. - - A. E. C. - - - - -_Contents_ - - - PAGE - - THE BLACK DOG 13 - - ALAS, POOR BOLLINGTON! 50 - - THE BALLET GIRL 62 - - SIMPLE SIMON 79 - - THE TIGER 91 - - MORDECAI AND COCKING 107 - - THE MAN FROM KILSHEELAN 113 - - TRIBUTE 133 - - THE HANDSOME LADY 139 - - THE FANCY DRESS BALL 173 - - THE CAT, THE DOG, AND THE BAD OLD DAME 188 - - THE WIFE OF TED WICKHAM 195 - - TANIL 206 - - THE DEVIL IN THE CHURCHYARD 228 - - HUXLEY RUSTEM 236 - - BIG GAME 243 - - THE POOR MAN 252 - - LUXURY 286 - - - - - THE BLACK DOG - - _Tales_ - - - - - _The Black Dog_ - - -Having pocketed his fare the freckled rustic took himself and his -antediluvian cab back to the village limbo from which they had briefly -emerged. Loughlin checked his luggage into the care of the porter, an -angular man with one eye who was apparently the only other living being -in this remote minute station, and sat down in the platform shade. July -noon had a stark eye-tiring brightness, and a silence so very deep—when -that porter ceased his intolerable clatter—that Loughlin could hear -footsteps crunching in the road half a mile away. The train was late. -There were no other passengers. Nothing to look at except his trunks, -two shiny rails in the grim track, red hollyhocks against white palings -on the opposite bank. - -The holiday in this quiet neighbourhood had delighted him, but its -crowning experience had been too brief. On the last day but one the -loveliest woman he had ever known had emerged almost as briefly as -that cabman. Some men are constantly meeting that woman. Not so the -Honourable Gerald Loughlin, but no man turns his back tranquilly on -destiny even if it is but two days old and already some half-dozen -miles away. The visit had come to its end, Loughlin had come to his -station, the cab had gone back to its lair, but on reflection he could -find no other reasons for going away and denying himself the delight of -this proffered experience. Time was his own, as much as he could buy of -it, and he had an income that enabled him to buy a good deal. - -Moody and hesitant he began to fill his pipe when the one-eyed porter -again approached him. - -“Take a pipe of that?” said Loughlin, offering him the pouch. - -“Thanky, sir, but I can’t smoke a pipe; a cigarette I take now and -again, thanky, sir, not often, just to keep me from cussing and -damming. My wife buys me a packet sometimes, she says I don’t swear so -much then, but I don’t know, I has to knock ’em off soon’s they make me -feel bad, and then, dam it all, I be worsen ever....” - -“Look here,” said the other, interrupting him, “I’m not going by this -train after all. Something I have forgotten. Now look after my bags and -I’ll come along later, this afternoon.” He turned and left the station -as hurriedly as if his business was really of the high importance the -porter immediately conceived it to be. - -The Honourable Gerald, though handsome and honest, was not a fool. -A fool is one who becomes distracted between the claims of instinct -and common sense; the larger foolishness is the peculiar doom of -imaginative people, artists and their kind, while the smaller -foolishness is the mark of all those who have nothing but their -foolishness to endorse them. Loughlin responded to this impulse -unhesitatingly but without distraction, calmly and directly as became -a well-bred bachelor in the early thirties. He might have written -to the young beauty with the queer name, Orianda Crabbe, but that -course teemed with absurdities and difficulties for he was modest, -his romantic imagination weak, and he had only met her at old -Lady Tillington’s a couple of days before. Of this mere girl, just -twenty-three or twenty-four, he knew nothing save that they had been -immediately and vividly charming to each other. That was no excuse -for presenting himself again to the old invalid of Tillington Park, -it would be impossible for him to do so, but there had been one vague -moment of their recalled intercourse, a glimmering intimation, which -just now seemed to offer a remote possibility of achievement, and so he -walked on in the direction of the park. - -Tillington was some miles off and the heat was oppressive. At the end -of an hour’s stroll he stepped into “The Three Pigeons” at Denbury and -drank a deep drink. It was quiet and deliciously cool in the taproom -there, yes, as silent as that little station had been. Empty the -world seemed to-day, quite empty; he had not passed a human creature. -Happily bemused he took another draught. Eighteen small panes of glass -in that long window and perhaps as many flies buzzing in the room. He -could hear and see a breeze saluting the bright walled ivy outside and -the bushes by a stream. This drowsiness was heaven, it made so clear -his recollection of Orianda. It was impossible to particularize but -she was in her way, her rather uncultured way, just perfection. He -had engaged her upon several themes, music, fishing (Loughlin loved -fishing), golf, tennis, and books; none of these had particularly -stirred her but she had brains, quite an original turn of mind. There -had been neither time nor opportunity to discover anything about her, -but there she was, staying there, that was the one thing certain, -apparently indefinitely, for she described the park in a witty detailed -way even to a certain favourite glade which she always visited in the -afternoons. When she had told him that, he could swear she was not -finessing; no, no, it was a most engaging simplicity, a frankness that -was positively marmoreal. - -He would certainly write to her; yes, and he began to think of fine -phrases to put in a letter, but could there be anything finer, now, -just at this moment, than to be sitting with her in this empty inn. It -was not a fair place, though it was clean, but how she would brighten -it, yes! there were two long settles and two short ones, two tiny -tables and eight spittoons (he _had_ to count them), and somehow he -felt her image flitting adorably into this setting, defeating with its -native glory all the scrupulous beer-smelling impoverishment. And then, -after a while, he would take her, and they would lie in the grass under -a deep-bosomed tree and speak of love. How beautiful she would be. But -she was not there, and so he left the inn and crossed the road to a -church, pleasant and tiny and tidy, whitewalled and clean-ceilinged. -A sparrow chirped in the porch, flies hummed in the nave, a puppy was -barking in the vicarage garden. How trivial, how absurdly solemn, -everything seemed. The thud of the great pendulum in the tower had -the sound of a dead man beating on a bar of spiritless iron. He was -tired of the vapid tidiness of these altars with their insignificant -tapestries, candlesticks of gilded wood, the bunches of pale flowers -oppressed by the rich glow from the windows. He longed for an altar -that should be an inspiring symbol of belief, a place of green and -solemn walls with a dark velvet shrine sweeping aloft to the peaked -roof unhindered by tarnishing lustre and tedious linen. Holiness was -always something richly dim. There was no more holiness here than in -the tough hassocks and rush-bottomed chairs; not here, surely, the -apple of Eden flourished. And yet, turning to the lectern, he noted the -large prayer book open at the office of marriage. He idly read over -the words of the ceremony, filling in at the gaps the names of Gerald -Wilmot Loughlin and Orianda Crabbe. - -What a fool! He closed the book with a slam and left the church. -Absurd! You _couldn’t_ fall in love with a person as sharply as all -that, could you? But why not? Unless fancy was charged with the -lightning of gods it was nothing at all. - -Tramping away still in the direction of Tillington Park he came in the -afternoon to that glade under a screen of trees spoken of by the girl. -It was green and shady, full of scattering birds. He flung himself down -in the grass under a deep-bosomed tree. She had spoken delightfully of -this delightful spot. - -When she came, for come she did, the confrontation left him very -unsteady as he sprang to his feet. (Confound that potation at “The -Three Pigeons”! Enormously hungry, too!) But he was amazed, entranced, -she was so happy to see him again. They sat down together, but he was -still bewildered and his confusion left him all at sixes and sevens. -Fortunately her own rivulet of casual chatter carried them on until he -suddenly asked: “Are you related to the Crabbes of Cotterton—I fancy I -know them?” - -“No, I think not, no, I am from the south country, near the sea, nobody -at all, my father keeps an inn.” - -“An inn! How extraordinary! How very ... very ...” - -“Extraordinary?” Nodding her head in the direction of the hidden -mansion she added: “I am her companion.” - -“Lady Tillington’s?” - -She assented coolly, was silent, while Loughlin ransacked his brains -for some delicate reference that would clear him over this ... this ... -cataract. But he felt stupid—that confounded potation at “The Three -Pigeons”! Why, that was where he had thought of her so admirably, too. -He asked if she cared for the position, was it pleasant, and so on. -Heavens, what an astonishing creature for a domestic, quite positively -lovely, a compendium of delightful qualities, this girl, so frank, so -simple! - -“Yes, I like it, but home is better. I should love to go back to my -home, to father, but I can’t, I’m still afraid—I ran away from home -three years ago, to go with my mother. I’m like my mother, she ran away -from home too.” - -Orianda picked up the open parasol which she had dropped, closed it in -a thoughtful manner, and laid its crimson folds beside her. There was -no other note of colour in her white attire; she was without a hat. Her -fair hair had a quenching tinge upon it that made it less bright than -gold, but more rare. Her cheeks had the colour of homely flowers, the -lily and the pink. Her teeth were as even as the peas in a newly opened -pod, as clear as milk. - -“Tell me about all that. May I hear it?” - -“I have not seen him or heard from him since, but I love him very much -now.” - -“Your father?” - -“Yes, but he is stern, a simple man, and he is so just. We live at a -tiny old inn at the end of a village near the hills. ‘The Black Dog.’ -It is thatched and has tiny rooms. It’s painted all over with pink, -pink whitewash.” - -“Ah, I know.” - -“There’s a porch, under a sycamore tree, where people sit, and an old -rusty chain hanging on a hook just outside the door.” - -“What’s that for?” - -“I don’t know what it is for, horses, perhaps, but it is always there, -I always see that rusty chain. And on the opposite side of the road -there are three lime trees and behind them is the yard where my father -works. He makes hurdles and ladders. He is the best hurdle maker in -three counties, he has won many prizes at the shows. It is splendid to -see him working at the willow wood, soft and white. The yard is full -of poles and palings, spars and fagots, and long shavings of the thin -bark like seaweed. It smells so nice. In the spring the chaffinches -and wrens are singing about him all day long; the wren is lovely, but -in the summer of course it’s the whitethroats come chippering, and -yellow-hammers.” - -“Ah, blackbirds, thrushes, nightingales!” - -“Yes, but it’s the little birds seem to love my father’s yard.” - -“Well then, but why did you, why did you run away?” - -“My mother was much younger, and different from father; she was -handsome and proud too, and in all sorts of ways superior to him. They -got to hate each other; they were so quiet about it, but I could see. -Their only common interest was me, they both loved me very much. Three -years ago she ran away from him. Quite suddenly, you know; there was -nothing at all leading up to such a thing. But I could not understand -my father, not then, he took it all so calmly. He did not mention even -her name to me for a long time, and I feared to intrude; you see, I did -not understand, I was only twenty. When I did ask about her he told me -not to bother him, forbade me to write to her. I didn’t know where she -was, but he knew, and at last I found out too.” - -“And you defied him, I suppose?” - -“No, I deceived him. He gave me money for some purpose—to pay a -debt—and I stole it. I left him a letter and ran away to my mother. I -loved her.” - -“O well, that was only to be expected,” said Loughlin. “It was all -right, quite right.” - -“She was living with another man. I didn’t know. I was a fool.” - -“Good lord! That was a shock for you,” Loughlin said. “What did you -do?” - -“No, I was not shocked, she was so happy. I lived with them for a -year....” - -“Extraordinary!” - -“And then she died.” - -“Your mother died!” - -“Yes, so you see I could not stop with my ... I could not stay where I -was, and I couldn’t go back to my father.” - -“I see, no, but you want to go back to your father now.” - -“I’m afraid. I love him, but I’m afraid. I don’t blame my mother, I -feel she was right, quite right—it was such happiness. And yet I feel, -too, that father was deeply wronged. I can’t understand that, it sounds -foolish. I should so love to go home again. This other kind of life -doesn’t seem to eclipse me—things have been extraordinary kind—I don’t -feel out of my setting, but still it doesn’t satisfy, it is polite and -soft, like silk, perhaps it isn’t barbarous enough, and I want to live, -somehow—well, I have not found what I wanted to find.” - -“What did you want to find?” - -“I shan’t know until I have found it. I do want to go home now, but I -am full of strange feelings about it. I feel as if I was bearing the -mark of something that can’t be hidden or disguised of what my mother -did, as if I were all a burning recollection for him that he couldn’t -fail to see. He is good, a just man. He ... he is the best hurdle maker -in three counties.” - -While listening to this daughter of a man who made ladders the -Honourable Gerald had been swiftly thinking of an intriguing phrase -that leaped into his mind. Social plesiomorphism, that was it! Caste -was humbug, no doubt, but even if it was conscious humbug it was -there, really there, like the patterned frost upon a window pane, -beautiful though a little incoherent, and conditioned only by the size -and number of your windows. (Eighteen windows in that pub!) But what -did it amount to, after all? It was stuck upon your clear polished -outline for every eye to see, but within was something surprising as -the sight of a badger in church—until you got used to the indubitable -relation of such badgers to such churches. Fine turpitudes! - -“My dear girl,” he burst out, “your mother and you were right, -absolutely. I am sure life is enhanced not by amassing conventions, but -by destroying them. And your feeling for your father is right, too, -rightest of all. Tell me ... let me ... may I take you back to him?” - -The girl’s eyes dwelt upon his with some intensity. - -“Your courage is kind,” she said, “but he doesn’t know you, nor you -him.” And to that she added, “You don’t even know me.” - -“I have known you for ten thousand years. Come home to him with me, we -will go back together. Yes, you can explain. Tell him”—the Honourable -Gerald had got the bit between his teeth now—“tell him I’m your -sweetheart, will you—will you?” - -“Ten thousand ...! Yes, I know; but it’s strange to think you have only -seen me just once before!” - -“Does that matter? Everything grows from that one small moment into a -world of ... well of ... boundless admiration.” - -“I don’t want,” said Orianda, reopening her crimson parasol, “to grow -into a world of any kind.” - -“No, of course you don’t. But I mean the emotion is irresistible, ‘the -desire of the moth for the star,’ that sort of thing, you know, and I -immolate myself, the happy victim of your attractions.” - -“All that has been said before.” Orianda adjusted her parasol as a -screen for her raillery. - -“I swear,” said he, “I have not said it before, never to a living soul.” - -Fountains of amusement beamed in her brilliant eyes. She was exquisite; -he was no longer in doubt about the colour of her eyes—though he could -not describe them. And the precise shade of her hair was—well, it was -extraordinarily beautiful. - -“I mean—it’s been said to me!” - -“O damnation! Of course it’s been said to you. Ah, and isn’t that my -complete justification? But you agree, do you not? Tell me if it’s -possible. Say you agree, and let me take you back to your father.” - -“I think I would like you to,” the jolly girl said, slowly. - - -II - -On an August morning a few weeks later they travelled down together to -see her father. In the interim Orianda had resigned her appointment, -and several times Gerald had met her secretly in the purlieus of -Tillington Park. The girl’s cool casual nature fascinated him not less -than her appearance. Admiration certainly outdistanced his happiness, -although that also increased; but the bliss had its shadow, for the -outcome of their friendship seemed mysteriously to depend on the -outcome of the proposed return to her father’s home, devotion to that -project forming the first principle, as it were, of their intercourse. -Orianda had not dangled before him the prospect of any serener -relationship; she took his caresses as naturally and undemonstratively -as a pet bird takes a piece of sugar. But he had begun to be aware of a -certain force behind all her charming naivete; the beauty that exhaled -the freshness, the apparent fragility, of a drop of dew had none the -less a savour of tyranny which he vowed should never, least of all by -him, be pressed to vulgar exercise. - -When the train reached its destination Orianda confided calmly that -she had preferred not to write to her father. Really she did not know -for certain whether he was alive or even living on at the old home she -so loved. And there was a journey of three miles or more which Orianda -proposed to walk. So they walked. - -The road lay across an expanse of marshy country and approached the -wooded uplands of her home only by numerous eccentric divagations made -necessary by culverts that drained the marsh. The day was bright; the -sky, so vast an arch over this flat land, was a very oven for heat; -there were cracks in the earth, the grass was like stubble. At the mid -journey they crossed a river by its wooden bridge, upon which a boy -sat fishing with stick and string. Near the water was a long white hut -with a flag; a few tethered boats floated upon the stream. Gerald gave -a shilling to a travelling woman who carried a burden on her back and -shuffled slowly upon the harsh road sighing, looking neither to right -nor left; she did not look into the sky, her gaze was fastened upon her -dolorous feet, one two, one two, one two; her shift, if she had such a -garment, must have clung to her old body like a shrimping net. - -In an hour they had reached the uplands and soon, at the top of a -sylvan slope where there was shade and cooling air, Gerald saw a sign -hung upon a sycamore tree, _The Black Dog by Nathaniel Crabbe_. The inn -was small, pleasant with pink wash and brown paint, and faced across -the road a large yard encircled by hedges, trees, and a gate. The -travellers stood peeping into the enclosure which was stocked with new -ladders, hurdles, and poles of various sizes. Amid them stood a tall -burly man at a block, trimming with an axe the butt of a willow rod. He -was about fifty, clad in rough country clothes, a white shirt, and a -soft straw hat. He had mild simple features coloured, like his arms and -neck, almost to the hue of a bay horse. - -“Hullo!” called the girl. The man with the axe looked round at her -unrecognizingly. Orianda hurried through the gateway. “Father!” she -cried. - -“I did not know. I was not rightly sure of ye,” said the man, dropping -the axe, “such a lady you’ve grown.” - -As he kissed his daughter his heavy discoloured hands rested on her -shoulders, her gloved ones lay against his breast. Orianda took out her -purse. - -“Here is the money I stole, father.” - -She dropped some coins one by one into his palm. He counted them over, -and saying simply “Thank you, my dear,” put them into his pocket. - -“I’m dashed!”—thought Loughlin, who had followed the girl—“it’s exactly -how _she_ would take it; no explanation, no apology. They do not know -what reproach means. Have they no code at all?” - -She went on chatting with her father, and seemed to have forgotten her -companion. - -“You mean you want to come back!” exclaimed her father eagerly, “come -back here? That would be grand, that would. But look, tell me what I am -to do. I’ve—you see—this is how it is—” - -He spat upon the ground, picked up his axe, rested one foot upon the -axe-block and one arm upon his knee. Orianda sat down upon a pile of -the logs. - -“This is how it is ... be you married?” - -“Come and sit here, Gerald,” called the girl. As he came forward -Orianda rose and said: “This is my very dear friend, father, Gerald -Loughlin. He has been so kind. It is he who has given me the courage -to come back. I wanted to for so long. O, a long time, father, a long -time. And yet Gerald had to drag me here in the end.” - -“What was you afraid of, my girl?” asked the big man. - -“Myself.” - -The two visitors sat upon the logs. “Shall I tell you about mother?” -asked the girl. - -Crabbe hesitated; looked at the ground. - -“Ah, yes, you might,” he said. - -“She died, did you know?” - -The man looked up at the trees with their myriads of unmoving leaves; -each leaf seemed to be listening. - -“She died?” he said softly. “No, I did not know she died.” - -“Two years ago,” continued the girl, warily, as if probing his mood. - -“Two years!” He repeated it without emotion. “No, I did not know she -died. ’Tis a bad job.” He was quite still, his mind seemed to be -turning over his own secret memories, but what he bent forward and -suddenly said was: “Don’t say anything about it in there.” He nodded -towards the inn. - -“No?” Orianda opened her crimson parasol. - -“You see,” he went on, again resting one foot on the axe-block and -addressing himself more particularly to Gerald: “I’ve ... this is how -it is. When I was left alone I could not get along here, not by myself. -That’s for certain. There’s the house and the bar and the yard—I’d -to get help, a young woman from Brighton. I met her at Brighton.” He -rubbed the blade of the axe reflectively across his palm—“And she -manages house for me now, you see.” - -He let the axe fall again and stood upright. “Her name’s Lizzie.” - -“O, quite so, you could do no other,” Gerald exclaimed cheerfully, -turning to the girl. But Orianda said softly: “What a family we are! -He means he is living with her. And so you don’t want your undutiful -daughter after all, father?” Her gaiety was a little tremulous. - -“No, no!” he retorted quickly, “you must come back, you must come -back, if so be you can. There’s nothing I’d like better, nothing on -this mortal earth. My God, if something don’t soon happen I don’t know -what _will_ happen.” Once more he stooped for the axe. “That’s right, -Orianda, yes, yes, but you’ve no call to mention to her”—he glared -uneasily at the inn doorway—“that ... that about your mother.” - -Orianda stared up at him though he would not meet her gaze. - -“You mean she doesn’t know?” she asked, “you mean she would want you to -marry her if she did know?” - -“Yes, that’s about how it is with us.” - -Loughlin was amazed at the girl’s divination. It seemed miraculous, -what a subtle mind she had, extraordinary! And how casually she took -the old rascal’s—well, what could you call it?—effrontery, shame, -misdemeanour, helplessness. But was not her mother like it too? He had -grasped nothing at all of the situation yet, save that Nathaniel Crabbe -appeared to be netted in the toils of this housekeeper, this Lizzie -from Brighton. Dear Orianda was “dished” now, poor girl. She could not -conceivably return to such a menage. - -Orianda was saying: “Then I may stay, father, mayn’t I, for good with -you?” - -Her father’s eyes left no doubt of his pleasure. - -“Can we give Gerald a bedroom for a few days? Or do we ask Lizzie?” - -“Ah, better ask her,” said the shameless man. “You want to make a stay -here, sir?” - -“If it won’t incommode you,” replied Loughlin. - -“O, make no doubt about that, to be sure no, I make no doubt about -that.” - -“Have you still got my old bedroom?” asked Orianda, for the amount -of dubiety in his air was in prodigious antagonism to his expressed -confidence. - -“Why yes, it may happen,” he replied slowly. - -“Then Gerald can have the spare room. It’s all wainscot and painted -dark blue. It’s a shrimp of a room, but there’s a preserved albatross -in a glass case as big as a van.” - -“I make no doubt about that,” chimed in her father, straightening -himself and scratching his chin uneasily, “you must talk to Lizzie.” - -“Splendid!” said Gerald to Orianda, “I’ve never seen an albatross.” - -“We’ll ask Lizzie,” said she, “at once.” - -Loughlin was experiencing not a little inward distress at this turn in -the affair, but it was he who had brought Orianda to her home, and he -would have to go through with the horrid business. - -“Is she difficult, father?” - -“No, she’s not difficult, not difficult, so to say, you must make -allowance.” - -The girl was implacable. Her directness almost froze the blood of the -Hon. Loughlin. - -“Are you fond of her. How long has she been here?” - -“O, a goodish while, yes, let me see—no, she’s not difficult, if that’s -what you mean—three years, perhaps.” - -“Well, but that’s long enough!” - -(Long enough for what—wondered Loughlin?) - -“Yes, it is longish.” - -“If you really want to get rid of her you could tell her ...” - -“Tell her what?” - -“You know what to tell her!” - -But her father looked bewildered and professed his ignorance. - -“Take me in to her,” said Orianda, and they all walked across to “The -Black Dog.” There was no one within; father and daughter went into -the garden while Gerald stayed behind in a small parlour. Through the -window that looked upon a grass plot he could see a woman sitting in a -deck chair under a tree. Her face was turned away so that he saw only -a curve of pink cheek and a thin mound of fair hair tossed and untidy. -Lizzie’s large red fingers were slipping a sprig of watercress into a -mouth that was hidden round the corner of the curve. With her other -hand she was caressing a large brown hen that sat on her lap. Her black -skirt wrapped her limbs tightly, a round hip and a thigh being rigidly -outlined, while the blouse of figured cotton also seemed strained upon -her buxom breast, for it was torn and split in places. She had strong -white arms and holes in her stockings. When she turned to confront the -others it was easy to see that she was a foolish, untidy, but still a -rather pleasant woman of about thirty. - -“How do you do, Lizzie?” cried Orianda, offering a cordial hand. The -hen fluttered away as, smiling a little wanly, the woman rose. - -“Who is it, ’Thaniel?” she asked. - -Loughlin heard no more, for some men came noisily into the bar and -Crabbe hurried back to serve them. - - -III - -In the afternoon Orianda drove Gerald in the gig back to the station to -fetch the baggage. - -“Well, what success, Orianda?” he asked as they jogged along. - -“It would be perfect but for Lizzie—that _was_ rather a blow. But -I should have foreseen her—Lizzies are inevitable. And she _is_ -difficult—she weeps. But, O I am glad to be home again. Gerald, I feel -I shall not leave it, ever.” - -“Yes, Orianda,” he protested, “leave it for me. I’ll give your -nostalgia a little time to fade. I think it was a man named Pater said: -‘All life is a wandering to find home.’ You don’t want to omit the -wandering?” - -“Not if I have found my home again?” - -“A home with Lizzie!” - -“No, not with Lizzie.” She flicked the horse with the whip. “I shall be -too much for Lizzie; Lizzie will resume her wandering. She’s as stupid -as a wax widow in a show. Nathaniel is tired of Lizzie, and Lizzie of -Nathaniel. The two wretches! But I wish she did not weep.” - -Gerald had not observed any signs of tearfulness in Lizzie at the -midday dinner; on the contrary, she seemed rather a jolly creature, -not that she had spoken much beyond “Yes, ’Thaniel, No, ’Thaniel,” or -Gerald, or Orianda, as the case had been. Her use of his Christian -name, which had swept him at once into the bosom of the family, -shocked him rather pleasantly. But he did not know what had taken place -between the two women; perhaps Lizzie had already perceived and tacitly -accepted her displacement. - -He was wakened next morning by unusual sounds, chatter of magpies in -the front trees, and the ching of hammers on a bulk of iron at the -smithy. Below his window a brown terrier stood on its barrel barking -at a goose. Such common simple things had power to please him, and for -a few days everything at “The Black Dog” seemed planned on this scale -of novel enjoyment. The old inn itself, the log yard, harvesting, the -chatter of the evening topers, even the village Sunday delighted him -with its parade of Phyllis and Corydon, though it is true Phyllis wore -a pink frock, stockings of faint blue, and walked like a man, while -Corydon had a bowler hat and walked like a bear. He helped ’Thaniel -with axe, hammer, and plane, but best of all was to serve mugs of beer -nightly in the bar and to drop the coins into the drawer of money. The -rest of the time he spent with Orianda whom he wooed happily enough, -though without establishing any marked progress. They roamed in -fields and in copses, lounged in lanes, looking at things and idling -deliciously, at last returning home to be fed by Lizzie, whose case -somehow hung in the air, faintly deflecting the perfect stream of -felicity. - -In their favourite glade a rivulet was joined by a number of springs -bubbling from a pool of sand and rock. Below it the enlarged stream was -dammed into a small lake once used for turning a mill, but now, since -the mill was dismantled, covered with arrow heads and lily leaves, -surrounded by inclining trees, bushes of rich green growth, terraces -of willow herb, whose fairy-like pink steeples Orianda called “codlins -and cream,” and catmint with knobs of agreeable odour. A giant hornbeam -tree had fallen and lay half buried in the lake. This, and the black -poplars whose vacillating leaves underscored the solemn clamour of the -outfall, gave to it the very serenity of desolation. - -Here they caught sight of the two woodpeckers bathing in the springs, a -cock and his hen, who had flown away yaffling, leaving a pretty mottled -feather tinged with green floating there. It was endless pleasure to -watch each spring bubble upwards from a pouch of sand that spread -smoke-like in the water, turning each cone into a midget Vesuvius. A -wasp crawled laboriously along a flat rock lying in the pool. It moved -weakly, as if, marooned like a mariner upon some unknown isle, it could -find no way of escape; only, this isle was no bigger than a dish in an -ocean as small as a cartwheel. The wasp seemed to have forgotten that -it had wings, it creepingly examined every inch of the rock until it -came to a patch of dried dung. Proceeding still as wearily it paused -upon a dead leaf until a breeze blew leaf and insect into the water. -The wasp was overwhelmed by the rush from the bubbles, but at last it -emerged, clutching the woodpecker’s floating feather and dragged itself -into safety as a swimmer heaves himself into a boat. In a moment it -preened its wings, flew back to the rock, and played at Crusoe again. -Orianda picked the feather from the pool. - -“What a fool that wasp is,” declared Gerald, “I wonder what it is -doing?” - -Orianda, placing the feather in his hat, told him it was probably -wandering to find home. - -One day, brightest of all days, they went to picnic in the marshes, -a strange place to choose, all rank with the musty smell of cattle, -and populous with grasshoppers that burred below you and millions, -quadrillions of flies that buzzed above. But Orianda loved it. The -vast area of coarse pasture harboured not a single farmhouse, only a -shed here and there marking a particular field, for a thousand shallow -brooks flowed like veins from all directions to the arterial river -moving through its silent leagues. Small frills of willow curving on -the river brink, and elsewhere a temple of lofty elms, offered the only -refuge from sun or storm. Store cattle roamed unchecked from field to -field, and in the shade of gaunt rascally bushes sheep were nestling. -Green reeds and willow herb followed the watercourses with endless -efflorescence, beautiful indeed. - -In the late afternoon they had come to a spot where they could see -their village three or four miles away, but between them lay the -inexorable barrier of the river without a bridge. There was a bridge -miles away to the right, they had crossed it earlier in the day; and -there was another bridge on the left, but that also was miles distant. - -“Now what are we to do?” asked Orianda. She wore a white muslin frock, -a country frock, and a large straw hat with poppies, a country hat. -They approached a column of trees. In the soft smooth wind the foliage -of the willows was tossed into delicate greys. Orianda said they looked -like cockshy heads on spindly necks. She would like to shy at them, but -she was tired. “I know what we _could_ do.” Orianda glanced around the -landscape, trees, and bushes; the river was narrow, though deep, not -more than forty feet across, and had high banks. - -“You can swim, Gerald?” - -Yes, Gerald could swim rather well. - -“Then let’s swim it, Gerald, and carry our own clothes over.” - -“Can you swim, Orianda?” - -Yes, Orianda could swim rather well. - -“All right then,” he said. “I’ll go down here a little way.” - -“O, don’t go far, I don’t want you to go far away, Gerald,” and she -added softly, “my dear.” - -“No, I won’t go far,” he said, and sat down behind a bush a hundred -yards away. Here he undressed, flung his shoes one after the other -across the river, and swimming on his back carried his clothes over in -two journeys. As he sat drying in the sunlight he heard a shout from -Orianda. He peeped out and saw her sporting in the stream quite close -below him. She swam with a graceful overarm stroke that tossed a spray -of drops behind her and launched her body as easily as a fish’s. Her -hair was bound in a handkerchief. She waved a hand to him. “You’ve done -it! Bravo! What courage! Wait for me. Lovely.” She turned away like -an eel, and at every two or three strokes she spat into the air a gay -little fountain of water. How extraordinary she was. Gerald wished he -had not hurried. By and by he slipped into the water again and swam -upstream. He could not see her. - -“Have you finished?” he cried. - -“I have finished, yes.” Her voice was close above his head. She was -lying in the grass, her face propped between her palms, smiling down at -him. He could see bare arms and shoulders. - -“Got your clothes across?” - -“Of course.” - -“All dry?” - -She nodded. - -“How many journeys? I made two.” - -“Two,” said Orianda briefly. - -“You’re all right then.” He wafted a kiss, swam back, and dressed -slowly. Then as she did not appear he wandered along to her humming a -discreet and very audible hum as he went. When he came upon her she -still lay upon the grass most scantily clothed. - -“I beg your pardon,” he said hastily, and full of surprise and modesty -walked away. The unembarrassed girl called after him: “Drying my hair.” - -“All right”—he did not turn round—“no hurry.” - -But what sensations assailed him. They aroused in his decent -gentlemanly mind not exactly a tumult, but a flux of emotions, -impressions, and qualms; doubtful emotions, incredible impressions, and -torturing qualms. That alluring picture of Orianda, her errant father, -the abandoned Lizzie! Had the water perhaps heated his mind though it -had cooled his body? He felt he would have to urge her, drag her if -need be, from this “Black Dog.” The setting was fair enough and she was -fair, but lovely as she was not even she could escape the brush of its -vulgarity, its plebeian pressure. - -And if all this has, or seems to have, nothing, or little enough to do -with the drying of Orianda’s hair, it is because the Honourable Gerald -was accustomed to walk from grossness with an averted mind. - -“Orianda,” said he, when she rejoined him, “when are you going to give -it up. You cannot stay here ... with Lizzie ... can you?” - -“Why not?” she asked, sharply tossing back her hair. “I stayed with my -mother, you know.” - -“That was different from this. I don’t know how, but it must have been.” - -She took his arm. “Yes, it was. Lizzie I hate, and poor stupid father -loves her as much as he loves his axe or his handsaw. I hate her -meekness, too. She has taken the heart out of everything. I must get -her away.” - -“I see your need, Orianda, but what can you do?” - -“I shall lie to her, lie like a libertine. And I shall tell her that my -mother is coming home at once. No Lizzie could face that.” - -He was silent. Poor Lizzie did not know that there was now no Mrs. -Crabbe. - -“You don’t like my trick, do you?” Orianda shook his arm caressingly. - -“It hasn’t any particular grandeur about it, you know.” - -“Pooh! You shouldn’t waste grandeur on clearing up a mess. This is a -very dirty Eden.” - -“No, all’s fair, I suppose.” - -“But it isn’t war, you dear, if that’s what you mean. I’m only doing -for them what they are naturally loth to do for themselves.” She -pronounced the word “loth” as if it rimed with moth. - -“Lizzie,” he said, “I’m sure about Lizzie. I’ll swear there is still -some fondness in her funny little heart.” - -“It isn’t love, though; she’s just sentimental in her puffy kind of -way. My dear Honourable, you don’t know what love is.” He hated her to -use his title, for there was then always a breath of scorn in her tone. -Just at odd times she seemed to be—not vulgar, that was unthinkable—she -seemed to display a contempt for good breeding. He asked with a stiff -smile “What _is_ love?” - -“For me,” said Orianda, fumbling for a definition, “for me it is a -compound of anticipation and gratitude. When either of these two -ingredients is absent love is dead.” - -Gerald shook his head, laughing. “It sounds like a malignant bolus that -I shouldn’t like to take. I feel that love is just self-sacrifice. -Apart from the taste of the thing or the price of the thing, why and -for what this anticipation, this gratitude? - -“For the moment of passion, of course. Honour thy moments of passion -and keep them holy. But O, Gerald Loughlin,” she added mockingly, “this -you cannot understand, for you are not a lover; you are not, no, you -are not even a good swimmer.” Her mockery was adorable, but baffling. - -“I do not understand you,” he said. Now why in the whole world of -images should she refer to his swimming? He _was_ a good swimmer. -He was silent for a long time and then again he began to speak of -marriage, urging her to give up her project and leave Lizzie in her -simple peace. - -Then, not for the first time, she burst into a strange perverse -intensity that may have been love but might have been rage, that was -toned like scorn and yet must have been a jest. - -“Lovely Gerald, you must never marry, Gerald, you are too good for -marriage. All the best women are already married, yes, they are—to all -the worst men.” There was an infinite slow caress in her tone but she -went on rapidly. “So I shall never marry you, how should I marry a kind -man, a good man? I am a barbarian, and want a barbarian lover, to crush -and scarify me, but you are so tender and I am so crude. When your soft -eyes look on me they look on a volcano.” - -“I have never known anything half as lovely,” he broke in. - -Her sudden emotion, though controlled, was unconcealed and she turned -away from him. - -“My love is a gentleman, but with him I should feel like a wild bee in -a canary cage.” - -“What are you saying!” cried Gerald, putting his arms around her. -“Orianda!” - -“O yes, we do love in a mezzotinted kind of way. You could do anything -with me short of making me marry you, anything, Gerald.” She repeated -it tenderly. “Anything. But short of marrying me I could make you do -nothing.” She turned from him again for a moment or two. Then she took -his arm and as they walked on she shook it and said chaffingly, “And -what a timid swimmer my Gerald is.” - -But he was dead silent. That flux of sensations in his mind had taken -another twist, fiery and exquisite. Like rich clouds they shaped -themselves in the sky of his mind, fancy’s bright towers with shining -pinnacles. - -Lizzie welcomed them home. Had they enjoyed themselves—yes, the day -had been fine—and so they had enjoyed themselves—well, well, that was -right. But throughout the evening Orianda hid herself from him, so he -wandered almost distracted about the village until in a garth he saw -some men struggling with a cow. Ropes were twisted around its horns and -legs. It was flung to the earth. No countryman ever speaks to an animal -without blaspheming it, although if he be engaged in some solitary work -and inspired to music, he invariably sings a hymn in a voice that seems -to have some vague association with wood pulp. So they all blasphemed -and shouted. One man, with sore eyes, dressed in a coat of blue fustian -and brown cord trousers, hung to the end of a rope at an angle of -forty-five degrees. His posture suggested that he was trying to pull -the head off the cow. Two other men had taken turns of other rope -around some stout posts, and one stood by with a handsaw. - -“What are you going to do?” asked Gerald. - -“Its harns be bent, yeu see,” said the man with the saw, “they be going -into its head. ’Twill blind or madden the beast.” - -So they blasphemed the cow, and sawed off its crumpled horns. - -When Gerald went back to the inn Orianda was still absent. He sat down -but he could not rest. He could never rest now until he had won her -promise. That lovely image in the river spat fountains of scornful fire -at him. “Do not leave me, Gerald,” she had said. He would never leave -her, he would never leave her. But the men talking in the inn scattered -his flying fiery thoughts. They discoursed with a vacuity whose very -endlessness was transcendent. Good God! Was there ever a living person -more magnificently inane than old Tottel, the registrar. He would have -inspired a stork to protest. Of course, a man of his age should not -have worn a cap, a small one especially; Tottel himself was small, and -it made him look rumpled. He was bandy: his intellect was bandy too. - -“Yes,” Mr. Tottel was saying, “it’s very interesting to see interesting -things, no matter if it’s man, woman, or a object. The most interesting -man as I ever met in my life I met on my honeymoon. Years ago. He made -a lifelong study of railways, that man, knew ’em from Alpha to ... to -... what is it?” - -“Abednego,” said someone. - -“Yes, the trunk lines, the fares, the routs, the junctions of -anywheres in England or Scotland or Ireland or Wales. London, too, -the Underground. I tested him, every station in correct order from -South Kensington to King’s Cross. A strange thing! Nothing to do with -railways in ’imself, it was just his ’obby. Was a Baptist minister, -really, but still a most interesting man.” - -Loughlin could stand it no longer, he hurried away into the garden. He -could not find her. Into the kitchen—she was not there. He sat down -excited and impatient, but he must wait for her, he wanted to know, to -know at once. How divinely she could swim! What was it he wanted to -know? He tried to read a book there, a ragged dusty volume about the -polar regions. He learned that when a baby whale is born it weighs at -least a ton. How horrible! - -He rushed out into the fields full of extravagant melancholy and stupid -distraction. That! All that was to be her life here! This was your -rustic beauty, idiots and railways, boors who could choke an ox and -chop off its horns—maddening doubts, maddening doubts—foul-smelling -rooms, darkness, indecency. She held him at arm’s length still, but she -was dovelike, and he was grappled to her soul with hoops of steel, yes, -indeed. - -But soon this extravagance was allayed. Dim loneliness came -imperceivably into the fields and he turned back. The birds piped -oddly; some wind was caressing the higher foliage, turning it all one -way, the way home. Telegraph poles ahead looked like half-used pencils; -the small cross on the steeple glittered with a sharp and shapely -permanence. - -When he came to the inn Orianda was gone to bed. - - -IV - -The next morning an air of uneasy bustle crept into the house after -breakfast, much going in and out and up and down in restrained -perturbation. - -Orianda asked him if he could drive the horse and trap to the station. -Yes, he thought he could drive it. - -“Lizzie is departing,” she said, “there are her boxes and things. It is -very good of you, Gerald, if you will be so kind. It is a quiet horse.” - -Lizzie, then, had been subdued. She was faintly affable during the -meal, but thereafter she had been silent; Gerald could not look at her -until the last dreadful moment had come and her things were in the trap. - -“Good-bye, ’Thaniel,” she said to the innkeeper, and kissed him. - -“Good-bye, Orianda,” and she kissed Orianda, and then climbed into the -trap beside Gerald, who said “Click click,” and away went the nag. - -Lizzie did not speak during the drive—perhaps she was in tears. Gerald -would have liked to comfort her, but the nag was unusually spirited and -clacked so freshly along that he did not dare turn to the sorrowing -woman. They trotted down from the uplands and into the windy road -over the marshes. The church spire in the town ahead seemed to change -its position with every turn of that twisting route. It would have a -background now of high sour-hued down, now of dark woodland, anon of -nothing but sky and cloud; in a few miles further there would be the -sea. Hereabout there were no trees, few houses, the world was vast and -bright, the sky vast and blue. What was prettiest of all was a windmill -turning its fans steadily in the draught from the sea. When they -crossed the river its slaty slow-going flow was broken into blue waves. - -At the station Lizzie dismounted without a word and Gerald hitched the -nag to a tree. A porter took the luggage and labelled it while Gerald -and Lizzie walked about the platform. A calf with a sack over its -loins, tied by the neck to a pillar, was bellowing deeply; Lizzie let -it suck at her finger for a while, but at last she resumed her walk and -talked with her companion. - -“She’s a fine young thing, clever, his daughter; I’d do anything for -her, but for him I’ve nothing to say. What can I say? What could I do? -I gave up a great deal for that man, Mr. Loughlin—I’d better not call -you Gerald any more now—a great deal. I knew he’d had trouble with his -wicked wife, and now to take her back after so many years, eh! It’s -beyond me, I know how he hates her. I gave up everything for him, I -gave him what he can’t give back to me, and he hates her; you know?” - -“No, I did not know. I don’t know anything of this affair.” - -“No, of course, you would not know anything of this affair,” said -Lizzie with a sigh. “I don’t want to see him again. I’m a fool, -but I got my pride, and that’s something to the good, it’s almost -satisfactory, ain’t it?” - -As the train was signalled she left him and went into the booking -office. He marched up and down, her sad case affecting him with sorrow. -The poor wretch, she had given up so much and could yet smile at her -trouble. He himself had never surrendered to anything in life—that was -what life demanded of you—surrender. For reward it gave you love, this -swarthy, skin-deep love that exacted remorseless penalties. What German -philosopher was it who said Woman pays the debt of life not by what -she does, but by what she suffers? The train rushed in. Gerald busied -himself with the luggage, saw that it was loaded, but did not see its -owner. He walked rapidly along the carriages, but he could not find -her. Well, she was sick of them all, probably hiding from him. Poor -woman. The train moved off, and he turned away. - -But the station yard outside was startlingly empty, horse and trap were -gone. The tree was still there, but with a man leaning against it, a -dirty man with a dirty pipe and a dirty smell. Had he seen a horse and -trap? - -“A brown mare?” - -“Yes.” - -“Trap with yaller wheels?” - -“That’s it.” - -“O ah, a young ooman druv away in that....” - -“A young woman!” - -“Ah, two minutes ago.” And he described Lizzie. “Out yon,” said the -dirty man, pointing with his dirty pipe to the marshes. - -Gerald ran until he saw a way off on the level winding road the trap -bowling along at a great pace; Lizzie was lashing the cob. - -“The damned cat!” He puffed large puffs of exasperation and felt almost -sick with rage, but there was nothing now to be done except walk back -to “The Black Dog,” which he began to do. Rage gave place to anxiety, -fear of some unthinkable disaster, some tragic horror at the inn. - -“What a clumsy fool! All my fault, my own stupidity!” He groaned -when he crossed the bridge at the half distance. He halted there: -“It’s dreadful, dreadful!” A tremor in his blood, the shame of his -foolishness, the fear of catastrophe, all urged him to turn back to the -station and hasten away from these miserable complications. - -But he did not do so, for across the marshes at the foot of the uplands -he saw the horse and trap coming back furiously towards him. Orianda -was driving it. - -“What has happened?” she cried, jumping from the trap. “O, what fear I -was in, what’s happened?” She put her arms around him tenderly. - -“And I was in great fear,” he said with a laugh of relief. “What has -happened?” - -“The horse came home, just trotted up to the door and stood still. -Covered with sweat and foam, you see. The trap was empty. We couldn’t -understand it, anything, unless you had been flung out and were -bleeding on the road somewhere. I turned the thing back and came on -at once.” She was without a hat; she had been anxious and touched him -fondly. “Tell me what’s the scare?” - -He told her all. - -“But Lizzie was not in the trap,” Orianda declared excitedly. “She has -not come back. What does it mean, what does she want to do? Let us find -her. Jump up, Gerald.” - -Away they drove again, but nobody had seen anything of Lizzie. She had -gone, vanished, dissolved, and in that strong warm air her soul might -indeed have been blown to Paradise. But they did not know how or why. -Nobody knew. A vague search was carried on in the afternoon, guarded -though fruitless enquiries were made, and at last it seemed clear, -tolerably clear, that Lizzie had conquered her mad impulse or intention -or whatever it was, and walked quietly away across the fields to a -station in another direction. - - -V - -For a day or two longer time resumed its sweet slow delightfulness, -though its clarity was diminished and some of its enjoyment dimmed. -A village woman came to assist in the mornings, but Orianda was now -seldom able to leave the inn; she had come home to a burden, a happy, -pleasing burden, that could not often be laid aside, and therefore a -somewhat lonely Loughlin walked the high and the low of the country by -day and only in the evenings sat in the parlour with Orianda. Hope too -was slipping from his heart as even the joy was slipping from his days, -for the spirit of vanished Lizzie, defrauded and indicting, hung in the -air of the inn, an implacable obsession, a triumphant forboding that -was proved a prophecy when some boys fishing in the mill dam hooked -dead Lizzie from the pool under the hornbeam tree. - -Then it was that Loughlin’s soul discovered to him a mass of -feelings—fine sympathy, futile sentiment, a passion for righteousness, -morbid regrets—from which a tragic bias was born. After the dread -ordeal of the inquest, which gave a passive verdict of Found Drowned, -it was not possible for him to stem this disloyal tendency of his mind. -It laid that drowned figure accusatively at the feet of his beloved -girl, and no argument or sophistry could disperse the venal savour that -clung to the house of “The Black Dog.” “To analyse or assess a person’s -failings or deficiencies,” he declared to himself, “is useless, not -because such blemishes are immovable, but because they affect the mass -of beholders in divers ways. Different minds perceive utterly variant -figures in the same being. To Brown Robinson is a hero, to Jones a -snob, to Smith a fool. Who then is right? You are lucky if you can put -your miserable self in relation at an angle where your own deficiencies -are submerged or minimized, and wise if you can maintain your vision of -that interesting angle.” But embedded in Loughlin’s modest intellect -there was a stratum of probity that was rock to these sprays of the -casuist; and although Orianda grew more alluring than ever, he packed -his bag, and on a morning she herself drove him in the gig to the -station. - -Upon that miserable departure it was fitting that rain should fall. The -station platform was piled with bushel baskets and empty oil barrels. -It rained with a quiet remorselessness. Neither spoke a word, no one -spoke, no sound was uttered but the faint flicking of the raindrops. -Her kiss to him was long and sweet, her good-bye almost voiceless. - -“You will write?” she whispered. - -“Yes, I will write.” - -But he does not do so. In London he has not forgotten, but he cannot -endure the thought of that countryside—to be far from the madding crowd -is to be mad indeed. It is only after some trance of recollection, -when his fond experience is all delicately and renewingly there, that -he wavers; but time and time again he relinquishes or postpones his -return. And sometimes he thinks he really will write a letter to his -friend who lives in the country. - -But he does not do so. - - - - - _Alas, Poor Bollington!_ - - -“I walked out of the hotel, just as I was, and left her there. I never -went back again. I don’t think I intended anything quite so final, so -dastardly; I had not intended it, I had not thought of doing so, but -that is how it happened. I lost her, lost my wife purposely. It was -heartless, it was shabby, for she was a nice woman, a charming woman, -a good deal younger than I was, a splendid woman, in fact she was very -beautiful, and yet I ran away from her. How can you explain that, -Turner?” - -Poor Bollington looked at Turner, who looked at his glass of whiskey, -and that looked irresistible—he drank some. Bollington sipped a little -from his glass of milk. - -I often found myself regarding Bollington as a little old man. Most of -the club members did so too, but he was not that at all, he was still -on the sunny side of fifty, but _so_ unassertive, no presence to speak -of, no height, not enough hair to mention—if he had had it would surely -have been yellow. So mild and modest he cut no figure at all, just a -man in glasses that seemed rather big for him. Turner was different, -though he was just as bald; he had stature and bulk, his very pince-nez -seemed twice the size of Bollington’s spectacles. They had not met each -other for ten years. - -“Well, yes,” Turner said, “but that was a serious thing to do.” - -“Wasn’t it!” said the other, “and I had no idea of the enormity of the -offence—not at the time. She might have been dead, poor girl, and her -executors advertising for me. She had money you know, her people had -been licensed victuallers, quite wealthy. Scandalous!” - -Bollington brooded upon his sin until Turner sighed: “Ah well, my dear -chap.” - -“But you have no idea,” protested Bollington, “how entirely she -engrossed me. She was twenty-five and I was forty when we married. She -was entrancing. She had always lived in a stinking hole in Balham, and -it is amazing how strictly some of those people keep their children; -licensed victuallers, did I tell you? Well I was forty, and she was -twenty-five; we lived for a year dodging about from one hotel to -another all over the British Isles, she was a perfect little nomad. Are -you married, Turner?” - -No, Turner was not married, he never had been. - -“O, but you should be,” cried little Bollington, “it’s an extraordinary -experience, the real business of the world is marriage, marriage. I was -deliriously happy and she was learning French and Swedish—that’s where -we were going later. She was an enchanting little thing, fair, with -blue eyes; Phoebe her name was.” - -Turner thoughtfully brushed his hand across his generous baldness, then -folded his arms. - -“You really should,” repeated Bollington, “you ought to, really. But -I remember we went from Killarney to Belfast, and there something -dreadful happened. I don’t know, it had been growing on her I suppose, -but she took a dislike to me there, had strange fancies, thought I -was unfaithful to her. You see she was popular wherever we went, a -lively little woman, in fact she wasn’t merely a woman, she was a -little magnet, men congregated and clung to her like so many tacks -and nails and pins. I didn’t object at all—on the contrary, ‘Enjoy -yourself, Phoebe,’ I said, ‘I don’t expect you always to hang around -an old fogey like me.’ Fogey was the very word I used; I didn’t mean -it, of course, but that was the line I took, for she was so charming -until she began to get so bad tempered. And believe me, that made her -angry, furious. No, not the fogey, but the idea that I did not object -to her philandering. It was fatal, it gave colour to her suspicions of -me—Turner, I was as innocent as any lamb—tremendous colour. And she -had such a sharp tongue! If you ventured to differ from her—and you -couldn’t help differing sometimes—she’d positively bludgeon you, and -you couldn’t help being bludgeoned. And she had a passion for putting -me right, and I always seemed to be so very wrong, always. She would -not be satisfied until she had proved it, and it was so monstrous to -be made feel that because you were rather different from other people -you were an impertinent fool. Yes, I seemed at last to gain only the -pangs and none of the prizes of marriage. Now there was a lady we met -in Belfast to whom I paid some attention....” - -“O, good lord!” groaned Turner. - -“No, but listen,” pleaded Bollington, “it was a very innocent -friendship—nothing was further from my mind—and she was very much -like my wife, very much, it was noticeable, everybody spoke of it— I -mean the resemblance. A Mrs. Macarthy, a delightful woman, and Phoebe -simply loathed her. I confess that my wife’s innuendoes were so mean -and persistent that at last I hadn’t the strength to deny them, in fact -at times I wished they were true. Love is idolatry if you like, but it -cannot be complete immolation—there’s no such bird as the phœnix, is -there, Turner?” - -“What, what?” - -“No such bird as the phœnix.” - -“No, there is no such bird, I believe.” - -“And sometimes I had to ask myself quite seriously if I really hadn’t -been up to some infidelity! Nonsense, of course, but I assure you that -was the effect it was having upon me. I had doubts of myself, frenzied -doubts! And it came to a head between Phoebe and me in our room one -day. We quarrelled, O dear, how we quarrelled! She said I was sly, -two-faced, unfaithful, I was a scoundrel, and so on. Awfully untrue, -all of it. She accused me of dreadful things with Mrs. Macarthy and she -screamed out: ‘I hope you will treat her better than you have treated -me.’ Now what did she mean by that, Turner?” - -Bollington eyed his friend as if he expected an oracular answer, but -just as Turner was about to respond, Bollington continued: “Well, I -never found out, I never knew, for what followed was too terrible. ‘I -shall go out,’ I said, ‘it will be better, I think.’ Just that, nothing -more. I put on my hat and I put my hand on the knob of the door when -she said most violently: ‘Go with your Macarthys, I never want to see -your filthy face again!’ Extraordinary you know, Turner. Well, I went -out, and I will not deny I was in a rage, terrific. It was raining -but I didn’t care, and I walked about in it. Then I took shelter in -a bookseller’s doorway opposite a shop that sold tennis rackets and -tobacco, and another one that displayed carnations and peaches on wads -of coloured wool. The rain came so fast that the streets seemed to -empty, and the passers-by were horridly silent under their umbrellas, -and their footsteps splashed so dully, and I tell you I was very sad, -Turner, there. I debated whether to rush across the road and buy a lot -of carnations and peaches and take them to Phoebe. But I did not do so, -Turner, I never went back, never.” - -“Why, Bollington, you, you were a positive ruffian, Bollington.” - -“O, scandalous,” rejoined the ruffian. - -“Well, out with it, what about this Mrs. Macarthy?” - -“Mrs. Macarthy? But, Turner, I never saw her again, never, I ... I -forgot her. Yes, I went prowling on until I found myself at the docks -and there it suddenly became dark; I don’t know, there was no evening, -no twilight, the day stopped for a moment—and it did not recover. There -were hundreds of bullocks slithering and panting and steaming in the -road, thousands; lamps were hung up in the harbour, cabs and trollies -rattled round the bullocks, the rain fell dismally and everybody -hurried. I went into the dock and saw them loading the steamer, it was -called s.s. _Frolic_, and really, Turner, the things they put into the -belly of that steamer were rather funny: tons and tons of monstrous big -chain, the links as big as soup plates, and two or three pantechnicon -vans. Yes, but I was anything but frolicsome, I assure you, I was full -of misery and trepidation and the deuce knows what. I did not know -what I wanted to do, or what I was going to do, but I found myself -buying a ticket to go to Liverpool on that steamer, and, in short, I -embarked. How wretched I was, but how determined. Everything on board -was depressing and dirty, and when at last we moved off the foam slewed -away in filthy bubbles as if that dirty steamer had been sick and was -running away from it. I got to Liverpool in the early morn, but I did -not stay there, it is such a clamouring place, all trams and trollies -and teashops. I sat in the station for an hour, the most miserable man -alive, the most miserable ever born. I wanted some rest, some peace, -some repose, but they never ceased shunting an endless train of goods -trucks, banging and screeching until I almost screamed at the very -porters. Criff was the name on some of the trucks, I remember, Criff, -and everything seemed to be going criff, criff, criff. I haven’t -discovered to this day what Criff signifies, whether it’s a station -or a company, or a manufacture, but it was Criff, I remember. Well, I -rushed to London and put my affairs in order. A day or two later I went -to Southampton and boarded another steamer and put to sea, or rather we -were ignominiously lugged out of the dock by a little rat of a tug that -seemed all funnel and hooter. I was off to America, and there I stopped -for over three years.” - -Turner sighed. A waiter brought him another glass of spirit. - -“I can’t help thinking, Bollington, that it was all very fiery and -touchy. Of course, I don’t know, but really it was a bit steep, very -squeamish of you. What did your wife say?” - -“I never communicated with her, I never heard from her, I just dropped -out. My filthy face, you know, she did not want to see it again.” - -“Oh come, Bollington! And what did Mrs. Macarthy say?” - -“Mrs. Macarthy! I never saw or heard of her again. I told you that.” - -“Ah, yes, you told me. So you slung off to America.” - -“I was intensely miserable there for a long while. Of course I loved -Phoebe enormously, I felt the separation, I.... O, it is impossible to -describe. But what was worst of all was the meanness of my behaviour, -there was nothing heroic about it, I soon saw clearly that it was a -shabby trick, disgusting, I had bolted and left her to the mercy of -... well, of whatever there was. It made such an awful barrier—you’ve -no idea of my compunction—I couldn’t make overtures—‘Let us forgive -and forget.’ I was a mean rascal, I _was_ filthy. That was the -barrier—myself; I was too bad. I thought I should recover and enjoy -life again, I began to think of Phoebe as a cat, a little cat. I went -everywhere and did everything. But America is a big country, I couldn’t -get into contact, I was lonely, very lonely, and although two years -went by I longed for Phoebe. Everything I did I wanted to do with -Phoebe by my side. And then my cousin, my only relative in the world—he -lived in England—he died. I scarcely ever saw him, but still he was my -kin. And he died. You’ve no comprehension, Turner, of the truly awful -sensation such a bereavement brings. Not a soul in the world now would -have the remotest interest in my welfare. O, I tell you, Turner, it was -tragic, tragic, when my cousin died. It made my isolation complete. I -was alone, a man who had made a dreadful mess of life. What with sorrow -and remorse I felt that I should soon die, not of disease, but disgust.” - -“You were a great ninny,” ejaculated his friend. “Why the devil didn’t -you hurry back, claim your wife, bygones be bygones; why bless my -conscience, what a ninny, what a great ninny!” - -“Yes, Turner, it is as you say. But though conscience is a good -servant it is a very bad master, it overruled me, it shamed me, and -I hung on to America for still another year. I tell you my situation -was unbearable, I was tied to my misery, I was a tethered dog, a duck -without water—even dirty water. And I hadn’t any faith in myself or -in my case; I knew I was wrong, had always been wrong, Phoebe had -taught me that. I hadn’t any faith, I wish I had had. Faith can move -mountains, so they say, though I’ve never heard of it actually being -done.” - -“No, not in historical times,” declared Turner. - -“What do you mean by that?” - -“O well, time is nothing, it’s nothing, it comes and off it goes. -Has it ever occurred to you, Bollington, that in 5,000 years or so -there will be nobody in the world speaking the English language, -our very existence even will be speculated upon, as if we were the -Anthropophagi? O good lord, yes.” - -And another whiskey. - -“You know, Bollington, you were a perfect fool. You behaved like one of -those half-baked civil service hounds who lunch in a dairy on a cup of -tea and a cream horn. You wanted some beef, some ginger. You came back, -you must have come back because there you are now.” - -“Yes, Turner, I came back after nearly four years. Everything was -different, ah, how strange! I could not find Phoebe, it is weird how -people can disappear. I made enquiries, but it was like looking for a -lost umbrella, fruitless after so long.” - -“Well, but what about Mrs. Macarthy?” - -Mr. Bollington said, slowly and with the utmost precision: “I did not -see Mrs. Macarthy again.” - -“O, of course, you did not see her again, not ever.” - -“Not ever. I feared Phoebe had gone abroad too, but at last I found her -in London....” - -“No,” roared Turner, “why the devil couldn’t you say so and done with -it? I’ve been sweating with sympathy for you. O, I say, Bollington!” - -“My dear Turner, listen. Do you know, she was delighted to see me, she -even kissed me, straight off, and we went out to dine and had the very -deuce of a spread and we were having the very deuce of a good time. -She was lovelier than ever, and I could see all her old affection for -me was returning, she was so ... well, I can’t tell you, Turner, but -she had no animosity whatever, no grievance, she would certainly have -taken me back that very night. O dear, dear ... and then! I was anxious -to throw myself at her feet, but you couldn’t do that in a public café, -I could only touch her hands, beautiful, as they lay on the white linen -cloth. I kept asking: ‘Do you forgive me?’ and she would reply: ‘I have -nothing to forgive, dear, nothing.’ How wonderful that sounded to my -truly penitent soul—I wanted to die. - -“‘But you don’t ask me where I’ve been!’ she cried gaily, ‘or what I’ve -been doing, you careless old Peter. I’ve been to France, and Sweden -too!’ - -“I was delighted to hear that, it was so very plucky. - -“‘When did you go?’ I asked. - -“‘When I left you,’ she said. - -“‘You mean when I went away?’ - -“‘Did you go away? O, of course, you must have. Poor Peter, What a sad -time he has had.’ - -“I was a little bewildered, but I was delighted; in fact, Turner, I was -hopelessly infatuated again, I wanted to wring out all the dregs of my -detestable villainy and be absolved. All I could begin with was: ‘Were -you not very glad to be rid of me?’ - -“‘Well,’ she said, ‘my great fear at first was that you would find me -again and make it up. I didn’t want that then, at least, I thought I -didn’t.’ - -“‘That’s exactly what I felt,’ I exclaimed, ‘but how could I find you?’ - -“‘Well,’ Phoebe said, ‘you might have found out and followed me. But I -promise never to run away again, Peter dear, never.’ - -“Turner, my reeling intelligence swerved like a shot bird. - -“‘Do you mean, Phoebe, that you ran away from _me_?’ - -“‘Yes, didn’t I?’ she answered. - -“‘But I ran away from _you_,’ I said. ‘I walked out of the hotel on -that dreadful afternoon we quarrelled so, and I never went back. I went -to America. I was in America nearly four years.’ - -“‘Do you mean you ran away from me?’ she cried. - -“‘Yes,’ I said, ‘didn’t I?’ - -“‘But that is exactly what I did—I mean, I ran away from you. _I_ -walked out of the hotel directly you had gone—_I_ never went back, and -I’ve been abroad thinking how tremendously I had served you out, and -wondering what you thought of it all and where you were.’ - -“I could only say ‘Good God, Phoebe, I’ve had the most awful four years -of remorse and sorrow, all vain, mistaken, useless, thrown away.’ And -she said: ’And I’ve had four years—living in a fool’s paradise after -all. How dared you run away, it’s disgusting!’ - -“And, Turner, in a moment she was at me again in her old dreadful way, -and the last words I had from her were: ‘Now I _never_ want to see your -face again, never, this _is_ the end!’ - -“And that’s how things are now, Turner. It’s rather sad, isn’t it?” - -“Sad! Why you chump, when was it you saw her?” - -“O, a long time ago, it must be nearly three years now.” - -“Three years! But you’ll see her again!” - -“Tfoo! No, no, no, Turner. God bless me, no, no, no!” said the little -old man. - - - - - _The Ballet Girl_ - - -On the last night of Hilary term Simpkins left his father’s shop a -quarter before the closing hour in order to deliver personally a letter -to John Evans-Antrobus, Esq., of St. Saviour’s College. Simpkins was -a clerk to his father, and the letter he carried was inscribed on its -envelope as “Important,” and a further direction, “Wait Answer,” was -doubly underlined. Acting as he was told to act by his father, than -whom he was incapable of recognizing any bigger authority either in -this world or, if such a slight, shrinking fellow could ever project -his comprehension so far, in the next, he passed the porter’s lodge -under the archway of St. Saviour’s, and crossing the first quadrangle, -entered a small hall that bore the names J. Evans-Antrobus with half -a dozen others neatly painted on the wall. He climbed two flights of -wooden stairs, and knocking over a door whose lintel was marked “5, -Evans-Antrobus,” was invited to “Come in.” He entered a study, and -confronted three hilarious young men, all clothed immaculately in -evening dress, a costume he himself privily admired much as a derelict -might envy the harp of an angel. The noisiest young gentleman, the -tall one with a monocle, was his quarry; he handed the letter to him. -Mr. Evans-Antrobus then read the letter, which invited him to pay -instanter a four-year-old debt of some nine or ten pounds which he had -inexplicably but consistently overlooked. And there was a half-hidden -but unpleasant alternative suggested should Mr. Evans-Antrobus fail -to comply with this not unreasonable request. Mr. Evans-Antrobus said -“Damn!” In point of fact he enlarged the scope of his vocabulary far -beyond the limits of that modest expletive, while his two friends, -being invited to read the missive, also exclaimed in terms that were -not at all subsidiary. - -“My compliments to Messrs. Bagshot and Buffle!” exclaimed the tall -young man with the monocle angrily; “I shall certainly call round and -see them in the morning. Good evening!” - -Little Simpkins explained that Bagshot and Buffle were not in need of -compliments, their business being to sell boots and to receive payment -for them. Two of the jolly young gentlemen proposed to throw him down -the stairs, and were only persuaded not to by the third jolly young -gentleman, who much preferred to throw him out of the window. Whereupon -Simpkins politely hinted that he would be compelled to interview the -college dean and await developments in his chambers. Simpkins made it -quite clear that, whatever happened, he was going to wait somewhere -until he got the money. The three jolly young gentlemen then told -little Simpkins exactly what they thought of him, exactly, omitting no -shade of denunciation, fine or emphatic. They told him where he ought -to be at the very moment, where he would quickly be unless he took -himself off; in short, they told him a lot of prophetic things which, -as is the way of prophecy, invited a climax of catastrophic horror. - -“What is your name? Who the devil are you?” - -“My name is Simpkins.” - -Then the three jolly young gentlemen took counsel together in whispers, -and at last Mr. Evans-Antrobus said: “Well if you insist upon waiting, -Mr. Simpkins, I must get the money for you. I can borrow it, I suppose, -boys, from Fazz, can’t I?” - -Again they consulted in whispers, after which two of the young gents -said they ought to be going, and so they went. - -“Wait here for me,” said Mr. Evans-Antrobus, “I shall not be five -minutes.” - -But Mr. Simpkins was so firmly opposed to this course that the other -relented. “Damn you! come along with me, then; I must go and see Fazz.” -So off they went to some rooms higher up the same flight of stairs, -beyond a door that was marked “F. A. Zealander.” When they entered -Fazz sat moping in front of the fire; he was wrapped as deeply as an -Esquimaux in some plaid travelling rugs girt with the pink rope of a -dressing-gown that lay across his knees. The fire was good, but the -hearth was full of ashes. The end of the fender was ornamented with the -strange little iron face of a man whose eyes were shut but whose knobby -cheeks fondly glowed. Fazz’s eyes were not shut, they were covered by -dim glasses, and his cheeks had no more glow than a sponge. - -“Hullo, Fazz. You better to-day?” - -“No, dearie, I am not conscious of any improvement. This influenza’s -a thug; I am being deprived of my vitality as completely as a fried -rasher.” - -“Oh, by the by,” said his friend, “you don’t know each other: Mr. -Simpkins—Mr. Zealander.” - -The former bowed awkwardly and unexpectedly shook Mr. Zealander’s -hot limp hand. At that moment a man hurried in, exclaiming: “Mr. -Evans-Antrobus, sir, the Dean wants to see you in his rooms at once, -sir!” - -“That is deuced awkward,” said that gentleman blandly. “Just excuse me -for a moment or two, Fazz.” - -He hurried out, leaving Simpkins confronting Mr. Zealander in some -confusion. Fazz poked his flaming coal. “This fire! Did you ever see -such a morbid conflagration?” - -“Rather nice, I thought,” replied Simpkins affably; “quite cool -to-night, outside, rather.” - -The host peered at him through those dim glasses. “There’s a foggy -humidity about everything, like the inside of a cream tart. But sit -down,” said Fazz, With the geniality of a man who was about to be -hung and was rather glad that he was no longer to be exposed to the -fraudulent excess of life, “and tell me a bawdy story.” - -Simpkins sank into an armchair and was silent. - -“Perhaps you don’t care for bawdy stories?” continued Fazz. “I do, I -do. I love vulgarity; there is certainly a niche in life for vulgarity. -If ever I possess a house of my own I will arrange—I will, upon my -soul—one augustly vulgar room, divinely vulgar, upholstered in sallow -pigskin. Do tell me something. You haven’t got a spanner on you, I -suppose? There is something the matter with my bed. Once it was full -of goose feathers, but now I sleep, as it were, on the bulge of a -barrel; I must do something to it with a spanner. I hate spanners—such -dreadful democratic tools; they terrify me, they gape at you as if they -wanted to bite you. Spanners are made of iron, and this is a funny -world, for it is full of things like spanners.” - -Simpkins timidly rose up through the waves of this discourse and asked -if he could “do” anything. He was mystified, amused, and impressed by -this person; he didn’t often meet people like that, he didn’t often -meet anybody; he rather liked him. On each side of the invalid there -were tables and bottles of medicine. - -“I am just going to take my temperature,” said Fazz. “Do have a -cigarette, dearie, or a cigar. Can you see the matches? Yes; now do -you mind surrounding me with my medicines? They give such a hopeful -air to the occasion. There’s a phial of sodium salicylate tabloids, I -must take six of them in a minute or two. Then there are the quinine -capsules; the formalin, yes; those lozenges I suck—have one?—they are -so comforting, and that depressing laxative; surround me with them. -Oh, glorious, benignant, isn’t it? Now I shall take my temperature; I -shall be as stolid as the sphinx for three minutes, so do tell me that -story. Where is my thermometer, oh!” He popped the thermometer into -his mouth, but pulled it out again. “Do you know L. G.? He’s a blithe -little fellow, oh, very blithe. He was in Jacobsen’s rooms the other -day—Jacobsen’s a bit of an art connoisseur, you know, and draws and -paints, and Jacobsen drew attention to the portrait of a lady that was -hanging on the wall. ‘Oh, dear,’ said L. G., ‘what a hag! Where did -you get that thing?’ just like that. Such a perfect fool, L. G. ‘It’s -my mother,’ says Jacobsen. ‘Oh, of course,’ explained L. G., ‘I didn’t -mean _that_, of course, my dear fellow; I referred to the horrible -treatment, entirely to the horrible treatment; it is a wretched daub.’ -‘I did it myself!’ said Jacobsen. You don’t know L. G.? Oh, he is very -blithe. What were you going to tell me? I am just going to take my -temperature; yesterday it was ninety odd point something. I do hope it -is different now. I can’t bear those points, they seem so equivocal.” - -Fazz sat with the tube of the thermometer projecting from his mouth. -At the end of the test he regarded it very earnestly before returning -it disconsolately to the table. Then he addressed his visitor with -considerable gloom. - -“Pardon me, I did not catch your name.” - -“Simpkins.” - -“Simpkins!” repeated Fazz, with a dubious drawl. “Oh, I’m sorry, I -don’t like Simpkins, it sounds so minuscular. What are you taking?” - -“I won’t take anything, sir, thank you,” replied Simpkins. - -“I mean, what schools are you taking?” - -“Oh, no school at all.” - -Fazz was mystified: “What college are you?” - -“I’m not at a college,” confessed the other. “I came to see Mr. -Evans-Antrobus with a note. I’m waiting for an answer.” - -“Where do you come from?” - -“From Bagshot and Buffle’s.” After a silence he added: “Bespoke boots.” - -“Hump, you are very young to make bespoke boots, aren’t you, Simpkins, -surely? Are you an Agnostic? Have a cigar? You must, you’ve been very -good, and I am so interested in your career; but tell me now what it -exactly is that you are sitting in my room for?” - -Simpkins told him all he could. - -“It’s interesting, most fascinating,” declared Fazz, “but it is a -little beyond me all the same. I am afraid, Simpkins, that you have -been deposited with me as if I were a bank and you were something -not negotiable, as you really are, I fear. But you mustn’t tell the -Dean about Evans-Antrobus, no, you mustn’t, it’s never done. Tell -me, why do you make bespoke boots? It’s an unusual taste to display. -Wouldn’t you rather come to college, for instance, and study ... er ... -anthropology—nothing at all about boots in anthropology?” - -“No,” said Simpkins. He shuffled in his chair and felt uneasy. “I’d be -out of my depth.” Fazz glared at him, and Simpkins repeated: “Out of my -depth, that would be, sure.” - -“This is very shameful,” commented the other, “but it’s interesting, -most fascinating. You brazenly maintain that you would rather study -boots than ... than books and brains!” - -“A cobbler must stick to his last,” replied Simpkins, recalling a -phrase of his father’s. - -“Bravo!” cried Fazz, “but not to an everlasting last!” - -“And I don’t know anything about all this; there’s nothing about it I’d -want to know, it wouldn’t be any good to me. It’s no use mixing things, -and there’s a lot to be learnt about boots—you’d be surprised. You -got to keep yourself to yourself and not get out of your depth—take a -steady line and stick to it, and not get out of your depth.” - -“But, dearie, you don’t sleep with a lifebelt girt about your loins, do -you now? I’m not out of my depth; I shouldn’t be even if I started to -make boots....” - -“Oh, wouldn’t you?” shouted Simpkins. - -“I should find it rather a shallow occupation; mere business is the -very devil of a business; business would be a funny sort of life.” - -“Life’s a funny business; you look after your business and that will -look after you.” - -“But what in the world are we in the world at all for, Simpkins? -Isn’t it surely to do just the things we most intensely want to do? -And you do boots and boots and boots. Don’t you ever get out and -about?—theatres—girls—sport—or do you insist on boot, the whole boot, -and nothing but boot?” - -“No, none of them,” replied Simpkins. “Don’t care for theatres, I’ve -never been. Don’t care for girls, I like a quiet life. I keep myself to -myself—it’s safer, don’t get out of your depth then. I do go and have -a look at the football match sometimes, but it’s only because we make -the boots for some of your crack players, and you want to know what you -are making them for. Work doesn’t trouble me, nothing troubles me, and -I got money in the bank.” - -“Damme, Simpkins, you have a terrible conviction about you; if I listen -to you much longer I shall bind myself apprentice to you. I feel sure -that you make nice, soft, watertight, everlasting boots, and then -we should rise in the profession together. Discourse, Simpkins; you -enchant mine ears—both of them.” - -“What I say is,” concluded Simpkins, “you can’t understand everything. -I shouldn’t want to; I’m all right as it is.” - -“Of course you are, you’re simply too true. This is a place flowing -with afternoon tea, tutors, and clap-trap. It’s a city in which -everything is set upon a bill. You’re simply too true, if we are not -out of our depth we are in up to our ears—I am. It’s most fascinating.” - -Soon afterwards Simpkins left him. Descending the stairs to the rooms -of Evans-Antrobus he switched on the light. It was very quiet and snug -in those rooms, with the soft elegant couch, the reading-lamp with the -delicious violet shade, the decanter with whiskey, the box of chocolate -biscuits, and the gramophone. He sat down by the fire, waiting and -waiting. Simpkins waited so long that he got used to the room, he even -stole a sip of whiskey and some of the chocolate biscuits. Then to show -his independence, his contempt for Mr. Evans-Antrobus and his trickery, -he took still more of the whiskey—a drink he had never tasted before—he -really took quite a lot. He heaped coal upon the fire, and stalked -about the room with his hands in his pockets or examined the books, -most of which were about something called Jurisprudence, and suchlike. -Simpkins liked books; he began reading: - - That the Pleuronectidæ are admirably adapted by their flattened and - asymmetrical structure for their habits of life, is manifest from - several species, such as soles and flounders, etc., being extremely - common. - -He did not care much for science; he opened another: - - It is difficult indeed to imagine that anything can oscillate so - rapidly as to strike the retina of the eye 831,479,000,000,000 in - one second, as must be the case with violet light according to this - hypothesis. - -Simpkins looked at the light and blinked his eyes. That had a violet -shade. He really did not care for science, and he had an inclination to -put the book down as his head seemed to be swaying, but he continued to -turn the pages. - - Snowdon is the highest mountain in England or Wales. Snowdon is not so - high as Ben Nevis. - - Therefore the highest mountain in England or Wales is not so high as - Ben Nevis. - -“Oh, my head!” mumbled Simpkins. - - Water must be either warm or not warm, but it does not follow that it - must be warm or cold. - -Simpkins felt giddy. He dropped the book, and tottered to the couch. -Immediately the room spun round and something in his head began to hum, -to roar like an aeroplane a long way up in the sky. He felt that he -ought to get out of the room, quickly, and get some water, either not -or cold warm—he didn’t mind which! He clapped on his hat and, slipping -into his overcoat, he reached a door. It opened into a bedroom, very -bare indeed compared with this other room, but Simpkins rolled in; the -door slammed behind him, and in the darkness he fell upon a bed, with -queer sensations that seemed to be dividing and subtracting in him. - -When he awoke later—oh, it seemed much later—he felt quite well again. -He had forgotten where he was. It was a strange place he was in, -utterly dark; but there was a great noise sounding quite close to him—a -gramophone, people shouting choruses and dancing about in the adjoining -room. He could hear a lady’s voice too. Then he remembered that he -ought not to be in that room at all; it was, why, yes, it was criminal; -he might be taken for a burglar or something! He slid from the bed, -groped in the darkness until he found his hat, unbuttoned his coat, for -he was fearfully hot, and stood at the bedroom door trembling in the -darkness, waiting and listening to that tremendous row. He _had_ been -a fool to come in there! How was he to get out—how the deuce was he to -get out? The gramophone stopped. He could hear the voices more plainly. -He grew silently panic-stricken; it was awful, they’d be coming in to -him perhaps, and find him sneaking there like a thief—he must get out, -he must, he must get out; yes, but how? - -The singing began again. The men kept calling out “Lulu! Lulu!” and -a lady’s gay voice would reply to a Charley or a George, and so on, -when all at once there came a peremptory knock at the outer door. -The noise within stopped immediately. Deep silence. Simpkins could -hear whispering. The people in there were startled; he could almost -feel them staring at each other with uneasiness. The lady laughed out -startlingly shrill. “Sh-s-s-sh!” the others cried. The loud knocking -began again, emphatic, terrible. Simpkins’ already quaking heart began -to beat ecstatically. Why, oh why, didn’t they open that door?—open it! -open it! There was shuffling in the room, and when the knocking was -repeated for the third time the outer door was apparently unlocked. - -“Fazz! Oh, Fazz, you brute!” cried the relieved voices in the room. -“You fool, Fazz! Come in, damn you, and shut the door.” - -“Good gracious!” exclaimed the apparently deliberating Fazz, “what is -that?” - -“Hullo, Rob Roy!” cried the lady, “it’s me.” - -“Charmed to meet you, madame. How interesting, most fascinating; yes, -I am quite charmed, but I wish somebody would kindly give me the -loose end of it all. I’m suffering, as you see, dearies, and I don’t -understand all this, I’m quite out of my depth. The noise you’ve been -making is just crushing me.” - -Several voices began to explain at once: “We captured her, Fazz, -yes—Rape of the Sabines, what!—from the Vaudeville. Had a rag, -glorious—corralled all the attendants and scene-shifters—rushed the -stage—we did! we did!—everybody chased somebody, and we chased Lulu—we -did! we did!” - -“Oh, shut up, everybody!” cried out Fazz. - -“Yes, listen,” cried the voice of Evans-Antrobus. “This is how it -happened: they chased the eight Sisters Victoria off the stage, and we -spied dear little Lulu—she was one of those eight Victorias—bolting -down a passage to the stage entrance. She fled into the street just -as she was—isn’t she a duck? There was a taxi standing there, and -Lulu, wise woman, jumped in—and we jumped in too. (We did! We did!) -‘Where for?’ says taximan. ‘Saviour’s College,’ say we, and here you -are—Lulu—what do you think of her?” - -“Charming, utterly charming,” replied Fazz. “The details are most -clarifying; but how did you manage to usher her into the college?” - -“My overcoat on,” explained one voice. - -“And my hat,” cried another. - -“And we dazzled the porter,” said a third. There were lots of other -jolly things to explain: Lulu had not resisted at all, she had enjoyed -it; it was a lark! - -“Oh, beautiful! Most fascinating!” agreed Fazz. “But how you propose -to get her out of the college I have no more notion than Satan has of -sanctity—it’s rather late, isn’t it?” - -Simpkins, in his dark room, could hear someone rushing up the stairs -with flying leaps that ceased at the outer door. Then a breathless -voice hissed out: “You fellows, scat, scat! Police are in the lodge -with the proctors and that taximan!” - -In a moment Evans-Antrobus began to groan. “Oh, my God, what can we -do with her? We must get her out at once—over the wall, eh, at once, -quick! Johnstone, quick, go and find a rope, quick, a rope.” - -And Fazz said: “It does begin to look a little foolish. Oh, I am -feeling so damn bad—but you can’t blame a fool for anything it does, -can you? But I am bad; I am going to bed instantly, I feel quite out of -my depth here. Oh, that young friend of yours, that Simpkins, charming -young person! Very blithe he was, dear Evans-Antrobus!” - -Everybody now seemed to rush away from the room except the girl Lulu -and Evans-Antrobus. He was evidently very agitated and in a bad humour. -He clumped about the room exclaiming, “Oh, damnation, do hurry up, -somebody. What am I to do with her, boozy little pig! Do hurry up!” - -“Who’s a pig? I want to go out of here,” shrilled Lulu, and apparently -she made for the door. - -“You can’t go like that!” he cried; “you can’t, you mustn’t. Don’t be a -fool, Lulu! Lulu! Now, isn’t this a fearful mess?” - -“I’m not going to stop here with you, ugly thing! I don’t like it; I’m -going now, let go.” - -“But you can’t go, I tell you, in these things, not like that. Let me -think, let me think, can’t you! Why don’t you let me think, you little -fool! Put something on you, my overcoat; cover yourself up. I shall be -ruined, damn you! Why the devil did you come here, you ...!” - -“And who brought me here, Mr. Antibus? Oh yes, I know you; I shall -have something to say to the vicar, or whoever it is you’re afraid of, -baby-face! Let me go; I don’t want to be left here alone with you!” she -yelled. Simpkins heard an awful scuffle. He could wait no longer; he -flung open the door, rushed into the room, and caught up a syphon, the -first handy weapon. They saw him at once, and stood apart amazed. - -“Fine game!” said the trembling Simpkins to the man, with all -the sternness at his command. As nobody spoke he repeated, quite -contemptuously: “Fine game!” - -Lulu was breathing hard, with her hands resting upon her bosom. Her -appearance was so startling to the boy that he nearly dropped the -syphon. He continued to face her, hugging it with both hands against -his body. She was clad in pink tights—they were of silk, they glistened -in the sharper light from under the violet shade—a soft white tarlatan -skirt that spread around her like a carnation, and a rose-coloured -bodice. She was dainty, with a little round head and a little round -face like a briar rose; but he guessed she was strong, though her -beauty had apparently all the fragility of a flower. Her hair, of dull -dark gold, hung in loose tidiness without pin or braid, the locks cut -short to her neck, where they curved in to brush the white skin; a deep -straight fringe of it was combed upon the childish brow. Grey were her -surprised eyes, and wide the pouting lips. Her lovely naked arms—oh, he -could scarcely bear to look at them. She stood now, with one hand upon -her hip and the other lying against her cheek, staring at Simpkins. -Then she danced delightfully up to him and took the syphon away. - -“Look here,” said Evans-Antrobus to Lulu—he had recovered his -nerve, and did not express any astonishment at Simpkins’ sudden -appearance—“he is just your size, you dress up in his clothes, quick, -then it’s simple.” - -“No,” said the girl. - -“And no for me,” said Simpkins fiercely—almost. - -Just then the door was thrust partly open and a rope was flung into the -room. The bringer of it darted away downstairs again. - -“Hi! here!” called Evans-Antrobus, rushing to the door; but nobody -stayed for him, nobody answered him. He came back and picked up the -rope. - -“Put on that coat,” he commanded Lulu, “and that hat. Now, look here, -not a word, not a giggle even, or we are done, and I might just as well -screw your blessed neck!” - -“Would you?” snorted Simpkins, with not a little animosity. - -“Yes, would you!” chimed Lulu, but nevertheless she obeyed and followed -him down the stairs. When she turned and beckoned, Simpkins followed -too. They crossed a dark quadrangle, passed down a passage that was -utter darkness, through another quad, another passage, and halted in a -gloomy yard behind the chapel, where Evans-Antrobus struck a match, and -where empty boxes, bottles, and other rubbish had accumulated under a -wall about ten feet high. - -“You first, and quiet, quiet,” growled Evans-Antrobus to Simpkins. No -one spoke again. Night was thickly dark, the stars were dim, the air -moist and chill. Simpkins, assisted by the other man, clambered over -rickety boxes and straddled the high thick wall. The rope was hungover, -too, and when the big man had jumped to earth again, dragging his -weight against it, Simpkins slid down on the other side. He was now -in a narrow street, with a dim lamp at one end that cast no gleam to -the spot where he had descended. There were dark high-browed buildings -looming high around him. He stood holding the end of the rope and -looking up at the stars—very faint they were. The wall was much higher -on this side, looked like a mountain, and he thought of Ben Nevis -again. This was out of your depth, if you like, out of your depth -entirely. It was all wrong somehow, or, at any rate, it was not all -right; it couldn’t be right. Never again would he mess about with a lot -of lunatics. He hadn’t done any good, he hadn’t even got the money—he -had forgotten it. He had not got anything at all except a headache. - -The rope tightened. Lulu was astride the wall, quarrelling with the man -on the other side. - -“Keep your rotten coat!” She slipped it off and flung it down from the -wall. “And your rotten hat, too, spider-face!” She flung that down from -the wall, and spat into the darkness. Turning to the other side, she -whispered: “I’m coming,” and scrambled down, sliding into Simpkins’ -arms. And somehow he stood holding her so, embracing her quite tightly. -She was all softness and perfume, he could not let her go; she had -scarcely anything on—he would not let her go. It was marvellous and -beautiful to him; the glimmer of her white face was mysterious and -tender in the darkness. She put her arms around his neck: - -“Oh ... I rather love you,” she said. - - - - - _Simple Simon_ - - -This simple man lived lonely in a hut in the depths of a forest, just -underneath three hovering trees, a pine tree and two beeches. The sun -never was clear in the forest, but the fogs that rose in its unshaken -shade were neither sweet nor sour. Lonely was Simon, for he had given -up all the sweet of the world and had received none of the sweet of -heaven. Old now, and his house falling to ruin, he said he would go -seek the sweet of heaven, for what was there in the mortal world to -detain him? Not peace, certainly, for time growled and scratched at him -like a mangy dog, and there were no memories to cherish; he had had a -heavy father, a mother who was light, and never a lay-by who had not -deceived him. So he went in his tatters and his simplicity to the lord -of the manor. - -“I’m bound for heaven, sir,” says Simon, “will you give me an old coat, -or an odd rag or so? There’s a hole in my shoe, sir, and good fortune -slips out of it.” - -No—the lord of the manor said—he could not give him a decent suit, nor -a shoe, nor the rags neither. Had he not let him dwell all life long in -his forest? With not a finger of rent coming? Snaring the conies—(May -your tongue never vex you, sir!)—and devouring the birds—(May God see -me, sir!)—and cutting the fuel, snug as a bee in a big white hive. -(Never a snooze of sleep, with the wind howling in the latch of it and -the cracks gaping, sir!) What with the taxes and the ways of women—said -the lord—he had but a scrimping time of it himself, so he had. There -was neither malt in the kiln nor meal in the hopper, and there were -thieves in the parish. Indeed, he would as lief go with Simon, but it -was such a diggins of a way off. - -So Simon went walking on until he came to the godly man who lived in -a blessed mansion, full of delights for the mind and eye as well as a -deal of comfort for his belly. - -No—the godly man said—he would not give him anything, for the Lord took -no shame of a man’s covering. - -“Ah, but your holiness,” said Simon, “I’ve a care to look decent when I -go to the King of All.” - -“My poor man, how will you get there, my poor man?” he said. - -“Maybe,” says Simon, “I’ll get a lift on my way.” - -“You’ll get no lift,” the godly man said, “for it’s a hard and lonely -road to travel.” - -“My sorrow! And I heard it was a good place to go to!” - -“It is a good place, my simple man, but the road to it is difficult and -empty and hard. You will get no lift, you will lose your way, you will -be taken with a sickness.” - -“Ah, and I heard it was a good kind road, and help in the end of it and -warmth and a snap of victuals.” - -“No doubt, no doubt, but I tell you, don’t be setting yourself up for -to judge of it. Go back to your home and be at peace with the world.” - -“Mine’s all walk-on,” said Simon, and turning away he looked towards -his home. Distant or near there was nothing he could see but trees, not -a glint of sea, and little of sky, and nothing of a hill or the roof -of a friendly house—just a trap of trees as close as a large hand held -before a large face, beeches and beeches, pines and pines. And buried -in the middle of it was a tiny hut, sour and broken; in the time of -storms the downpour would try to dash it into the ground, and the wind -would try to tear it out. Well, he had had his enough of it, so he went -to another man, a scholar for learning, and told him his intentions and -his wishes. - -“To heaven!” said the scholar. “Well, it’s a fair day for that -good-looking journey.” - -“It is indeed a fine day,” said Simon. As clear as crystal it was, yet -soft and mellow as snuff. - -“Then content you, man Simon, and stay in it.” - -“Ah, sir,” he says, “I’ve a mind and a will that makes me serve them.” - -“Cats will mouse and larks will sing,” the scholar said, “but you are -neither the one nor the other. What you seek is hidden, perhaps hidden -for ever; God remove discontent and greed from the world: why should -you look on the other side of a wall—what is a wall for?” - -The old man was silent. - -“How long has this notion possessed you?” - -The old man quavered “Since ... since ...” but he could say no more. A -green bird flew laughing above them. - -“What bird is that—what is it making that noise for?” - -“It is a woodpecker, sir; he knows he can sing a song for Sixpence.” - -The scholar stood looking up into the sky. His boots were old—well, -that is the doom of all boots, just as it is of man. His clothes were -out of fashion, so was his knowledge; stripped of his gentle dignity he -was but dust and ashes. - -“To travel from the world?” he was saying. “That is not wise.” - -“Ah, sir, wisdom was ever deluding me, for I’m not more than half -done—like a poor potato. First, of course, there’s the things you don’t -know; then there’s the things you do know but can’t understand; then -there’s the things you do understand but which don’t matter. Saving -your presence, sir, there’s a heap of understanding to be done before -you’re anything but a fool.” - -“He is not a fool who is happy; mortal pleasures decline as the bubble -of knowledge grows; that’s the long of it, and it’s the short of it -too.” - -Simon was silent, adding up the buttons on the scholar’s tidy coat. He -counted five of them, they shone like gold and looked—oh, very well -they looked. - -“I was happy once,” then he said. “Ah, and I remember I was happy -twice, yes, and three times I was happy in this world. I was not happy -since....” - -“Yes, since what?” the scholar asked him: but the old man was dumb. - -“Tell me, Simon, what made you happy.” - -“I was happy, sir, when I first dwelled in the wood and made with my -own hands a house of boards. Why—you’d not believe—but it had a chimney -then, and was no ways draughty then, and was not creaky then, nor -damp then; a good fine house with a door and a half door, birds about -it, magpies and tits and fine boy blackbirds! A lake with a score of -mallards on it! And for conies and cushats you could take your oath of -a meal any day in the week, and twice a day, any day. But ’tis falling -with age and weather now, I see it go; the rain wears it, the moss rots -it, the wind shatters it. The lake’s as dry as a hen’s foot, and the -forest changes. What was bushes is timber now, and what was timber is -ashes; the forest has spread around me and the birds have left me and -gone to the border. As for conies, there’s no contriving with those -foxes and weasels so cunning at them; not the trace of a tail, sir, -nothing but snakes and snails now. I was happy when I built that house; -that’s what I was; I was then.” - -“Ah, so, indeed. And the other times—the second time?” - -“Why, that was the time I washed my feet in the lake and I saw....” - -“What, man Simon, what did you see?” - -Simon passed his hand across his brow. “I see ... ah, well, I saw it. I -saw something ... but I forget.” - -“Ah, you have forgotten your happiness,” said the scholar in a soft -voice: “Yes, yes.” He went on speaking to himself: “Death is a naked -Ethiope with flaming hair. I don’t want to live for ever, but I want to -live.” - -He took off his coat and gave it to Simon, who thanked him and put it -on. It seemed a very heavy coat. - -“Maybe,” the old man mumbled, “I’ll get a lift on the way.” - -“May it be so. And good-bye to you,” said the scholar, “’Tis as fine a -day as ever came out of Eden.” - -They parted so, and old Simon had not been gone an hour when the -scholar gave a great shout and followed after him frantic, but he could -not come up with him, for Simon had gone up in a lift to heaven—a lift -with cushions in it, and a bright young girl guiding the lift, dressed -like a lad, but with a sad stern voice. - -Several people got into the lift, the most of them old ladies, but no -children, so Simon got in too and sat on a cushion of yellow velvet. -And he was near sleeping when the lift stopped of a sudden and a lady -who was taken sick got out. “Drugs and lounge!” the girl called out, -“Second to the right and keep straight on. Going up?” - -But though there was a crowd of young people waiting nobody else got -in. They slid on again, higher and much higher. Simon dropped into -sleep until the girl stopped at the fourth floor: “Refreshments,” she -said, “and Ladies’ Cloak Room!” All the passengers got out except -Simon: he sat still until they came to the floor of heaven. There he -got out, and the girl waved her hand to him and said “Good-bye.” A few -people got in the lift. “Going down?” she cried. Then she slammed the -door and it sank into a hole and Simon never laid an eye on it or her -from that day for ever. - -Now it was very pleasant where he found himself, very pleasant indeed -and in no ways different from the fine parts of the earth. He went -onwards and the first place he did come to was a farmhouse with a -kitchen door. He knocked and it was opened. It was a large kitchen; it -had a cracked stone floor and white rafters above it with hooks on them -and shearing irons and a saddle. And there was a smoking hearth and an -open oven with bright charred wood burning in it, a dairy shelf beyond -with pans of cream, a bed of bracken for a dog in the corner by the -pump, and a pet sheep wandering about. It had the number 100 painted -on its fleece and a loud bell was tinkling round its neck. There was a -fine young girl stood smiling at him; the plait of her hair was thick -as a rope of onions and as shining with the glint in it. Simon said to -her: “I’ve been a-walking, and I seem to have got a bit dampified like, -just a touch o’ damp in the knees of my breeches, that’s all.” - -The girl pointed to the fire and he went and dried himself. Then he -asked the girl if she would give him a true direction, and so she gave -him a true direction and on he went. And he had not gone far when he -saw a place just like the old forest he had come from, but all was -delightful and sunny, and there was the house he had once built, as -beautiful and new, with the shining varnish on the door, a pool beyond, -faggots and logs in the yard, and inside the white shelves were loaded -with good food, the fire burning with a sweet smell, and a bed of rest -in the ingle. Soon he was slaking his hunger; then he hung up his coat -on a peg of iron, and creeping into the bed he went into the long sleep -in his old happy way of sleeping. - -But all this time the scholar was following after him, searching -under the sun, and from here to there, calling out high and low, and -questioning the travelling people: had they seen a simple man, an old -man who had been but three times happy?—but not a one had seen him. -He was cut to the heart with anxiety, with remorse, and with sorrow, -for in a secret pocket of the coat he had given to Simon he had -left—unbeknown, but he remembered it now—a wallet of sowskin, full of -his own black sins, and nothing to distinguish them in any way from -any other man’s. It was a dark load upon his soul that the poor man -might be punished with an everlasting punishment for having such a -tangle of wickedness on him and he unable to explain it. An old man -like that, who had been happy but the three times! He enquired upon -his right hand, and upon his left hand he enquired, but not a walking -creature had seen him and the scholar was mad vexed with shame. Well, -he went on, and on he went, but he did not get a lift on the way. He -went howling and whistling like a man who would frighten all the wild -creatures down into the earth, and at last he came by a back way to -the borders of heaven. There he was, all of a day behind the man he -was pursuing, in a great wilderness of trees. It began to rain, a soft -meandering fall that you would hardly notice for rain, but the birds -gave over their whistling and a strong silence grew everywhere, hushing -things. His footfall as he stumbled through briars and the wild gardens -of the wood seemed to thump the whole earth, and he could hear all the -small noises like the tick of a beetle and the gasping of worms. In -a grove of raspberry canes he stood like a stock with the wonder of -that stillness. Clouds did not move, he could but feel the rain that -he could not see. Each leaf hung stiff as if it was frozen, though it -was summer. Not a living thing was to be seen, and the things that were -not living were not more dead than those that lived but were so secret -still. He picked a few berries from the canes, and from every bush as -he pulled and shook it a butterfly or a moth dropped or fluttered away, -quiet and most ghostly. “An old bit of a man”—he kept repeating in his -mind—“with three bits of joy, an old bit of a man.” - -Suddenly a turtle dove with clatter enough for a goose came to a tree -beside him and spoke to him! A young dove, and it crooed on the tree -branch, croo, croo, croo, and after each cadence it heaved the air into -its lungs again with a tiny sob. Well, it would be no good telling what -the bird said to the scholar, for none would believe it, they could -not; but speak it did. After that the scholar tramped on, and on again, -until he heard voices close ahead from a group of frisky boys who were -chasing a small bird that could hardly fly. As the scholar came up -with them one of the boys dashed out with his cap and fell upon the -fledgling and thrust it in his pocket. - -Now, by God, that scholar was angry, for a thing he liked was the notes -of birds tossed from bush to bush like aery bubbles, and he wrangled -with the boy until the little lad took the crumpled bird out of his -pocket and flung it saucily in the air as you would fling a stone. Down -dropped the bird into a gulley as if it was shot, and the boys fled -off. The scholar peered into the gulley, but he could not see the young -finch, not a feather of it. Then he jumped into the gulley and stood -quiet, listening to hear it cheep, for sure a wing would be broken, -or a foot. But nothing could he see, nothing, though he could hear -hundreds of grasshoppers leaping among the dead leaves with a noise -like pattering rain. So he turned away, but as he shifted his foot he -saw beneath it the shattered bird: he had jumped upon it himself and -destroyed it. He could not pick it up, it was bloody; he leaned over -it, sighing: “Poor bird, poor bird, and is this your road to heaven? Or -do you never share the heaven that you make?” There was a little noise -then added to the leaping of the grasshoppers—it was the patter of -tears he was shedding from himself. Well, when the scholar heard that -he gave a good shout of laughter, and he was soon contented, forgetting -the bird. He was for sitting down awhile but the thought of the old man -Simon, with that sinful wallet—a rare budget of his own mad joys—urged -him on till he came by the end of the wood, the rain ceasing, and -beyond him the harmony of a flock roaming and bleating. Every ewe of -the flock had numbers painted on it, that ran all the way up to ninety -and nine. - -Soon he came to the farmhouse and the kitchen and the odd sheep and a -kind girl with a knot of hair as thick as a twist of bread. He told her -the thing that was upon his conscience. - -“Help me to come up with him, for I’m a day to the bad, and what shall -I do? I gave him a coat, an old coat, and all my sins were hidden in -it, but I’d forgotten them. He was an old quavering man with but three -spells of happiness in the earthly world.” He begged her to direct -him to the man Simon. The smiling girl gave him a good direction, the -joyful scholar hurried out and on, and in a score of minutes he was -peeping in the fine hut, with his hand on the latch of the half door, -and Simon snoring in bed, a quiet decent snore. - -“Simon!” he calls, but he didn’t wake. He shook him, but he didn’t -budge. There was the coat hanging down from the iron peg, so he went -to it and searched it and took out the wallet. But when he opened it—a -black sowskin wallet it was, very strong with good straps—his sins were -all escaped from it, not one little sin left in the least chink of the -wallet, it was empty as a drum. The scholar knew something was wrong, -for it was full once, and quite full. - -“Well, now,” thought he, scratching his head and searching his mind, -“did I make a mistake of it? Would they be by chance in the very coat -that is on me now, for I’ve not another coat to my name?” He gave it -a good strong search, in the patch pockets and the inside pockets and -in the purse on his belt, but there was not the scrap of a tail of a -sin of any sort, good or bad, in that coat, and all he found was a few -cachous against the roughening of his voice. - -“Did I make another mistake of it,” he says again, “and put those -solemn sins in the fob of my fancy waistcoat? Where are they?” he -shouts out. - -Simon lifted his head out of sleeping for a moment. “It was that girl -with the hair,” Simon said. “She took them from the wallet—they are not -allowed in this place—and threw them in the pigwash.” - -With that he was asleep again, snoring his decent snore. - -“Glory be to God,” said the scholar, “am I not a great fool to have -come to heaven looking for my sins!” - -He took the empty wallet and tiptoed back to the world, and if he -is not with the saints yet, it is with the saints he will be one -day—barring he gets another budget of sins in his eager joy. And _that_ -I wouldn’t deny him. - - - - - _The Tiger_ - - -The tiger was coming at last; the almost fabulous beast, the subject of -so much conjecture for so many months, was at the docks twenty miles -away. Yak Pedersen had gone to fetch it, and Barnabe Woolf’s Menagerie -was about to complete its unrivalled collection by the addition of a -full-grown Indian tiger of indescribable ferocity, newly trapped in -the forest and now for the first time exhibited, and so on, and so on. -All of which, as it happened, was true. On the previous day Pedersen -the Dane and some helpers had taken a brand new four-horse exhibition -waggon, painted and carved with extremely legendary tigers lapped in -blood—even the bars were gilded—to convey this unmatchable beast to its -new masters. The show had had to wait a long time for a tiger, but it -had got a beauty at last, a terror indeed by all accounts, though it is -not to be imagined that everything recorded of it by Barnabe Woolf was -truth and nothing but truth. Showmen do not work in that way. - -Yak Pedersen was the tamer and menagerie manager, a tall, blonde, -angular man about thirty-five, of dissolute and savage blood himself, -with the very ample kind of moustache that bald men often develop; -yes, bald, intemperate, lewd, and an interminable smoker of Cuban -cigarettes, which seemed constantly to threaten a conflagration in -that moustache. Marie the Cossack hated him, but Yak loved her with a -fierce deep passion. Nobody knew why she was called Marie the Cossack. -She came from Canning Town—everybody knew that, and her proper name -was Fascota, Mrs. Fascota, wife of Jimmy Fascota, who was the architect -and carpenter and builder of the show. Jimmy was not much to look at, -so little in fact that you couldn’t help wondering what it was Marie -had seen in him when she could have had the King of Poland, as you -might say, almost for the asking. But still Jimmy was the boss ganger -of the show, and even that young gentleman in frock coat and silk hat -who paraded the platform entrance to the arena and rhodomontadoed you -into it, often against your will, by the seductive recital of the seven -ghastly wonders of the world, all certainly to be seen, to be seen -inside, waiting to be seen, must be seen, roll up—even he was subject -to the commands of Jimmy Fascota when the time came to dismantle and -pack up the show, although the transfer of his activities involved -him temporarily in a change, a horrid change, of attire and language. -Marie was not a lady, but she was not for Pedersen anyway. She swore -like a factory foreman, or a young soldier, and when she got tipsy she -was full of freedoms. By the power of God she was beautiful, and by -the same gracious power she was virtuous. Her husband knew it; he knew -all about master Pedersen’s passion, too, and it did not even interest -him. Marie did feats in the lion cages, whipping poor decrepit beasts, -desiccated by captivity, through a hoop or over a stick of wood and -other kindergarten disportings; but there you are, people must live, -and Marie lived that way. Pedersen was always wooing her. Sometimes he -was gracious and kind, but at other times when his failure wearied him -he would be cruel and sardonic, with a suggestive tongue whose vice -would have scourged her were it not that Marie was impervious, or too -deeply inured to mind it. She always grinned at him and fobbed him off -with pleasantries, whether he was amorous or acrid. - -“God Almighty!” he would groan, “she is not good for me, this Marie. -What can I do for her? She is burning me alive and the Skaggerack could -not quench me, not all of it. The devil! What can I do with this? Some -day I shall smash her across the eyes, yes, across the eyes.” - -So you see the man really loved her. - -When Pedersen returned from the docks the car with its captive was -dragged to a vacant place in the arena, and the wooden front panel was -let down from the bars. The marvellous tiger was revealed. It sprung -into a crouching attitude as the light surprised the appalling beauty -of its smooth fox-coloured coat, its ebony stripes, and snowy pads and -belly. The Dane, who was slightly drunk, uttered a yell and struck the -bars of the cage with his whip. The tiger did not blench, but all the -malice and ferocity in the world seemed to congregate in its eyes and -impress with a pride and ruthless grandeur the colossal brutality of -its face. It did not move its body, but its tail gradually stiffened -out behind it as stealthily as fire moves in the forest undergrowth, -and the hair along the ridge of its back rose in fearful spikes. There -was the slightest possible distension of the lips, and it fixed its -marvellous baleful gaze upon Pedersen. The show people were hushed -into silence, and even Pedersen was startled. He showered a few howls -and curses at the tiger, who never ceased to fix him with eyes that -had something of contempt in them and something of a horrible presage. -Pedersen was thrusting a sharp spike through the bars when a figure -stepped from the crowd. It was an old negro, a hunchback with a white -beard, dressed in a red fez cap, long tunic of buff cotton, and blue -trousers. He laid both his hands on the spike and shook his head -deprecatingly, smiling all the while. He said nothing, but there was -nothing he could say—he was dumb. - -“Let him alone, Yak; let the tiger alone, Yak!” cried Barnabe Woolf. -“What is this feller?” - -Pedersen with some reluctance turned from the cage and said: “He is -come with the animal.” - -“So?” said Barnabe. “Vell, he can go. Ve do not vant any black feller.” - -“He cannot speak—no tongue—it is gone,” Yak replied. - -“No tongue! Vot, have they cut him out?” - -“I should think it,” said the tamer. “There was two of them, a white -keeper, but that man fell off the ship one night and they do not see -him any more. This chap he feed it and look after it. No information -of him, dumb you see, and a foreigner; don’t understand. He have no -letters, no money, no name, nowheres to go. Dumb, you see, he has -nothing, nothing but a flote. The captain said to take him away with -us. Give a job to him, he is a proposition.” - -“Vot is he got you say?” - -“Flote.” Pedersen imitated with his fingers and lips the actions of a -flute-player. - -“O ya, a vloot! Vell, ve don’t want no vloots now; ve feeds our own -tigers, don’t ve, Yak?” And Mr. Woolf, oily but hearty—and well -he might be so for he was beautifully rotund, hair like satin, -extravagantly clothed, and rich with jewellery—surveyed first with -a contemplative grin, and then compassionately, the figure of the -old negro, who stood unsmiling with his hands crossed humbly before -him. Mr. Woolf was usually perspiring, and usually being addressed by -perspiring workmen, upon whom he bellowed orders and such anathemas as -reduced each recipient to the importance of a potato, and gave him the -aspect of a consumptive sheep. But to-day Mr. Woolf was affable and -calm. He took his cigar from his mouth and poured a flood of rich grey -air from his lips. “O ya, look after him a day, or a couple of days.” -At that one of the boys began to lead the hunchback away as if he were -a horse. “Come on, Pompoon,” he cried, and thenceforward the unknown -negro was called by that name. - -Throughout the day the tiger was the sensation of the show, and -the record of its ferocity attached to the cage received thrilling -confirmation whenever Pedersen appeared before the bars. The sublime -concentration of hatred was so intense that children screamed, women -shuddered, and even men held their breath in awe. At the end of the -day the beasts were fed. Great hacks of bloody flesh were forked into -the bottoms of the cages, the hungry victims pouncing and snarling in -ecstasy. But no sooner were they served than the front panel of each -cage was swung up, and the inmate in the seclusion of his den slaked -his appetite and slept. When the public had departed the lights were -put out and the doors of the arena closed. Outside in the darkness -only its great rounded oblong shape could be discerned, built high -of painted wood, roofed with striped canvas, and adorned with flags. -Beyond this matchbox coliseum was a row of caravans, tents, naphtha -flares, and buckets of fire on which suppers were cooking. Groups of -the show people sat or lounged about, talking, cackling with laughter, -and even singing. No one observed the figure of Pompoon as he passed -silently on the grass. The outcast, doubly chained to his solitariness -by the misfortune of dumbness and strange nationality, was hungry. He -had not tasted food that day. He could not understand it any more than -he could understand the speech of these people. In the end caravan, -nearest the arena, he heard a woman quietly singing. He drew a shining -metal flute from his breast, but stood silently until the singer -ceased. Then he repeated the tune very accurately and sweetly on his -flute. Marie the Cossack came to the door in her green silk tights -and high black boots with gilded fringes; her black velvet doublet -had plenty of gilded buttons upon it. She was a big, finely moulded -woman, her dark and splendid features were burned healthily by the -sun. In each of her ears two gold discs tinkled and gleamed as she -moved. Pompoon opened his mouth very widely and supplicatingly; he -put his hand upon his stomach and rolled his eyes so dreadfully that -Mrs. Fascota sent her little daughter Sophy down to him with a basin -of soup and potatoes. Sophy was partly undressed, in bare feet and red -petticoat. She stood gnawing the bone of a chicken, and grinning at -the black man as he swallowed and dribbled as best he could without -a spoon. She cried out: “Here, he’s going to eat the bloody basin -and all, mum!” Her mother cheerfully ordered her to “give him those -fraggiments, then!” The child did so, pausing now and again to laugh -at the satisfied roll of the old man’s eyes. Later on Jimmy Fascota -found him a couple of sacks, and Pompoon slept upon them beneath -their caravan. The last thing the old man saw was Pedersen, carrying -a naphtha flare, unlocking a small door leading into the arena, and -closing it with a slam after he had entered. Soon the light went out. - - -II - -After a week the show shifted and Pompoon accompanied it. Mrs. -Kavanagh, who looked after the birds, was, a little fortunately -for him, kicked in the stomach by a mule and had to be left at an -infirmary. Pompoon, who seemed to understand birds, took charge of the -parakeets, love birds, and other highly coloured fowl, including the -quetzal with green mossy head, pink breast, and flowing tails, and the -primrose-breasted toucans with bills like a butcher’s cleaver. - -The show was always moving on and moving on. Putting it up and taking -it down was a more entertaining affair than the exhibition itself. -With Jimmy Fascota in charge, and the young man of the frock coat in -an ecstasy of labour, half-clothed husky men swarmed up the rigged -frameworks, dismantling poles, planks, floors, ropes, roofs, staging, -tearing at bolts and bars, walking at dizzying altitudes on narrow -boards, swearing at their mates, staggering under vast burdens, -sweating till they looked like seals, packing and disposing incredibly -of it all, furling the flags, rolling up the filthy awnings, then Right -O! for a market town twenty miles away. - -In the autumn the show would be due at a great gala town in the -north, the supreme opportunity of the year, and by that time Mr. -Woolf expected to have a startling headline about a new tiger act -and the intrepid tamer. But somehow Pedersen could make no progress -at all with this. Week after week went by, and the longer he left -that initial entry into the cage of the tiger, notwithstanding -the comforting support of firearms and hot irons, the more remote -appeared the possibility of its capitulation. The tiger’s hatred -did not manifest itself in roars and gnashing of teeth, but by its -rigid implacable pose and a slight flexion of its protruded claws. It -seemed as if endowed with an imagination of blood-lust, Pedersen being -the deepest conceivable excitation of this. Week after week went by -and the show people became aware that Pedersen, their Pedersen, the -unrivalled, the dauntless tamer, had met his match. They were proud of -the beast. Some said it was Yak’s bald crown that the tiger disliked, -but Marie swore it was his moustache, a really remarkable piece of -hirsute furniture, that he would not have parted with for a pound of -gold—so he said. But whatever it was—crown, moustache, or the whole -conglomerate Pedersen—the tiger remarkably loathed it and displayed -his loathing, while the unfortunate tamer had no more success with -it than he had ever had with Marie the Cossack, though there was at -least a good humour in her treatment of him which was horribly absent -from the attitude of the beast. For a long time Pedersen blamed the -hunchback for it all. He tried to elicit from him by gesticulations -in front of the cage the secret of the creature’s enmity, but the -barriers to their intercourse were too great to be overcome, and to -all Pedersen’s illustrative frenzies Pompoon would only shake his sad -head and roll his great eyes until the Dane would cuff him away with -a curse of disgust and turn to find the eyes of the tiger, the dusky, -smooth-skinned tiger with bitter bars of ebony, fixed upon him with -tenfold malignity. How he longed in his raging impotence to transfix -the thing with a sharp spear through the cage’s gilded bars, or to -bore a hole into its vitals with a red-hot iron! All the traditional -treatment in such cases, combined first with starvation and then -with rich feeding, proved unavailing. Pedersen always had the front -flap of the cage left down at night so that he might, as he thought, -establish some kind of working arrangement between them by the force of -propinquity. He tried to sleep on a bench just outside the cage, but -the horror of the beast so penetrated him that he had to turn his back -upon it. Even then the intense enmity pierced the back of his brain -and forced him to seek a bench elsewhere out of range of the tiger’s -vision. - -Meanwhile, the derision of Marie was not concealed—it was even -blatant—and to the old contest of love between herself and the Dane -was now added a new contest of personal courage, for it had come to -be assumed, in some undeclarable fashion, that if Yak Pedersen could -not tame that tiger, then Marie the Cossack would. As this situation -crystallized daily the passion of Pedersen changed to jealousy and -hatred. He began to regard the smiling Marie in much the same way as -the tiger regarded him. - -“The hell-devil! May some lightning scorch her like a toasted fish!” - -But in a short while this mood was displaced by one of anxiety; he -became even abject. Then, strangely enough, Marie’s feelings underwent -some modification. She was proud of the chance to subdue and defeat -him, but it might be at a great price—too great a price for her. -Addressing herself in turn to the dim understanding of Pompoon she had -come to perceive that he believed the tiger to be not merely quite -untamable, but full of mysterious dangers. She could not triumph -over the Dane unless she ran the risk he feared to run. The risk was -colossal then, and with her realization of this some pity for Yak began -to exercise itself in her; after all, were they not in the same boat? -But the more she sympathized the more she jeered. The thing had to be -done somehow. - -Meanwhile Barnabe Woolf wants that headline for the big autumn show, -and a failure will mean a nasty interview with that gentleman. It -may end by Barnabe kicking Yak Pedersen out of his wild beast show. -Not that Mr. Woolf is so gross as to suggest that. He senses the -difficulty, although his manager in his pride will not confess to any. -Mr. Woolf declares that his tiger is a new tiger; Yak must watch out -for him, be careful. He talks as if it were just a question of giving -the cage a coat of whitewash. He never hints at contingencies; but -still, there is his new untamed tiger, and there is Mr. Yak Pedersen, -his wild beast tamer—at present. - - -III - -One day the menagerie did not open. It had finished an engagement, and -Jimmy Fascota had gone off to another town to arrange the new pitch. -The show folk made holiday about the camp, or flocked into the town for -marketing or carousals. Mrs. Fascota was alone in her caravan, clothed -in her jauntiest attire. She was preparing to go into the town when -Pedersen suddenly came silently in and sat down. - -“Marie,” he said, after a few moments, “I give up that tiger. To me he -has given a spell. It is like a mesmerize.” He dropped his hands upon -his knees in complete humiliation. Marie did not speak, so he asked: -“What you think?” - -She shrugged her shoulders, and put her brown arms akimbo. She was a -grand figure so, in a cloak of black satin and a huge hat trimmed with -crimson feathers. - -“If _you_ can’t trust him,” she said, “who can?” - -“It is myself I am not to trust. Shameful! But that tiger will do me, -yes, so I will not conquer him. It’s bad, very, very bad, is it not so? -Shameful, but I will not do it!” he declared excitedly. - -“What’s Barnabe say?” - -“I do not care, Mr. Woolf can think what he can think! Damn Woolf! But -for what I do think of my own self.... Ah!” He paused for a moment, -dejected beyond speech. “Yes, miserable it is, in my own heart very -shameful, Marie. And what you think of me, yes, that too!” - -There was a note in his voice that almost confounded her—why, the -man was going to cry! In a moment she was all melting compassion and -bravado. - -“You leave the devil to me, Yak. What’s come over you, man? God love -us, I’ll tiger him!” - -But the Dane had gone as far as he could go. He could admit his defeat, -but he could not welcome her all too ready amplification of it. - -“Na, na, you are good for him, Marie, but you beware. He is not a -tiger; he is beyond everything, foul—he has got a foul heart and a -thousand demons in it. I would not bear to see you touch him; no, no, I -would not bear it!” - -“Wait till I come back this afternoon—you wait!” cried Marie, lifting -her clenched fist. “So help me, I’ll tiger him, you’ll see!” - -Pedersen suddenly awoke to her amazing attraction. He seized her in his -arms. “Na, na, Marie! God above! I will not have it.” - -“Aw, shut up!” she commanded, impatiently, and pushing him from her -she sprang down the steps and proceeded to the town alone. - -She did not return in the afternoon; she did not return in the evening; -she was not there when the camp closed up for the night. Sophy, alone, -was quite unconcerned. Pompoon sat outside the caravan, while the -flame of the last lamp was perishing weakly above his head. He now -wore a coat of shag-coloured velvet. He was old and looked very wise, -often shaking his head, not wearily, but as if in doubt. The flute lay -glittering upon his knees and he was wiping his lips with a green silk -handkerchief when barefoot Sophy in her red petticoat crept behind him, -unhooked the lamp, and left him in darkness. Then he departed to an old -tent the Fascotas had found for him. - -When the mother returned the camp was asleep in its darkness and she -was very drunk. Yak Pedersen had got her. He carried her into the -arena, and bolted and barred the door. - - -IV - -Marie Fascota awoke next morning in broad daylight; through chinks and -rents in the canvas roof of the arena the brightness was beautiful -to behold. She could hear a few early risers bawling outside, while -all around her the caged beasts and birds were squeaking, whistling, -growling, and snarling. She was lying beside the Dane on a great bundle -of straw. He was already awake when she became aware of him, watching -her with amused eyes. - -“Yak Pedersen! Was I drunk?” Marie asked dazedly in low husky tones, -sitting up. “What’s this, Yak Pedersen? Was I drunk? Have I been here -all night?” - -He lay with his hands behind his head, smiling in the dissolute -ugliness of his abrupt yellow skull so incongruously bald, his -moustache so profuse, his nostrils and ears teeming with hairs. - -“Can’t you speak?” cried the wretched woman. “What game do you call -this? Where’s my Sophy, and my Jimmy—is he back?” - -Again he did not answer; he stretched out a hand to caress her. -Unguarded as he was, Marie smashed down both her fists full upon his -face. He lunged back blindly at her and they both struggled to their -feet, his fingers clawing in her thick strands of hair as she struck -at him in frenzy. Down rolled the mass and he seized it; it was her -weakness, and she screamed. Marie was a rare woman—a match for most -men—but the capture of her hair gave her utterly into his powerful -hands. Uttering a torrent of filthy oaths, Pedersen pulled the yelling -woman backwards to him and grasping her neck with both hands gave a -murderous wrench and flung her to the ground. As she fell Marie’s hand -clutched a small cage of fortune-telling birds. She hurled this at the -man, but it missed him; the cage burst against a pillar and the birds -scattered in the air. - -“Marie! Marie!” shouted Yak, “listen! listen!” - -Remorsefully he flung himself before the raging woman who swept at him -with an axe, her hair streaming, her eyes blazing with the fire of a -thousand angers. - -“Drunk, was I!” she screamed at him. “That’s how ye got me, Yak -Pedersen? Drunk, was I!” - -He warded the blow with his arm, but the shock and pain of it was so -great that his own rage burst out again, and leaping at the woman he -struck her a horrible blow across the eyes. She sunk to her knees and -huddled there without a sound, holding her hands to her bleeding face, -her loose hair covering it like a net. At the pitiful sight the Dane’s -grief conquered him again, and bending over her imploringly he said: -“Marie, my love, Marie! Listen! It is not true! Swear me to God, good -woman, it is not true, it is not possible! Swear me to God!” he raged -distractedly. “Swear me to God!” Suddenly he stopped and gasped. They -were in front of the tiger’s cage, and Pedersen was as if transfixed by -that fearful gaze. The beast stood with hatred concentrated in every -bristling hair upon its hide, and in its eyes a malignity that was -almost incandescent. Still as a stone, Marie observed this, and began -to creep away from the Dane, stealthily, stealthily. On a sudden, with -incredible agility, she sprang up the steps of the tiger’s cage, tore -the pin from the catch, flung open the door, and, yelling in madness, -leapt in. As she did so, the cage emptied. In one moment she saw -Pedersen grovelling on his knees, stupid, and the next.... - -All the hidden beasts, stirred by instinctive knowledge of the tragedy, -roared and raged. Marie’s eyes and mind were opened to its horror. She -plugged her fingers into her ears; screamed; but her voice was a mere -wafer of sound in that pandemonium. She heard vast crashes of someone -smashing in the small door of the arena, and then swooned upon the -floor of the cage. - -The bolts were torn from their sockets at last, the slip door swung -back, and in the opening appeared Pompoon, alone, old Pompoon, with a -flaming lamp and an iron spear. As he stepped forward into the gloom -he saw the tiger, dragging something in its mouth, leap back into its -cage. - - - - - _Mordecai and Cocking_ - - -Two men sat one afternoon beside a spinney of beeches near the top -of a wild bare down. Old shepherd Mordecai was admonishing a younger -countryman, Eustace Cocking, now out of work, who held beside him in -leash a brindled whippet dog, sharp featured and lean, its neck clipped -in a broad leather collar. The day was radiant, the very air had bloom; -bright day is never so bright as upon these lonely downs, and the grim -face of storm never so tragic elsewhere. From the beeches other downs -ranged in every direction, nothing but downs in beautiful abandoned -masses. In a valley below the men a thousand sheep were grazing; they -looked no more than a handful of white beach randomly scattered. - -“The thing’s forbidden, Eustace; it always has and always will be, I -say, and thereby ’tis wrong.” - -“Well, if ever I doos anything wrong I allus feel glad of it next -morning.” - -“’Tis against law, Eustace, and to be against law is the downfall of -mankind. What I mean to say—I’m a national man.” - -“The law! Foo! That’s made by them as don’t care for my needs, and -don’t understand my rights. Is it fair to let them control your mind as -haven’t got a grip of their own? I worked for yon farmer a matter of -fourteen years, hard, I tell you, I let my back sweat....” - -The dog at his side was restless; he cuffed it impatiently: “and twice -a week my wife she had to go to farmhouse; twice a week; doing up -their washing and their muck—‘Lie down!’” he interjected sternly to -the querulous dog—“two days in every seven. Then the missus says to -my wife, ‘I shall want you to come four days a week in future, Mrs. -Cocking; the house is too much of a burden for me.’ My wife says: ‘I -can’t come no oftener, ma’am; I’d not have time to look after my own -place, my husband, and the six children, ma’am.’ Then missus flew into -a passion. ‘Oh, so you won’t come, eh!’ - -“‘I’d come if I could, ma’am,’ my wife says, ‘and gladly, but it ain’t -possible, you see.’ - -“‘Oh, very well!’ says the missus. And that was the end of that, but -come Saturday, when the boss pays me: ‘Cocking,’ he says, ‘I shan’t -want you no more arter next week.’ No explanation, mind you, and I -never asked for none. I know’d what ’twas for, but I don’t give a dam. -What meanness, Mordecai! Of course I don’t give a dam whether I goes or -whether I stops; you know my meaning—I’d much rather stop; my home’s -where I be known; but I don’t give a dam. ’Tain’t the job I minds so -much as to let him have that power to spite me so at a moment after -fourteen years because of his wife’s temper. ’Tis not decent. ’Tis -under-grading a man.’” - -There was no comment from the shepherd. Eustace continued: “If that’s -your law, Mordecai, I don’t want it. I ignores it.” - -“And that you can’t do,” retorted the old man. “God A’mighty can look -after the law.” - -“If He be willing to take the disgrace of it, Mordecai Stavely, let -Him.” - -The men were silent for a long time, until the younger cheerfully -asked: “How be poor old Harry Mixen?” - -“Just alive.” - -Eustace leaned back, munching a strig of grass reflectively and looking -at the sky: “Don’t seem no sign of rain, however?” - -“No.” - -The old man who said “No” hung his melancholy head, and pondered; he -surveyed his boots, which were of harsh hard leather with deep soles. -He then said: “We ought to thank God we had such mild weather at the -back end of the year. If you remember, it came a beautiful autumn and -a softish winter. Things are growing now; I’ve seen oats as high as my -knee; the clover’s lodged in places. It will be all good if we escape -the east winds—hot days and frosty nights.” - -The downs, huge and bare, stretched in every direction, green and grey, -gentle and steep, their vast confusion enlightened by a small hanger -of beech or pine, a pond, or more often a derelict barn; for among -the downs there are barns and garners ever empty, gone into disuse -and abandoned. They are built of flint and red brick, with a roof of -tiles. The rafters often bear an eighteenth-century date. Elsewhere in -this emptiness even a bush will have a name, and an old stone becomes -a track mark. Upon the soft tufts and among the triumphant furze live -a few despised birds, chats and finches and that blithe screamer the -lark, but above all, like veins upon the down’s broad breast, you may -perceive the run-way of the hare. - -“Why can’t a man live like a hare?” broke out the younger man. “I’d not -mind being shot at a time and again. It lives a free life, anyway, not -like a working man with a devil on two legs always cracking him on.” - -“Because,” said Mordecai, “a hare is a vegetarian creature, what’s -called a rubinant, chewing the cud and dividing not the hoof. And,” he -added significantly, “there be dogs.” - -“It takes a mazin’ good dog to catch ever a hare on its own ground. -Most hares could chase any dog ever born, believe you me, if they liked -to try at that.” - -“There be traps and wires!” - -“Well, we’ve no call to rejoice, with the traps set for a man, and the -wires a choking him.” - -At that moment two mating hares were roaming together on the upland -just below the men. The doe, a small fawn creature, crouched coyly -before the other, a large nut-brown hare with dark ears. Soon she -darted away, sweeping before him in a great circle, or twisting and -turning as easily as a snake. She seemed to fly the faster, but when -his muscular pride was aroused he swooped up to her shoulder, and, -as if in loving derision, leaped over her from side to side as she -ran. She stopped as sharply as a shot upon its target and faced him, -quizzing him gently with her nose. As they sat thus the dark-eared -one perceived not far off a squatting figure; it was another hare, a -tawny buck, eyeing their dalliance. The doe commenced to munch the -herbage; the nut-brown one hobbled off to confront this wretched, rash, -intruding fool. When they met both rose upon their haunches, clawing -and scraping and patting at each other with as little vigour as mild -children put into their quarrels—a rigmarole of slapping hands. But, -notwithstanding the delicacy of the treatment, the interloper, a meek -enough fellow, succumbed, and the conqueror loped back to his nibbling -mistress. - -Yet, whenever they rested from their wooing flights, the tawny -interloper was still to be seen near by. Hapless mourning seemed -to involve his hunched figure; he had the aspect of a deferential, -grovelling man; but the lover saw only his provocative, envious eye—he -swept down upon him. Standing up again, he slammed and basted him with -puny velvet blows until he had salved his indignation, satisfied his -connubial pride, or perhaps merely some strange fading instinct—for it -seemed but a mock combat, a ritual to which they conformed. - -Away the happy hare would prance to his mate, but as often as he came -round near that shameless spy he would pounce upon him and beat him to -the full, like a Turk or like a Russian. But though he could beat him -and disgrace him, he could neither daunt nor injure him. The vanquished -miscreant would remain watching their wooing with the eye of envy—or -perhaps of scorn—and hoping for a miracle to happen. - -And a miracle did happen. Cocking, unseen, near the beeches released -his dog. The doe shot away over the curve of the hill and was gone. -She did not merely gallop, she seemed to pass into ideal flight, -the shadow of wind itself. Her fawn body, with half-cocked ears and -unperceivable convulsion of the leaping haunches, soared across the -land with the steady swiftness of a gull. The interloping hare, in a -blast of speed, followed hard upon her traces. But Cocking’s hound -had found at last the hare of its dreams, a nut-brown, dark-eared, -devil-guided, eluding creature, that fled over the turf of the hill -as lightly as a cloud. The long leaping dog swept in its track with a -stare of passion, following in great curves the flying thing that grew -into one great throb of fear all in the grand sunlight on the grand bit -of a hill. The lark stayed its little flood of joy and screamed with -notes of pity at the protracted flight; and bloodless indeed were they -who could view it unmoved, nor feel how sweet a thing is death if you -be hound, how fell a thing it is if you be hare. Too long, O delaying -death, for this little heart of wax; and too long, O delaying victory, -for that pursuer with the mouth of flame. Suddenly the hound faltered, -staggered a pace or two, then sunk to the grass, its lips dribbling -blood. When Cocking reached him the dog was dead. He picked the body up. - -“It’s against me, like everything else,” he muttered. - -But a voice was calling “Oi! Oi!” He turned to confront a figure -rapidly and menacingly approaching. - -“I shall want you, Eustace Cocking,” cried the gamekeeper, “to come -and give an account o’ yourself.” - - - - - _The Man from Kilsheelan_ - - -If you knew the Man from Kilsheelan it was no use saying you did not -believe in fairies and secret powers; believe it or no, but believe -it you should; there he was. It is true he was in an asylum for the -insane, but he was a man with age upon him so he didn’t mind; and -besides, better men than himself have been in such places, or they -ought to be, and if there is justice in the world they will be. - -“A cousin of mine,” he said to old Tom Tool one night, “is come from -Ameriky. A rich person.” - -He lay in the bed next him, but Tom Tool didn’t answer so he went on -again: “In a ship,” he said. - -“I hear you,” answered Tom Tool. - -“I see his mother with her bosom open once, and it stuffed with -diamonds, bags full.” - -Tom Tool kept quiet. - -“If,” said the Man from Kilsheelan, “if I’d the trusty comrade I’d make -a break from this and go seek him.” - -“Was he asking you to do that?” - -“How could he an’ all and he in a ship?” - -“Was he writing fine letters to you then?” - -“How could he, under the Lord? Would he give them to a savage bird or a -herring to bring to me so?” - -“How did he let on to you?” - -“He did not let on,” said the Man from Kilsheelan. - -Tom Tool lay long silent in the darkness; he had a mistrust of the -Man, knowing him to have a forgetful mind; everything slipped through -it like rain through the nest of a pigeon. But at last he asked him: -“Where is he now?” - -“He’ll be at Ballygoveen.” - -“You to know that and you with no word from him?” - -“O, I know it, I know; and if I’d a trusty comrade I’d walk out of this -and to him I would go. Bags of diamonds!” - -Then he went to sleep, sudden; but the next night he was at Tom Tool -again: “If I’d a trusty comrade,” said he; and all that and a lot more. - -“’Tis not convenient to me now,” said Tom Tool, “but to-morrow night I -might go wid you.” - -The next night was a wild night, and a dark night, and he would not -go to make a break from the asylum, he said: “Fifty miles of journey, -and I with no heart for great walking feats! It is not convenient, but -to-morrow night I might go wid you.” - -The night after that he said: “Ah, whisht wid your diamonds and all! -Why would you go from the place that is snug and warm into a world that -is like a wall for cold dark, and but the thread of a coat to divide -you from its mighty clasp, and only one thing blacker under the heaven -of God and that’s the road you walk on, and only one thing more shy -than your heart and that’s your two feet worn to a tissue tramping in -dung and ditches....” - -“If I’d a trusty comrade,” said the Man from Kilsheelan, “I’d go seek -my rich cousin.” - -“ ... stars gaping at you a few spans away, and the things that have -life in them, but cannot see or speak, begin to breathe and bend. If -ever your hair stood up it is then it would be, though you’ve no more -than would thatch a thimble, God help you.” - -“Bags of gold he has,” continued the Man, “and his pockets stuffed with -the tobacca.” - -“Tobacca!” - -“They were large pockets and well stuffed.” - -“Do you say, now!” - -“And the gold! large bags and rich bags.” - -“Well, I might do it to-morrow.” - -And the next day Tom Tool and the Man from Kilsheelan broke from the -asylum and crossed the mountains and went on. - -Four little nights and four long days they were walking; slow it was -for they were oldish men and lost they were, but the journey was kind -and the weather was good weather. On the fourth day Tom Tool said to -him: “The Dear knows what way you’d be taking me! Blind it seems, and -dazed I am. I could do with a skillet of good soup to steady me and to -soothe me.” - -“Hard it is, and hungry it is,” sighed the Man; “starved daft I am for -a taste of nourishment, a blind man’s dog would pity me. If I see a cat -I’ll eat it; I could bite the nose off a duck.” - -They did not converse any more for a time, not until Tom Tool asked him -what was the name of his grand cousin, and then the Man from Kilsheelan -was in a bedazement, and he was confused. - -“I declare, on my soul, I’ve forgot his little name. Wait now while I -think of it.” - -“Was it McInerney then?” - -“No, not it at all.” - -“Kavanagh? the Grogans? or the Duffys?” - -“Wait, wait while I think of it now.” - -Tom Tool waited; he waited and all until he thought he would burst. - -“Ah, what’s astray wid you? Was it Phelan—or O’Hara—or Clancy—or Peter -Mew?” - -“No, not it at all.” - -“The Murphys. The Sweeneys. The Moores.” - -“Divil a one. Wait while I think of it now.” - -And the Man from Kilsheelan sat holding his face as if it hurt him, -and his comrade kept saying at him: “Duhy, then? Coman? McGrath?” and -driving him distracted with his O this and O that, his Mc he—s and Mc -she—s. - -Well, he could not think of it; but when they walked on they had not -far to go, for they came over a twist of the hills and there was the -ocean, and the neat little town of Ballygoveen in a bay of it below, -with the wreck of a ship lying sunk near the strand. There was a -sharp cliff at either horn of the bay, and between them some bullocks -stravaiging on the beach. - -“Truth is a fortune,” cried the Man from Kilsheelan, “this it is.” - -They went down the hill to the strand near the wreck, and just on the -wing of the town they saw a paddock full of hemp stretched drying, and -a house near it, and a man weaving a rope. He had a great cast of hemp -around his loins, and a green apron. He walked backwards to the sea, -and a young girl stood turning a little wheel as he went away from her. - -“God save you,” said Tom Tool to her, “for who are you weaving this -rope?” - -“For none but God himself and the hangman,” said she. - -Turning the wheel she was, and the man going away from it backwards, -and the dead wreck in the rocky bay; a fine sweet girl of good dispose -and no ways drifty. - -“Long life to you then, young woman,” says he. “But that’s a strong -word, and a sour word, the Lord spare us all.” - -At that the rope walker let a shout to her to stop the wheel; then he -cut the rope at the end and tied it to a black post. After that he came -throwing off his green apron and said he was hungry. - -“Denis, avick!” cried the girl. “Come, and I’ll get your food.” And the -two of them went away into the house. - -“Brother and sister they are,” said the Man from Kilsheelan, “a good -appetite to them.” - -“Very neat she is, and clean she is, and good and sweet and tidy she -is,” said Tom Tool. They stood in the yard watching some white fowls -parading and feeding and conversing in the grass; scratch, peck, peck, -ruffle, quarrel, scratch, peck, peck, cock a doodle doo. - -“What will we do now, Tom Tool? My belly has a scroop and a screech in -it. I could eat the full of Isknagahiny Lake and gape for more, or the -Hill of Bawn and not get my enough.” - -Beyond them was the paddock with the hemp drying across it, long -heavy strands, and two big stacks of it beside, dark and sodden, like -seaweed. The girl came to the door and called: “Will ye take a bite?” -They said they would, and that she should eat with spoons of gold in -the heaven of God and Mary. “You’re welcome,” she said, but no more she -said, for while they ate she was sad and silent. - -The young man Denis let on that their father, one Horan, was away on -his journeys peddling a load of ropes, a long journey, days he had been -gone, and he might be back to-day, or to-morrow, or the day after. - -“A great strew of hemp you have,” said the Man from Kilsheelan. The -young man cast down his eyes; and the young girl cried out: “’Tis foul -hemp, God preserve us all!” - -“Do you tell me of that now,” he asked; but she would not, and her -brother said: “I will tell you. It’s a great misfortune, mister man. -’Tis from the wreck in the bay beyant, a good stout ship, but burst on -the rocks one dark terror of a night and all the poor sailors tipped in -the sea. But the tide was low and they got ashore, ten strong sailor -men, with a bird in a cage that was dead drowned.” - -“The Dear rest its soul,” said Tom Tool. - -“There was no rest in the ocean for a week, the bay was full of storms, -and the vessel burst, and the big bales split, and the hemp was -scattered and torn and tangled on the rocks, or it did drift. But at -last it soothed, and we gathered it and brought it to the field here. -We brought it, and my father did buy it of the salvage man for a price; -a Mexican valuer he was, but the deal was bad, and it lies there; going -rotten it is, the rain wears it, and the sun’s astray, and the wind is -gone.” - -“That’s a great misfortune. What is on it?” said the Man from -Kilsheelan. - -“It is a great misfortune, mister man. Laid out it is, turned it is, -hackled it is, but faith it will not dry or sweeten, never a hank of it -worth a pig’s eye.” - -“’Tis the devil and all his injury,” said Kilsheelan. - -The young girl, her name it was Christine, sat grieving. One of her -beautiful long hands rested on her knee, and she kept beating it with -the other. Then she began to speak. - -“The captain of that ship lodged in this house with us while the hemp -was recovered and sold; a fine handsome sport he was, but fond of the -drink, and very friendly with the Mexican man, very hearty they were, -a great greasy man with his hands covered with rings that you’d not -believe. Covered! My father had been gone travelling a week or a few -days when a dark raging gale came off the bay one night till the hemp -was lifted all over the field.” - -“It would have lifted a bullock,” said Denis, “great lumps of it, like -trees.” - -“And we sat waiting the captain, but he didn’t come home and we went -sleeping. But in the morning the Mexican man was found dead murdered -on the strand below, struck in the skull, and the two hands of him -gone. ’Twas not long when they came to the house and said he was last -seen with the captain, drunk quarrelling; and where was he? I said to -them that he didn’t come home at all and was away from it. ‘We’ll take -a peep at his bed,’ they said, and I brought them there, and my heart -gave a strong twist in me when I see’d the captain stretched on it, -snoring to the world and his face and hands smeared with the blood. -So he was brought away and searched, and in his pocket they found one -of the poor Mexican’s hands, just the one, but none of the riches. -Everything to be so black against him and the assizes just coming on in -Cork! So they took him there before the judge, and he judged him and -said it’s to hang he was. And if they asked the captain how he did it, -he said he did not do it at all.” - -“But there was a bit of iron pipe beside the body,” said Denis. - -“And if they asked him where was the other hand, the one with the rings -and the mighty jewels on them, and his budget of riches, he said he -knew nothing of that nor how the one hand got into his pocket. Placed -there it was by some schemer. It was all he could say, for the drink -was on him and nothing he knew. - -“‘You to be so drunk,’ they said, ‘how did you get home to your bed and -nothing heard?’ - -“‘I don’t know,’ says he. Good sakes, the poor lamb, a gallant strong -sailor he was! His mind was a blank, he said. ‘’Tis blank,’ said the -judge, ‘if it’s as blank as the head of himself with a gap like that in -it, God rest him!’” - -“You could have put a pound of cheese in it,” said Denis. - -“And Peter Corcoran cried like a loony man, for his courage was gone, -like a stream of water. To hang him, the judge said, and to hang him -well, was their intention. It was a pity, the judge said, to rob a man -because he was foreign, and destroy him for riches and the drink on -him. And Peter Corcoran swore he was innocent of this crime. ‘Put a -clean shirt to me back,’ says he, ‘for it’s to heaven I’m going.’” - -“And,” added Denis, “the peeler at the door said ‘Amen.’” - -“That was a week ago,” said Christine, “and in another he’ll be -stretched. A handsome sporting sailor boy.” - -“What ... what did you say was the name of him?” gasped the Man from -Kilsheelan. - -“Peter Corcoran, the poor lamb,” said Christine. - -“Begod,” he cried out as if he was choking, “’tis me grand cousin from -Ameriky!” - -True it was, and the grief on him so great that Denis was after giving -the two of them a lodge till the execution was over. “Rest here, my -dad’s away,” said he, “and he knowing nothing of the murder, or the -robbery, or the hanging that’s coming, nothing. Ah, what will we tell -him an’ all? ’Tis a black story on this house.” - -“The blessing of God and Mary on you,” said Tom Tool. “Maybe we -could do a hand’s turn for you; me comrade’s a great wonder with the -miracles, maybe he could do a stroke would free an innocent man.” - -“Is it joking you are?” asked Christine sternly. - -“God deliver him, how would I joke on a man going to his doom and -destruction?” - -The next day the young girl gave them jobs to do, but the Man from -Kilsheelan was destroyed with trouble and he shook like water when a -pan of it is struck. - -“What is on you?” said Tom Tool. - -“Vexed and waxy I am,” says he, “in regard of the great journey we’s -took, and sorra a help in the end of it. Why couldn’t he do his bloody -murder after we had done with him?” - -“Maybe he didn’t do it at all.” - -“Ah, what are you saying now, Tom Tool? Wouldn’t anyone do it, a nice, -easy, innocent crime. The cranky gossoon to get himself stretched on -the head of it, ’tis the drink destroyed him! Sure’s there’s no more -justice in the world than you’d find in the craw of a sick pullet. -Vexed and waxy I am for me careless cousin. Do it! Who wouldn’t do it?” - -He went up to the rope that Denis and Christine were weaving together -and he put his finger on it. - -“Is that the rope,” says he, “that will hang my grand cousin?” - -“No,” said Denis, “it is not. His rope came through the post office -yesterday. For the prison master it was, a long new rope—saints -preserve us—and Jimmy Fallon the postman getting roaring drunk showing -it to the scores of creatures would give him a drink for the sight -of it. Just coiled it was, and no way hidden, with a label on it, -‘O.H.M.S.’” - -“The wind’s rising, you,” said Christine. “Take a couple of forks now, -and turn the hemp in the field. Maybe ’twill scour the Satan out of it.” - -“Stormy it does be, and the bay has darkened in broad noon,” said Tom -Tool. - -“Why wouldn’t the whole world be dark and a man to be hung?” said she. - -They went to the hemp so knotted and stinking, and begun raking it -and raking it. The wind was roaring from the bay, the hulk twitching -and tottering; the gulls came off the wave, and Christine’s clothes -stretched out from her like the wings of a bird. The hemp heaved upon -the paddock like a great beast bursting a snare that was on it, and a -strong blast drove a heap of it upon the Man from Kilsheelan, twisting -and binding him in its clasp till he thought he would not escape from -it and he went falling and yelping. Tom Tool unwound him, and sat him -in the lew of the stack till he got his strength again, and then he -began to moan of his misfortune. - -“Stint your shouting,” said Tom Tool, “isn’t it as hard to cure as a -wart on the back of a hedgehog?” - -But he wouldn’t stint it. “’Tis large and splendid talk I get from -you, Tom Tool, but divil a deed of strength. Vexed and waxy I am. Why -couldn’t he do his murder after we’d done with him. What a cranky -cousin. What a foolish creature. What a silly man, the devil take him!” - -“Let you be aisy,” the other said, “to heaven he is going.” - -“And what’s the gain of it, he to go with his neck stretched?” - -“Indeed, I did know a man went to heaven once,” began Tom Tool, “but he -did not care for it.” - -“That’s queer,” said the Man, “for it couldn’t be anything you’d not -want, indeed to glory.” - -“Well, he came back to Ireland on the head of it. I forget what was his -name.” - -“Was it Corcoran, or Tool, or Horan?” - -“No, none of those names. He let on it was a lonely place, not fit for -living people or dead people, he said; nothing but trees and streams -and beasts and birds.” - -“What beasts and birds?” - -“Rabbits and badgers, the elephant, the dromedary, and all those -ancient races; eagles and hawks and cuckoos and magpies. He wandered in -a thick forest for nights and days like a flea in a great beard, and -the beasts and the birds setting traps and hooks and dangers for a poor -feller; the worst villains of all was the sheep.” - -“The sheep! What could a sheep do then?” asked Kilsheelan. - -“I don’t know the right of it, but you’d not believe me if I told you -at all. If you went for the little swim you was not seen again.” - -“I never heard the like of that in Roscommon.” - -“Not another holy soul was in it but himself, and if he was taken with -the thirst he would dip his hand in a stream that flowed with rich -wine and put it to his lips, but if he did it turned into air at once -and twisted up in a blue cloud. But grand wine to look at, he said. If -he took oranges from a tree he could not bite them, they were chiny -oranges, hard as a plate. But beautiful oranges to look at they were. -To pick a flower it burst on you like a gun. What was cold was too cold -to touch, and what was warm was too warm to swallow, you must throw it -up, or die.” - -“Faith, it’s no region for a Christian soul, Tom Tool. Where is it at -all?” - -“High it may be, low it may be, it may be here, it may be there.” - -“What could the like of a sheep do? A sheep!” - -“A devouring savage creature it is there, the most hard to come at, the -most difficult to conquer, with the teeth of a lion and a tiger, the -strength of a bear and a half, the deceit of two foxes, the run of a -deer, the...” - -“Is it heaven you call it! I’d not look twice at a place the like of -that.” - -“No, you would not, no.” - -“Ah, but wait now,” said Kilsheelan, “wait till the day of Judgment.” - -“Well, I will not wait then,” said Tom Tool sternly. “When the sinners -of the world are called to their judgment, scatter they will all over -the face of the earth, running like hares till they come to the sea, -and there they will perish.” - -“Ah, the love of God on the world!” - -They went raking and raking, till they came to a great stiff hump of it -that rolled over, and they could see sticking from the end of it two -boots. - -“O, what is it, in the name of God?” asks Kilsheelan. - -“Sorra and all, but I’d not like to look,” says Tom Tool, and they -called the girl to come see what was it. - -“A dead man!” says Christine, in a thin voice with a great tremble -coming on her, and she white as a tooth. “Unwind him now.” They began -to unwind him like a tailor with a bale of tweed, and at last they came -to a man black in the face. Strangled he was. The girl let a great -cry out of her. “Queen of heaven, ’tis my dad; choked he is, the long -strands have choked him, my good pleasant dad!” and she went with a run -to the house crying. - -“What has he there in his hand?” asked Kilsheelan. - -“’Tis a chopper,” says he. - -“Do you see what is on it, Tom Tool?” - -“Sure I see, and you see, what is on it; blood is on it, and murder is -on it. Go fetch a peeler, and I’ll wait while you bring him.” - -When his friend was gone for the police Tom Tool took a little squint -around him and slid his hand into the dead man’s pocket. But if he did -he was nearly struck mad from his senses, for he pulled out a loose -dead hand that had been chopped off as neat as the foot of a pig. He -looked at the dead man’s arms, and there was a hand to each; so he -looked at the hand again. The fingers were covered with the rings of -gold and diamonds. Covered! - -“Glory be to God!” said Tom Tool, and he put his hand in another pocket -and fetched a budget full of papers and banknotes. - -“Glory be to God!” he said again, and put the hand and the budget back -in the pockets, and turned his back and said prayers until the peelers -came and took them all off to the court. - -It was not long, two days or three, until an inquiry was held; grand it -was and its judgment was good. And the big-Wig asked: “Where is the -man that found the body?” - -“There are two of him,” says the peeler. - -“Swear ’em,” says he, and Kilsheelan stepped up to a great murdering -joker of a clerk, who gave him a book in his hand and roared at him: “I -swear by Almighty God....” - -“Yes,” says Kilsheelan. - -“Swear it,” says the clerk. - -“Indeed I do.” - -“You must repeat it,” says the clerk. - -“I will, sir.” - -“Well, repeat it then,” says he. - -“And what will I repeat?” - -So he told him again and he repeated it. Then the clerk goes on: “... -that the evidence I give....” - -“Yes,” says Kilsheelan. - -“Say those words, if you please.” - -“The words! Och, give me the head of ’em again!” - -So he told him again and he repeated it. Then the clerk goes on: “ ... -shall be the truth....” - -“It will,” says Kilsheelan. - -“ ... and nothing but the truth....” - -“Yes, begod, indeed!” - -“Say ‘nothing but the truth,’” roared the clerk. - -“No!” says Kilsheelan. - -“Say ‘nothing.’” - -“All right,” says Kilsheelan. - -“Can’t you say ’nothing but the truth'?” - -“Yes,” he says. - -“Well, say it!” - -“I will, so,” says he, “the scrapings of sense on it all!” - -So they swore them both, and their evidence they gave. - -“Very good,” his lordship said, “a most important and opportune -discovery, in the nick of time, by the tracing of God. There is a -reward of fifty pounds offered for the finding of this property and -jewels: fifty pounds you will get in due course.” - -They said they were obliged to him, though sorrow a one of them knew -what he meant by a due course, nor where it was. - -Then a lawyer man got the rights of the whole case; he was the -cunningest man ever lived in the city of Cork; no one could match him, -and he made it straight and he made it clear. - -Old Horan must have returned from his journey unbeknown on the night -of the gale when the deed was done. Perhaps he had made a poor profit -on his toil, for there was little of his own coin found on his body. -He saw the two drunks staggering along the bay—he clove in the head -of the one with a bit of pipe—he hit the other a good whack to still -or stiffen him—he got an axe from the yard—he shore off the Mexican’s -two hands, for the rings were grown tight and wouldn’t be drawn from -his fat fingers. Perhaps he dragged the captain home to his bed—you -couldn’t be sure of that—but put the hand in the captain’s pocket he -did, and then went to the paddock to bury the treasure. But a blast of -wind whipped and wove some of the hemp strand around his limbs, binding -him sudden. He was all huffled and hogled and went mad with the fear -struggling, the hemp rolling him and binding him till he was strangled -or smothered. - -And that is what happened him, believe it or no, but believe it you -should. It was the tracing of God on him for his dark crime. - -Within a week of it Peter Corcoran was away out of gaol, a stout -walking man again, free in Ballygoveen. But on the day of his release -he did not go near the ropewalker’s house. The Horans were there -waiting, and the two old silly men, but he did not go next or near -them. The next day Kilsheelan said to her: “Strange it is my cousin not -to seek you, and he a sneezer for gallantry.” - -“’Tis no wonder at all,” replied Christine, “and he with his picture in -all the papers.” - -“But he had a right to have come now and you caring him in his black -misfortune,” said Tom Tool. - -“Well, he will not come then,” Christine said in her soft voice, “in -regard of the red murder on the soul of my dad. And why should he put a -mark on his family, and he the captain of a ship.” - -In the afternoon Tom Tool and the other went walking to try if they -should see him, and they did see him at a hotel, but he was hurrying -from it; he had a frieze coat on him and a bag in his hand. - -“Well, who are you at all?” asks Peter Corcoran. - -“You are my cousin from Ameriky,” says Kilsheelan. - -“Is that so? And I never heard it,” says Peter. “What’s your name?” - -The Man from Kilsheelan hung down his old head and couldn’t answer him, -but Tom Tool said: “Drifty he is, sir, he forgets his little name.” - -“Astray is he? My mother said I’ve cousins in Roscommon, d’ye know ’em? -the Twingeings....” - -“Twingeing! Owen Twingeing it is!” roared Kilsheelan. “’Tis my name! -’Tis my name! ’Tis my name!” and he danced about squawking like a -parrot in a frenzy. - -“If it’s Owen Twingeing you are, I’ll bring you to my mother in -Manhattan.” The captain grabbed up his bag. “Haste now, come along out -of it. I’m going from the cunning town this minute, bad sleep to it for -ever and a month! There’s a cart waiting to catch me the boat train to -Queenstown. Will you go? Now?” - -“Holy God contrive it,” said Kilsheelan; his voice was wheezy as an -old goat, and he made to go off with him. “Good-day to you, Tom Tool, -you’ll get all the reward and endure a rich life from this out, fortune -on it all, a fortune on it all!” - -And the two of them were gone in a twink. - -Tom Tool went back to the Horans then; night was beginning to dusk and -to darken. As he went up the ropewalk Christine came to him from her -potato gardens and gave him signs, he to be quiet and follow her down -to the strand. So he followed her down to the strand and told her all -that happened, till she was vexed and full of tender words for the old -fool. - -“Aren’t you the spit of misfortune? It would daunt a saint, so it -would, and scrape a tear from silky Satan’s eye. Those two deluderers, -they’ve but the drainings of half a heart between ’em. And he not -willing to lift the feather of a thought on me? I’d not forget him till -there’s ten days in a week and every one of ’em lucky. But ... but ... -isn’t Peter Corcoran the nice name for a captain man, the very pattern?” - -She gave him a little bundle into his hands. “There’s a loaf and a cut -of meat. You’d best be stirring from here.” - -“Yes,” he said, and stood looking stupid, for his mind was in a dream. -The rock at one horn of the bay had a red glow on it like the shawl on -the neck of a lady, but the other was black now. A man was dragging a -turf boat up the beach. - -“Listen, you,” said Christine. “There’s two upstart men in the house -now, seeking you and the other. There’s trouble and damage on the head -of it. From the asylum they are. To the police they have been, to put -an embargo on the reward, and sorra a sixpence you’ll receive of the -fifty pounds of it: to the expenses of the asylum it must go, they say. -The treachery! Devil and all, the blood sweating on every coin of it -would rot the palm of a nigger. Do you hear me at all?” - -She gave him a little shaking for he was standing stupid, gazing at -the bay which was dying into grave darkness except for the wash of its -broken waves. - -“Do you hear me at all? It’s quit now you should, my little old man, or -they’ll be taking you.” - -“Ah, yes, sure, I hear you, Christine; thank you kindly. Just looking -and listening I was. I’ll be stirring from it now, and I’ll get on and -I’ll go. Just looking and listening I was, just a wee look.” - -“Then good-bye to you, Mr. Tool,” said Christine Horan, and turning -from him she left him in the darkness and went running up the ropewalk -to her home. - - - - - _Tribute_ - - -Two honest young men lived in Braddle, worked together at the spinning -mills at Braddle, and courted the same girl in the town of Braddle, -a girl named Patience who was poor and pretty. One of them, Nathan -Regent, who wore cloth uppers to his best boots, was steady, silent, -and dignified, but Tony Vassall, the other, was such a happy-go-lucky -fellow that he soon carried the good will of Patience in his heart, in -his handsome face, in his pocket at the end of his nickel watch chain, -or wherever the sign of requited love is carried by the happy lover. -The virtue of steadiness, you see, can be measured only by the years, -and this Tony had put such a hurry into the tender bosom of Patience: -silence may very well be golden, but it is a currency not easy to -negotiate in the kingdom of courtship; dignity is so much less than -simple faith that it is unable to move even one mountain, it charms the -hearts only of bank managers and bishops. - -So Patience married Tony Vassall and Nathan turned his attention to -other things, among them to a girl who had a neat little fortune—and -Nathan married that. - -Braddle is a large gaunt hill covered with dull little houses, and -it has flowing from its side a stream which feeds a gigantic and -beneficent mill. Without that mill—as everybody in Braddle knew, for it -was there that everybody in Braddle worked—the heart of Braddle would -cease to beat. Tony went on working at the mill. So did Nathan in a -way, but he had a cute ambitious wife, and what with her money and -influence he was soon made a manager of one of the departments. Tony -went on working at the mill. In a few more years Nathan’s steadiness so -increased his opportunities that he became joint manager of the whole -works. Then his colleague died; he was appointed sole manager, and his -wealth became so great that eventually Nathan and Nathan’s wife bought -the entire concern. Tony went on working at the mill. He now had two -sons and a daughter, Nancy, as well as his wife Patience, so that even -his possessions may be said to have increased although his position was -no different from what it had been for twenty years. - -The Regents, now living just outside Braddle, had one child, a daughter -named Olive, of the same age as Nancy. She was very beautiful and had -been educated at a school to which she rode on a bicycle until she was -eighteen. - -About that time, you must know, the country embarked upon a disastrous -campaign, a war so calamitous that every sacrifice was demanded of -Braddle. The Braddle mills were worn from their very bearings by their -colossal efforts, increasing by day or by night, to provide what were -called the sinews of war. Almost everybody in Braddle grew white -and thin and sullen with the strain of constant labour. Not quite -everybody, for the Regents received such a vast increase of wealth that -their eyes sparkled; they scarcely knew what to do with it; their faces -were neither white nor sullen. - -“In times like these,” declared Nathan’s wife, “we must help our -country still more, still more We must help; let us lend our money to -the country.” - -“Yes,” said Nathan. - -So they lent their money to their country. The country paid them -tribute, and therefore, as the Regent wealth continued to flow in, they -helped their country more and more; they even lent the tribute back to -the country and received yet more tribute for that. - -“In times like these,” said the country, “we must have more men, more -men we must have.” And so Nathan went and sat upon a Tribunal; for, as -everybody in Braddle knew, if the mills of Braddle ceased to grind, the -heart of Braddle would cease to beat. - -“What can we do to help our country?” asked Tony Vassall of his master, -“we have no money to lend.” - -“No?” was the reply. “But you can give your strong son Dan.” - -Tony gave his son Dan to the country. - -“Good-bye, dear son,” said his father, and his brother and his sister -Nancy said “Good-bye.” His mother kissed him. - -Dan was killed in battle; his sister Nancy took his place at the mill. - -In a little while the neighbours said to Tony Vassall: “What a fine -strong son is your young Albert Edward!” - -And Tony gave his son Albert Edward to the country. - -“Good-bye, dear son,” said his father; his sister kissed him, his -mother wept on his breast. - -Albert Edward was killed in battle; his mother took his place at the -mill. - -But the war did not cease; though friend and foe alike were almost -drowned in blood it seemed as powerful as eternity, and in time Tony -Vassall too went to battle and was killed. The country gave Patience a -widow’s pension, as well as a touching inducement to marry again; she -died of grief. Many people died in those days, it was not strange at -all. Nathan and his wife got so rich that after the war they died of -over-eating, and their daughter Olive came into a vast fortune and a -Trustee. - -The Trustee went on lending the Braddle money to the country, the -country went on sending large sums of interest to Olive (which was -the country’s tribute to her because of her parents’ unforgotten, and -indeed unforgettable, kindness), while Braddle went on with its work of -enabling the country to do this. For when the war came to an end the -country told Braddle that those who had not given their lives must now -turn to and really work, work harder than before the war, much, much -harder, or the tribute could not be paid and the heart of Braddle would -therefore cease to beat. Braddle folk saw that this was true, only too -true, and they did as they were told. - -The Vassall girl, Nancy, married a man who had done deeds of valour in -the war. He was a mill hand like her father, and they had two sons, -Daniel and Albert Edward. Olive married a grand man, though it is true -he was not very grand to look at. He had a small sharp nose, but they -did not matter very much because when you looked at him in profile -his bouncing red cheeks quite hid the small sharp nose, as completely -as two hills hide a little barn in a valley. Olive lived in a grand -mansion with numerous servants who helped her to rear a little family -of one, a girl named Mercy, who also had a small sharp nose and round -red cheeks. - -Every year after the survivors’ return from the war Olive gave a supper -to her workpeople and their families, hundreds of them; for six hours -there would be feasting and toys, music and dancing. Every year Olive -would make a little speech to them all, reminding them all of their -duty to Braddle and Braddle’s duty to the country, although, indeed, -she did not remind them of the country’s tribute to Olive. That was -perhaps a theme unfitting to touch upon, it would have been boastful -and quite unbecoming. - -“These are grave times for our country,” Olive would declare, year -after year: “her responsibilities are enormous, we must all put our -shoulders to the wheel.” - -Every year one of the workmen would make a little speech in reply, -thanking Olive for enabling the heart of Braddle to continue its beats, -calling down the spiritual blessings of heaven and the golden blessings -of the world upon Olive’s golden head. One year the honour of replying -fell to the husband of Nancy, and he was more than usually eloquent for -on that very day their two sons had commenced to doff bobbins at the -mill. No one applauded louder than Nancy’s little Dan or Nancy’s Albert -Edward, unless it was Nancy herself. Olive was always much moved on -these occasions. She felt that she did not really know these people, -that she would never know them; she wanted to go on seeing them, being -with them, and living with rapture in their workaday world. But she did -not do this. - -“How beautiful it all is!” she would sigh to her daughter, Mercy, -who accompanied her. “I am so happy. All these dear people are being -cared for by us, just simply us. God’s scheme of creation—you see—the -Almighty—we are his agents—we must always remember that. It goes on for -years, years upon years it goes on. It will go on, of course, yes, for -ever; the heart of Braddle will not cease to beat. The old ones die, -the young grow old, the children mature and marry and keep the mill -going. When I am dead ...” - -“Mamma, mamma!” - -“O yes, indeed, one day! Then _you_ will have to look after all these -things, Mercy, and you will talk to them—just like me. Yes, to own -the mill is a grave and difficult thing, only those who own them know -how grave and difficult; it calls forth all one’s deepest and rarest -qualities; but it is a divine position, a noble responsibility. And the -people really love me—I think.” - - - - - _The Handsome Lady_ - - -Towards the close of the nineteenth century the parish of Tull was -a genial but angular hamlet hung out on the north side of a midland -hill, with scarcely renown enough to get itself marked on a map. Its -felicities, whatever they might be, lay some miles distant from a -railway station, and so were seldom regarded, being neither boasted of -by the inhabitants nor visited by strangers. - -But here as elsewhere people were born and, as unusual, unconspicuously -born. John Pettigrove made a note of them then, and when people came in -their turns to die Pettigrove made a note of that too, for he was the -district registrar. In between whiles, like fish in a pond, they were -immersed in labour until the Divine Angler hooked them to the bank, and -then, as is the custom, they were conspicuously buried and laboured -presumably no more. - -The registrar was perhaps the one person who had love and praise for -the simple place. He was born and bred in Tull, he had never left -Tull, and at forty years of age was as firmly attached to it as the -black clock to the tower of Tull Church, which never recorded anything -but twenty minutes past four. His wife Carrie, a delicate woman, was -also satisfied with Tull, but as she owned two or three small pieces -of house property there her fancy may not have been entirely beyond -suspicion; possession, as you might say, being nine points of the -prejudice just as it is of the law. A year or two after their marriage -Carrie began to suffer from a complication of ailments that turned -her into a permanent invalid; she was seldom seen out of the house and -under her misfortunes she peaked and pined, she was troublesome, there -was no pleasing her. If Pettigrove went about unshaven she was vexed; -it was unclean, it was lazy, disgusting; but when he once appeared with -his moustache shaven off she was exceedingly angry; it was scandalous, -it was shameful, maddening. There is no pleasing some women—what is a -man to do? When he began to let it grow again and encouraged a beard -she was more tyrannical than ever. - -The grey church was small and looked shrunken, as if it had sagged; it -seemed to stoop down upon the green yard, but the stones and mounds, -the cypress and holly, the strangely faded blue of a door that led -through the churchyard wall to the mansion of the vicar, were beautiful -without pretence, and though as often as not the parson’s goats used to -graze among the graves and had been known to follow him into the nave, -there was about the ground, the indulgent dimness under the trees, and -the tower with its unmoving clock, the very delicacy of solitude. It -inspired compassion and not cynicism as, peering as it were through the -glass of antiquity, the stranger gazed upon its mortal register. In -its peace, its beauty, and its age, all those pious records and hopes -inscribed upon its stones, seemed not uttered in pride nor all in vain. -But to speak truth the church’s grace was partly the achievement of its -lofty situation. A road climbing up from sloping fields turned abruptly -and traversed the village, sidling up to the church; there, having -apparently satisfied some itch of curiosity, it turned abruptly again -and trundled back another way into that northern prospect of farms and -forest that lay in the direction of Whitewater Copse, Hangman’s Corner, -and One O’clock. - -It was that prospect which most delighted Pettigrove, for he was a -simple-minded countryman full of ambling content. Not even the church -allured him so much, for though it pleased him and was just at his own -threshold, he never entered it at all. Once upon a time there had been -talk of him joining the church choir, for he had a pleasant singing -voice, but he would not go. - -“It’s flying in the face of Providence,” cried his exasperated wife—her -mind, too, was a falsetto one: “You’ve as strong a voice as anyone in -Tull, in fact stronger, not that that is saying much, for Tull air -don’t seem good for songsters if you may judge by that choir. The air -is too thick maybe, I can’t say, it certainly oppresses my own chest, -or perhaps it’s too thin, I don’t thrive on it myself; but you’ve the -strength and it would do you credit; you’d be a credit to yourself and -it would be a credit to me. But that won’t move you! I can’t tell what -you’d be at; a drunken man ’ull get sober again, but a fool ... well, -there!” - -John, unwilling to be a credit, would mumble an objection to being tied -down to that sort of thing. That was just like him, no spontaneity, no -tidiness in his mind. Whenever he addressed himself to any discussion -he had, as you might say, to tuck up his intellectual sleeves, give a -hitch to his argumentative trousers. So he went on singing, just when -he had a mind to it, old country songs, for he disliked what he called -“gimcrack ballads about buzzums and roses.” - -Pettigrove’s occupation dealt with the extreme features of existence, -but he himself had no extreme notions. He was a good medium type of -man mentally and something more than that physically, but nevertheless -he was a disappointment to his wife—he never gave her any opportunity -to shine by his reflected light. She had nurtured foolish ideas of him -first as a figure of romance, then of some social importance; he ought -to be a parish councillor or develop eminence somehow in their way of -life. But John was nothing like this, he did not develop, or shine, or -offer counsel, he was just a big, solid, happy man. There were times -when his childless wife hated every ounce and sign of him, when his -fair clipped beard and hair, which she declared were the colour of -jute, and his stolidity, sickened her. - -“I do my duty by him and, please God, I’ll continue to do it. I’m a -humble woman and easily satisfied. An afflicted woman has no chance, no -chance at all,” she said. After twelve years of wedded life Pettigrove -sometimes vaguely wondered what it would have been like not to have -married anybody. - -One Michaelmas a small house belonging to Mrs. Pettigrove was let -to a widow from Eastbourne. Mrs. Cronshaw was a fine upstanding -woman, gracefully grave and, as the neighbours said, clean as a -pink. For several evenings after she had taken possession of the -house Pettigrove, who was a very handy sort of man, worked upon some -alterations to her garden, and at the end of the third or fourth -evening she had invited him into her bower to sip a glass of some -cordial, and she thanked him for his labours. - -“Not at all, Mrs. Cronshaw.” And he drank to her very good fortune. -Just that and no more. - -The next evening she did the same, and the very next evening to that -again. And so it was not long before they spoke of themselves to each -other, turn and turn about as you might say. She was the widow of an -ironmonger who had died two years before, and the ironmonger’s very -astute brother had given her an annuity in exchange for her interest in -the business. Without family and with few friends she had been lonely. - -“But Tull is such a hearty place,” she said. “It’s beautiful. One might -forget to be lonely.” - -“Be sure of that,” commented Pettigrove. They had the light of two -candles and a blazing fire. She grew kind and more communicative -to him; a strangely, disturbingly attractive woman, dark, with an -abundance of well-dressed hair and a figure of charm. She had carpet -all over her floor; nobody else in Tull dreamed of such a thing. -She did not cover her old dark table with a cloth as everybody else -habitually did. The pictures on the wall were real, and the black-lined -sofa had cushions on it of violet silk which she sometimes actually sat -upon. There was a dainty dresser with china and things, a bureau, and -a tall clock that told the exact time. But there was no music, music -made her melancholy. In Pettigrove’s home there were things like these -but they were not the same. His bureau was jammed in a corner with -flowerpots upon its top; his pictures comprised two photo prints of a -public park in Swansea—his wife had bought them at an auction sale. -Their dresser was a cumbersome thing with knobs and hooks and jars and -bottles, and the tall clock never chimed the hours. The very armchairs -at Mrs. Cronshaw’s were wells of such solid comfort that it made him -feel uncomfortable to use them. - -“Ah, I should like to be sure of it!” she continued. “I have not found -kindly people in the cities—they do not even seem to notice a fine -day!—I have not found them anywhere, so why should they be in Tull? You -are a wise man, tell me, is Tull the exception?” - -“Yes, Mrs. Cronshaw. You must come and visit us whenever you’ve a mind -to; have no fear of loneliness.” - -“Yes, I will come and visit you,” she declared, “soon, I will.” - -“That’s right, you must visit us.” - -“Yes, soon, I must.” - -But weeks passed over and the widow did not keep her promise although -she only lived a furlong from his door. Pettigrove made no further -invitation for he found excuses on many evenings to visit her. It was -easy to see that she did not care for his wife, and he did not mind -this for neither did he care for her now. The old wish that he had -never been married crept back into his mind, a sly, unsavoury visitant; -it was complicated by a thought that his wife might not live long, a -dark, shameful thought that nevertheless trembled into hope. So on many -of the long winter evenings, while his wife dozed in her bed, he sat in -the widow’s room talking of things that were strange and agreeable. She -could neither understand nor quite forgive his parochialism; this was -sweet flattery to him. He had scarcely ever set foot outside a ten-mile -radius of Tull, but he was an intelligent man, and all her discourse -was of things he could perfectly understand! For the first time in his -life Pettigrove found himself lamenting the dullness of existence. -He tried to suppress this tendency, but words would come and he was -distressed. He had always been in love with things that lasted, that -had stability, that gave him a recognition and guidance, but now his -feelings were flickering like grass in a gale. - -“How strange that is,” she said, when he told her this, “we seem to -have exchanged our feelings. I am happy here, but I know that dark -thought, yes, that life is a dull journey on which the mind searches -for variety, unvarying variety.” - -“But what for?” he cried. - -“It is constantly seeking change.” - -“But for why? It seems like treachery to life.” - -“It may be so, but if you seek, you find.” - -“What?” - -“Whatever you are seeking.” - -“What am I seeking?” - -“Not to know that is the blackest treachery to life. We are growing -old,” she added inconsequently, stretching her hands to the fire. She -wore black silk mittens. - -“Perhaps that’s it,” he allowed, with a laugh. “Childhood’s best.” - -“Surely not,” she protested. - -“Ah, but I was gay enough then. I’m not a religious man, you know—and -perhaps that’s the reason—but however—I can remember things of great -joy and pleasure then.” - -And it seemed from his recollections that not the least pleasant -and persistent was his memory of the chapel, a Baptist hall long -since closed and decayed, to which his mother had sent him on Sunday -afternoons. It was a plain, tough, little tabernacle, with benches of -deal, plain deal, very hard, covered with a clear varnish that smelled -pleasant. The platform and its railing, the teacher’s desk, the pulpit -were all of deal, the plainest deal, very hard and all covered with -the clear varnish that smelled very pleasant. And somehow the creed -and the teacher and the attendants were like that too, all plain and -hard, covered with a varnish that was pleasant. But there was a way in -which the afternoon sun beamed through the cheap windows that lit up -for young Pettigrove an everlasting light. There were hymns with tunes -that he hoped would be sung in Paradise. The texts, the stories, the -admonitions of the teachers, were vivid and evidently beautiful in his -memory. Best of all was the privilege of borrowing a book at the end of -school time—_Pilgrim’s Progress_ or _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_. - -For a While his recollections restored him to cheerfulness, but his -dullness soon overcame him again. - -“I have been content all my life. Never was a man more content. And -now! It’s treachery if you like. My faith’s gone, content gone, for -why?” - -He rose to go, and as he paused at the door to bid her good-night she -took his hand and softly and tenderly said: “Why are you depressed? -Don’t be so. Life is not dull, it is only momentarily unkind.” - -“Ah, I’ll get used to it.” - -“John Pettigrove, you must never get used to dullness, I forbid you.” - -“But I thought Tull was beautiful,” he said as he paused upon the -doorsill. “I thought Tull was beautiful....” - -“Until I came?” It was so softly uttered and she closed the door so -quickly upon him. They called “Good-night, good-night” to each other -through the door. - -He went away through the village, his mind streaming with strange -emotions. He exulted, and yet he feared for himself and for the widow, -but he could not summon from the depths of his mind what it was he -feared. He passed a woman in the darkness who, perhaps mistaking him -for another, said “Good-night, my love.” - -The next morning he sat in the kitchen after breakfast. It wanted but a -few days to Christmas. There was no frost in the air; the wind roared, -but the day, though grey, was not gloomy; only the man was gloomy. - -“Nothing ever happens,” he murmured. “True, but what would you want to -happen?” - -Out in the scullery a village girl was washing dishes; as she rattled -the ware she hummed a song. From his back window Pettigrove could see -a barn in a field, two broken gates, a pile of logs, faggots, and -a single pollarded willow whose head was strangled under a hat of -ivy. Beside a barley stack was a goose with a crooked neck; it stood -sulking. High aloft in the sky thousands of blown rooks wrangled like -lost men. And Pettigrove vowed he would go no more to the widow—not -for a while. Something inside him kept asking, Why not? And he as -quickly replied to himself: “You know, you know. You’ll find it all in -God-a-mighty’s own commandments. Stick to them, you can’t do more—at -least, you might, but what would be the good?” - -So that evening he went along to the Christmas lottery held in a vast -barn, dimly lit and smelling of vermin. A rope hung over each of its -two giant beams, dangling smoky lanterns. There was a crowd of men and -boys inspecting the prizes in the gloomy corners, a pig sulking in a -pen of hurdles, sacks of wheat, live hens in coops, a row of dead hares -hung on the rail of a wagon. Amid silence a man plunged his hand into -a corn measure and drew forth a numbered ticket; another man drew from -a similar measure a blank ticket or a prize ticket. Each time a prize -was drawn a hum of interest spread through the onlookers, but when the -chief prize, the fat pig, was drawn against number seventy-nine there -was agitation, excitement even. - -“Who be it?” cried several. “Who be number seventy-nine for the fat -pig?” - -A man consulted a list and said doubtfully: “Miss Subey Jones—who be -she?” - -No one seemed to know until a husky alto voice from a corner piped: “I -know her. She’s from Shottsford way, over by Squire Marchand’s.” - -“Oh,” murmured the disappointed men; the husky voice continued: “Day -afore yesterday she hung herself.” - -For a few seconds there was a pained silence, until a powerful voice -cried: “It’s a mortal shame, chaps.” - -The ceremony proceeded until all the tickets were drawn and all the -prizes won and distributed. The cackling hens were seized from the pens -by their legs and handed upside down to their new owners. The pig was -bundled squealing into a sack. Bags of wheat were shouldered and the -white-bellied hares were held up to the light. Everybody was animated -and chattered loudly. - -“I had number thirty in the big chance and I won nothing. And I had -number thirty-one in the little chance and I won a duck. Number -thirty-one was my number, and number thirty in the big draw; I won -nothing in that, but in the little draw I won a duck. Well, there’s -flesh for you.” - -Some of those who had won hens held them out to a white-faced youth who -smoked a large rank pipe; he took each fowl quietly by the neck and -twisted it till it died. A few small feathers stuck to his hands or -wavered to the floor, and even after the bird was dead and carried away -it continued slowly and vaguely to flap its big wings and scatter its -lorn feathers. - -Pettigrove spent most of the next day in the forest plantation south -of Tull Great Wood, where a few chain of soil had been cultivated and -reserved for seedlings, trees of larch and pine no bigger than potted -geraniums, groves of oaks with stems slender as a cockerel’s leg and -most of the stiff brown leaves still clinging to the famished twigs; -or sycamores, thin but tall, flourishing in a mat of their own dropped -foliage that was the colour of butter fringed with blood and stained -with black gouts like a child’s copy-book. It was a toy forest, dense -enough for the lair of a beast, and dim enough for an anchorite’s -meditations, but a dog could leap over it, and a boy could stand amid -its growth and look like Gulliver in Lilliput. - -“May I go into the wood?” a voice called to Pettigrove. Looking sharply -up he saw Mrs. Cronshaw, clad in a long dark blue cloak with a fur -necklet, a grey velvet hat trimmed with a pigeon’s wing confining her -luxuriant hair. - -“Ah, you may,” he said, stalking to her side, “but you’d best not, -’tis a heavy marshy soil within and the ways are stabbled by the -hunters’ horses. Better keep out till summer comes, then ’tis dry and -pleasant-like.” - -She sat down awkwardly on a heap of faggots, her feet turned slightly -inwards, but her cheeks were dainty pink in the cold air. What a smart -lady! He stood telling her things about the wood, its birds and foxes; -deep in the heart of it all was a lovely open space covered with the -greenest grass and a hawthorn tree in the middle of that. It bloomed in -spring with heavy creamy blossom. No, he had never seen any fairies -there. Come to that, he did not expect to, he had never thought of it. - -“But there are fairies, you know,” cried the widow. “O yes, in old -times, I mean very old times, before the Romans, in fact before -Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob then, the Mother of the earth had a big -family, thousands, something like the old woman who lived in a shoe -she was. And one day God sent word to say he was coming to visit her. -Well, then! She was so excited—the Mother of the earth—that she made a -great to do you may be sure, and after she had made her house sparkle -with cleanliness and had baked a great big pie she began to wash her -children. All of a sudden she heard the trumpets blow—God was just -a-coming! So as she hadn’t got time to finish them all, she hid those -unwashed ones away out of sight, and bade them to remain there and make -no noise or she would be angry and punish them. But you can’t conceal -anything from the King of All and He knew of those hidden children, and -he caused them to be hidden from mortal eyes for ever, and they are the -fairies, O yes!” - -“No, nothing can be concealed,” Pettigrove admitted in his slow grave -fashion, “murder will out, as they say, but that’s a tough morsel if -you’re going to swallow it all.” - -“But I like to believe in those things I Wish were true.” - -“Ah, so, yes,” said Pettigrove. - -It was an afternoon of damp squally blusters, uncheering, with slaty -sky; the air itself seemed slaty, and though it had every opportunity -and invitation to fall, the rain, with strange perversity, held off. -In the oddest corners of the sky, north and east, a miraculous glow -could be seen, as if the sun in a moment of aberration had determined -to set just then and just there. The wind made a long noise in the -sky, the smell of earth rose about them, of timber and of dead leaves; -except for rooks, or a wren cockering itself in a bush, no birds were -to be seen. - -Letting his spade fall Pettigrove sat down beside the widow and kissed -her. She blushed red as a cherry and he got up quickly. - -“I ought not to ha’ done it, I ought not to ha’ done that, Mrs. -Cronshaw!” - -“Caroline!” said she, smiling the correction at him. - -“Is that your name?” He sat down by her again. “Why, it is the same as -my wife’s.” - -And Caroline said “Humph! You’re a strange man, but you are wise and -good. Tell me, does she understand you?” - -“What is there to understand? We are wed and we are faithful to each -other, I can take my oath on that to God or man.” - -“Yes, yes, but what is faith—without love between you? You see? You -have long since broken your vows to love and cherish, understand that, -you have broken them in half.” - -She had picked up a stick and was drawing patterns of cubes and stars -in the soil. - -“But what is to be done, Caroline? Life is good, but there is good -living and there is bad living, there is fire and there is water. It is -strange what the Almighty permits to happen.” - -A slow-speaking man; scrupulous of thought and speech he weighed each -idea before its delivery as carefully as a tobacconist weighs an ounce -of tobacco. - -“Have some cake?” said Caroline, drawing a package from a pocket. “Will -you have a piece ... John?” - -She seemed to be on the point of laughing aloud at him. He took the -fragment of cake but he did not eat it as she did. He held it between -finger and thumb and stared at it. - -“It’s strange how a man let’s his tongue wag now and again as if he’d -got the universe stuck on the end of a common fork.” - -“Or at the end of a knitting needle, yes, I know,” laughed Caroline, -brushing the crumbs from her lap. Then she bent her head, patted her -lips, and regurgitated with a gesture of apology—just like a lady. -“But what are you saying? If there is love between you there is -faithfulness, if there is no love there is no fidelity.” - -He bit a mouthful off the cake at last. - -“Maybe true, but you must have respect for the beliefs of others....” - -“How can you if they don’t fit in with your own?” - -“Or there is sorrow.” He bolted the rest of his cake. “O you are -right, I daresay, Caroline, no doubt; it’s right, I know, but is it -reasonable?” - -“There are afflictions,” she said, “which time will cure, so they -don’t matter; but there are others which time only aggravates, so what -can we do? I daresay it’s different with a man, but a woman, you know, -grasps at what she wants. That sounds reasonable, but you don’t think -it’s right?” - -In the cold whistling sky a patch of sunset had now begun to settle -in its proper quarter, but as frigid and unconvincing as a stage -fireplace. Pettigrove sat with his great hands clasped between his -knees. Perhaps she grew tired of watching the back of him; she rose to -go, but she said gently enough: “Come in to-night, I want to tell you -something.” - -“I will, Caroline.” - -Later, when he reached home, he found two little nieces had arrived, -children of some relatives who lived a dozen miles away. A passing -farmer had dropped them at Tull; their parents were coming a day later -to spend Christmas with the Pettigroves. - -They sat up in his wife’s room after tea, for Carrie left her bed only -for an hour or two at noon. She dozed against her pillows, a brown -shawl covering her shoulders, while the two children played by the -hearth. Pettigrove sat silent, gazing in the fire. - -“What a racket you are making, Polly and Jane!” quavered Carrie. - -The little girls thereupon ceased their sporting and took a picture -book to the hearthrug where they examined it in awed silence by the -firelight. After some minutes the invalid called out: “Don’t make such -a noise turning over all them leaves.” - -Polly made a grimace and little Jane said: “We are looking at the -pictures.” - -“Well,” snapped Mrs. Pettigrove, “why can’t you keep to the one page!” - -John sat by the fire vowing to himself that he would not go along to -the widow, and in the very act of vowing he got up and began putting on -his coat. - -“Are you going out, John?” - -“There’s a window catch to put right along at Mrs. Cronshaw’s,” he -said. At other times it had been a pump to mend, a door latch to -adjust, or a jamb to ease. - -“I never knew things to go like it before—I can’t understand it,” his -wife commented. “What with windows and doors and pumps and bannisters -anyone would think the house had got the rot. It’s done for the -purpose, or my name’s not what it is.” - -“It won’t take long,” he said as he went. - -The wind had fallen away, but the sky, though clearer, had a dull -opaque mean appearance, and the risen moon, without glow, without -refulgence, was like a brass-headed nail stuck in a kitchen wall. - -The yellow blind at the widow’s cot was drawn down and the candles -within cast upon the blind a slanting image of the birdcage hanging at -the window; a fat dapper bird appeared to be snoozing upon its rod; a -tiny square was probably a lump of sugar; the glass well must have been -half full of water, it glistened and twinkled on the blind. The shadowy -bird shifted one foot, then the other, and just opened its beak as -Pettigrove tapped at the door. - -They did not converse very easily, there was constraint between them, -Pettigrove’s simple mind had a twinge of guilt. - -“Will you take lime juice or cocoa?” asked the widow, and he said: -“Cocoa.” - -“Little or large?” - -And he said: “Large.” - -While they sat sipping the cocoa Caroline began: “Well, I am going -away, you know. No, not for good, just a short while, for Christmas -only, or very little longer. I must go.” - -She nestled her blue shawl more snugly round her shoulders. A cough -seemed to trouble her. “There are things you can’t put on one side for -ever....” - -“Even if they don’t fit in with your own ideas!” he said slyly. - -“Yes, even then.” - -He put down his cup and took both her hands in his own. “How long?” - -“Not long, not very long, not long enough....” - -“Enough for what?” He broke up her hesitation. “For me to forget you? -No, no, not in the fifty-two weeks of the whole world of time.” - -“I did want to stay here,” she said, “and see all the funny things -country people do now.” She was rather vague about those funny things. -“Carols, mumming, visiting; go to church on Christmas morning, though -how I should get past those dreadful goats, I don’t know; why are they -always in the churchyard?” - -“Teasy creatures they are! Followed parson into service one Sunday, -indeed, ah! one of ’em did. Jumped up in his pulpit, too, so ’tis said. -But when are you coming back?” - -She told him it was a little uncertain, she was not sure, she could not -say, it was a little uncertain. - -“In a week, maybe?” - -Yes, a week; but perhaps it would be longer, she could not say, it was -uncertain. - -“So. Well, all right then, I shall watch for you.” - -“Yes, watch for me.” - -They gave each other good wishes and said good-bye in the little dark -porch. The shadowy bird on the blind stood up and shrugged itself. -Pettigrove’s stay had scarcely lasted an hour, but in that time the -moon had gone, the sky had cleared, and in its ravishing darkness the -stars almost crackled, so fierce was their mysterious perturbation. The -village man felt Caroline’s arms about him and her lips against his -mouth as she whispered a “God bless you.” He turned away home, dazed, -entranced, he did not heed the stars. In the darkness a knacker’s cart -trotted past him with a dim lantern swinging at its tail and the driver -bawling a song. In the keen air the odour from the dead horse sickened -him. - -Pettigrove passed Christmas gaily enough with his kindred, and even -his wife indulged in brief gaieties. Her cousin was one of those men -full of affable disagreements; an attitude rather than an activity of -mind. He had a curious face resembling an owl’s except in its colour -(which was pink) and in its tiny black moustache curling downwards like -a dark ring under his nose. If Pettigrove remarked upon a fine sunset -the cousin scoffed, scoffed benignantly; there was a sunset every -day, wasn’t there?—common as grass, weren’t they? As for the farming -hereabouts, nothing particular in it was there? The scenery was, well, -it was just scenery, a few hills, a few woods, plenty of grass fields. -No special suitability of soil for any crop; corn would be just -average, wasn’t that so? And the roots, well, on his farm at home he -could show mangolds as big as young porkers, forty to the cartload, or -thereabouts. There weren’t no farmers round here making a fortune, he’d -be bound, and as for their birds, he should think they lived on rook -pie. - -Pettigrove submitted that none of the Tull farmers looked much the -worse for farming. - -“Well, come,” said the other, “I hear your workhouses be middling -full. Now an old neighbour of mine, old Frank Stinsgrove, was a man as -_could_ farm, any mortal thing. He wouldn’t have looked at this land, -not at a crown an acre, and he was a man as _could_ farm, any mortal -thing, oranges and lemons if he’d a mind to it. What a head that man -had, God bless, his brain was stuffed! Full!! He’d declare black was -white, and what’s more he could prove it. I like a man like that.” - -The cousin’s wife was a vast woman, shaped like a cottage loaf. For -some reason she clung to her stays: it could not be to disguise or curb -her bulk, for they merely put a gloss upon it. You could only view her -as a dimension, think of her as a circumference, and wonder grimly what -she looked like when she prepared for the bath. She devoured turkey and -pig griskin with such audible voracity that her husband declared that -he would soon be compelled to wear corks in his earholes at meal times, -yes, the same as they did in the artillery. She was quite unperturbed -by this even when little Jane giggled, and she avowed that good food -was a great enjoyment to her. - -“O ’tis a good thing and a grand thing, but take that child now,” said -her father. Resting his elbow on the table he indicated with his fork -the diminutive Jane; upon the fork hung a portion of meat large enough -to half-sole a lady’s shoe. “She’s just the reverse, she eats as soft -as a fly, a spillikin a day, and not a mite more; no, very dainty -is our Jane.” Here he swallowed the meat and treated four promising -potatoes with very great savagery. “Do you know our Jane is going to -marry a house-painter, yah, a house-painter, or is it a coach-painter? -’Tis smooth and gentle work, she says, not like rough farmers or chaps -that knock things pretty hard, smiths and carpenters, you know. O -Lord! eight years old, would you believe it? The spillikin! John, this -griskin’s a lovely bit of meat.” - -“Beautiful meat,” chanted his wife, “like a pig we killed a month ago. -That was a nice pig, fat and contented as you’d find any pig, ’twould -have been a shame to keep him alive any longer. It dressed so well, a -picture it was, the kidneys shun like gold.” - -“That reminds me of poor old Frank Stinsgrove,” said her husband. -“He’d a mint of money, a very wealthy man, but he didn’t like parting -with it. He’d got oldish and afraid of his death, must have a doctor -calling to examine him every so often. Didn’t mind spending a fortune -on doctors, but every other way he’d skin a flint. And there was nought -wrong with him, ’cept age. So his daughter ups and says to him one -day—You are wasting your money on all these doctors, father, they do -you no good, what you must have is nice, dainty, nourishing food. Now -what about some of these new laid eggs? How much are they fetching now? -old Frank says. A penny farthing, says she. A penny farthing! I cannot -afford it. And there was that man with a mint of money, a mint, could -have bought Buckingham Palace—you understand me—and yet he must go on -with his porridge and his mustard plasters and his syrup of squills, -until at last a smartish doctor really did find something the matter -with him, in his kidneys. They operated, mark you, and they say—but I -never quite had the rights of it—they say they gave him a new kidney -made of wax; a new wax kidney, ah, and I believe it was successful, -only he had not to get himself into any kind of a heat, of course, nor -sit too close to the fire. ’Stonishing what they doctors can do with -your innards. But of course he was too old, soon died. Left a fortune, -a mint of money, could have bought the crown of England. Staunch old -chap, you know.” - -Throughout the holidays John sang his customary ballads, “The Bicester -Ram,” “The Unquiet Grave,” and dozens of others. After songs there -would be things to eat. Then a game of cards, and after that things to -eat. Then a walk to the inn, to the church, to a farm, or to a friend’s -where, in all jollity, there would be things to eat and drink. They -went to a meet of the hounds, a most successful outing for it gave them -ravening appetites. In short, as the cousin’s wife said when bidding -farewell, it was a time of great enjoyment. - -And Pettigrove said so too. He believed it, and yet was glad to be quit -of his friends in order to contemplate the serene dawn that was to -come at any hour now. By New Year’s Day Mrs. Cronshaw had not returned, -but the big countryman was patient, his mind, though not at rest, -was confident. The days passed as invisibly as warriors in a hostile -country, and almost before he had begun to despair February came, a -haggard month to follow a frosty January. Mist clung to the earth -as tightly as the dense grey fur on the back of a cat, ice began to -uncongeal, adjacent lands became indistinct, and distant fields could -not be seen at all. The banks of the roads and the squat hedges were -heavily dewed. The cries of invisible rooks, the bleat of unseen sheep, -made yet more gloomy the contours of motionless trees wherefrom the -slightest movement of a bird fetched a splatter of drops to the road, -cold and uncheering. - -All this inclemency crowded into the heart of the waiting man, a -distress without a gleam of anger or doubt, but only a fond anxiety. -Other anxieties came upon him which, without lessening his melancholy, -somewhat diverted it: his wife suffered a sudden grave decline in -health, and on calling in the doctor Pettigrove was made aware of her -approaching end. Torn between a strange recovered fondness for his -sinking wife and the romantic adventure with the widow, which, to -his mind at such a juncture, wore the sourest aspect of infidelity, -Pettigrove dwelt in remorse and grief until the night of St. -Valentine’s Day, when he received a letter. It came from a coast town -in Norfolk, from a hospital; Caroline, too, was ill. She made light of -her illness, but it was clear to him now that this and this alone was -the urgent reason of her retreat from Tull at Christmas. It was old -tubercular trouble (that was consumption, wasn’t it?) which had driven -her into sanatoriums on several occasions in recent years. She was -getting better now, she wrote, but it would be months before she would -be allowed to return. It had been rather a bad attack, so sudden. Now -she had no other thought or desire in the world but to be back at Tull -with her friend, and in time to see that fairy may tree at bloom in the -wood—he had promised to show it to her—they would often go together, -wouldn’t they—and she signed herself his, “with the deepest affection.” - -He did not remember any promise to show her the tree, but he sat down -straightway and wrote her a letter of love, incoherently disclosed and -obscurely worded for any eyes but hers. He did not mention his wife; -he had suddenly forgotten her. He sealed the letter and put it aside -to be posted on the morrow. Then he crept back to his wife’s room and -continued his sick vigil. - -But in that dim room, lit by one small candle, he did not heed the -invalid. His mind, feverishly alert, was devoted to thoughts of that -other who also lay sick, and who had intimidated him. He had feared -her, feared for himself. He had behaved like a lost wanderer who at -night, deep in a forest, had come upon the embers of a fire left -mysteriously glowing, and had crept up to it frightened, without stick -or stone: if only he had conquered his fear he might have lain down and -rested by its strange comfort. But now he was sure of her love, sure -of his own, he was secure, he would lay down and rest. She would come -with all the sweetness of her passion and the valour of her frailty, -stretching smooth, quiet wings over his lost soul. - -Then he began to be aware of a soft, insistent noise, tapping, tapping, -tapping, that seemed to come from the front door below. To assure -himself he listened intently, and soon it became almost the only -sound in the world, clear but soft, sharp and thin, as if struck with -the finger nails only, tap, tap, tap, quickly on the door. When the -noise ceased he got up and groped stealthily down his narrow crooked -staircase. At the bottom he waited in an uncanny pause until just -beyond him he heard the gentle urgency again, tap, tap, and he flung -open the door. There was enough gloomy light to reveal the emptiness -of the porch; there was nothing there, nothing to be seen, but he -could distinctly hear the sound of feet being vigorously shuffled on -the doormat below him, as if the shoes of some light-foot visitor -were being carefully cleaned before entry. Then it stopped. Beyond -that—nothing. Pettigrove was afraid, he dared not cross the startling -threshold, he shot back the door, bolted it in a fluster, and blundered -away up the stairs. - -And there was now darkness, the candle in his wife’s room having spent -itself, but as a glow from the fire embers remained he did not hasten -to light another candle. Instead, he fastened the bedroom door also, -and stood filled with wondering uneasiness, dreading to hear the tap, -tap, tap come again, just there, behind him. He listened for it with -stopped breath, but he could hear nothing, not the faintest scruple of -sound, not the beat of his own heart, not a flutter from the fire, not -a rustle of feet, not a breath—no! not even a breathing! He rushed to -the bed and struck a match: that was a dead face.... Under the violence -of his sharpening shock he sank upon the bed beside dead Carrie and a -faint crepuscular agony began to gleam over the pensive darkness of his -mind, with a promise of mad moonlight to follow. - -Two days later a stranger came to the Pettigrove’s door, a short -brusque, sharp-talking man with iron-grey hair and iron-rimmed -spectacles. He was an ironmonger. - -“Mr. Pettigrove? My name is Cronshaw, of Eastbourne, rather painful -errand, my sister-in-law, Mrs. Cronshaw, tenant of yours, I believe.” - -Pettigrove stiffened into antagonism: what the devil was all this? -“Come in,” he remarked grimly. - -“Thank you,” said Cronshaw, following Pettigrove into the parlour -where, with many sighs and much circumstance, he doffed his overcoat -and stood his umbrella in a corner. “Had to walk from the station, no -conveyances; that’s pretty stiff, miles and miles.” - -“Have a drop of wine?” invited Pettigrove. - -“Thank you,” said the visitor. - -“It’s dandelion.” - -“Very kind of you, I’m sure.” Cronshaw drew a chair up to the -fireplace, though the fire had not been lit, and the grate was full of -ashes, and asked if he might smoke. Pettigrove did not mind; he poured -out a glass of the yellow wine while Cronshaw lit his pipe. The room -smelled stuffy, heavy noises came from overhead as if men were moving -furniture. The stranger swallowed a few drops of the wine, coughed, and -said: “My sister-in-law is dead, I’m sorry to say. You had not heard, I -suppose?” - -“Dead!” whispered Pettigrove. “Mrs. Cronshaw! No, no, I had not, I had -not heard that, I did not know. Mrs. Cronshaw dead—is it true?” - -“Ah,” said the stranger with a laboured sigh. “Two nights ago in a -hospital at Mundesley. I’ve just come on from there. It was very -sudden, O, frightfully sudden, but it was not unexpected, poor woman, -it’s been off and on with her for years. She was very much attached to -this village, I suppose, and we’re going to bury her here, it was her -last request. That’s what I want to do now. I want to arrange about the -burial and the disposal of her things and to give up possession of your -house. I’m very sorry for that.” - -“I’m uncommon grieved to hear this,” said Pettigrove. “She was a -handsome lady.” - -“O yes,” the ironmonger took out his pocket-book and prepared to write -in it. - -“A handsome lady,” continued the countryman tremulously, “handsome, -handsome.” - -At that moment someone came heavily down the stairs and knocked at the -parlour door. - -“Come in,” cried Pettigrove. A man with red face and white hair -shuffled into the room; he was dressed in a black suit that had been -made for a man not only bigger, but probably different in other ways. - -“We shall have to shift her down here now,” he began. “I was sure we -should, the coffin’s too big to get round that awkward crook in these -stairs when it’s loaded. In fact, ’tis impossible. Better have her down -now afore we put her in, or there’ll be an accident on the day as sure -as judgment.” The man, then noticing Cronshaw, said: “Good-morning, -sir, you’ll excuse me.” - -The ironmonger stared at him with horror, and then put his notebook -away. - -“Yes, yes, then,” mumbled Pettigrove. “I’ll come up in a few minutes.” - -The man went out and Cronshaw jumped up and said: “You’ll pardon me, -Mr. Pettigrove, I had no idea that you had had a bereavement too.” - -“My wife,” said Pettigrove dully, “two nights ago.” - -“Two nights ago! I am very sorry, most sorry,” stammered the other, -picking up his umbrella and hat. “I’ll go away. What a sad coincidence!” - -“There’s no call to do that; what’s got to be done must be done.” - -“I’ll not detain you long then, just a few details: I am most sorry, -very sorry, it’s extraordinary.” - -He took out his notebook again—it had red edges and a fat elastic -band—and after conferring with Pettigrove for some time the stranger -went off to see the vicar, saying, as he shook hands: “I shall of -course see you again when it is all over. How bewildering it is, and -what a shock it is; from one day to another, and then nothing; and the -day after to-morrow they’ll be buried beside one another. I am very -sorry, most sorry. I shall of course come and see you again when it is -all over.” - -After he had gone Pettigrove walked about the room murmuring: “She was -a lady, a handsome lady,” and then, still murmuring, he stumbled up the -stairs to the undertakers. His wife lay on the bed in a white gown. He -enveloped her stiff thin body in a blanket and carried it downstairs to -the parlour; the others, with much difficulty, carried down the coffin -and when they had fixed it upon some trestles they unwrapped Carrie -from the blankets and laid her in it. - -Caroline and Carrie were buried on the same day in adjoining graves, -buried by the same men, and as the ironmonger was prevented by some -other misfortune from attending the obsequies there were no other -mourners than Pettigrove. The workshop sign of the Tull carpenter bore -the following notice: - - Small - ☞COMPLETE UNDERTAKER Hearse - Kept. - -and therefore it was he who ushered the handsome lady from the station -on that bitter day. Frost was so heavy that the umbrage of pine and fir -looked woolly, thick grey swabs. Horses stood miserably in the frozen -fields, breathing into any friendly bush. Rooks pecked industriously at -the tough pastures, but wiser fowls, unlike the fabulous good child, -could be neither seen nor heard. And all day someone was grinding corn -at the millhouse; the engine was old and kept on emitting explosions -that shook the neighbourhood like a dreadful bomb. Pettigrove, who -had not provided himself with a black overcoat and therefore wore none -at all, shivered so intensely during the ceremony that the keen edge -of his grief was dulled, and indeed from that time onwards his grief, -whatever its source, seemed deprived of all keenness: it just dulled -him with a permanent dullness. - -He caused to be placed on his wife’s grave a headstone, quite small, -not a yard high, inscribed to - - CAROLINE - The beloved wife - of - John Pettigrove - -Some days after its erection he was astonished to find the headstone -had fallen flat on its face. It was very strange, but after all it was -a small matter, a simple affair, so in the dusk he himself took a spade -and set it up again. A day or two later it had fallen once more. He -was now inclined to some suspicion, he fancied that mischievous boys -had done it; he would complain to the vicar. But Pettigrove was an -easy-going man, he did not complain; he replaced the stone, setting it -more deeply in the earth and padding the turf more firmly around it. - -When it fell the third time he was astonished and deeply moved, but he -was no longer in doubt, and as he once more made a good upheaval by the -grave in the dusk he said in his mind, and he felt too in his heart, -that he understood. - -“It will not fall again,” he said, and he was right: it did not. - -Pettigrove himself lived for another score of years, during which the -monotony of his life was but mildly varied; he just went on registering -births and deaths and rearing little oaks and pines, firs and -sycamores. Sentimental deference to the oft-repeated wish of his wife -led him to join the church choir and sing its anthems and hymns with -a secular blitheness that was at least mellifluous. Moreover, after a -year or two, he _did_ become a parish councillor and in a modest way -was something of a “shining light.” - -“If I were you,” observed an old countryman to him, “and I had my way, -I know what I would do: I would live in a little house and have a -quiet life, and I wouldn’t care the toss of a ha’penny for nothing and -nobody!” - -In the time of May, always, Pettigrove would wander in Tull Great Wood -as far as the hidden pleasaunce where the hawthorn so whitely bloomed. -None but he knew of that, or remembered it, and when its dying petals -were heaped upon the grass he gathered handfuls to keep in his pocket -till they rotted. Sometimes he thought he would leave Tull and see -something of the world; he often thought of that, but it seemed as if -time had stabilized and contracted round his heart and he did not go. -At last, after twenty years of widowhood, he died and was buried, and -this was the manner of that. - -Two men were digging his grave on the morning of the interment, a -summer’s day so everlasting beautiful that it was incredible anyone -should be dead. The two men, an ancient named Jethro and a younger -whom he called Mark, went to sit in the cool porch for a brief rest. -The work on the grave had been very much delayed, but now the old -headstone was laid on one side, and most of the earth that had covered -his wife’s body was heaped in untidy mounds upon the turf close by. -Otherwise there was no change in the yard or the trees that grew so -high, the grass that grew so greenly, the dark brick wall, or the door -of fugitive blue; there was even a dappled goat quietly cropping. A -woman came into the porch, remarked upon the grand day, and then passed -into the church to her task of tidying up for the ceremony. Jethro took -a swig of drink from a bottle and handed it to his mate. - -“You don’t remember old Fan as used to clean the church, do you? No, -’twas ’fore you come about these parts. She was a smartish old gal. -Bother me if one of they goats didn’t follow her into the darn church -one day, ah, and wouldn’t be drove out on it, neither, no, and she -chasing of it from here to there and one place and another but out it -would not go, that goat. And at last it act-u-ally marched up into the -pulpit and putt its two forelegs on the holy book and said ’Baa-a-a!’” -Here Jethro gave a prolonged imitation of a goat’s cry. “Well, old Fan -had been a bit skeered but she was so overcome by that bit of piety -that, darn me, if she didn’t sit down and play the organ for it!” - -Mark received this narration with a lack-lustre air and at once the -two men resumed their work. Meanwhile a man ascended the church tower; -other men had gone into the home of the dead man. Soon the vicar came -hurrying through the blue door in the wall and the bell gave forth its -first solemn toll. - -“Hey, Jethro,” called Mark from the grave. “What d’you say’s the name -of this chap?” - -“Pettigrove. Hurry up, now.” - -Mark, after bending down, whispered from the grave: “What was his -wife’s name?” - -“Why, man alive, that ’ud be Pettigrove, too.” - -The bell in the tower gave another profoundly solemn beat. - -“What’s the name on that headstone?” asked Mark. - -“Caroline Pettigrove. What be you thinking on?” - -“We’re in the wrong hole, Jethro; come and see for yourself, the plate -on this old coffin says Caroline Cronshaw, see for yourself, we’re in -the wrong hole.” - -Again the bell voiced its melancholy admonition. - -Jethro descended the short ladder and stood in the grave with Mark just -as the cortège entered the church by the door on the opposite side of -the yard. He knelt down and rubbed with his own fingers the dulled -inscription on the mouldering coffin; there was no doubt about it, -Caroline Cronshaw lay there. - -“Well, may I go to glory,” slowly said the old man. It may have -occurred to Mark that this was an extravagantly remote destination to -prescribe; at any rate he said: “There ain’t no time, now, come on.” - -“Who the devil be she? However come that wrong headstone to be putt on -this wrong grave?” quavered the kneeling man. - -“Are you coming out?” growled Mark, standing with one foot on the -ladder, “or ain’t you? They’ll be chucking him on top of you in a -couple o’ minutes. There’s no time, I tell you.” - -“’Tis a strange come-up as ever I see,” said the old man; striking one -wall of the grave with his hand: “that’s where we should be, Mark, next -door, but there’s no time to change it and it must go as it is, Mark. -Well, it’s fate; what is to be must be whether it’s good or right and -you can’t odds it, you darn’t go against it, or you be wrong.” They -stood in the grave muttering together. “Not a word, Mark, mind you!” -At last they shovelled some earth back upon the tell-tale name-plate, -climbed out of the grave, drew up the ladder, and stood with bent heads -as the coffin was borne from the church towards them. It was lowered -into the grave, and at the “earth to earth” Jethro, with a flirt of his -spade dropped in a handful of sticky marl, another at “ashes to ashes,” -and again at the “dust to dust.” Finally, when they were alone together -again, they covered in the old lovers, dumping the earth tightly and -everlastingly about them, and reset the headstone, Jethro remarking as -they did so: “That headstone, well, ’tis a mystery, Mark! And I can’t -bottom it, I can’t bottom it at all, ’tis a mystery.” - -And indeed, how should it not be, for the secret had long since been -forgotten by its originator. - - - - - _The Fancy Dress Ball_ - - -There was a young fellow named Bugloss. He wore cufflinks made of -agate with studs to match but was otherwise an agreeable person who -suffered much from a remarkable diffidence, one of nature’s minor -inconsistencies having been to endow him with a mute desire for -romantic adventure and an entire incapacity to inaugurate any such -thing. - -It was in architecture that he found his way of life, quite a -profitable and genteel way; for while other hands and heads devised -the mere details of drainage, of window and wall, staircase, cupboard, -and floor, in fact each mechanical thing down to the hooks and bells -in every room, he it was who painted those entrancing draughts of -elevation and the general prospect (with a few enigmatic but graceful -trees, clouds in the offing, and a tiny postman plodding sideways up -the carriage drive) which lured the fond fly into the architectural -parlour. It must be confessed that he himself lived in rooms over the -shop of a hairdresser, whose window displayed the elegantly coiffed -head and bust of a wax lady suffering either from an acute attack of -jaundice or the effects of a succession of late nights: next door was -an establishment dealing exclusively, but not exhaustingly, in mangles -and perambulators. In Bugloss’s room there were two bell handles with -wires looking very handy and complete, yet whenever he desired the -attendance of the maid he had (_a_) to take a silver whistle from his -pocket; (_b_) to open the door; and (_c_) to blow it smartly in the -passage. - -His exceeding shyness was humiliating to himself and annoying to people -of friendly disposition, it could not have been more preposterous had -he been condemned to wear a false nose; he might have gone (he may -even now be going) to his grave without once looking into a woman’s -eyes. What a pity! His own eyes were worth looking at; he was really -a nice young man, tall and slender with light fluffy hair, who if he -couldn’t hide his amiable light under a bushel certainly behaved as if -it wasn’t there. Things were so until one day he chanced to read with -envious pleasure but a good deal of scepticism a book called _Anatol_ -by a Viennese writer; almost immediately the fascinating possibilities -of romantic infidelity were confirmed by a quarrel which began in -the hairdresser’s house between the young hairdresser and his wife, -Monsieur and Madame Rabignol, and lasted for a week in the course of -which Bugloss learned that the hairdresser was indulging in precisely -one of those intrigues with an unknown lady living somewhere near by; -Madame Rabignol, charming but virulent, protested a thousand times -that it must be a base woman who walked the streets at night, and that -Monsieur Rabignol was a low pig. The fair temptress, it appeared, was -given to the use of a toilet unguent with the beguiling misdescription -of “Vanishing Face Cream”; that was an unfortunate circumstance, -because the wife of the hairdresser, a very cute woman, on her -husband’s return from an evening’s absence, invariably kissed him and -smelt him. - -“Evil communications,” saith St. Paul (borrowing the phrase from -Menander), “corrupt good manners,” and his notion must have something -of truth in it, for these domestic revelations produced an unusual -stir in the Bugloss bosom—he bought a ticket for a popular fancy dress -ball and made a mighty resolve to discard his pusillanimous self with -one grand gesture and there and then take the plunge. At a fancy dress -ball you could do that; everyone made a fool of himself more or less; -and Bugloss determined to plunge into whatever there was to plunge -in. This was desperately unwise, but you are not to suppose that he -harboured any looseness or want of principle; he was good and modest, -and virtuous as any young man could possibly be; he only hoped, at the -very least, to look some fair girl deep in the eyes. So he designed -an oriental costume, simple to make (being loose-fitting), and having -bought quantities of purple and crimson fabric he wrapped them up and -sent the office-boy with his design, materials, measurements, and -instructions to a dressmaker in the neighbourhood, whom he wisely -thought would make a better job of it than a tailor. When the costume -was finished he was delighted; it was magnificent, resplendent, -artistic, and the dressmaker’s charge was moderate. - -On the night of the ball, a warm August night with soft thrilling air -and a sky of sombre velvet, he drove in a closed cab. Dancing was -in the open, the lawns of a mansion were lent for the occasion, and -Bugloss went rather late to escape notice—nearly eleven o’clock—but -in the cab his timorousness conspiring against him had deepened to -palpitating dejection; he was afraid again, the grand gesture was -forgotten, and his attire was fantastically guarded from the public -eye. From his window he had watched the arrival of the cab and had -slunk down to it secretly—not a word to the Rabignols!—in a bowler -hat and a mackintosh that reached to his feet; his fancy shoes were -concealed under a pair of goloshes, the bright tasselled cap was in his -pocket. - -Heavens! It was too painful. This was no plunge, this miserable sink or -swim—it was delirium, hell—what a stupid man he had been to come—it was -no go, it was useless—and he was about to order the cabman to turn back -home when the cab stopped at the gates of the mansion, the door was -flung open and a big policeman almost dragged him out upon the carpeted -pavement. A knot of jocular bystanders caused him to scurry into the -grounds where three officials—good, bad, and indifferent—examined his -ticket and directed him onwards. But the cloak rooms were right across -the grounds, the great lawn was simply a bath of illumination, the band -played in the centre and the dancers, madly arrayed, were waltzing -madly. Bugloss, desiring only some far corner of darkness to flee into, -saw on all sides shadowy trees, dim shrubs, and walks that led to utter -gloom—thank God!—and there was a black moonless sky, though even that -seemed positively to drip with stars. - -At this moment the big policeman, following after him, said: “What -about this cab, sir?” - -“What—yes—this cab!” repeated Bugloss, and to his agonized imagination -every eye in the grounds became ironically fixed upon him alone; -even the music ceased, and there resounded a flutter of coruscating -amiability. - -“D’ye want him to wait?” the policeman was grinning—“He ain’t got any -orders.” - -“O, O dear, how much, what’s his fare? I don’t want him again -and—gracious! I haven’t a cent on me—what, what—O, please tell him to -call at my house to-morrow. Pay him then I will. Please!” - -“Righto, my lord!” said the big policeman, saluting—he was a regular -joker that fellow. Then Bugloss, trembling in every limb, almost leapt -towards one of the dark walks, away from those grinning eyes. The -shrubs and trees concealed him, though even here an odd paper lantern -or two consorted with a few coloured bulbs of light. Shortly he began -his observations. - -The cloak rooms, he found, could be approached only by crossing the -lawn. In a mackintosh, goloshes, and a bowler hat, that was too -terrific an ordeal; the trembling Israelite during that affrighting -passage of the Red Sea had all the incitements of escape and the -comfort of friends, but this more violent ordeal led into captivity, -and Bugloss was alone. What was to be done? The music began again -and it was agreeable, the illuminations were lustrous and pretty, -the dancers gay, but Bugloss was neither agreeable nor gay, and his -prettiness was not yet on the surface. He was in a highly wrought -condition, he was limp, and he remained in what seclusion he could -find in the garden, peering like a sinner at some assembly of the -blest. At last he snatched off his goloshes and stuffed them in his -pocket. “So far,” he murmured, “so good. I will hide the mackintosh -among the bushes, I can’t face that dressing room.” Just then the band -gave a heightened blare, drum and cymbals were rapidly beaten and the -music ceased amid clapping and polite halloing. “Dash it, I must wait -till the next dance,” said Bugloss, “and, O lord, there’s a lot of -them coming this way.” He turned to retreat into deeper darkness when -suddenly, near the musicians, he saw a fascinating girl, a dainty but -startling figure skimming across the lawn as if to overtake a friend. -Why—yes—she had a wig of bright green hair, green; a short-waisted -cherry silk jacket and harlequin pantaloons, full at the hips but -narrowing to the ankles, where white stockings slipped into a pair of -gilded leather shoes with heels of scarlet. Delicately charming were -her face and figure, entrancing were her movements, and she tinkled all -over with hidden bells. - -“Sweet God, what beauty!” thought Bugloss, “this is She, the Woman to -know, I must, I must ... but how?” - -She disappeared. For the moment he could not rid himself of the bowler -hat and mackintosh, so many couples roamed in the dark glades; wherever -he went he could see the glow of cigarettes, generally in twos, and -there were whispering or silent couples standing about in unexpected -places. Retiring to the darkest corner he had previously found he was -about to discard his mackintosh when he was startled by a cry at his -elbow: “Lena, where are you, what’s that?” and a girl scuttled away, -calling “Lena! Lena!” Her terror dismayed him, the little shock itself -brought the sweat to his brow, but the music beginning again drew all -the stragglers back to the lawn. There, from his gloomy retreat, he -beheld the green-haired beauty in the arms of a pirate king who was -adorned with an admiral’s hat and a dangerous moustache. “If,” thought -Bugloss, still in his mufti, “I couldn’t have discovered a better -get-up than that fellow, I’d have stayed away. There’s no picture in -it, it’s just silly, I couldn’t wear a thing like that, I couldn’t -wear it, I’d have perished rather than come.” And indeed there was an -absence of imagination about all the male adornment; many of the ladies -were right enough, but some were horrors, and most of the men were -horrors; there was justification for Bugloss’s subsequent reflection: -“I’ll show them, a little later on, what can be done when an artist -takes the thing in hand; now after this dance is over.... etc., etc.” - -Two lovers startled him by beginning to quarrel. They were passing -among the trees behind him and talking quite loudly, both with a slight -foreign accent. “But I shall not let you go, Johannes,” said the lady -with a fierce little cry. Bugloss turned and could just discern a lady -costumed as a vivandière; her companion was in the uniform Of a Danish -soldier. - -“If you forced me to stop I would kill you,” retorted the man. - -“O, you would kill me!” - -“If you forced me to stop.” - -“You would kill me ... so!” - -“Yes, I would kill you.” - -“But you have told me that if I _can_ keep you here in England I may do -it. You know. If I can. You know that, Johannes!” - -Bugloss was persuaded that he had heard her voice before, though he -could not recognize the speaker. - -“Be quiet, you are a fool,” the man said. That was all Bugloss heard. -It was brutal enough. If only a woman, any woman, had wanted _him_ like -that! - -He wandered about during other dances. The green-haired girl was always -with that idiotic pirate, and it made things very difficult, because -although Bugloss had fallen desperately in love with her he could not, -simply could not, march up and drag her away from her companion. He -could not as yet even venture from his ambush among the trees, and they -never wandered in the gloom—they were always dancing together or eating -together. He, Bugloss, had no interest in any other woman there, no -spark of interest whatsoever. That being so, why go to all the fuss of -discarding the mackintosh and making an exhibition of himself? Why go -bothering among that crowd, he was not a dancer at all, he didn’t want -to go! But still ... by and by perhaps ... when that lovely treasure -was not so extraordinarily engaged. Sweet God! she was just ... well, -but he could not stand much more of that infernal pirate’s antics with -her. Withdrawing his tantalized gaze he sat down in darkness behind a -clump of yew trimmed in the shape of some fat animal that resembled a -tall hippopotamus. Here he lit his tenth cigarette. At once a dizziness -assailed him, he began to see scarlet splashes in the gloom, to feel -as if he were being lacerated with tiny pins. Throwing the cigarette -away he stretched himself at full length under the bush. Scarcely had -he done so when he became aware that two others were sitting down on -the other side of it, the same foreign couple, the vivandière and her -threatening cavalier. - -“Listen to me, Hélène,” the man was saying in a soft consoling voice, -“you shall trust to me and come away. Together we will go. But here -I cannot stay. It is fate. You love, eh? Come then, we will go to -Copenhagen, I will take you to my country. Now, Hélène!” - -The lady made no reply; Bugloss felt that she must be crying. The Dane -continued to woo and the Frenchwoman to murmur back to him: “Is it not -so, Johannes?” “No, Hélène, no.” But at last he cried angrily: “Pah! -Then stop with your bandit, that pig! Pah!” and chattering angrily in -his strange language he sprang up and stalked away. Hélène rose too and -followed him beseechingly into the gloom: “No, no, Johannes, no!” - -Bugloss got up from the grass; his dizziness was gone. He knew that -voice, it seemed impossible, but he knew her, and he had half a mind -to rush home: but being without his watch and unable to discover what -o’clock it was, he did not care to walk out into the streets with the -chance of being guyed by any half-drunken sparks passing late home. -He would wait, he was sure it was past midnight now, there would be a -partial exodus soon, and he would go off unnoticed in the crowd. There -was no more possibility now of him shedding his coat and joining the -revellers than there was of that beauteous girl flying into his arms; -his inhibition possessed him with tenfold power, he was an imbecile. -Sad, pitiful, wretched, outcast! Through the screen of foliage the -music floated with exquisite faintness, luminous cadenzas from a -gleaming but guarded Eldorado whose light was music, whose music was -all a promise and a mockery; he was a miserable prisoner pent in his -own unbearable but unbreakable shackles and dressed up like a doll in a -pantomime! Many people had come in their ordinary clothes; why, O why -had he put on this maddening paralysing raiment? Why had he come at all? - -Some of the lights had begun to fade; at one end of the lawn most of -the small lamps had guttered out, leaving a line of a dozen chairs in -comparative obscurity. Weary of standing, he slunk to the corner chair -and sat down with a sigh. Just beside him was a weeping ash that he -supposed only looked happy when it rained, and opposite was a poplar -straining so hard to brush the heavens that he fancied it would be -creaking in every limb. By and by an elderly decorous lady, accompanied -by two girls not so decorous—the one arrayed as a Puritan maiden and -the other as a Scout mistress—came and sat near him, but he did not -move. They did not perceive the moody Bugloss. The elderly lady spoke: -“Do go and fetch her here; no, when this waltz is over. She is very -rude, but I want to see her. I can’t understand why she avoids us, and -how she is getting on is a mystery to everybody. Bring her here.” - -The puritan maiden and the scout mistress, embracing each other, -skipped away to the refreshment booth. Glorious people sat about -there drinking wine as if they disliked it, sipping ices as if it were -a penance, and eating remarkable food or doing some other reasonable -things, but Bugloss dared not join them although he was very hungry. It -was not hunger he wanted to avert, but an impending tragedy. - -The hypersensitive creature sees in the common mass of his fellows only -something that seeks to deny him, and either in fear of that antagonism -or in the knowledge of his own imperfections he isolates and envelopes -the real issue of his being—much as an oyster does with the irritant -grain in its beard; only the outcome is seldom a pearl and not always -as useful as a fish. Bugloss was still wholly enveloped, and his -predicament gave a melancholy tone to his thoughts. He sat hunched in -his chair until the dance ended and the two girls came back, bringing -with them the lovely green-haired one! - -“Hello, aunt,” she cried merrily enough, “why aren’t you in costume? -Like my get-up?” - -Without a word the elderly lady kissed her, and all sat down within -a few feet of Bugloss. It thrilled him to hear her voice; at least -he would be able to recognize that when she turned back again to -daylight’s cool civilities. - -“Did you know that I had blossomed out in business?” she was saying. -Bugloss thought it a beautiful voice. - -“I heard of it,” said her aunt, whom you may figure as a lady with a -fan, eyeglasses, and the repellant profile of a bird of prey, “about -half an hour ago. I wish I had heard of it before.” - -“I am a full-blown modiste.” - -“Yes, you might have told me.” - -“But I have told you.” - -“You might have told me before.” - -“But I haven’t seen you before, aunt.” - -“No, we haven’t seen you. How is this business, Claire, is it thriving, -making money?” - -“O, we get along, aunt,” said the radiant niece in a tone of almost -perverse amiability. “I have several assistants. Do you know, we made -seven of the costumes for this ball—seven—one of them for a man.” - -“I thought ladies only made for ladies.” - -“So did I, but this order just dropped in upon us very mysteriously, -and we did it, from top to toe, a most gorgeous arrangement, all -crimson and purple and silver and citron, but I haven’t seen anybody -wearing it yet. I wonder if you have? I’m so disappointed. It’s a -sultan, or a nabob, or a nankipoo of some kind, I am certain it was for -this ball. I was so anxious to see it worn. I had made up my mind to -dance at least half the dances with the wearer, it was so lovely. Have -you seen such a costume here?” - -“No,” said the aunt grimly, “I have not, but I have noticed the pirate -king—did you make his costume too? I hope not!” - -“O no, aunt,” laughed Claire, “isn’t he a fright?” - -“Who is he?” - -“That? O, a friend of mine, a business friend.” - -“He seems fond of you.” - -“I have known him some time. Yes, I like him. Don’t you like my pirate -king?” asked Claire, turning to her two cousins. - -The cousins both thought he was splendid. - -(“Good God!” groaned Bugloss.) - -“I don’t,” declared auntie. “Do you know him very well, has he any -intentions? An orphan girl living by herself—you have your way to make -in the world—I am not presuming to criticize, my dear Claire, but is it -wise? Who is he?” - -“Yes, aunt,” said Claire. Bugloss could hear the tinkle of her bells as -she moved a little restlessly. - -“Are his intentions honourable? I should think they were otherwise.” - -Claire did not reply immediately. It looked as if the musicians were -about to resume. There was a rattle of plates and things over at the -booth. Then she said reflectively: “I don’t think he has any—what you -call honourable intentions.” - -“Not! Is he a bad man?” - -“O no, I don’t mean that, aunt, no.” - -“But what do you mean then, you’re a strange girl, what _could_ his -intentions be?” - -“He hasn’t any intentions at all.” - -“Not one way or the other?” - -Claire seemed vaguely to hover over the significance of this. She said -calmly enough: “Not in any way. He’s my hairdresser, a Frenchman, and -so clever. He made this beautiful wig and gave it me. What do you think -of my beautiful wig, isn’t it sweet?” - -There was a note of exasperation in the elder woman’s voice: “Why -don’t you get married, girl?” - -“I’d rather work,” said Claire, “and besides, he’s already married.” - -The music did begin, and a gentleman garbed as a druid came to claim -auntie for a dance. The three girls were left alone. - -“Did he _really_ give you that wig?” asked the puritan maiden. - -“Yes, isn’t it bonny? I love it.” She shook the dangling curls about -her face. “He’s frightfully clever with hair. French! You know his -saloon probably, Rabignol’s in the High Street. His wife is here, you -must have seen her too—a French soldier woman—what do you call them? -She hates me. She’s with a Danish captain. He _is_ a Dane, but he is -really an ice merchant. He thinks she adores him.” - -“O Claire!” cried the two shocked cousins. - -“But she doesn’t,” said Claire. “Sakes, I’m beginning to shiver; come -along.” - -They all romped back towards the orchestra. Bugloss shivered too -and was glad—yes, glad—that she had gone. The tragedy had floated -satisfactorily out of his hands, thank the fates; it was Rabignol’s -affair. Damn Rabignol! Curse Rabignol! the bandit, the pig! He hoped -that Madame Rabignol _would_ elope with Johannes. He hoped the -green-haired girl—frail and lovely thing—would behave well; and he -hoped finally and frenziedly that Rabignol himself would be choked by -the common hangman. Bugloss then wanted to yawn, but somehow he could -not. He put on his rubber goloshes again. With unwonted audacity he -stalked off firmly, even a little fiercely, across the lawn in his -mackintosh and bowler hat, passing round the fringe of the dancers but -looking neither to the right nor to the left, then out of the gates -into the dark empty streets and so home. There, feeling rather like -a Cromwell made of chutney, he disarrayed himself and crept into bed -yawning and murmuring to himself: “So that’s a fancy dress ball! Sweet -God, but I’m glad I went! And I could have shown them something, I -could have. Say what you like, but mine was the finest costume at the -show; there’s no doubt about that, it was, it was! And I’m very glad I -went.” - - - - - _The Cat, the Dog, and the bad old Dame_ - - -The chemist had certain odd notions that were an agreeable reflex of -his name, which was Oddfellow—Herbert Oddfellow. Our man was odd about -diet. It was believed that he lived without cookery, that he browsed, -as it were, upon fruit and salads. Ironically enough he earned a -considerable income by the sale of nostrums for indigestion. At any -hour of the day you were likely to find him devouring apples, nibbling -artichokes, or sucking an orange, and your inquiry for a dose of -bismuth or some such aid would cause by an obscure process a sardonic -grin to assemble upon his face. You would scarcely have expected to -find a lot of indigestion in the working-class neighbourhood where his -pharmacy flourished, but it was there, certainly; he was quite cynical -about it—his business throve abundantly upon dietary disorders. - -There were four big ornamental carboys in his shop windows—red, violet, -green, and yellow; incidentally he sold peppermint drops and poisons, -and at forty years of age he was reputed to be the happiest, as he -was certainly the healthiest, man in the county. This was not merely -because he was unmarried ... but there, I declare this tale is not -about Oddfellow himself, but about his lethal chamber. - -You must know that the sacrificial exactions of the war did not spare -cats and dogs. They, too, were immolated—but painlessly—scores of -them, at Oddfellow’s. He was unhappy about that part of his business, -very much so; he loved animals, perhaps rather more than people, for, -naturally, what he ministered to in his pharmacy was largely human -misery or human affectation. Evil cruel things—the bolt of a gaol, the -lime of the bird-snarer, the butcher’s axe—maddened him. - -In the small garden at the back of the dispensary the interments were -carried out by Horace the errand boy, a juvenile with snub nose and -short, tough hair, who always wore ragged puttees. He delighted in such -obsequies, and had even instituted some ceremonial orgies. But at last -these lethal commissions were so numerous that the burial-ground began -to resemble the habitat of some vast, inappeasable mole, and thereupon -Oddfellow had to stipulate for sorrowing owners to conduct the -interments themselves in cemeteries of their own. Even this provision -did not quell the inflow of these easily disposable victims. - -Mr. Franks brought him a magnificent cat to be destroyed. (Shortly -afterwards Franks was conveyed to the lunatic asylum, an institution -which still nurtures him in despotic durance.) Pending the return of -Horace, who was disbursing remedial shrapnel to the neighbourhood, the -cat, tied to a rail in the shop, sat dozing in the sunlight. - -“What a beautiful cat!” exclaimed a lady caller, stroking its purring -majesty. The lady herself was beautiful. Oddfellow explained that its -demise was imminent—nothing the matter with it—owner didn’t want it. - -“How cruel, you sweet thing, how cruel!” pronounced the lady, who -really was very beautiful. “I would love to have it. Why shouldn’t I -have it ... if its owner doesn’t want it? I wonder. May I?” - -Manlike was Oddfellow, beautiful was the lady; the lady took the cat -away. Twenty-four hours later the shop counter was stormed by the -detestable Franks, incipient insanity already manifest in him. He -carried the selfsame cat under his arm—it had returned to its old home. -Franks assailed the abashed chemist with language that at its mildest -was abusive and libellous. His chief complaint seemed to repose upon -the circumstance of having _paid_ for the cat’s destruction, whereupon -Oddfellow who, like an Irishman, never walked into an argument—he -simply bounced in—threw down the fee upon the counter and urged Mr. -Franks to take his cat, and his money, and himself away as speedily -as might be. This reprehensible behaviour did by no means allay the -tension; the madman-designate paraded many further signs of his -impending doom. - -“Take your cat away, I tell you,” shouted Oddfellow, “take it away. I -wouldn’t destroy it for a thousand pounds!” - -“You won’t, oh?” - -“Put an end to you with pleasure!” - -“Yes?” - -“Make you a present of a dose of poison whenever you like to come and -take it!” - -“Yes?” - -“I will!” - -Franks went away with his tom-cat. - -“O ... my ... lord!” ejaculated the chemist, that being his favourite -evocation; “I’ll do no more of this cat-and-dog business. I shall not -do any more; no, I shall not. I do not like it at all.” - -But in the afternoon his assistant, who had not been informed of this -resolve, accepted two more victims for the lethal chamber, another -tom-cat and a collie dog. - -“O ... my ... lord!” groaned the chemist distractedly; but there was -no help for it, and, calling his boy Horace, they carried the cat -into the storeroom. The lethal box was in a corner; all round were -shelves of costly drugs. The place did not smell of death; it smelt of -paint, oils, volatile spirits, tubs of white lead, and packing-cases -that contained scented soap or feeding-bottles. As Oddfellow prepared -his syringe, a sporting friend named Jerry peeped in to watch the -proceedings. - -“Shut the door!” cried little Horace. “I can’t hold him.... He’s off!” - -Sure enough the cat, sensing its danger, had burst from his arms and -sprung to one of the shelves. Immediately phials of drugs began to -fall and smash upon the floor, and as the cat rushed and scurried from -their grasp disaster was heaped upon disaster; the green, glowing eyes, -the rigid teeth, that seemed to grow as large as a tiger’s, confounded -them, and the havoc deterred them; they dared not approach the spitting -fury, it was a wild beast again, and a bold one. - -“O ... my ... lord!” said Oddfellow, also swearing softly, for bottles -continued to slip from shelf to floor. “What’s to be done?” - -“Open the door—let the flaming thing go,” said Jerry. - -“No fear,” replied the chemist, “I’ve had enough of these dead cats -turning up like Banquo’s ghost—just enough.” - -Horace intervened. “My father’s got a gun, sir; shall I run round home -and get it?” - -Jerry’s eyes began to gleam, the costly phials kept dropping to -the floor—the chemist distractedly agreed—the boy Horace ran home -and fetched a rook rifle. But his prowess was so poor, his aim so -disastrous—he shot a hole through a barrel of linseed oil and received -a powerful squirt of it in his eye—that Jerry deprived him of the -weapon. Even then several rounds had to be fired, a carboy of acid was -cracked, a window smashed, a lamp blown to pieces, before poor tom was -finally subdued. Oddfellow had gone into the shop. He could not bring -himself to witness the dismal slaughter. Every repercussion sent a pang -of pity to his heart, and when at last the bleeding body of the cat was -laid in the yard to await removal by its owner he almost vomited and he -almost wept; if he had not sniffed the bunch of early primroses in his -buttonhole he would surely have done one or the other. - -“Now the dog,” whispered the chemist. The collie was very subdued, good -dog, he gave no trouble at all, good dog, he was hustled into the big -box, good dog, and quietly chloroformed. Later on, a countryman with -his cart called for the body. The old woman who owned it was going -to make a hearthrug with the skin. It was enveloped in a sack; the -countryman carried it out on his shoulder like a butcher carrying the -carcase of a sheep and flung it into the cart. The callousness of this -struck Mr. Oddfellow so profoundly that he announced there and then, -positively and finally, that he would undertake no more business of -that kind, and doubly to insure this the lethal box was taken into the -yard and chopped up. - -Now, the poor old woman who owned the dog called next day at the -chemist’s shop. Behind her walked the very collie. For a moment or two -Oddfellow feared that he was to be haunted by the walking ghost of cats -and dogs for evermore. Said the old woman: “Please, sir, you must do -him again; he’s woke up!” - -She described at great length the dog’s strange revival. It stood -humbly enough in the background, a little drowsy, but not at all uneasy. - -“No,” cried Oddfellow firmly; “can’t do it—destroyed my tackle. You -take him home, ma’am; he’s all right. Dog that’s been through that -ought to live a long life. Take him home again, ma’am,” he urged, “he’s -all right.” - -The woman was old; she was feeble and poor; she was not able to keep -him now, he was such a big dog. Wasn’t it hard enough to get him food, -things were so dear, and now there was the licence money due! She -hadn’t got it; she never would have it; she really couldn’t afford it. - -“You take him, sir, and keep him, sir.” - -“No, I can’t keep a dog—no room.” - -“Have him, sir,” she pleaded; “you’ll be kind to him.” - -“No, no; ... but ... if it’s only his licence ... I’ll tell you what. -I’ll pay for his licence rather than destroy him.” - -Putting his hand into the till, he laid three half-crowns before her. -The old woman stared at the chemist, but she stared still more at the -money. Then, thanking him with quaint, confused dignity, she gathered -it up, but again stood gazing meditatively at the three big coins, now -lying, so unexpectedly, in her thin palm. - -“Good dog,” said the chemist, giving him a final pat. “Good dog!” - -Then the poor old woman, with tears in her eyes, turned out of Mr. -Oddfellow’s shop and, followed by her dog, walked off to a quarter of -the town where there was another chemist who kept a lethal chamber. - - - - - _The Wife of Ted Wickham_ - - -Perhaps it is a mercy we can’t see ourselves as others see us. Molly -Wickham was a remarkable pretty woman in days gone by; maybe she is -wiser since she has aged, but when she was young she was foolish. She -never seemed to realize it, but I wasn’t deceived. - -So said the cattle-dealer, a healthy looking man, massive, morose, and -bordering on fifty. He did not say it to anybody in particular, for it -was said—it was to himself he said it—privately, musingly, as if to -soothe the still embittered recollection of a beauty that was foolish, -a fondness that was vain. - -Ted Wickham himself was silly, too, when he married her. Must have been -extraordinarily touched to marry a little soft, religious, teetotal -party like her, and him a great sporting cock of a man, just come into -a public-house business that his aunt had left him, “The Half Moon,” -up on the Bath Road. He always ate like an elephant, but she’d only -the appetite of a scorpion. And what was worse, he was a true blood -conservative while all her family were a set of radicals that you -couldn’t talk sense to: if you only so much as mentioned the name of -Gladstone they would turn their eyes up to the ceiling as if he was a -saint in glory. Blood is thicker than water, I know, but it’s unnatural -stuff to drink so much of. Grant their name was. They christened her -Pamela, and as if that wasn’t cruel enough they messed her initials up -by giving her the middle name of Isabel. - -But she was a handsome creature, on the small side but sound as a -roach and sweet as an apple tree in bloom. Pretty enough to convert -Ted, and I thought she would convert him, but she was a cussed -woman—never did what you would expect of her—and so she didn’t even -try. She gave up religion herself, gave it up altogether and went to -church no more. That was against her inclination, but of course it -was only right, for Ted never could have put up with that. Wedlock’s -one thing and religion’s two: that’s odd and even: a little is all -very well if it don’t go a long ways. Parson Twamley kept calling on -her for a year or two afterwards, trying to persuade her to return -to the fold—he couldn’t have called oftener if she had owed him a -hundred pound—but she would not hear of it, she would not go. He was -not much of a parson, not one to wake anybody up, but he had a good -delivery, and when he’d the luck to get hold of a sermon of any sense -his delivery was very good, very good indeed. She would say: “No, sir, -my feelings aren’t changed one bit, but I won’t come to church any -more, I’ve my private reasons.” And the parson would glare across at -old Ted as if he were a Belzeboob, for Ted always sat and listened to -the parson chattering to her. Never said a word himself, always kept -his pipe stuck in his jaw. Ted never persuaded her in the least, just -left it to her, and she would come round to his manner of thinking in -the end, for though he never actually said it, she always knew what his -way of thinking was. A strange thing, it takes a real woman to do that, -silly or no! At election times she would plaster the place all over -with tory bills, do it with her own hands! - -Still, there’s no stability in meekness of that sort, a weathervane can -only go with wind and weather, and there was no sense in her giving -in to Ted as she did, not in the long run, for he couldn’t help but -despise her. A man wants something or other to whet the edge of his -life on; and he did despise her, I know. - -But she was a fine creature in her way, only her way wasn’t his. A -beautiful woman, too, well-limbered up, with lovely hair, but always -a very proper sort, a milksop—Ted told me once that he had never seen -her naked. Well, can you wonder at the man? And always badgering him to -do things that could not be done at the time. To have “The Half Moon” -painted, or enlarged, or insured: she’d keep on badgering him, and he -could not make her see that any god’s amount of money spent on paint -wouldn’t improve the taste of liquor. - -“I can see as far into a quart pot as the King of England,” he says, -“and I know that if this bar was four times as big as ’tis a quart -wouldn’t hold a drop more then than it does now.” - -“No, of course,” she says. - -“Nor a drop less neither,” says Ted. He showed her that all the money -expended on improvements and insurance and such things were so much -off something else. Ted was a generous chap—liked to see plenty of -everything, even though he had to give some of it away. But you can’t -make some women see some things. - -“Not a roof to our heads, nor a floor to our feet, nor a pound to turn -round on if a fire broke out,” Molly would say. - -“But why should a fire break out?” he’d ask her. “There never has been -a fire here, there never ought to be a fire here, and what’s more, -there never will be a fire here, so why should there be a fire?” - -And of course she let him have his own way, and they never had a fire -there while he was alive, though I don’t know that any great harm -would have been done anyways, for after a few years trade began to -slacken off, and the place got dull, and what with the taxes it was not -much more than a bread and cheese business. Still, there’s no matter -of that: a man don’t ask for a bed of roses: a world without some -disturbance or anxiety would be like a duckpond where the ducks sleep -all day and are carried off at night by the foxes. - -Molly was like that in many things, not really contrary, but no tact. -After Ted died she kept on at “The Half Moon” for a year or two by -herself, and regular as clockwork every month Pollock, the insurance -manager, would drop in and try for to persuade her to insure the -house or the stock or the furniture, any mortal thing. Well, believe -you, when she had only got herself to please in the matter that woman -wouldn’t have anything to say to that insurance—she never did insure, -and never would. - -“I wouldn’t run such a risk; upon my soul it’s flying in the face of -possibilities, Mrs. Wickham”—he was a palavering chap, that Pollock; a -tall fellow with sandy hair, and he always stunk of liniment for he had -asthma on the chest—“A very grave risk, it is indeed,” he would say, -“the Meazer’s family was burnt clean out of hearth and home last St. -Valentine’s day, and if they hadn’t taken up a policy what would have -become of those Meazers?” - -“I dunno,” Molly says—that was the name Ted give her—“I dunno, and I’m -sorry for unfortunate people, but I’ve my private reasons.” - -She was always talking about her private reasons, and they must have -been devilish private, for not a soul on God’s earth ever set eyes on -them. - -“Well, Mrs. Wickham,” says Pollock, “they’d have been a tidy ways up -Queer Street, and ruin’s a long-lasting affair,” Pollock says. He was -a rare palavering chap, and he used to talk about Gladstone, too, for -he knew her family history; but that didn’t move her, and she did not -insure. - -“Yes, I quite agree,” she says, “but I’ve my private reasons.” - -Sheer female cussedness! But where her own husband couldn’t persuade -her Pollock had no chance at all. And then, of course, two years after -Ted died she did go and have a fire there. “The Half Moon” was burnt -clean out, rafter and railings, and she had to give it up and shift -into the little bullseye business where she is now, selling bullseyes -to infants and ginger beer to boy scholars on bicycles. And what does -it all amount to? Why, it don’t keep her in hairpins. She had the most -beautiful hair once. But that’s telling the story back foremost. - -Ted was a smart chap, a particular friend of mine (so was Molly), -and he could have made something of himself and of his business, -perhaps, if it hadn’t been for her. He was a sportsman to the backbone; -cricket, shooting, fishing, always game for a bit of life, any mortal -thing—what was there he couldn’t do? And a perfect demon with women, -I’ve never seen the like. If there was a woman for miles around as he -couldn’t come at, then you could bet a crown no one else could. He had -the gift. Well, when one woman ain’t enough for a man, twenty ain’t -too many. He and me were in a tight corner together more than once, -but he never went back on a friend, his word was his Bible oath. And -there was he all the while tied up to this soft wife of his, who never -once let on she knew of it at all, though she knowed much. And never -would she cast the blink of her eyes—splendid eyes they were, too—on -any willing stranger, nor even a friend, say, like myself; it was -all Ted this and Ted that, though I was just her own age and Ted was -twelve years ahead of us both. She didn’t know her own value, wouldn’t -take her opportunities, hadn’t the sense, as I say, though she had got -everything else. Ah, she was a woman to be looking at once, and none so -bad now; she wears well. - -But she was too pious and proper, it aggravated him, but Ted never once -laid a finger on her and never uttered one word of reproach though -he despised her; never grudged her a thing in reason when things -were going well with him. It’s God Almighty’s own true gospel—they -never had a quarrel in all the twelve years they was wed, and I don’t -believe they ever had an angry word, but how he kept his hands off her -I don’t know. I couldn’t have done it, but I was never married—I was -too independent for that work. He’d contradict her sometimes, for she -_would_ talk, and Ted was one of your silent sorts, but _she_—she -would talk for ever more. She was so artful that she used to invent all -manners of tomfoolery on purpose to make him contradict her; believe -you, she did, even on his death-bed. - -I used to go and sit with him when he was going, poor Ted, for I -knew he was done for; and on the day he died, she said to him—and I -was there and I heard it: “Is there anything you would like me to -do, dear?” And he said, “No.” He was almost at his last gasp, he -had strained his heart, but she was for ever on at him, even then, -an unresting woman. It was in May, I remember it, a grand bright -afternoon outside, but the room itself was dreadful, it didn’t seem to -be afternoon at all; it was unbearable for a strong man to be dying -in such fine weather, and the carts going by, and though we were a -watching him, it seemed more as if something was watching us. - -And she says to him again: “Isn’t there anything you would like me to -do?” - -Ted says to her: “Ah! I’d like to hear you give one downright good damn -curse. Swear, my dear!” - -“At what?” she says. - -“Me, if you like.” - -“What for?” she says. I can see her now, staring at him. - -“For my sins.” - -“What sins?” she says. - -Now did you ever hear anything like that? What sins! After a while she -began at him once more. - -“Ted, if anything happens to you I’ll never marry again.” - -“Do what you like,” says he. - -“I’ll not do that,” she says, and she put her arms round him, “for -you’d not rest quiet in your grave, would you, Ted?” - -“Leave me alone,” he says, for he was a very crusty sick man, very -crusty, poor Ted, but could you wonder? “You leave me alone and I’ll -rest sure enough.” - -“You can be certain,” she cries, “that I’d never, never do that, I’d -never look at another man after you, Ted, never; I promise it solemnly.” - -“Don’t bother me, don’t bother at all.” And poor Ted give a grunt and -turned over on his side to get away from her. - -At that moment some gruel boiled over on the hob—gruel and brandy was -all he could take. She turned to look after it, and just then old Ted -gave a breath and was gone, dead. She turned like a flash, with the -steaming pot in her hand, bewildered for a moment. She saw he had gone. -Then she put the pot back gently on the fender, walked over to the -window and pulled down the blind. Never dropped a tear, not one tear. - -Well, that was the end of Ted. We buried him, one or two of us. There -was an insurance on his life for fifty pounds, but Ted had long before -mortgaged the policy and so there was next to nothing for her. But what -else could the man do? (Molly always swore the bank defrauded her!) She -put a death notice in the paper, how he was dead, and the date, and -what he died of: “after a long illness, nobly and patiently borne.” Of -course, that was sarcasm, she never meant one word of it, for he was a -terror to nurse, the worst that ever was; a strong man on his back is -like a wasp in a bottle. But every year, when the day comes round—and -it’s ten years now since he died—she puts a memorial notice in the same -paper about her loving faithful husband and the long illness nobly and -patiently borne! - -And then, as I said, the insurance man and the parson began to call -again on that foolish woman, but she would not alter her ways for -any of them. Not one bit. The things she had once enjoyed before her -marriage, the things she had wanted her own husband to do but were all -against his grain, these she could nohow bring herself to do when he -was dead and gone and she was alone and free to do them. What a farce -human nature can be! There was an Italian hawker came along with rings -in his ears and a coloured cart full of these little statues of Cupid, -and churches with spires a yard long and red glass in them, and heads -of some of the great people like the Queen and General Gordon. - -“Have you got a head of Lord Beaconsfield?” Molly asks him. - -He goes and searches in his cart and brings her out a beautiful head on -a stand, all white and new, and charges her half a crown for it. Few -days later the parson calls on the job of persuading her to return to -his flock now that she was free to go once more. But no. She says: “I -can never change now, sir, it may be all wrong of me, but what my man -thought was good enough for me, and I somehow cling to that. It’s all -wrong, I suppose, and you can’t understand it, sir, but it’s all my -life.” - -Well, Twamley chumbled over an argument or two, but he couldn’t move -her; there’s no mortal man could ever more that woman except Ted—and he -didn’t give a damn. - -“Well,” says parson, “I have hopes, Mrs. Wickham, that you will come -to see the matter in a new light, a little later on perhaps. In fact, -I’m sure you will, for look, there’s that bust,” he says, and he points -to it on the mantelpiece. “I thought you and he were all against -Gladstone, but now you’ve got his bust upon your shelf; it’s a new one, -I see.” - -“No, no, that isn’t Gladstone,” cried Molly, all of a tremble, “that -isn’t Gladstone, it’s Lord Beaconsfield!” - -“Indeed, but pardon me, Mrs. Wickham, that is certainly a bust of Mr. -Gladstone.” - -So it was. This Italian chap had deceived the silly creature and palmed -her off with any bust that come handy, and it happened to be Gladstone. -She went white to the teeth, and gave a sort of scream, and dashed the -little bust in a hundred pieces on the hearth in front of the minister -there. O, he had a very vexing time with her. - -That was years ago. And then came the fire, and then the bullseye shop. -For ten years now I’ve prayed that woman to marry me, and she just -tells me: No. She says she pledged her solemn word to Ted as he lay -a-dying that she would not wed again. It was his last wish—she says. -But it’s a lie, a lie, for I heard them both. Such a lie! She’s a mad -woman, but fond of him still in her way, I suppose. She liked to see -Ted make a fool of himself, liked him better so. Perhaps that’s what -she don’t see in me. And what I see in her—I can’t imagine. But it’s -a something, something in her that sways me now just as it swayed me -then, and I doubt but it will sway me for ever. - - - - - _Tanil_ - - -A Great while ago a man in a stripéd jacket went travelling almost -to the verge of the world, and there he came upon a region of green -fertility, quiet sounds, and sharp colour; save for one tiny green -mound it was all smooth and even, as level as the moon’s face, so flat -that you could see the sky rising up out of the end of everything like -a blue dim cliff. He passed into a city very populous and powerful, and -entered the shop of a man who sold birds in traps of wicker, birds of -rare kinds, the flame-winged antillomeneus and kriffs with green eyes. - -“Sir,” said he to the hawker of birds, “this should be a city of great -occasions, it has the smell of opulence. But it is all unknown to me, I -have not heard the story of its arts and policy, or of its people and -their governors. What annalists have you recording all its magnificence -and glory, or what poets to tell if its record be just?” - -The hawker of birds replied: “There are tales and the tellers of tales.” - -“I have not heard of these,” said the other, “tell me, tell me.” - -The bird man drew finger and thumb downwards from the bridge of his -long nose to its extremity, and sliding the finger across his pliant -nostrils said: “I will tell you.” They both sat down upon a coffer -of wheat. “I will tell you,” repeated the bird man, and he asked the -other if he had heard of the tomb in which none could lie, nor die, nor -mortify. - -“No,” said he. - -“Or of the oracle that destroys its interpreter?” - -“No,” answered the man in the stripéd jacket, and a talking bird in a -cage screamed: “No, no, no, no!” The traveller whistled caressingly to -the bird, tapping his finger nail along the rods of its cage, while the -bird man continued: “Or of Fax, Mint, and Bombassor, the three faithful -brothers?” - -“No,” replied he again. - -“They had a sister of beauty, of beauty indeed, beyond imagination. -(_Soo-eet! soo-eet!_ chirped the oracular bird.) It smote even the -hearts of kings like a reaping hook among grass, and her favour was a -ransom from death itself, as I will tell you.” - -“Friend,” said he of the stripéd jacket, “tell me of that woman.” - -“I will tell you,” answered the other; and he told him, and this was -the way of it. - - * * * * * - -There was once a king of this country, mighty with riches and homage, -with tribute from his enemies—for he was a great warrior—and the favour -of many excellent queens. His ancestors were numberless as the hairs -of his black beard; so ancient was his lineage that he may have sprung -from divinity itself, but he had a heart of brass, his bowels were of -lead, and at times he was afflicted with madness. - -One day he called for his captain of the guard, Tanil, a valiant, -debonair man of much courtesy, and delivered to him his commands. - -Tanil took a company of the guard and they marched to that green hill -on the plain—it is but a league away. At the foot of the hill they -crossed a stream; beyond that was a white dwelling and a garden; at -the gate of the garden was a stumbling stone; a flock grazed on the -hill. The soldiers threw down the stone and, coming into the vineyard, -they hacked down the vines until they heard a voice call to them. They -saw at the door of the white dwelling a woman so beautiful that the -weapons slid from their hands at the wonder of it. “Friends, friends!” -said she. Tanil told her the King’s bidding, how they must destroy -the vineyard, the dwelling, and the flock, and turn Fax, Mint, and -Bombassor, with the foster sister Flaune, out from the kingdom of Cumac. - -“You have denied the King tribute,” said he. - -“We are wanderers from the eastern world,” Flaune answered. “Is not the -mountain a free mountain? Does not this stream divide it from Cumac’s -country?” - -She took Tanil into the white dwelling and gave a pitcher of wine to -his men. - -“Sir,” said she to Tanil, “I will go to your King. Take me to your -King.” - -And when Tanil agreed to do this she sent a message secretly to her -brothers to drive the flock away into a hiding-place. So while Flaune -was gone a-journeying to the palace with Tanil’s troup, Fax, Mint, and -Bombassor set back the stumbling stone and took away the sheep. - -The King was resting in his palace garden, throwing crumbs into the -lake, and beans to his peacocks, but when Flaune was brought to him he -rose and bowed himself to the pavement at her feet. The woman said -nothing, she walked to and fro before him, and he was content to let -his gaze rest upon her. The carp under the fountain watched them, the -rose drooped on its envious briar, the heart of King Cumac was like a -tree full of chirping birds. - -Tanil confessed his fault; might the King be merciful and forgive him! -but the lady had taken their trespass with a soft temper and policy -that had overcome both his loyalty and his mind. It was unpardonable, -but it was not guilt, it was infirmity, she had bewitched him. Cumac -grinned and nodded. He bade Tanil return to the vineyard and restore -the vines, bade him requite the brothers and confirm them in those -pastures for ever. But as to this Flaune he would not let her go. - -She paces before him, or she dips her palm into the fountain, spilling -its drops upon the ground; she smiles and she is silent. - -Cumac gave her into the care of his groom of the women, Yali, the -sister of Tanil, and thereafter, every day and many a day, the King -courted and coveted Flaune. But he could not take her; her pride, her -cunning words, and her lustre bore her like an anchored boat upon the -tide of his purpose. At one moment full of pride and gloom, and in the -next full of humility and love, he would bring gifts and praises. - -“I will cover you,” he whispered, “with green garnets and jargoons. -A collar of onyx and ruby, that is for you; breastknots of beryl, and -rings for the finger, wrist, and ear. Take them, take them! For you I -would tear the moon asunder.” - -But all her desire was only to return to the green mountain and her -brothers and the flock by the stumbling stone. The King was merged in -anger and in grief. - -“Do not so,” he pleaded, “I have given freedom to your men; will you -not give freedom to me?” - -“What freedom, Cumac?” she asked him. - -And he said: “Love.” - -“How may the bound give freedom?” - -“With the gift of love.” - -“The spirit of the gift lies only in the giver.” Her voice was mournful -and low. - -He was confused and cast down. “You humble me with words, but words are -nothing, beautiful one. Put on your collar of onyx, and fasten your -breastknots of beryl. Have I not griefs, fierce griefs, that crash upon -my brain, and frenzies that shoot in fire! Does not your voice—that -rest-recovering lure—allay them, your presence numb them! I cannot let -you go, I cannot let you go.” - -“He who woos and does not win,” so said Flaune, “wins what he does not -woo for.” - -“Though I beg but a rose,” murmured the King, “do you offer me a sword?” - -“Time’s sword is laid at the breast of every rose.” - -“But I am your lowly servant,” he cried. “You have that which all -secretly seek and denyingly long for; it is seen without sight and -affirmed without speech.” - -“What is the thing you seek and long for?” - -“Purity,” said he. - -“Purity!” She seemed to muse upon it as a theme of mystery. “If you -found purity, what would you match it with?” - -“My sins!” he cried again. “Would you waste purity on purity, or mingle -sin with sin?” - -“Cumac,” said the wise woman, with no pride then but only pity, “you -seek to conquer that which strikes the conqueror dead.” - -Then, indeed, for a while he was mute, and then for a while he talked -of his sickness and his frenzy. “Are there not charms,” he asked, “or -magic herbs, to find and bind these demons?” - -There was no charm—she told him—but the mind, and no magic but in the -tranquillity of freedom. - -“I do not know this,” he sighed, “it will never be known.” - -The unknown—she told him—was better than the known. - -“Alas, then,” sighed the King again, “I shall never discover it.” - -“It is everywhere,” said Flaune, “but it is like a sweet herb that -withers in the ground. All may gather it—and it is not gathered. All -may see it—and it is not seen. All destroy it—and it never dies....” - -“Shall I be a little wind,” laughed Cumac, “and gush among this grass?” - -“It is the wind’s way among the roses. It has horns of bright brass and -quiet harps of silver. Its golden boats flash in every tossing bay.” - -Cumac laughed again, but still he would not let her go. “The fox has -many tricks, the cat but one,” he said, and caused her ankles to be -fastened with two jewelled links tied with a hopple of gold. But in a -day he struck them from her with his own hands, and hung the hopple -upon her lustrous neck. - -And still he would not let her go; so Yali and Tanil connived to send -news to the brothers, and in a little time Bombassor came to her aid. - -Bombassor was a dancer without blemish, in beauty or movement either. -He came into the palace to Cumac who did not know him, and the King’s -household came to the beaten gongs to witness the art of Bombassor. -Yali brought Flaune a harp of ivory, and to its music Bombassor -caracoled and spun before the delighted King. Then Flaune (who spoke -as a stranger to him) asked Bombassor if he would dance with her, and -he said they would take the dance of “The Flying Phœnix.” The King was -enchanted; he vowed he would grant any wish of Bombassor’s, any wish; -yes, he would cut the moon in half did he desire it. “I will dance for -your pledge,” said Bombassor. - -It seemed to the King then as if a little whirling wind made of -flame, and a music that was perfume, gyred and rose before him: the -tapped gongs, the tinkle of harp, the surprise of Flaune’s swaying -and reeling, now coy, now passionate, the lure of her wooing arms, -the rhythm of her flying feet, the chanting of the onlookers, and the -flashing buoyance of Bombassor, so thrilled and distracted him that he -shouted like an eager boy. - -But when Bombassor desired Cumac to give him the maiden Flaune, the -King was astonished. “No, no,” he said, “but give him an urn full of -diamonds,” and Bombassor was given an urn full of diamonds. He let it -fall at the King’s feet, and the gems clattered upon the pavement like -a heap of peas. “Give him Yali, then,” Cumac shouted. Yali was a nymph -of splendour, but Bombassor called aloud, “No, a pledge is a pledge!” - -Then the King’s joy went from him and, like a star falling, left -darkness and terror. - -“Take,” he cried, “an axe to his head and pitch it to the crows.” - -And so was Bombassor destroyed, while the King continued ignorantly to -woo his sister. Silent and proud was she, silent and proud, but her -beauty began to droop until Yali and Tanil, perceiving this, connived -again to send to her brothers, and in a little time Mint came. To race -on foot he was fleeter than any of Cumac’s champions; they strove with -him, but he was like the unreturning wind, and although they cunningly -moved the bounds of the course, and threw thorns and rocks under his -feet, he defeated them all, and the King jeered at his own champions. -Then Mint called for an antelope to be set in the midst of the plain -and cried: “Who will catch this for the King?” All were amazed and -Cumac said: “Whoever will do it I will give him whatever a King may -give, though I crack the moon for it.” - -The men let go the hind and it swooped away, Mint pursuing. Fast and -far they sped until no man’s gaze could discern them, but in a while -Mint returned bearing the breathing hind upon his back. “Take off his -shoes,” cried the King, “and fill them with gold.” But when this was -done Mint spilled the gold back at the King’s feet. - -“Give me,” said he, “this maiden Flaune.” - -The King grinned and refused him. - -“Was it not in the bond?” asked Mint. - -“Ay,” replied Cumac, “but choose again.” - -“Is this then a King’s bond?” sneered Mint. - -“It was a living bond,” said the King, “but death can sever it. Let -this dog be riven in sunder and his bowels spilled to the foxes.” Mint -died on the moment, and Cumac continued ignorantly to woo his sister. - -Then Flaune conferred with Tanil and with Yali about a means of escape. -Tanil feared to be about this, but he loved Flaune, and his sister Yali -persuaded him. He showed them a great door in the back of the palace, a -concealed issue through the city wall, from which Flaune might go in a -darkness could but the door be opened. But it had not been opened for -a hundred years, and they feared the hinges would shriek and the wards -grind in the lock and so discover them. - -“Let us bring oil to-morrow,” they said, “and oil it.” - -In the morning they brought oil to the hinge and brushed it with drops -from a cock’s feather. The hinge gave up its squeak but yet it groaned. -They filled Yali’s thimble that was made of tortoise horn and poured -this upon it. The hinge gave up its groan but yet it sighed. They -filled the eggshell of a goose with oil and poured upon the hinge until -it was silent. Then they turned to the lock, which, as they threw -back the wards, cried clack, clack. Tanil lapped the great key with -ointment, but still the lock clattered. He filled his mouth with oil -and spat into the hole, but still it clinked. Then Flaune caught a -grasshopper which she dipped in oil and cast into the lock. After that -the lock was silent too. - -On the mid of night Tanil ushered Flaune to the great door, and it -opened in peace. She said “Farewell” to him tenderly, and vanished -away into the darkness, and so to the green mountain. As he stooped, -watching her until his eyes could see no more, the door suddenly closed -and locked against him, leaving him outside the wall. Lights came, and -an outcry and a voice roaring: “Tanil is fled with the King’s mistress. -Turn out the guard.” Tanil knew it to be the voice of a jealous -captain, and, filled with consternation, he too turned and fled away -into the night; not towards the mountains, but to the sea, hoping to -catch a ship that would deliver him. - -Throughout the night he was going, striving or sleeping, and it was -stark noon before he came to the shore and passed over the strait in a -ship conveying merchants to a fair where no one knew him and all were -friendly. He hobnobbed with the merchants for several days, feeding -and sleeping in the booths until the morning of the sixth day, and on -that day a crier came into the fair ringing and bawling, bawling and -ringing, and what he cried was this: - -That King Cumac, Lord of the Forty Kingdoms, Prince of the Moon, and -Chieftain under God, laid a ban upon all who should aid or relieve his -treacherous servant Tanil, who had conspired against the King and -fled. Furthermore it was to be known that Yali, the sister of Tanil, -was taken as hostage for him, that if he failed to redeem her and -deliver up his own body Yali herself was doomed to perish at sunset of -the seventh day after his flight. - -Tanil scarcely waited to hear the conclusion, for he had but one day -more and he could suffer not his sister Yali to die. He turned from -the fair and ran to the sea. As he ran he slipped upon a rock and was -stunned, but a good wife restored him and soon he reached the harbour. -Here none of the sailors would convey him over the strait, for they -were bound to the merchantmen who intended not to sail that day. Having -so little time to reckon Tanil offered them bribes (but in vain), and -threats (but they would not), and he was in torment and anguish until -he came to an old man who said he would take him within the hour if the -wind held and the tide turned. But if the wind failed, although the -tide should ebb never so kindly, yet he would not go: and even should -the tide ebb strongly, yet if the wind wavered from its quarter he -would not go: and if by mysterious caprice (for all was in the hands of -God and a great wonder) the tide itself should not turn, then the wind -might blow a dainty squall but he would not be able to undertake him. -Upon this they agreed, and Tanil and the old sailor sat down in the -little ship to play at checkers. Alas, fortune was against Tanil, he -could not conquer the sailor, so he made to pay down his loss. - -“Friend,” said the sailor, “a game is but a game, put up your purse.” - -Tanil would not put back the money and the sailor said: “Let us then -play on, friend; double or quits.” They played on, and again Tanil -lost, and, as before, tendered his money. “Nay,” said the sailor, “a -game is but a pastime, put back your money.” But Tanil laid it in a -heap upon one of the thwarts. The old sailor sighed and said: “Come, -you are now at the turn of fortune; is not an egg made of water and -a stone of fire: let us play once more; double or quits.” And so -continually, until it was long past noon ere they began to sail in a -course for Cumac’s shore, two leagues over the strait. Now they had -accomplished about three parts of this voyage when the wind slackened -away like a wisp of smoke; slowly they drifted onwards until at eve the -boat lay becalmed, and as yet some way out from the land. “Friend,” -said the old sailor, laying out the checkers again, “let us tempt the -winds of fortune.” But, full of grief at having squandered the precious -hours, Tanil leaped into the sea and swam towards the shore. Soon the -tide checked and was changed, and a current washed him far down the -strait until the fading of day; then he was cast upon a crooking cape -of sand in such darkness of night and such weariness of mind and body -that he could not rise. He lay there for a while consumed with languor -and hunger until the peace refreshed him; the winds of night were -lulled and the waves; but though there were stars in the sky they could -not guide him. - -“Alas,” he groaned, “darkness and the oddness of the coast deceive -me. Whether I venture to the right hand or the left, how shall I make -my way? How little is man’s power; the fox and the hare may wander -deceitfully but undeterred, yet here in this darkness I go groping like -a worm laid upon a rock. Yali, my sister, how shall I preserve you?” - -He went wandering across a hill away from the sea until he stumbled -upon a hurdle and fell; and where he fell he lay still, sleeping. - -Not until the dawn did Tanil wake; then he lay shivering in bonds, with -a company of sheep watchers that stood by and mocked at him. Their -shadows were long, a hundred-fold, for day was but newly dawned. - -Their master was not yet risen from his bed, but the watchers carried -Tanil to the door of his house and called to him. - -“Master, we have caught a robber of the flock, lying by the fold and -feigning sleep.” - -Now the sleepy master lay with a new bride, and he would not stir. - -“Come, master, we have taken a robber,” they cried again. And still he -did not move, but the bride rose and came to the window. - -“What sheep has he stole?” - -They answered her: “None, for we swaddled him; behold!” - -She looked down at Tanil with her pleasant eyes, and bade the men -unbind him. - -“Who guards now the sheep from robbers and wolves?” she called. They -were all silent, and some made to go off. She bade them mend their -ways, and went back to her lover. When the thongs were loosened from -Tanil he begged them to give him a little food for he was empty and -weak, but they scolded him and went hastily away. Their shadows were -long, a hundred-fold. - -Tanil travelled on wings. Yali was to die at fall of night. He hastened -like a lover, but sickness and hunger overcame him; at noon he lay down -in a cool cavern to recover. No other travellers came by him and no -homes were near, for he was passing across the fringe of a desert to -shorten his journey, and the highway crooked round far to the eastward. -Nothing that man could eat was there to sustain him, but he slept. When -he rose his legs weakened and he limped onwards like a slow beggar -whose life lies all behind him. Again he sank down, again he could not -keep from sleeping. The sun was setting when he awoke, the coloured -towers of his city shone only a league away. Then in his heart despair -leaped and maddened him—Yali had died while he tarried. - -Searching through a thicket for some place where he could hang himself -he came upon a river, and saw, close to the shore, a small ship -standing slowly down towards the straits from which he had come. Under -her slack sail a man was playing on a pipe; with him was a monkey -gazing sorrowfully from the deck at the great glow in the sky. - -“Shipman,” cried Tanil, “will you give me bread, I am at an end?” - -The man with a smile of malice held up from the deck a dish of fruits -and said: “Take. I have done.” - -But the hungry man could not reach it. “Throw it to me,” he cried, -following the ship. But the sailor had no mind to throw it upon the -shore; he went leaning against his mast, piping an air, while the -monkey peered at him and gabbled. Tanil plunged into the river and swam -beneath the ship’s keel. Taking a knife from his girdle he was for -mounting by a little hawser, but the man beflogged him with a cudgel -until he fell back into the water. There he would have died but that a -large barque presently catched him up on board and recovered him. - -The ship carried Tanil from the river past the straits and so to the -great sea, where for the space of a year he was borne in absence, -willy-nilly, while the ship voyaged among the archipelagos, coasted -grim seaboards, or lay against strange wharves docking her cargo of -oil. Faithfully he laboured for wages under this ship’s captain, -being a man of pith and limb, valiant in storm, and enamoured of the -uncouth work: the haul of anchor, and men singing; setting, reefing, -furling, and men singing; the watch, the sleep, the song; the treading -of unknown waters, the crying gust, the change to glassy endless calm, -and the change again from green day to black night and the bending -of the harsh sheet in a starry squall, the crumpling of far thunder, -the rattle of halyard and block, the howl of cordage. Grand it was in -some bright tempest to watch the lubber wave slide greenly to the bows -and crack in showers of flying diamonds, but best of all was the long -crunch in from the vast gulfs, and the wafture to some blue bay sighing -below a white dock and the homes of men. - -Forgotten was Yali his loved sister, but that proud living Flaune who -had brought Yali to her death, she was not forgotten. He sailed the -seas and he sailed the seas, but she was ever a soft recalling wonder -in his breast, the sound of a bell of glass beaten by a spirit. - -After a year of hazards the ship by chance docked in that harbour where -Tanil had heard the crier crying of Yali and her doom. Looking about -him he espied an old sailor sitting in his boat playing a game of -checkers with a young man. The crier bawled in the market place, but he -had no news for Tanil. Standing again amid the merchants and the kind -coloured sweetness of streets and people, this bliss of home so welled -up in his breast that he hastened back to the ship. “Master,” he said, -“give me my wages, and let me go.” The shipman gave him his wages, and -he went back to the town. - -But only nine days did he linger there, for joy, like truth, lives in -the bottom of a well, and he cast in his wages. Then he went off with -a hunter to trap leopards in a forest. A month they were gone, and -they trapped the leopards and sold them, and then, having parted from -the hunter, Tanil roved back to the port to spend his gains among the -women of the town. Often his soul invited him to return to that city of -Cumac, but death awaited him there and he did not go. Now he was come -to poverty, but he was blithe, and evil could not chain him. “Surely,” -said Tanil, “life is a hope unquenched and a tree of longing. There -is none so poor but he can love himself.” With a stolen net he used -to catch fish and live. Then he lost the net at dicing. So he went to -bake loaves for certain scholars, but they were unmonied men and he -desisted, and went wandering from village to village snaring birds, or -living like the wild dogs, until a friendly warrior enlisted him to -convoy a caravan across the desert to the great lakes. When he came -again to the harbour town two years had withered since he had flown -from Cumac’s city. - -He went to lodge at the inn, and as he paced in the evening along the -wharf a man accosted him, called him by name, and would not let him go, -and then Tanil knew it was Fax, the brother of that Flaune. His heart -rocked in his breast when he took Fax to the inn and related all his -adventure. “Tell me the tidings of our city, what comes or goes there, -what lives or dies.” And Fax replied: “I have wandered in the world -searching after you from that time. I bring a greeting from my sister -Flaune,” he said, “and from your sister Yali, my beloved.” - -The wonder then, the joy and shame of Tanil, cannot be told: he threw -himself down and wept, and begged Fax to tell him of the miracle: -“For,” said he, “my mind has misused me in this.” - -“Know then,” proceeded Fax, “that after the unlocking of the door -my sister flees in darkness to the green mountain. I go watching and -lurking, and learn that the King is in jealous madness, for your enemy -spreads a slander and Cumac is deceived. He believes that my sister’s -love has been cozened by you. Yali is caught fast in his net. My heart -quivers in fear of his bloody intent, and I say to Flaune: ‘What shall -follow if Tanil return not?’ And she smiles and says ever: ‘He will -return.’ And again I say: ‘He tarries. What if he be dead?’ And she -smiles and says ever: ‘He is not dead.’ But you come not, your steps -are turned from us, no one has seen you, you are like a hare that has -fallen into a pit, and you do not come. Then in that last hour Flaune -goes to Cumac. He raves of deceit and treachery. ‘It is my sin,’ my -sister pleads, ‘the blame is mine. Spare but this Yali and I will wash -out the blame.’ ’Ay, you will wash it out with words!‘ ’I will pay the -debt in kind,’ says my sister Flaune, ‘if Tanil does not return.’ But -the cunning King will not yield up Yali unless my sister yield in love -to him. So thus it stands even now, but whether they live in peace and -love I do not know. I only know that Yali lives and serves her in the -palace there. But they wait, and I too wait. Now the thread is ravelled -to its end; I have lived only to seek you. My flock is lost, perished; -my vineyard fades, but I came seeking.” - -“Brother,” cried Tanil in grief, “all shall be as before. Yali shall -rest in your bosom.” - -At dawn then they sailed over the straits and landed, and having -bargained with a wine carrier for two asses they rode off in the -direction of the city. Tanil’s heart was filled with joy and love, his -voice carolled, his mind hummed like a homing bee. “Surely,” he said, -“life is a hope unquenched, a tree of longing. It yields its branches -into a little world of summer. The asp and the dragon appear, but the -tree buds, the enriching bough cherishes its leaves, and, lo, the fruit -hangs.” - -But the heart of Fax was very grave within him. “For,” thought he, -“this man will surely die. Yet I would rather this than lose the love -of Yali, and though they slay him I will bring him there.” - -So they rode along upon the asses, and a great bird on high followed -them and hovered on its wings. - -“What bird is that?” asked the one. And the other, screening his eyes -and peering upwards, said: - -“A vulture.” - -When King Cumac heard that they were come he ordered them to be bound, -and they were bound, and the guard clustered around them. Tanil saw -that his enemy was now captain of the men, and that the King was sour -and distraught. - -“You come!” cried Cumac, “why do you come?” - -They told him it was to redeem the bond and make quittance. - -“Bonds and quittances! What bond can lie between a King and faithless -subjects?” - -Said Fax: “It lies between the King and my sister Flaune.” - -“How if I kill you both?” - -“The bond will hold,” said Fax. - -“Come, is a bond everlasting then, shall nothing break it?” - -“Neither everlasting, nor to be broken.” - -“What then?” - -“It shall be fulfilled.” - -“Can nothing amend it?” - -“Nothing,” said Fax. - -“Nothing? Nothing? Fools!” laughed the King, “the woman is happy, and -desires not to leave me!” - -Tanil stood bowed in silence and shame, and Cumac turned upon him. -“What says this rude passionate beast!” The King’s anger rose like a -blast among oaks. “Has he no talk of bonds, this toad that crawled into -my heart and drank my living blood? Has he nothing to restore? or gives -he and takes he at the will of the wind?” - -“I have a life to give,” said Tanil. - -“To give! You have a life to lose!” - -“Take it, Cumac,” said he. - -The King sprang up and seized Tanil by the beard, rocking him, and -shouting through his gritting teeth: “Ay, bonds should be kept—should -they not?—in truth and trust—should they not?” - -Then he flung from him and went wailing in misery, swinging his hands, -and raging to and fro, up and down. - -“Did she not come to me, come to me? Was it not agreed? Bonds and again -bonds! Yet when I woo her she denies me still. O, honesty in petticoats -is a saint with a devil’s claw. The bitter virginal thing turned her -wild heart to this piece of cloven honour. Bonds, more bonds! Spare me -these supple bonds! O, you spread cunning nets, but what fowler ever -thrived in his own snare? Did she not come to me? Was it not agreed?” - -Suddenly he stopped and made a sign through a casement. “Is all ready?” - -“Ay,” cried a voice. - -“Now I will make an end,” said King Cumac. “Prop them against the -casements.” They carried Tanil to a casement on his right hand, and Fax -to a casement on his left hand. Tanil saw Flaune standing in the palace -garden amid a troop of Ethiopians, each with a green turban and red -shoes and a tunic coloured like a stone, but she half-clad with only -black pantaloons, and her long dark locks flowing. And Fax saw Yali in -fetters amid another troop of black soldiers. - -Again a sigh from the King; two great swords flashed, and Tanil, at one -casement, saw the head of Flaune turn over backwards and topple to the -ground, her body falling after with a great swathe of shorn tresses -floating over it. Fax at the other casement saw Yali die, screaming a -long cry that it seemed would never end. Tanil swayed at the casement. - -Then Cumac turned with a moan of grief, his madness all gone. “The bond -is ended. I have done. I say I have done.” He seemed to wake as from -sleep, and, seeing the two captive men, he asked: “Why did they come? -What brought them here? Take them away, the bond is ended, I say I have -done. There shall be no more bonds given in the world. But take them -out of the city gate and unbind them and cast them both loose; then -clap fast the gate again. No more death, I would not have them die; let -them wander in the live world, and dog each other for ever. Tanil, you -rotten core of constancy, Fax brought you here and so Flaune, bitter -and beautiful, dies. But Fax still lives—do you not see him?—I give Fax -to you: may he die daily for ever. Fax, blundering jackal, you spoke of -bonds. The bond is met, and so Yali is dead, but Tanil still lives: I -give you Tanil as an offering, but not of peace. May he die daily for -ever.” - -So the guard took Fax and Tamil out of the city, struck off their -shackles, and left them there together. - - * * * * * - -The bird man finished; there was a silence; the other yawned. “Did -you hear this?” asked the bird man. And the man in the stripéd jacket -replied: “Ay, with both ears, and so may God bless you.” So saying, he -rose and went out singing. - - - - - _The Devil in the Churchyard_ - - -“Henry Turley was one of those awkward old chaps as had more money than -he knowed what to do wi'. Shadrach we called him, the silly man. He had -worked for it, worked hard for it, but when he was old he stuck to his -fortune and wouldn’t spend a sixpence of it on his comforts. What a -silly man!” - -The thatcher, who was thus talking of Henry Turley (long since dead and -gone) in the “Black Cat” of Starncombe, was himself perhaps fifty years -old. Already there was a crank of age or of dampness or of mere custom -in most of his limbs, but he was bluff and gruff and hale enough, with -a bluffness of manner that could only offend a fool—and fools never -listened to him. - -“Shadrach—that’s what we called him—was a good man wi’ cattle, a -masterpiece; he would strip a cow as clean as a tooth and you never -knowed a cow have a bad quarter as Henry Turley ever milked. And when -he was buried he was buried with all that money in his coffin, holding -it in his hand, I reckon. He had plenty of relations—you wouldn’t know -’em, it is thirty years ago I be speaking of—but it was all down in -black and white so’s no one could touch it. A lot of people in these -parts had a right to some of it, Jim Scarrott for one, and Issy Hawker -a bit, Mrs. Keelson, poor woman, ought to have had a bit, and his own -brother, Mark Turley; but he left it in the will as all his fortune was -to be buried in the coffin along of him. ’Twas cruel, but so it is and -so it will be, for whenever such people has a shilling to give away -they goes and claps it on some fat pig’s haunches. The foolishness! -Sixty pounds it was, in a canister, and he held it in his hand.” - -“I don’t believe a word of it,” said a mild-faced man sitting in the -corner. “Henry Turley never did a deed like that.” - -“What?” growled the thatcher with unusual ferocity. - -“Coorse I’m not disputing what you’re saying, but he never did such a -thing in his life.” - -“Then you calls me a liar?” - -“Certainly not. O no, don’t misunderstand me, but Henry Turley never -did any such thing, I can’t believe it of him.” - -“Huh! I be telling you facts, and facts be true one way or another. Now -you waunts to call over me, you waunts to know the rights of everything -and the wrongs of nothing.” - -“Well,” said the mild-faced man, pushing his pot toward the teller of -tales, “I might believe it to-morrow, but it’s a bit of a twister now, -this minute!” - -“Ah, that’s all right then”—the thatcher was completely mollified. -“Well the worst part of the case was his brother Mark. Shadrach served -him shameful, treated him like a dog. (Good health!) Ah, like a dog. -Mark was older nor him, about seventy, and he lived by himself in -a little house out by the hanging pust, not much of a cottage, it -warn’t—just wattle and daub wi’ a thetch o’ straa'—but the lease was -running out (‘twas a lifehold affair) and unless he bought this little -house for fifty pound he’d got to go out of it. Well, old Mark hadn’t -got no fifty pounds, he was ate up wi’ rheumatics and only did just a -little light labour in the woods, they might as well a’ asked him for -the King’s crown, so he said to his master: Would he lend him the fifty -pounds? - -“‘No, I can’t do that,’ his master says. - -“‘You can reduct it from my wages,’ Mark says. - -“‘Nor I can’t do that neither,’ says his master, ‘but there’s your -brother Henry, he’s worth a power o’ money, ask him.‘ So Mark asks -Shadrach to lend him the fifty pounds, so’s he could buy this little -house. ’No,’ says Henry, ‘I can’t.’ Nor he wouldn’t. Well—old Mark says -to him: ‘I doan wish you no harm Henry,’ he says, ‘but I hope as how -you’ll die in a ditch.’ (Good health!) And sure enough he did. That -was his own brother, he were strooken wi’ the sun and died in a ditch, -Henry did, and when he was buried his fortune was buried with him, in a -little canister, holding it in his hand, I reckons. And a lot of good -that was to him! He hadn’t been buried a month when two bad parties -putt their heads together. Levi Carter, one was, he was the sexton, a -man that was half a loony as I always thought. O yes, he had got all -his wits about him, somewheres, only they didn’t often get much of a -quorum, still he got them—somewheres. T’other was a chap by the name of -Impey, lived in Slack the shoemaker’s house down by the old traveller’s -garden. He wasn’t much of a mucher, helped in the fieldwork and did -shepherding at odd times. And these two chaps made up their minds to -goo and collar Henry Turley’s fortune out of his coffin one night and -share it between theirselves. ’Twas crime, ye know, might a been prison -for life, but this Impey was a bad lot—he’d the manners of a pig, -pooh! filthy!—and I expects he persuaded old Levi on to do it. Bad as -body-snatchen, coorse ’twas! - -“So they goos together one dark night, ’long in November it was, and -well you knows, all of you, as well as I, that nobody can’t ever see -over our churchyard wall by day let alone on a dark night. You all -knows that, don’t you?” asserted the thatcher, who appeared to lay -some stress upon this point in his narrative. There were murmurs -of acquiescence by all except the mild-faced man, and the thatcher -continued: “‘Twere about nine o’clock when they dug out the earth. -’Twarn’t a very hard job, for Henry was only just a little way down. -He was buried on top of his old woman, and she was on top of her two -daughters. But when they got down to the coffin Impey didn’t much care -for that part of the job, he felt a little bit sick, so he gives the -hammer and the screwdriver to Levi and he says: ’Levi,’ he says, ‘are -you game to make a good job o’ this?’ - -“‘Yes, I be,’ says old Levi. - -“‘Well, then,’ Impey says, ‘yous’ll have my smock on now while I just -creeps off to old Wannaker’s sheep and collars one of they fat lambs -over by the 'lotments.’ - -“‘You’re not going to leave me here,’ says Carter, ‘what be I going to -do?’ - -“‘You go on and finish this ’ere job, Levi,’ he says, ‘you get the -money and put back all the earth and don’t stir out of the yard afore I -comes or I’ll have yer blood.’ - -“‘No,’ says Carter, ‘you maun do that.’ - -“‘I ’ull do that,’ Impey says, ‘he’ve got some smartish lambs I can -tell ’ee, fat as snails.’ - -“‘No,’ says Carter, ‘I waun’t have no truck wi’ that, tain’t right.’ - -“‘You will,’ says Impey, ‘and I ’ull get the sheep. Here’s my smock. -I’ll meet ’ee here again in ten minutes. I’ll have that lamb if I ’as -to cut his blasted head off.’ And he rooshed away before Levi could -stop him. So Carter putts on the smock and finishes the job. He got -the money and putt the earth back on poor Henry and tidied it up, and -then he went and sat in the church poorch waiting for this Impey to -come back. Just as he did that an oldish man passed by the gate. He was -coming to this very place for a drop o’ drink and he sees old Levi’s -white figure sitting in the church poorch and it frittened him so that -he took to his heels and tore along to this very room we be sittin’ in -now—only 'twas thirty years ago. - -“‘What in the name of God’s the matter wi’ you?‘ they says to him, for -he’d a face like chalk and his lips was blue as a whetstone. ’Have you -seen a goost?’ - -“‘Yes,’ he says, ‘I have seen a goost, just now then.’ - -“‘A goost?’ they says, ‘a goost? You an’t seen no goost.’ - -“‘I seen a goost.’ - -“‘Where a’ you seen a goost?’ - -“So he telled ’em he seen a goost sitting up in the church poorch. - -“‘I shan’t have that,’ says old Mark Turley, for he was a setting here. - -“‘I tell you ’twas then,’ says the man. - -“‘Can’t be nothing worse’n I be myself,’ Mark says. - -“‘I say as ’tis,’ the man said, and he was vexed too. ‘Goo and see for -yourself.’ - -“‘I would goo too and all,’ said old Mark, ‘if only I could walk -it, but my rheumatucks be that scrematious I can’t walk it. Goosts! -There’s ne’er a mortal man as ever see’d a goost. I’d go, my lad, if -my legs ’ud stand it.’ And there was a lot of talk like that until a -young sailor spoke up—Irish he was, his name was Pat Crowe, he was on -furlough. I dunno what he was a-doing in this part of the world, but -there he was and he says to Mark: ‘If you be game enough, I be, and -I’ll carry you up to the churchyard on my back.’ A great stropping -feller he was. ‘You will?’ says Mark. ‘That I will,’ he says. ‘Well I -be game for ’ee,’ says Mark, and so they ups him on to the sailor’s -shoulders like a sack o’ corn and away they goos, but not another one -there was man enough to goo with them. - -“They went slogging up to the churchyard gate all right, but when they -got to staggering along ’tween the gravestones Mark thought he could -see a something white sitting in the poorch, but the sailor couldn’t -see anything at all with that lump on his shoulders. - -“‘What’s that there?’ Mark whispers in Pat’s ear. And Pat Crowe -whispers back, just for joking: ‘Old Nick in his nightshirt.’ - -“‘Steady now,’ Mark whispers, ‘go steady Pat, it’s getting up and -coming.’ Pat only gives a bit of a chuckle and says: ‘Ah, that’s him, -that’s just like him.’ - -“Then Levi calls out from the poorch soft like: ‘You got him then! Is -he a fat ’un?’ - -“‘Holy God,’ cried the sailor, ‘it _is_ the devil!’ and he chucks poor -Mark over his back at Levi’s feet and runs for his mortal life. He was -the most frittened of the lot ’cos he hadn’t believed in anything at -all—but there it was. And just as he gets to the gate he sees someone -else coming along in the dark carrying a something on its shoulder—it -was Impey wi’ the sheep. ‘Powers above,’ cried Pat Crowe, ‘it’s the Day -of Judgment come for sartin!’ And he went roaring the news up street -like a madman, and Impey went off somewheres too—but I dunno where -Impey went. - -“Well, poor old Mark laid on the ground, he were a game old cock, but -he could hardly speak, he was strook dazzled. And Levi was frittened -out of his life in the darkness and couldn’t make anythink out of -nothink. He just creeps along to Mark and whispers: ‘Who be that? Who -be that?’ And old Mark looks up very timid, for he thought his last -hour was on him, and he says: ‘Be that you, Satan?’ Drackly Levi heard -that all in a onexpected voice he jumped quicker en my neighbour’s -flea. He gave a yell bigger nor Pat Crowe and he bolted too. But as he -went he dropped the little tin canister and old Mark picked it up. And -he shook the canister, and he heerd money in it, and then something -began to dawn on him, for he knowed how his brother’s fortune had been -buried. - -“‘I rede it, I rede it,’ he says, ‘that was Levi Carter, the dirty -thief! I rede it, I rede it,’ he says. And he putt the tin can in his -pocket and hopped off home as if he never knowed what rheumatucks was -at all. And when he opened that canister there was the sixty golden -sovereigns in that canister. Sixty golden sovereigns! ‘Bad things ’ull -be worse afore they’re better,’ says Mark, ‘but they never won’t be -any better than this.’ And so he stuck to the money in the canister, -and that’s how he bought his cottage arter all. ’Twarn’t much of a -house, just wattle and daub, wi’ a thetch o’ straa', but ’twas what he -fancied, and there he ended his days like an old Christian man. (Good -health!)” - - - - - _Huxley Rustem_ - - -Huxley Rustem settled himself patiently upon the hairdresser’s waiting -bench to probe the speculation that jumped grasshopper-like into the -field of his inquisitorial mind: ’Why does a man become a barber? -Well, what _is_ it that persuades a man, not by the mere compulsion of -destiny, but by the sweet reasonableness of inclination, to dedicate -his activities to the excision of other people’s pimples and the -discomfiture of their hairy growths? He had glanced through the two -papers, _Punch_ and _John Bull_, handed him by the boy in buttons, -and now, awaiting his turn, posed himself with this inquiry. There -was a girl at it, too, at the end of the saloon. She seemed to have -picked him out from the crowd of men there; he caught her staring, an -attractive girl. It seemed insoluble; misfortunate people may, indeed -must, by the pressure of circumstances, become sewermen, butchers, -scavengers, and even clergymen, but the impulse to barbery was, he -felt, quite indelicately ironic. How that girl stared at him—if she was -not very careful she would be clipping the fellow’s ear—did she think -she knew him? He rather hoped she would have to attend to him; would -he be lucky enough? Huxley tried to estimate the chances by observing -the half-dozen toilets in progress, but his calculations did not -encourage the hope at all. It was very charming for an agreeable woman, -a stranger, too, to do that kind of service for you. He remembered -that, after his marriage five years ago, he had tried to persuade his -wife to lather and shave him, “just for a lark, you know,” but she was -adamant, didn’t see the joke at all! Well, well, he decided that the -word barber derived in some ironic way from the words barbarism or -barbarity, expressing, unconsciously perhaps, contempt on the part of -the barber for a world that could only offer him this imposture for -a man’s sacred will to order and activity. Yet it didn’t seem so bad -for women—that splendid young creature there at the end of the saloon! -The boy in buttons approached, and Huxley Rustem was ushered to that -vacant chair at the end; the splendid young thing had placed a wrapper -about him—she had almost “cuddled” it round his neck—and stood demurely -preparing to do execution upon his poll, turning her eyes mischievously -upon his bright-hued socks, which, by a notable coincidence, were the -same colour as her own handsome hose. Huxley had a feeling that she had -cunningly arranged the succession of turns in order to secure him to -her chair—which shows that he was still young and very impressionable. -Such a feeling is one of the customary assumptions of vanity, the -natural and prized, but much-denied, possession of all agreeable -people. Huxley, as the girl had already noted, and now saw more vividly -in the mirror fronting them, _was_ agreeable, was attractive. (My dear -reader, both you and Huxley Rustem are right, the dainty barbaress -_had_ laid her nets for this particular victim.) - -“How would you like it cut, sir?” she asked, placing a hand upon each -of his shoulders, and peering round at him with enamouring eyes. - -“Oh, with a pair of scissors, don’t you think?” he replied at a -venture, for he was not often waggish. But it was a very successful -sally, the girl chuckled with rapture, loose fringes of her hair -tickled his cheek, and he caught puffs of her sweet-scented breath. She -was gold-haired, not very tall, and had pleasant turns about her neck -and face and wrists that almost fascinated him. When they had agreed -upon the range and extent of his shearing, the girl proceeded to the -accomplishment of the task in complete silence, almost with gravity. -Huxley began wondering how many hundreds and thousands of crops were -squeezed annually by the delicious fingers, how many polls denuded by -those competent shears. Very sad. Once a year, he supposed, she would -go holidaying for a week or ten days; she would go to Bournemouth for -the bathing or for whatever purpose it is people go to Bournemouth, -Barmouth, or Blackpool. He determined to come in again the day after -to-morrow and be shaved by her. - -At the conclusion of the rite she brushed his coat collar very -meticulously, tiptoeing a little, and remarked in a bright manner upon -the weather, which was also bright. Then she went back to shave what -Huxley described to himself as a “red-faced old cockalorum,” whom he -at once disliked very thoroughly. She had given him a check with a fee -marked upon it; he took this down the stairs and paid his dues to “a -bald-headed old god-like monster”—Huxley felt sure he was—who sat in -the shop below, surrounded by fringe-nets, stuffings, moustache wax, -creams, toothbrushes, and sponges. - -Two days later Huxley Rustem repeated his visit, but not all the -intrigue of the girl nor his own manœuvring could effect the happy -arrangement again, although he sat for a long time feeling sure that -there was no other establishment of its kind in which the elements -of celerity were so unreservedly abandoned, and the flunkeyism so -peculiarly viscous. The many mirrors, of course, multiplied the -objects of his factitious contempt; those male barbers were small vain -beings of disagreeable outline to whom the doom of shaving tens of -thousands of chins for ever and ever afforded a white-faced languid -happiness. Huxley was exasperated—his personality always ran so easily -to exasperation—by the care with which the wrinkled face of a sportive -old gent of sixty was being massaged with steaming cloths. He wore -pretty brown button boots and large check trousers; there was still a -vain wisp or two of white hair left upon his tight round skull and his -indescribably silly old face. In the outcome our hero had perforce to -be shaved by a youth of the last revolting assiduity, who caressed his -chin with strong, excoriating palms. - -In the ensuing weeks Huxley Rustem became a regular visitor to the -saloon, but he suffered repeated disappointments. He was disconsolate; -it was most baffling; not once did he secure the bliss of her -attentions. He felt himself a fool; some men could do these things -as easily as they grew whiskers, but Rustem was not one of them, for -the traditions of virtue and sweet conduct were very firmly rooted in -him; he was like a mouse living in a large white empty bath which, -if it was unscaleable, was clean, and if it was rather blank was -never terrifying. It is easy, so very easy, to be virtuous when you -can’t be anything else. But still he very much desired to take the -fair barber out to dinner, say, just for an hour or two in a quiet -place where one eats and chats and listens to the pleasant shrilling -of restaurant violins. He would be able to amuse her with tales and -recitals of his experiences and she would constantly exclaim “Really!” -as if entranced—as she probably would be. In his imagined hour her -conversational exchanges never developed beyond that, yet it was enough -to thrill him with a mild happiness. An egoist is a mystic without a -god, but seldom ever without a goddess. It was bliss to adore her, but -very heaven for her to be adoring him. To be just to Huxley Rustem -that was all he meant, but try as he would he could never make up the -happy occasion. It was a most discomfiting experience. It is true that -he saw her in the street on three or four occasions, but each time he -was accompanied by his wife, and each time he was guilty of a vain -pretence, his behaviour to his companion being extremely casual—as if -she were just an acquaintance instead of being an important alliance. -But no one could possibly have mistaken the lady for anything but -Huxley’s very own wife, and the little barber was provocatively demure -at these encounters. Once, however, he was alone, and she passed, -ogling him in a very frank way. But she did not understand egoists like -Rustem. He was impervious to any such direct challenge; he thought it -a little silly, coarse even. Had she been shy and diffident, allowing -him to be masterful instead of confusing him, he would have fluttered -easily into her flame. - -So the affair remained, and would have remained for ever but that, -by the grace of fortune, he found himself one day at last actually -sitting again in front of the charming girl, who was not less aware -of the attraction than he himself. She was nervous and actually with -her shears clipped a part of his ear. Huxley was rather glad of that, -it eased the situation, but on his departure he committed the rash -act for which he never afterwards forgave himself. Her fingers were -touching his as she gave him the pay check, when he took suddenly from -his pocket a silver coin and pressed it into her hand, smiling. It -was as if he had struck her a blow. He was shocked at the surprised -resentment in the fierce glance she flung him. She tossed the coin into -a tray for catching tobacco ash and cigarette ends. He realized at once -the enormity of the affront; his vulgar act had smashed the delicate -little coil between them. Vague and almost frivolous as it was, she had -prized it. Poor as it was, it could yet deeply humiliate him. But it -was a blunder that could never be retrieved, and he turned quickly and -sadly out of the saloon, feeling the awful sting of his own contempt. -Crass fool that he was, didn’t he realize that even barbers had their -altitudes? Did he think he could buy a jewel like that, as he bought -a packet of tobacco, with a miserable shilling? Perhaps Huxley Rustem -was unduly sensitive about it, but he could never again bring himself -to enter the saloon and meet that wounded gaze. He only recovered his -balance when, a fortnight later, he encountered her in the street -wearing the weeds of a widow! Then he felt almost as indignant as if -she had indeed deceived him! - - - - - _Big Game_ - - -Old Squance was the undertaker, but in the balmy, healthy, equable air -of Tamborough undertaking was not a thriving trade; its opportunities -were but an ornamental adjunct to his more vital occupation of -builder. Even so those old splendid stone-built cottages never needed -repairs, or if they did Squance didn’t do them. Storms wouldn’t visit -Tamborough, fires didn’t occur, the hand of decay was, if anything, -more deliberate than the hand of time itself, and no newcomer, loving -the old houses so much, ever wanted to build a new one: so Mrs. Squance -had to sell hard-looking bullseyes and stiff-looking fruit in a hard, -stiff-looking shop. Also knitting needles and, in their time of the -year, garden seeds. Squance was a meek person whom you would never have -credited with heroic tendencies; nevertheless, with no more romantic -background than a coffin or two, a score of scaffold poles, and sundry -hods and shovels, he had acquired in a queer, but still not unusual, -way the repute of a lion-slayer. Mrs. Squance was not so meek, she was -not meek at all, she was ambitious—but vainly so. Her ambitions secured -their fulfilment only in her nocturnal dreams, but in that sphere they -were indeed triumphant and she was satisfied. The most frequent setting -of her unconscious imagination happened to be a tiny modern flat in -which she and old Ben seemed to be living in harmony and luxury. It -was a delightful flat, very high up—that was the proper situation for -a flat, mind you, just under the roof—with stairs curling down, and -down, and down till it made you giddy to think of them. The kitchen, -well, really Mrs. Squance could expatiate endlessly on that and the -tiny corner place with two wash-basins in it and room enough to install -a bath if you went in for that kind of thing. Best of all was the -sitting-room in front, looking into a street so very far below that -Mrs. Squance declared she felt as if she had been sitting in a balloon. -Here Mrs. Squance, so she dreamed, would sit and browse. She didn’t -have to look at ordinary things like trees and mud and other people’s -windows. That was what made it so nice, Mrs. Squance declared. She had -instead a vista of roofs and chimneys, beautiful telephone standards, -and clouds. The people, too, who walked far down beneath were always -unrecognizable; a multitude of hat crowns seemed to collect her gaze, -linked with queer movements, right, left, right, left, of knees and -boots, though sometimes she would be lucky enough to observe a very -fat man, just a glimpse perhaps of his watch-guard lying like a chain -of oceanic islands across a scholastic globe. In the way of dreams -she knew the street by the name of Lather Lane. It was cobbled with -granite setts. There was a barber’s shop at one corner and a depot for -foreign potatoes and bananas at another. That flat was so constantly -the subject of her dream visitations that she came to invest it with -a romantic reality, to regard it as an ultimate real possession lying -fortuitously somewhere, at no very great remove, in some quarter she -might actually, any day now, luckily stumble across. - -And it was in that very flat she beheld Mr. Squance’s heroism. It -seemed to be morning in her dream, early; it must have been early. -She and Squance were at breakfast when what should walk deliberately -and astoundingly into the room but a lion. Mrs. Squance, never having -seen a lion before, took it to be a sheepdog, and she shouted, “Go -out, you dirty thing!” waving a threatening hand towards it. But the -animal did not go out; it pranced up to Mrs. Squance in a genial way, -seized her admonishing hand and playfully tried to bite it off. Really! -Mr. Squance had risen to his startled feet shouting “Lion! lion!” and -then Mrs. Squance realized that she had to contend with a monster -that kept swelling bigger and bigger before her very eyes, until it -seemed that it would never be able to go out of that door again. It -had a tremendous head and mane, with whiskers on its snout as stiff as -knitting needles, and claws like tenpenny nails; but its tail was the -awfullest thing, long and very flexible, with a bush of hair at the end -just like a mop, which it wagged about, smashing all sorts of things. - -“Ben,” said Mrs. Squance, “'ave you a pistol?” - -“No, I ’ave not,” said Ben. - -“Then we’re done,” she had declared. “Oh, no, we ain’t, though! You -’old ’im, Ben, and I’ll go and get a pistol; ’old ’im!” - -Ben valiantly seized the lion by its mane and tail, but it did not -care for such treatment; it began to snarl and swish about the room, -dragging poor Ben as if he had been just a piece of rabbit pie. - -“'Old ’im! ’old ’im!” exhorted Mrs. Squance, as she popped on her -bonnet and shawl. “You ’old 'im!” - -“All right,” breathed Ben, as she ran off and began the descent of the -long narrow staircase. Almost at the bottom she met a piano coming -upwards. It was not a very large piano, but it was large enough to -prevent her from descending any further. It was resting upon the backs -of two men, one in front, whose entirely bald, perspiring, projecting -head reminded her of the head of a tortoise, and one who followed him -unseen. They crawled on all fours, while the piano was balanced by a -man who pulled it in front and another who pushed it from behind. - -“Dear me!” exclaimed Mrs. Squance. “I ’ope you won’t be long.” - -They made no reply; the piano continued to advance, the bald man -swaying his head still more like a tortoise. She began to retire before -them, and continued retiring step by step until she became irritated -and demanded to know the owner of that piano. The men seemed to be -dumb, so she skipped up to the second floor to make enquiries, knocking -at the first door with her left hand—the right one still hurting her -very much. It was exasperating. Someone had just painted and varnished -the doors, and she was compelled to tap very lightly instead of giving -the big bang the occasion required. Consequently no one heard her, -while her hand became covered with a glutinous evil liquid. She ran up -to the third floor. Here the doors were all right, but although she -set up a vigorous cannonade again no one heard her, at least, no one -replied except some gruff voice that kept repeating “Gone, no address! -Gone, no address!” She opened the doors, but there seemed to be no one -about, although each room had every appearance of recent occupation: -fires alight, breakfast things recently used, and in the bedrooms the -disordered beds. She was now extremely annoyed. She opened all the -doors quickly until she came to the last room, which was occupied -by the old clergyman who kept ducks there and fed them on macaroni -cheese. It was just as she feared; the ducks were waiting, they flocked -quacking upon the passage and stairs before she could prevent them. - -“I’m sure,” screamed Mrs. Squance, in her dreadful rage, “it’s that -lion responsible for all this!” - -She wasted no more time upon the matter. She rapidly descended the -stairs again, treading upon innumerable indignant ducks, until she -came to the piano. Here she said not a word, but, brushing the leading -man aside, placed her foot roughly upon the slippery head of the first -crawling man and scrambled over the top of the instrument, jumping -thence upon the back part of the hindmost man, who turned his feet -comically inwards, and wore round his loins a belt as large as the -belly-band of a waggon horse. - -She proceeded breathlessly until she came to the last flight, where, -behold! the stairs had all been smashed in by those awkward pianists, -and she stood on the dreadful verge of a drop into a cellar full of -darkness and disgusting smells. But she was able to leap upon the -banister-rail which was intact, and slide splendidly to the ground -floor. An unusual sight awaited her. Mrs. Squance did not remember -ever to have seen such a thing before, but there in the hall a -marvellous eustacia tree was growing out of the floor. She was not -surprised at the presence of a tree in that unwonted situation. She had -not noticed it before, but it did not seem out of place. Why shouldn’t -trees grow where they liked? They always did. Mrs. Squance invariably -took life as she found it, even in dreams. While she was surveying -the beautiful proportions of the eustacia tree, the richness of its -leaves, and its fine aroma a small bird, without warning or apology, -alighted upon her right hand—which she carried against her chest as if -it were in a sling, though it wasn’t—and laid an egg on it. It _was_ -so annoying, she did not know what to do with it; she was afraid of -smashing it. She rushed from the building, and entered the butcher’s -shop a few doors away. The shop was crowded with customers, and the -butcher perspired and joked with geniality, as is the immemorial -custom with butchers. His boy, a mere tot of five or six years of age, -observed to Mrs. Squance that it was “a lovely day, ma’am,” and she -replied that it was splendid. So it was. People were buying the most -extraordinarily fleshly fare, the smelt of an ox, a rib of suet, a -fillet of liver, and one little girl purchased nineteen lambs’ tongues, -which she took away secretly in a portmanteau. - -“Now Mrs. Squance, what can I do for you?” enquired the butcher. -Without comment she handed him the egg of the bird. He cast it into the -till as if it were a crown piece. “And the next thing, ma’am?” - -“'Ave you got such a thing as a pistol, Mr. Verryspice?” - -Mr. Verryspice had, he had got two, and drawing them from the belt -wherefrom dangled his sharpener, he laid two remarkable pieces of -ordnance before her. In her renewed agitation she would have snatched -up one of the pistols, but Mr. Verryspice prevented her. - -“No, no, ma’am, I shall have to get permission for you to use it first.” - -“But I really must ’ave it immediate....” - -“Yes?” said the butcher. - -“ ... for my husband.” - -“I see,” he replied sympathetically. “Well, come along then and I’ll -get an interim permission at once.” Seizing a tall silk hat from -its hook and placing it firmly upon his head he led her from his -establishment. - -“Singular that the trams are all so full this morning,” commented Mrs. -Squance as they awaited a conveyance. - -“Most unusual, ma’am,” replied Mr. Verryspice. But at last they -persuaded a bathchair man to give them a lift to their destination, -where they arrived a little indecorously perhaps, for the top-hatted -butcher was sitting as unconcernedly and as upright as a wax figure -upon Mrs. Squance’s knees. The office they sought lay somewhere in a -vast cavernous building full of stairs and corridors, long, exhausting, -hollow corridors like the Underground railway, and on every floor and -turning were signposts of the turnpike variety with directions: - -“To the Bedel of St. Thomas’s Basket, 3 miles.” - -“Registrar of Numismatics and Obligations, 2¼.” - -Along one of these passages they plunged, and after some aggravating -hindrances, including a demand from a humpty-backed clerk for a packet -of No. 19 egg-eyed sharps, and five pennyworth of cachous which she -found in her bosom, the permission was secured, and the butcher -thereupon handed the weapon to Mrs. Squance. - -“What did you say you wanted it for?” he asked. - -Mrs. Squance’s gratitude was great, but her indignation was deep and -disdained reply. She seized the pistol and began to run home. Rather -a stout lady, too, and the exercise embarrassed her. Her hair fetched -loose, her stockings slipped down, and her strange, hurrying figure, -brandishing a pistol, soon attracted the notice of policemen and a -certain young greengrocer with a tray of onions, who trotted in her -wake until she threatened them all with the firearm. - -Breathlessly at last she mounted the tremendous staircase. Happily in -the interval the damage had been repaired, the tree chopped down, piano -delivered, and ducks recaptured. She reached her rooms only in time to -hear a great crash of glass from within. Old Ben was strutting about -with a triumphant air. - -“I done ’im—I done ’im,” he called. “You can come in now; I’ve just -chucked ’im through the window!” And sure enough he had. The sash -looked as if it had been blown out by a cannon-ball. Mrs. Squance -peered out, and there, far down at the front door, curled up as if -asleep, lay the lion. At that moment the milkman arrived, with that -dissonant clatter peculiar to milkmen. He dashed down his cans close -by the nose of the lion, which apparently he had not seen. The scared -animal leaped up in its terror, and darting down an alley was seen no -more. - -So far this narrative, devoid as it is of moral grandeur and literary -grace, has subjected the reader’s comprehension to no scientific -rigours; but he who reads on will discern its cunning import—a -psychological outcome with the profoundest implications. Listen. Mrs. -Squance awoke that morning in her own hard-looking little house of one -floor, with the hard-looking shop, startled to find the window of their -room actually smashed, and inexplicable pains in her right hand. She -related these circumstances in after years with so many symptoms of -truth and propriety that she herself at last vividly believed in the -figure of old Ben as a lion-slayer. “Saved my life when I was ’tacked -by a lion!” she would say to her awed grandchildren, and she would -proceed to regale them with a narration which, I regret to say, had -only the remotest likeness to the foregoing story. - - - - - _The Poor Man_ - - -One of the commonest sights in the vale was a certain man on a bicycle -carrying a bag full of newspapers. He was as much a sound as a sight, -for what distinguished him from all other men to be encountered there -on bicycles was not his appearance, though that was noticeable; it was -his sweet tenor voice, heard as he rode along singing each morning from -Cobbs Mill, through Kezzal Predy Peter, Thasper, and Buzzlebury, and -so on to Trinkel and Nuncton. All sorts of things he sang, ballads, -chanties, bits of glees, airs from operas, hymns, and sacred anthems—he -was leader of Thasper church choir—but he seemed to observe some sort -of rotation in their rendering. In the forepart of the week it was -hymns and anthems; on Wednesday he usually turned to modestly secular -tunes; he was rolling on Thursday and Friday through a gamut of love -songs and ballads undoubtedly secular and not necessarily modest, -while on Saturday—particularly at eve, spent in the tap of “The White -Hart”—his programme was entirely ribald and often a little improper. -But always on Sunday he was the most decorous of men, no questionable -liquor passed his lips, and his comportment was a credit to the church, -a model even for soberer men. - -Dan Pavey was about thirty-five years old, of medium height and of -medium appearance except as to his hat (a hard black bowler which -seemed never to belong to him, though he had worn it for years) and as -to his nose. It was an ugly nose, big as a baby’s elbow; he had been -born thus, it had not been broken or maltreated, though it might have -engaged in some pre-natal conflict when it was malleable, since when -nature had healed, but had not restored it. But there was ever a soft -smile that covered his ugliness, which made it genial and said, or -seemed to say: Don’t make a fool of me, I am a friendly man, this is -really my hat, and as for my nose—God made it so. - -The six hamlets which he supplied with newspapers lie along the -Icknield Vale close under the ridge of woody hills, and the inhabitants -adjacent to the woods fell the beech timber and, in their own homes, -turn it into rungs or stretchers for chair manufacturers who, somewhere -out of sight beyond the hills, endlessly make chair, and nothing but -chair. Sometimes in a wood itself there may be seen a shanty built -of faggots in which sits a man turning pieces of chair on a treadle -lathe. Tall, hollow, and greenly dim are the woods, very solemn places, -and they survey the six little towns as a man might look at six tiny -pebbles lying on a green rug at his feet. - -One August morning the newspaper man was riding back to Thasper. The -day was sparkling like a diamond, but he was not singing, he was -thinking of Scroope, the new rector of Thasper parish, and the thought -of Scroope annoyed him. It was not only the tone of the sermon he had -preached on Sunday, “The poor we have always with us,” though that was -in bad taste from a man reputed rich and with a heart—people said—as -hard as a door-knocker; it was something more vital, a congenital -difference between them as profound as it was disagreeable. The Rev. -Faudel Scroope was wealthy, he seemed to have complete confidence in -his ability to remain so, and he was the kind of man with whom Dan -Pavey would never be able to agree. As for Mrs. Scroope, gloom pattered -upon him in a strong sighing shower at the least thought of her. - -At Larkspur Lane he came suddenly upon the rector talking to an oldish -man, Eli Bond, who was hacking away at a hedge. Scroope never wore a -hat, he had a curly bush of dull hair. Though his face was shaven clean -it remained a regular plantation of ridges and wrinkles; there was a -stoop in his shoulders, a lurch in his gait, and he had a voice that -howled. - -“Just a moment, Pavey,” he bellowed, and Dan dismounted. - -“All those years,” the parson went on talking to the hedger; “all those -years, dear me!” - -“I were born in Thasper sixty-six year ago, come the twenty-third of -October, sir, the same day—but two years before—as Lady Hesseltine -eloped with Rudolf Moxley. I was reared here and I worked here sin’ I -were six year old. Twalve children I have had (though five on ’em come -to naught and two be in the army) and I never knowed what was to be out -of work for one single day in all that sixty year. Never. I can’t thank -my blessed master enough for it.” - -“Isn’t that splendidly feudal,” murmured the priest, “who is your good -master?” - -The old man solemnly touched his hat and said: “God.” - -“O, I see, yes, yes,” cried the Rev. Scroope. “Well, good health and -constant, and good work and plenty of it, are glorious things. The man -who has never done a day’s work is a dog, and the man who deceives his -master is a dog too.” - -“I never donn that, sir.” - -“And you’ve had happy days in Thasper, I’m sure?” - -“Right-a-many, sir.” - -“Splendid. Well ... um ... what a heavy rain we had in the night.” - -“Ah, that _was_ heavy! At five o’clock this morning I daren’t let my -ducks out—they’d a bin drownded, sir.” - -“Ha, now, now, now!” warbled the rector as he turned away with Dan. - -“Capital old fellow, happy and contented. I wish there were more of -the same breed. I wish....” The parson sighed pleasantly as he and Dan -walked on together until they came to the village street where swallows -were darting and flashing very low. A small boy stood about, trying to -catch them in his hands as they swooped close to him. Dan’s own dog -pranced up to his master for a greeting. It was black, somewhat like a -greyhound, but stouter. Its tail curled right over its back and it was -cocky as a bird, for it was young; it could fight like a tiger and run -like the wind—many a hare had had proof of that. - -Said Mr. Scroope, eyeing the dog: “Is there much poaching goes on -here?” - -“Poaching, sir?” - -“I am told there is. I hope it isn’t true for I have rented most of the -shooting myself.” - -“I never heard tell of it, sir. Years ago, maybe. The Buzzlebury chaps -one time were rare hands at taking a few birds, so I’ve heard, but I -shouldn’t think there’s an onlicensed gun for miles around.” - -“I’m not thinking so much of guns. Farmer Prescott had his warren -netted by someone last week and lost fifty or sixty rabbits. There’s -scarcely a hare to be seen, and I find wires wherever I go. It’s a -crime like anything else, you know,” Scroope’s voice was loud and -strident, “and I shall deal very severely with poaching of any kind. O -yes, you have to, you know, Pavey. O yes. There was a man in my last -parish was a poacher, cunning scoundrel of the worst type, never did a -stroke of work, and _he_ had a dog, it wasn’t unlike your dog—this _is_ -your dog, isn’t it? You haven’t got your name on its collar, you should -have your name on a dog’s collar—well, he had a perfect brute of a dog, -carried off my pheasants by the dozen; as for hares, he exterminated -them. Man never did anything else, but we laid him by the heels and in -the end I shot the dog myself.” - -“Shot it?” said Dan. “No, I couldn’t tell a poacher if I was to see -one. I know no more about 'em than a bone in the earth.” - -“We shall be,” continued Scroope, “very severe with them. Let me -see—are you singing the Purcell on Sunday evening?“ - -”_He Shall Feed His Flock_—sir—_like a Shepherd_.” - -“Splendid! _Good_-day, Pavey.” - -Dan, followed by his bounding, barking dog, pedalled home to a little -cottage that seemed to sag under the burden of its own thatch; it had -eaves a yard wide, and birds’ nests in the roof at least ten years old. -Here Dan lived with his mother, Meg Pavey, for he had never married. -She kept an absurd little shop for the sale of sweets, vinegar, boot -buttons and such things, and was a very excellent old dame, but as -naïve as she was vague. If you went in to her counter for a newspaper -and banged down a halfcrown she would as likely as not give you change -for sixpence—until you mentioned the discrepancy, when she would -smilingly give you back your halfcrown again. - -Dan passed into the back room where Meg was preparing dinner, threw off -his bag, and sat down without speaking. His mother was making a heavy -succession of journeys between the table and a larder. - -“Mrs. Scroope’s been here,” said Meg, bringing a loaf to the table. - -“What did _she_ want?” - -“She wanted to reprimand me.” - -“And what have _you_ been doing?” - -Meg was in the larder again. “’Tis not me, ’tis you.” - -“What do you mean, mother?” - -“She’s been a-hinting,” here Meg pushed a dish of potatoes to the right -of the bread, and a salt-cellar to the left of the yawning remains of a -rabbit pie, “about your not being a teetotal. She says the boozing do -give the choir a bad name and I was to persuade you to give it up.” - -“I should like to persuade her it was time she is dead. I don’t go for -to take any pattern from that rich trash. Are we the grass under their -feet? And can you tell me why parsons’ wives are always so much more -awful than the parsons themselves? I never shall understand that if I -lives a thousand years. Name o’ God, what next?” - -“Well, ’tis as she says. Drink is no good to any man, and she can’t say -as I ain’t reprimanded you.” - -“Name o’ God,” he replied, “do you think I booze just for the sake o’ -the booze, because I like booze? No man does that. He drinks so that he -shan’t be thought a fool, or rank himself better than his mates—though -he knows in his heart he might be if he weren’t so poor or so timid. -Not that one would mind to be poor if it warn’t preached to him that -he must be contented. How can the poor be contented as long as there’s -the rich to serve? The rich we have always with _us_, that’s _our_ -responsibility, we are the grass under their feet. Why should we be -proud of that? When a man’s poor the only thing left him is hope—for -something better: and that’s called envy. If you don’t like your riches -you can always give it up, but poverty you can’t desert, nor it won’t -desert you.” - -“It’s no good flying in the face of everything like that, Dan, it’s -folly.” - -“If I had my way I’d be an independent man and live by myself a hundred -miles from anywheres or anybody. But that’s madness, that’s madness, -the world don’t expect you to go on like that, so I do as other -folks do, not because I want to, but because I a’nt the pluck to be -different. You taught me a good deal, mother, but you never taught me -courage and I wasn’t born with any, so I drinks with a lot of fools who -drink with me for much the same reason, I expect. It’s the same with -other things besides drink.” - -His indignation lasted throughout the afternoon as he sat in the shed -in his yard turning out his usual quantity of chair. He sang not one -note, he but muttered and mumbled over all his anger. Towards evening -he recovered his amiability and began to sing with a gusto that -astonished even his mother. He went out into the dusk humming like a -bee, taking his dog with him. In the morning the Rev. Scroope found a -dead hare tied by the neck to his own door-knocker, and at night (it -being Saturday) Dan Pavey was merrier than ever in “The White Hart.” -If he was not drunk he was what Thasper calls “tightish,” and had -never before sung so many of those ribald songs (mostly of his own -composition) for which he was noted. - -A few evenings later Dan attended a meeting of the Church Men’s Guild. -A group of very mute countrymen sat in the village hall and were goaded -into speech by the rector. - -“Thasper,” declared Mr. Scroope, “has a great name for its singing. All -over the six hamlets there is surprising musical genius. There’s the -Buzzlebury band—it is a capital band.” - -“It is that,” interrupted a maroon-faced butcher from Buzzlebury, -“it can play as well at nine o’clock in the morning as it can at nine -o’clock at night, and that’s a good band as can do it.” - -“Now I want our choir to compete at the county musical festival next -year. Thasper is going to show those highly trained choristers what -a native choir is capable of. Yes, and I’m sure our friend Pavey can -win the tenor solo competition. Let us all put our backs into it and -work agreeably and consistently. Those are the two main springs of -good human conduct—consistency and agreeability. The consistent man -will always attain his legitimate ends, always. I remember a man in my -last parish, Tom Turkem, known and loved throughout the county; he was -not only the best cricketer in our village, he was the best for miles -around. He revelled in cricket, and cricket only; he played cricket -and lived for cricket. The years went on and he got old, but he never -dreamed of giving up cricket. His bowling average got larger every year -and his batting average got smaller, but he still went on, consistent -as ever. His order of going in dropped down to No. 6 and he seldom -bowled; then he got down to No. 8 and never bowled. For a season or -two the once famous Tom Turkem was really the last man in! After that -he became umpire, then scorer, and then he died. He had got a little -money, very little, just enough to live comfortably on. No, he never -married. He was a very happy, hearty, hale old man. So you see? Now -there is a cricket club at Buzzlebury, and one at Trinkel. Why not a -cricket club at Thasper? Shall we do that?... Good!” - -The parson went on outlining his projects, and although it was plain -to Dan that the Rev. Scroope had very little, if any, compassion for -the weaknesses natural to mortal flesh, and attached an extravagant -value to the virtues of decency, sobriety, consistency, and, above all, -loyalty to all sorts of incomprehensible notions, yet his intentions -were undeniably agreeable and the Guild was consistently grateful. - -“One thing, Pavey,” said Scroope when the meeting had dispersed, “one -thing I will not tolerate in this parish, and that is gambling.” - -“Gambling? I have never gambled in my life, sir. I couldn’t tell you -hardly the difference between spades and clubs.” - -“I am speaking of horse-racing, Pavey.” - -“Now that’s a thing I never see in my life, Mr. Scroope.” - -“Ah, you need not go to the races to bet on horses; the slips of paper -and money can be collected by men who are agents for racing bookmakers. -And that is going on all round the six hamlets, and the man who does -the collecting, even if he does not bet himself, is a social and moral -danger, he is a criminal, he is against the law. Whoever he is,” said -the vicar, moderating his voice, but confidently beaming and patting -Dan’s shoulder, “I shall stamp him out mercilessly. _Good_-night, -Pavey.” - -Dan went away with murder in his heart. Timid strangers here and there -had fancied that a man with such a misshapen face would be capable of -committing a crime, not a mere peccadillo—you wouldn’t take notice of -that, of course—but a solid substantial misdemeanour like murder. And -it was true, he _was_ capable of murder—just as everybody else is, -or ought to be. But he was also capable of curbing that distressing -tendency in the usual way, and in point of fact he never did commit a -murder. - -These rectorial denunciations troubled the air but momentarily, and -he still sang gaily and beautifully on his daily ride from Cobbs Mill -along the little roads to Trinkel and Nuncton. The hanging richness -of the long woods yellowing on the fringe of autumn, the long solemn -hills themselves, cold sunlight, coloured berries in briary loops, the -brown small leaves of hawthorn that had begun to drop from the hedge -and flutter in the road like dying moths, teams of horses sturdily -ploughing, sheepfolds already thatched into little nooks where the ewes -could lie—Dan said—as warm as a pudding: these things filled him with -tiny ecstasies too incoherent for him to transcribe—he could only sing. - -On Bonfire Night the lads of the village lit a great fire on the space -opposite “The White Hart.” Snow was falling; it was not freezing -weather, but the snow lay in a soft thin mat upon the road. Dan was -returning on his bicycle from a long journey and the light from the -bonfire was cheering. It lit up the courtyard of the inn genially and -curiously, for the recumbent hart upon the balcony had a pad of snow -upon its wooden nose, which somehow made it look like a camel, in spite -of the huddled snow on its back which gave it the resemblance of a -sheep. A few boys stood with bemused wrinkled faces before the roaring -warmth. Dan dismounted very carefully opposite the blaze, for a tiny -boy rode on the back of the bicycle, wrapped up and tied to the frame -by a long scarf; very small, very silent, about five years old. A red -wool wrap was bound round his head and ears and chin, and a green scarf -encircled his neck and waist, almost hiding his jacket; gaiters of grey -wool were drawn up over his knickerbockers. Dan lifted him down and -stood him in the road, but he was so cumbered with clothing that he -could scarcely walk. He was shy; he may have thought it ridiculous; he -moved a few paces and turned to stare at his footmarks in the snow. - -“Cold?” asked Dan. - -The child shook its head solemnly at him and then put one hand in -Dan’s and gazed at the fire that was bringing a brightness into the -longlashed dark eyes and tenderly flushing the pale face. - -“Hungry?” - -The child did not reply. It only silently smiled when the boys brought -him a lighted stick from the faggots. Dan caught him up into his arms -and pushed the cycle across the way into his own home. - -Plump Meg had just shredded up two or three red cabbages and rammed -them into a crock with a shower of peppercorns and some terrible knots -of ginger. There was a bright fire and a sharp odour of vinegar—always -some strange pleasant smell in Meg Pavey’s home—she had covered the top -of the crock with a shield of brown paper, pinioned that with string, -licked a label: “Cabege Novenbr 5t,” and smoothed it on the crock, when -the latch lifted and Dan carried in his little tiny boy. - -“Here he is, mother.” - -Where Dan stood him, there the child remained; he did not seem to see -Mother Pavey, his glance had happened to fall on the big crock with the -white label—and he kept it there. - -“Whoever’s that?” asked the astonished Meg with her arms akimbo as Dan -began to unwrap the child. - -“That’s mine,” said her son, brushing a few flakes of snow from the -curls on its forehead. - -“Yours! How long have it been yours?” - -“Since ’twas born. No, let him alone, I’ll undo him, he’s full up wi’ -pins and hooks. I’ll undo him.” - -Meg stood apart while Dan unravelled his offspring. - -“But it is not your child, surely, Dan?” - -“Ay, I’ve brought him home for keeps, mother. He can sleep wi’ me.” - -“Who’s its mother?” - -“’Tis no matter about that. Dan Cupid did it.” - -“You’re making a mock of me. Who is his mother? Where is she? You’re -fooling, Dan, you’re fooling!” - -“I’m making no mock of anyone. There, there’s a bonny grandson for you!” - -Meg gathered the child into her arms, peering into its face, perhaps to -find some answer to the riddle, perhaps to divine a familiar likeness. -But there was nothing in its soft smooth features that at all resembled -her rugged Dan’s. - -“Who are you? What’s your little name?” - -The child whispered: “Martin.” - -“It’s a pretty, pretty thing, Dan.” - -“Ah!” said her son, “that’s his mother. We were rare fond of each -other—once. Now she’s wedd’n another chap and I’ve took the boy, for -it’s best that way. He’s five year old. Don’t ask me about her, it’s -_our_ secret and always has been. It was a good secret and a grand -secret, and it was well kept. That’s her ring.” - -The child’s thumb had a ring upon it, a golden ring with a small green -stone. The thumb was crooked, and he clasped the ring safely. - -For a while Meg asked no more questions about the child. She pressed it -tenderly to her bosom. - -But the long-kept secret, as Dan soon discovered, began to bristle -with complications. The boy was his, of course it was his—he seemed to -rejoice in his paternity of the quiet, pretty, illegitimate creature. -As if that brazen turpitude was not enough to confound him he was taken -a week later in the act of receiving betting commissions and heavily -fined in the police court, although it was quite true that he himself -did not bet, and was merely a collecting agent for a bookmaker who -remained discreetly in the background and who promptly paid his fine. - -There was naturally a great racket in the vestry about these -things—there is no more rhadamanthine formation than that which can -mount the ornamental forehead of a deacon—and Dan was bidden to an -interview at the “Scroopery.” After some hesitation he visited it. - -“Ah, Pavey,” said the rector, not at all minatory but very subdued -and unhappy. “So the blow has fallen, in spite of my warning. I am -more sorry than I can express, for it means an end to a very long -connection. It is very difficult and very disagreeable for me to -deal with the situation, but there is no help for it now, you must -understand that. I offer no judgment upon these unfortunate events, no -judgment at all, but I can find no way of avoiding my clear duty. Your -course of life is incompatible with your position in the choir, and I -sadly fear it reveals not only a social misdemeanour but a religious -one—it is a mockery, a mockery of God.” - -The rector sat at a table with his head pressed on his hands. Pavey sat -opposite him, and in his hands he dangled his bowler hat. - -“You may be right enough in your way, sir, but I’ve never mocked God. -For the betting, I grant you. It may be a dirty job, but I never ate -the dirt myself, I never betted in my life. It’s a way of life, a poor -man has but little chance of earning more than a bare living, and -there’s many a dirty job there’s no prosecution for, leastways not in -this world.” - -“Let me say, Pavey, that the betting counts less heavily with me than -the question of this unfortunate little boy. I offer no judgment upon -the matter, your acknowledgment of him is only right and proper. But -the fact of his existence at all cannot be disregarded; that at least -is flagrant, and as far as concerns your position in my church, it is a -mockery of God.” - -“You may be right, sir, as far as your judgment goes, or you may not -be. I beg your pardon for that, but we can only measure other people by -our own scales, and as we can never understand one another entirely, so -we can’t ever judge them rightly, for they all differ from us and from -each other in some special ways. But as for being a mocker of God, why -it looks to me as if you was trying to teach the Almighty how to judge -me.” - -“Pavey,” said the rector with solemnity, “I pity you from the bottom -of my heart. We won’t continue this painful discussion, we should both -regret it. There was a man in the parish where I came from who was an -atheist and mocked God. He subsequently became deaf. Was he convinced? -No, he was not—because the punishment came a long time after his -offence. He mocked God again, and became blind. Not at once: God has -eternity to work in. Still he was not convinced. That,” said the rector -ponderously, “is what the Church has to contend with; a failure to -read the most obvious signs, and an indisposition even to remedy that -failure. Klopstock was that poor man’s name. His sister—you know her -well, Jane Klopstock—is now my cook.” - -The rector then stood up and held out his hand. “God bless you, Pavey.” - -“I thank you, sir,” said Dan. “I quite understand.” - -He went home moodily reflecting. Nobody else in the village minded his -misdeeds, they did not care a button, and none condemned him. On the -contrary, indeed. But the blow had fallen, there was nothing that he -could now do, the shock of it had been anticipated, but it was severe. -And the pang would last, for he was deprived of his chief opportunity -for singing, that art in which he excelled, in that perfect quiet -setting he so loved. Rancour grew upon him, and on Saturday he had a -roaring audacious evening at “The White Hart” where, to the tune of -“The British Grenadiers,” he sung a doggerel: - - Our parson loves his motor car - His garden and his mansion, - And he loves his beef for I’ve remarked - His belly’s brave expansion; - He loves all mortal mundane things - As he loved his beer at college, - And so he loves his housemaid (not - With Mrs. parson’s knowledge.) - - Our parson lies both hot and strong, - It does not suit his station, - But still his reverend soul delights - In much dissimulation; - Both in and out and roundabout - He practises distortion, - And he lies with a public sinner when - Grass widowhood’s his portion. - -All of which was a savage libel on a very worthy man, composed in anger -and regretted as soon as sung. - -From that time forward Dan gave up his boozing and devoted himself to -the boy, little Martin, who, a Thasper joker suggested, might have some -kinship with the notorious Betty of that name. But Dan’s voice was now -seldom heard singing upon the roads he travelled. They were icy wintry -roads, but that was not the cause of his muteness. It was severance -from the choir; not from its connoted spirit of religion—there was -little enough of that in Dan Pavey—but from the solemn beauty of the -chorale, which it was his unique gift to adorn, and in which he had -shared with eagerness and pride since his boyhood. To be cast out from -that was to be cast from something he held most dear, the opportunity -of expression in an art which he had made triumphantly his own. - -With the coming of spring he repaired one evening to a town some miles -away and interviewed a choirmaster. Thereafter Dan Pavey journeyed -to and fro twice every Sunday to sing in a church that lay seven or -eight miles off, and he kept it all a profound secret from Thasper -until his appearance at the county musical festival, where he won the -treasured prize for tenor soloists. Then Dan was himself again. To his -crude apprehension he had been vindicated, and he was heard once more -carolling in the lanes of the Vale as he had been heard any time for -these twenty years. - -The child began its schooling, but though he was free to go about the -village little Martin did not wander far. The tidy cluster of hair -about his poll was of deep chestnut colour. His skin—Meg said—was like -“ollobarster”: it was soft and unfreckled, always pale. His eyes were -two wet damsons—so Meg declared: they were dark and ever questioning. -As for his nose, his lips, his cheeks, his chin, Meg could do no other -than call it the face of a blessed saint; and indeed, he had some of -the bearing of a saint, so quiet, so gentle, so shy. The golden ring he -no longer wore; it hung from a tintack on the bedroom wall. - -Old John, who lived next door, became a friend of his. He was very -aged—in the Vale you got to be a hundred before you knew where you -were—and he was very bent; he resembled a sickle standing upon its -handle. Very bald, too, and so very sharp. - -Martin was staring up at the roof of John’s cottage. - -“What you looking at, my boy?” - -“Chimbley,” whispered the child. - -“O ah! that’s crooked, a’nt it?” - -“Yes, crooked.” - -“I know ’tis, but I can’t help it; my chimney’s crooked, and I can’t -putt it straight, neither, I can’t putt it right. My chimney’s crooked, -a’nt it, ah, and I’m crooked, too.” - -“Yes,” said Martin. - -“I know, but I can’t help it. It _is_ crooked, a’nt it?” said the old -man, also staring up at a red pot tilted at an angle suggestive of -conviviality. - -“Yes.” - -“That chimney’s crooked. But you come along and look at my beautiful -bird.” - -A cock thrush inhabited a cage in the old gaffer’s kitchen. Martin -stood before it. - -“There’s a beautiful bird. Hoicks!” cried old John, tapping the bars of -the cage with his terrible finger-nail. “But he won’t sing.” - -“Won’t he sing?” - -“He donn make hisself at home. He donn make hisself at home at all, do -’ee, my beautiful bird? No, he donn’t. So I’m a-going to chop his head -off,” said the laughing old man, “and then I shall bile him.” - -Afterwards Martin went every day to see if the thrush was still there. -And it was. - -Martin grew. Almost before Dan was aware of it the child had grown -into a boy. At school he excelled nobody in anything except, perhaps, -behaviour, but he had a strange little gift for unobtrusively not doing -the things he did not care for, and these were rather many unless his -father was concerned in them. Even so, the affection between them was -seldom tangibly expressed, their alliance was something far deeper than -its expression. Dan talked with him as if he were a grown man, and -perhaps he often regarded him as one; he was the only being to whom he -ever opened his mind. As they sat together in the evening while Dan -put in a spell at turning chair—at which he was astoundingly adept—the -father would talk to his son, or rather he would heap upon him all the -unuttered thoughts that had accumulated in his mind during his adult -years. The dog would loll with its head on Martin’s knees; the boy -would sit nodding gravely, though seldom speaking: he was an untiring -listener. “Like sire, like son,” thought Dan, “he will always coop his -thoughts up within himself.” It was the one characteristic of the boy -that caused him anxiety. - -“Never take pattern by me,” he would adjure him, “not by me. I’m a -fool, a failure, just grass, and I’m trying to instruct you, but you’ve -no call to follow in my fashion; I’m a weak man. There’s been thoughts -in my mind that I daren’t let out. I wanted to do things that other men -don’t seem to do and don’t want to do. They were not evil things—and -what they were I’ve nigh forgotten now. I never had much ambition, I -wasn’t clever, I wanted to live a simple life, in a simple way, the -way I had a mind to—I can’t remember that either. But I did not do -any of those things because I had a fear of what other people might -think of me. I walked in the ruck with the rest of my mates and did -the things I didn’t ever want to do—and now I can only wonder why I -did them. I sung them the silly songs they liked, and not the ones I -cherished. I agreed with most everybody, and all agreed with me. I’m a -friendly man, too friendly, and I went back on my life, I made nought -of my life, you see, I just sat over the job like a snob codgering an -old boot.” - -The boy would sit regarding him as if he already understood. Perhaps -that curious little mind did glean some flavour of his father’s tragedy. - -“You’ve no call to follow me, you’ll be a scholar. Of course I know -some of those long words at school take a bit of licking together—like -elephant and saucepan. You get about half-way through ’em and then -you’re done, you’re mastered. I was just the same (like sire, like -son), and I’m no better now. If you and me was to go to yon school -together, and set on the same stool together, I warrant you would win -the prize and I should wear the dunce’s cap—all except sums, and there -I should beat ye. You’d have all the candy and I’d have all the cane, -you’d be king and I’d be the dirty rascal, so you’ve no call to follow -me. What you want is courage, and to do the things you’ve a mind to. I -never had any and I didn’t.” - -Dan seldom kissed his son, neither of them sought that tender -expression, though Meg was for ever ruffling the boy for these pledges -of affection, and he was always gracious to the old woman. There was -a small mole in the centre of her chin, and in the centre of the mole -grew one short stiff hair. It was a surprise to Martin when he first -kissed her. - -Twice a week father and son bathed in the shed devoted to chair. The -tub was the half of a wooden barrel. Dan would roll up two or three -buckets of water from the well, they would both strip to the skin, the -boy would kneel in the tub and dash the water about his body for a -few moments. While Martin towelled himself Dan stepped into the tub, -and after laving his face and hands and legs he would sit down in it. -“Ready?” Martin would ask, and scooping up the water in an iron basin -he would pour it over his father’s head. - -“Name O’ God, that’s sharpish this morning,” Dan would say, “it would -strip the bark off a crocodile. Broo-o-o-oh! But there: winter and -summer I go up and down the land and there’s not—Broo-o-o-oh!—a mighty -difference between ’em, it’s mostly fancy. Come day, go day, frost -or fair doings, all alike I go about the land, and there’s little in -winter I havn’t the heart to rejoice in. (On with your breeches or I’ll -be at the porridge pot afore you’re clad.) All their talk about winter -and their dread of it shows poor spirit. Nothing’s prettier than a -fall of snow, nothing more grand than the storms upending the woods. -There’s no more rain in winter than in summer, you can be shod for it, -and there’s a heart back of your ribs that’s proof against any blast. -(Is this my shirt or yours? Dashed if they buttons a’nt the plague of -my life.) Country is grand year’s end to year’s end, whether or no. I -once lived in London—only a few weeks—and for noise, and for terror, -and for filth—name O’ God, there was bugs in the butter there, once -there was!” - -But the boy’s chosen season was that time of year when the plums -ripened. Pavey’s garden was then a tiny paradise. - -“You put a spell on these trees,” Dan would declare to his son every -year when they gathered the fruit. “I planted them nearly twenty years -ago, two 'gages and one magny bonum, but they never growed enough to -make a pudden. They always bloomed well and looked well. I propped ’em -and I dunged 'em, but they wouldn’t beer at all, and I’m a-going to cut -’em down—when, along comes you!” - -Well, hadn’t those trees borne remarkable ever since he’d come there? - -“Of course, good luck’s deceiving, and it’s never bothered our family -overmuch. Still, bad luck is one thing and bad life’s another. And -yet—I dunno—they come to much the same in the end, there’s very little -difference. There’s so much misunderstanding, half the folks don’t know -their own good intentions, nor all the love that’s sunk deep in their -own minds.” - -But nothing in the world gave (or could give) Dan such flattering joy -as his son’s sweet treble voice. Martin could sing! In the dark months -no evening passed without some instruction by the proud father. The -living room at the back of the shop was the tiniest of rooms, and -its smallness was not lessened, nor its tidiness increased, by the -stacks of merchandise that had strayed from Meg’s emporium into every -corner, and overflowed every shelf in packages, piles, and bundles. -The metalliferous categories—iron nails, lead pencils, tintacks, zinc -ointment, and brass hinges—were there. Platoons of bottles were there, -bottles of blue-black writing fluid, bottles of scarlet—and presumably -plebeian—ink, bottles of lollipops and of oil (both hair and castor). -Balls of string, of blue, of peppermint, and balls to bounce were -adjacent to an assortment of prim-looking books—account memorandum, -exercise, and note. But the room was cosy, and if its inhabitants -fitted it almost as closely as birds fit their nests they were as happy -as birds, few of whom (save the swallows) sing in their nests. With -pitchpipe to hand and a bundle of music before them Dan and Martin -would begin. The dog would snooze on the rug before the fire; Meg -would snooze amply in her armchair until roused by the sudden terrific -tinkling of her shop-bell. She would waddle off to her dim little -shop—every step she took rattling the paraffin lamp on the table, the -coal in the scuttle, and sometimes the very panes in the window—and the -dog would clamber into her chair. Having supplied an aged gaffer with -an ounce of carraway seed, or some gay lad with a packet of cigarettes, -Meg would waddle back and sink down upon the dog, whereupon its awful -indignation would sound to the very heavens, drowning the voices even -of Dan and his son. - -“What shall we wind up with?” Dan would ask at the close of the lesson, -and as often as not Martin would say: “You must sing ‘Timmie.’” - -This was “Timmie,” and it had a tune something like the chorus to -“Father O’Flynn.” - - O Timmie my brother, - Best son of our mother, - Our labour it prospers, the mowing is done; - A holiday take you, - The loss it won’t break you, - A day’s never lost if a holiday’s won. - - We’ll go with clean faces - To see the horse races, - And if the luck chances we’ll gather some gear; - But never a jockey - Will win it, my cocky, - Who catches one glance from a girl I know there. - - There’s lords and there’s ladies - Wi’ pretty sunshadies, - And farmers and jossers and fat men and small; - But the pride of these trips is - The scallywag gipsies - Wi’ not a whole rag to the backs of ’em all. - - There ’s cokernut shying, - And devil defying, - And a racket and babel to hear and to see, - Wi’ boxing and shooting, - And fine high faluting - From chaps wi’ a table and thimble and pea. - - My Nancy will be there, - The best thing to see there, - She’ll win all the praises wi’ ne’er a rebuke; - And she has a sister— - I wonder you’ve missed her— - As sweet as the daisies and fit for a duke. - - Come along, brother Timmie, - Don’t linger, but gimme - My hat and my purse and your company there; - For sporting and courting, - The cream of resorting, - And nothing much worse, Timmie—Come to the fair. - -On the third anniversary of Martin’s homecoming Dan rose up very early -in the dark morn, and leaving his son sleeping he crept out of the -house followed by his dog. They went away from Thasper, though the -darkness was profound and the grass filled with dew, out upon the hills -towards Chapel Cheary. The night was starless, but Dan knew every trick -and turn of the paths, and after an hour’s walk he met a man waiting -by a signpost. They conversed for a few minutes and then went off -together, the dog at their heels, until they came to a field gate. Upon -this they fastened a net and then sent the dog into the darkness upon -his errand, while they waited for the hare which the dog would drive -into the net. They waited so long that it was clear the dog had not -drawn its quarry. Dan whistled softly, but the dog did not return. Dan -opened the gate and went down the fields himself, scouring the hedges -for a long time, but he could not find the dog. The murk of the night -had begun to lift, but the valley was filled with mist. He went back to -the gate: the net had been taken down, his friend had departed—perhaps -he had been disturbed? The dog had now been missing for an hour. Dan -still hung about, but neither friend nor dog came back. It grew grey -and more grey, though little could be distinguished, the raw mist -obscuring everything that the dawn uncovered. He shivered with gloom -and dampness, his boots were now as pliable as gloves, his eyebrows -had grey drops upon them, so had his moustache and the backs of his -hands. His dark coat looked as if it was made of grey wool; it was -tightly buttoned around his throat and he stood with his chin crumpled, -unconsciously holding his breath until it burst forth in a gasp. But he -could not abandon his dog, and he roamed once more down into the misty -valley towards woods that he knew well, whistling softly and with great -caution a repetition of two notes. - -And he found his dog. It was lying on a heap of dead sodden leaves. -It just whimpered. It could not rise, it could not move, it seemed -paralysed. Dawn was now really upon them. Dan wanted to get the dog -away, quickly, it was a dangerous quarter, but when he lifted it to his -feet the dog collapsed like a scarecrow. In a flash Dan knew he was -poisoned, he had probably picked up some piece of dainty flesh that a -farmer had baited for the foxes. He seized a knob of chalk that lay -thereby, grated some of it into his hands, and forced it down the dog’s -throat. Then he tied the lead to its neck. He was going to drag the -dog to its feet and force it to walk. But the dog was past all energy, -it was limp and mute. Dan dragged him by the neck for some yards as a -man draws behind him a heavy sack. It must have weighed three stone, -but Dan lifted him on to his own shoulders and staggered back up the -hill. He carried it thus for half a mile, but then he was still four -miles from home, and it was daylight, at any moment he might meet -somebody he would not care to meet. He entered a ride opening into some -coverts, and, bending down, slipped the dog over his head to rest upon -the ground. He was exhausted and felt giddy, his brains were swirling -round—trying to slop out of his skull—and—yes—the dog was dead, his old -dog dead. When he looked up, he saw a keeper with a gun standing a few -yards off. - -“Good morning,” said Dan. All his weariness was suddenly gone from him. - -“I’ll have your name and address,” replied the keeper, a giant of a -man, with a sort of contemptuous affability. - -“What for?” - -“You’ll hear about what for,” the giant grinned. “I’ll be sure to let -ye know, in doo coorse.” He laid his gun upon the ground and began -searching in his pockets, while Dan stood up with rage in his heart and -confusion in his mind. So the Old Imp was at him again! - -“Humph!” said the keeper. “I’ve alost my notebook somewheres. Have you -got a bit of paper on ye?” - -The culprit searched his pockets and produced a folded fragment. - -“Thanks.” The giant did not cease to grin. “What is it?” - -“What?” queried Dan. - -“Your name and address.” - -“Ah, but what do you want it for. What do you think I’m doing?” -protested Dan. - -“I’ve a net in my pocket which I took from a gate about an hour ago. I -saw summat was afoot, and me and a friend o’ mine have been looking for -’ee. Now let’s have your name and no nonsense.” - -“My name,” said Dan, “my name? Well, it is ... Piper.” - -“Piper is it, ah! Was you baptized ever?” - -“Peter,” said Dan savagely. - -“Peter Piper! Well, you’ve picked a tidy pepper-carn this time.” - -Again he was searching his pockets. There was a frown on his face. -“You’d better lend me a bit o’ pencil too.” - -Dan produced a stump of lead pencil and the gamekeeper, smoothing the -paper on his lifted knee, wrote down the name of Peter Piper. - -“And where might you come from?” He peered up at the miserable man, who -replied: “From Leasington”—naming a village several miles to the west -of his real home. - -“Leasington!” commented the other. “You must know John Eustace, then?” -John Eustace was a sporting farmer famed for his stock and his riches. - -“Know him!” exclaimed Dan. “He’s my uncle!” - -“O ah!” The other carefully folded the paper and put it into his breast -pocket. “Well, you can trot along home now, my lad.” - -Dan knelt down and unbuckled the collar from his dead dog’s neck. He -was fond of his dog, it looked piteous now. And kneeling there it -suddenly came upon Dan that he had been a coward again, he had told -nothing but lies, foolish lies, and he had let a great hulking flunkey -walk roughshod over him. In one astonishing moment the reproving face -of his little son seemed to loom up beside the dog, the blood flamed in -his brain. - -“I’ll take charge of that,” said the keeper, snatching the collar from -his hand. - -“Blast you!” Dan sprang to his feet, and suddenly screaming like a -madman: “I’m Dan Pavey of Thasper,” he leapt at the keeper with a fury -that shook even that calm stalwart. - -“You would, would ye?” he yapped, darting for his gun. Dan also seized -it, and in their struggle the gun was fired off harmlessly between -them. Dan let go. - -“My God!” roared the keeper, “you’d murder me, would ye? Wi’ my own -gun, would ye?” He struck Dan a swinging blow with the butt of it, -yelling: “Would ye? Would ye? Would ye?” And he did not cease striking -until Dan tumbled senseless and bloody across the body of the dog. - -Soon another keeper came hurrying through the trees. - -“Tried to murder me—wi’ me own gun, he did,” declared the big man, “wi’ -me own gun!” - -They revived the stricken Pavey after a while and then conveyed him to -a policeman, who conveyed him to a gaol. - -The magistrates took a grave view of the case and sent it for trial at -the assizes. They were soon held, he had not long to wait, and before -the end of November he was condemned. The assize court was a place of -intolerable gloom, intolerable formality, intolerable pain, but the -public seemed to enjoy it. The keeper swore Dan had tried to shoot -him, and the prisoner contested this. He did not deny that he was -the aggressor. The jury found him guilty. What had he to say? He had -nothing to say, but he was deeply moved by the spectacle of the Rev. -Scroope standing up and testifying to his sobriety, his honesty, his -general good repute, and pleading for a lenient sentence because he was -a man of considerable force of character, misguided no doubt, a little -unfortunate, and prone to recklessness. - -Said the judge, examining the papers of the indictment: “I see there is -a previous conviction—for betting offences.” - -“That was three years ago, my lord. There has been nothing of the kind -since, my lord, of that I am sure, quite sure.” - -Scroope showed none of his old time confident aspect, he was perspiring -and trembling. The clerk of the assize leaned up and held a whispered -colloquy with the judge, who then addressed the rector. - -“Apparently he is still a betting agent. He gave a false name and -address, which was taken down by the keeper on a piece of paper -furnished by the prisoner. Here it is, on one side the name of Peter -Pope (Piper, sir!) Piper: and on the other side this is written: - - _3 o/c race. Pretty Dear, 5/- to win. J. Klopstock._ - -Are there any Klopstocks in your parish?” - -“Klopstock!” murmured the parson, “it is the name of my cook.” - -What had the prisoner to say about that? The prisoner had nothing to -say, and he was sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment with hard -labour. - -So Dan was taken away. He was a tough man, an amenable man, and the -mere rigours of the prison did not unduly afflict him. His behaviour -was good, and he looked forward to gaining the maximum remission of his -sentence. Meg, his mother, went to see him once, alone, but she did -not repeat the visit. The prison chaplain paid him special attention. -He, too, was a Scroope, a huge fellow, not long from Oxford, and Pavey -learned that he was related to the Thasper rector. The new year came, -February came, March came, and Dan was afforded some privileges. His -singing in chapel was much admired, and occasionally he was allowed to -sing to the prisoners. April came, May came, and then his son Martin -was drowned in a boating accident, on a lake, in a park. The Thasper -children had been taken there for a holiday. On hearing it, Pavey sank -limply to the floor of his cell. The warders sat him up, but they could -make nothing of him, he was dazed, and he could not speak. He was taken -to the hospital wing. “This man has had a stroke, he is gone dumb,” -said the doctor. On the following day he appeared to be well enough, -but still he could not speak. He went about the ward doing hospital -duty, dumb as a ladder; he could not even mourn, but a jig kept -flickering through his voiceless mind: - - In a park there was a lake, - On the lake there was a boat, - In the boat there was a boy. - -Hour after hour the stupid jingle flowed through his consciousness. -Perhaps it kept him from going mad, but it did not bring him back -his speech, he was dumb, dumb. And he remembered a man who had been -stricken deaf, and then blind—Scroope knew him too, it was some man who -had mocked God. - - In a park there was a lake, - On the lake there was a boat, - In the boat there was a boy. - -On the day of the funeral Pavey imagined that he had been let out of -prison; he dreamed that someone had been kind and set him free for an -hour or two to bury his dead boy. He seemed to arrive at Thasper when -the ceremony was already begun, the coffin was already in the church. -Pavey knelt down beside his mother. The rector intoned the office, -the child was taken to its grave. Dumb dreaming Pavey turned his eyes -from it. The day was too bright for death, it was a stainless day. -The wind seemed to flow in soft streams, rolling the lilac blooms. A -small white feather, blown from a pigeon on the church gable, whirled -about like a butterfly. “We give thee hearty thanks,” the priest was -saying, “for that it hath pleased thee to deliver this our brother -out of the miseries of this sinful world.” At the end of it all Pavey -kissed his mother, and saw himself turn back to his prison. He went by -the field paths away to the railway junction. The country had begun to -look a little parched, for rain was wanted—vividly he could see all -this—but things were growing, corn was thriving greenly, the beanfields -smelled sweet. A frill of yellow kilk and wild white carrot spray lined -every hedge. Cattle dreamed in the grass, the colt stretched itself -unregarded in front of its mother. Larks, wrens, yellow-hammers. There -were the great beech trees and the great hills, calm and confident, -overlooking Cobbs and Peter, Thasper and Trinkel, Buzzlebury and -Nuncton. He sees the summer is coming on, he is going back to prison. -“Courage is vain,” he thinks, “we are like the grass underfoot, a blade -that excels is quickly shorn. In this sort of a world the poor have no -call to be proud, they had only need be penitent.” - - In the park there was a lake, - On the lake ... boat, - In the boat.... - - - - - _Luxury_ - - -Eight o’clock of a fine spring morning in the hamlet of Kezzal Predy -Peter, great horses with chains clinking down the road, and Alexander -Finkle rising from his bed singing: “O lah soh doh, soh lah me doh,” -timing his notes to the ching of his neighbour’s anvil. He boils a -cupful of water on an oil stove, his shaving brush stands (where it -always stands) upon the window-ledge (“Soh lah soh do-o-o-oh, soh -doh soh la-a-a-ah!”) but as he addresses himself to his toilet the -clamour of the anvil ceases and then Finkle too becomes silent, for the -unresting cares of his life begin again to afflict him. - -“This cottage is no good,” he mumbles, “and I’m no good. Literature is -no good when you live too much on porridge. Your writing’s no good, -sir, you can’t get any glow out of oatmeal. Why did you ever come here? -It’s a hopeless job and you know it!” Stropping his razor petulantly as -if the soul of that frustrating oatmeal lay there between the leather -and the blade, he continues: “But it isn’t the cottage, it isn’t me, it -isn’t the writing—it’s the privation. I must give it up and get a job -as a railway porter.” - -And indeed he was very impoverished, the living he derived from his -writings was meagre; the cottage had many imperfections, both its -rooms were gloomy, and to obviate the inconvenience arising from its -defective roof he always slept downstairs. - -Two years ago he had been working for a wall-paper manufacturer in -Bethnal Green. He was not poor then, not so very poor, he had the -clothes he stood up in (they were good clothes) and fifty pounds in -the bank besides. But although he had served the wall-paper man for -fifteen years that fifty pounds had not been derived from clerking, -he had earned it by means of his hobby, a little knack of writing -things for provincial newspapers. On his thirty-first birthday Finkle -argued—for he had a habit of conducting long and not unsatisfactory -discussions between himself and a self that apparently wasn’t him—that -what he could do reasonably well in his scanty leisure could be -multiplied exceedingly if he had time and opportunity, lived in the -country, somewhere where he could go into a garden to smell the roses -or whatever was blooming and draw deep draughts of happiness, think -his profound thoughts and realize the goodness of God, and then sit -and read right through some long and difficult book about Napoleon -or Mahomet. Bursting with literary ambition Finkle had hesitated no -longer: he could live on nothing in the country—for a time. He had -the fifty pounds, he had saved it, it had taken him seven years, but -he had made it and saved it. He handed in his notice. That was very -astonishing to his master, who esteemed him, but more astonishing to -Finkle was the parting gift of ten pounds which the master had given -him. The workmen, too, had collected more money for him, and bought -for him a clock, a monster, it weighed twelve pounds and had a brass -figure of Lohengrin on the top, while the serene old messenger man who -cleaned the windows and bought surreptitious beer for the clerks gave -him a prescription for the instantaneous relief of a painful stomach -ailment. “It might come in handy,” he had said. That was two years ago, -and now just think! He had bought himself an inkpot of crystalline -glass—a large one, it held nearly half a pint—and two pens, one for -red ink and one for black, besides a quill for signing his name with. -Here he was at “Pretty Peter” and the devil himself was in it! Nothing -had ever been right, the hamlet itself was poor. Like all places near -the chalk hills its roads were of flint, the church was of flint, the -farms and cots of flint with brick corners. There was an old milestone -outside his cot, he was pleased with that, it gave the miles to London -and the miles to Winchester, it was nice to have a milestone there like -that—your very own. - -He finished shaving and threw open the cottage door; the scent of -wallflowers and lilac came to him as sweet almost as a wedge of newly -cut cake. The may bloom on his hedge drooped over the branches like -crudded cream, and the dew in the gritty road smelled of harsh dust in -a way that was pleasant. Well, if the cottage wasn’t much good, the bit -of a garden was all right. - -There was a rosebush too, a little vagrant in its growth. He leaned -over his garden gate; there was no one in sight. He took out the fire -shovel and scooped up a clot of manure that lay in the road adjacent to -his cottage and trotted back to place it in a little heap at the root -of those scatter-brained roses, pink and bulging, that never seemed to -do very well and yet were so satisfactory. - -“Nicish day,” remarked Finkle, lolling against his doorpost, “but -it’s always nice if you are doing a good day’s work. The garden is all -right, and literature is all right, and life’s all right—only I live -too much on porridge. It isn’t the privation itself, it’s the things -privation makes a man do. It makes a man do things he ought not want to -do, it makes him mean, it makes him feel mean, I tell you, and if he -feels mean and thinks mean he writes meanly, that’s how it is.” - -He had written topical notes and articles, stories of gay life (of -which he knew nothing), of sport (of which he knew less), a poem about -“hope,” and some cheerful pieces for a girls’ weekly paper. And yet his -outgoings still exceeded his income, painfully and perversely after two -years. It was terrifying. He wanted success, he had come to conquer—not -to find what he _had_ found. But he would be content with encouragement -now even if he did not win success; it was absolutely necessary, he -had not sold a thing for six months, his public would forget him, his -connection would be gone. - -“There’s no use though,” mused Finkle, as he scrutinized his worn -boots, “in looking at things in detail, that’s mean; a large view is -the thing. Whatever is isolated is bound to look alarming.” - -But he continued to lean against the doorpost in the full blaze of the -stark, almost gritty sunlight, thinking mournfully until he heard the -porridge in the saucepan begin to bubble. Turning into the room he felt -giddy, and scarlet spots and other phantasmagoria waved in the air -before him. - -Without an appetite he swallowed the porridge and ate some bread and -cheese and watercress. Watercress, at least, was plentiful there, for -the little runnels that came down from the big hills expanded in the -Predy Peter fields and in their shallow bottoms the cress flourished. - -He finished his breakfast, cleared the things away, and sat down to -see if he could write, but it was in vain—he could not write. He could -think, but his mind would embrace no subject, it just teetered about -with the objects within sight, the empty, disconsolate grate, the -pattern of the rug, and the black butterfly that had hung dead upon -the wall for so many months. Then he thought of the books he intended -to read but could never procure, the books he had procured but did not -like, the books he had liked but was already, so soon, forgetting. -Smoking would have helped and he wanted to smoke, but he could not -afford it now. If ever he had a real good windfall he intended to buy a -tub, a little tub it would have to be of course, and he would fill it -to the bung with cigarettes, full to the bung, if it cost him pounds. -And he would help himself to one whenever he had a mind to do so. - -“Bah, you fool!” he murmured, “you think you have the whole world -against you, that you are fighting it, keeping up your end with -heroism! Idiot! What does it all amount to? You’ve withdrawn yourself -from the world, run away from it, and here you sit making futile dabs -at it, like a child sticking pins into a pudding and wondering why -nothing happens. What _could_ happen? What? The world doesn’t know -about you, or care, you are useless. It isn’t aware of you any more -than a chain of mountains is aware of a gnat. And whose fault is -that—is it the mountains’ fault? Idiot! But I can’t starve and I must -go and get a job as a railway porter, it’s all I’m fit for.” - -Two farmers paused outside Finkle’s garden and began a solid -conversation upon a topic that made him feel hungry indeed. He -listened, fascinated, though he was scarcely aware of it. - -“Six-stone lambs,” said one, “are fetching three pounds apiece.” - -“Ah!” - -“I shall fat some.” - -“Myself I don’t care for lamb, never did care.” - -“It’s good eating.” - -“Ah, but I don’t care for it. Now we had a bit of spare rib last night -off an old pig. ’Twas cold, you know, but beautiful. I said to my dame: -‘What can mortal man want better than spare rib off an old pig? Tender -and white, ate like lard.’” - -“Yes, it’s good eating.” - -“Nor veal, I don’t like—nothing that’s young.” - -“Veal’s good eating.” - -“Don’t care for it, never did, it eats short to my mind.” - -Then the school bell began to ring so loudly that Finkle could hear -no more, but his mind continued to hover over the choice of lamb or -veal or old pork until he was angry. Why had he done this foolish -thing, thrown away his comfortable job, reasonable food, ease of mind, -friendship, pocket money, tobacco? Even his girl had forgotten him. -Why had he done this impudent thing, it was insanity surely? But he -knew that man has instinctive reasons that transcend logic, what a -parson would call the superior reason of the heart. - -“I wanted a change, and I got it. Now I want another change, but -what shall I get? Chance and change, they are the sweet features of -existence. Chance and change, and not too much prosperity. If I were an -idealist I could live from my hair upwards.” - -The two farmers separated. Finkle staring haplessly from his window saw -them go. Some schoolboys were playing a game of marbles in the road -there. Another boy sat on the green bank quietly singing, while one in -spectacles knelt slyly behind him trying to burn a hole in the singer’s -breeches with a magnifying glass. Finkle’s thoughts still hovered over -the flavours and satisfactions of veal and lamb and pig until, like -mother Hubbard, he turned and opened his larder. - -There, to his surprise, he saw four bananas lying on a saucer. Bought -from a travelling hawker a couple of days ago they had cost him -threepence halfpenny. And he had forgotten them! He could not afford -another luxury like that for a week at least, and he stood looking at -them, full of doubt. He debated whether he should take one now, he -would still have one left for Wednesday, one for Thursday, and one -for Friday. But he thought he would not, he had had his breakfast -and he had not remembered them. He grew suddenly and absurdly angry -again. That was the worst of poverty, not what it made you endure, but -what it made you _want_ to endure. Why shouldn’t he eat a banana—why -shouldn’t he eat all of them? And yet bananas always seemed to him -such luxuriant, expensive things, so much peel, and then two, or not -more than three, delicious bites. But if he fancied a banana—there it -was. No, he did not want to destroy the blasted thing! No reason at -all why he should not, but that was what continuous hardship did for -you, nothing could stop this miserable feeling for economy now. If he -had a thousand pounds at this moment he knew he would be careful about -bananas and about butter and about sugar and things like that; but he -would never have a thousand pounds, nobody had ever had it, it was -impossible to believe that anyone had ever had wholly and entirely to -themselves a thousand pounds. It could not be believed. He was like a -man dreaming that he had the hangman’s noose around his neck; yet the -drop did not take place, it did not take place, and it would not take -place. But the noose was still there. He picked up the bananas one -by one, the four bananas, the whole four. No other man in the world, -surely, had ever had four such fine bananas as that and not wanted to -eat them? O, why had such stupid, mean scruples seized him again? It -was disgusting and ungenerous to himself, it made him feel mean, it -_was_ mean! Rushing to his cottage door he cried: “Here y’are!” to the -playing schoolboys and flung two of the bananas into the midst of them. -Then he flung another. He hesitated at the fourth, and tearing the peel -from it he crammed the fruit into his own mouth, wolfing it down and -gasping: “So perish all such traitors.” - -When he had completely absorbed its savour, he stared like a fool -at the empty saucer. It was empty, the bananas were gone, all four -irrecoverably gone. - -“Damned pig!” cried Finkle. - -But then he sat down and wrote all this, just as it appears. - - -[Illustration: Publisher's device] - - LONDON: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND GRIGGS (PRINTERS), LTD. - CHISWICK PRESS, TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. - - - - - * * * * * * - - - - -Transcriber’s note: - -Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. - -Variations in hyphenation have been standardised but all other -spelling and punctuation remains unchanged. - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK DOG*** - - -******* This file should be named 61016-0.txt or 61016-0.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/1/0/1/61016 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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